Tom Barnes, CEO, 319 Capital Partners

https://319capitalpartners.com/
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Tom Barnes

The lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on labor shortages are being felt across industries, and ours is no exception.

We’ve all heard about the supply chain delays and the port delays, but this impact is being felt across almost every industry and organization. A recent article referred to this time not as the “Great Depression” or the “Great Recession,” but as the “Great Resignation.”

Due to the labor shortages, salaries have increased dramatically in the past year, which has caused significant employee turnover.

What can companies do to compete in this environment?

One thing is to automate as much as possible in order to do more with less and have employees focus on the most valuable tasks. Robotic process automation (RPA) is a growing focus these days. Not only does it allow companies to do more with less, freeing up cash in order to increase salaries and be more competitive, but at the same time, it improves team morale because the team can now focus on more important things. It also improves accuracy, which in turn helps improve compliance.

A second opportunity is to outsource certain roles that are not core to your organization. For example, if you are in the business of building widgets, you might not have an attractive career path for members of your trade compliance team, which could create turnover. By leveraging a managed services firm to focus on this area, an organization can reduce risk, improve compliance, and save money. Within the managed services firm there are career paths for these professionals. You also have a significantly larger core of expertise from which to draw, and chances are good that the increased depth of experience in the space will create efficiencies and save companies money while also making them more compliant.