The inception of Farmington 2027, the strategic plan that is guiding Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Va., to its 100th anniversary, provided the perfect opportunity to organize our staffing strategies into a comprehensive workforce planning initiative, which we launched as Farmington Workforce Planning 2027.
This initiative was based on the realization that our ability to successfully reach our 2027 goals depends on more than construction, interior design and new menus—it depends on the people who will lead the way. It depends on a comprehensive and disciplined process of workforce planning.
The plan for implementing this initiative was to:
- Take a fresh look at our staffing needs, short-term and long-term, department by department, involving all hiring managers.
- Establish goals and a process for meeting those needs.
- Check-in regularly to review progress and adjust as needed.
We started by meeting with individual department managers, to answer a few, basic questions:
- What staffing do you need for your operation to be successful?
- Who are your ideal job candidates?
- Where are these candidates?
- How do we attract those candidates?
Answering the first question was a productive exercise in zero-based labor budgeting. Some department managers realized that the increase in club services and member usage for more months of the year meant that their operations would be better served with fewer seasonal staff and more part-time, year-round staff. Others saw the need to restructure the number, schedules and responsibilities of supervisory staff.
With answers to all four questions, we were able to develop and implement a comprehensive, club-wide recruitment plan that is responsive to the needs of individual departments. The plan includes an employment section on the club’s website, online job postings, radio advertising, open houses, job fairs, club visits, class presentations, seasonal worker (H-2B visa) and international training (J-1 visa) programs, internships, and a recruitment video. Because employee referrals have consistently been our best source of new staff (30 to 35% each year), our plan includes a lucrative employee recruitment bonus program.
Creating Community Partnerships
Early on, we realized that an effective workforce planning strategy would take collaboration with local agencies and community leaders. We invited more than 20 community agency representatives and leaders to the club to begin a conversation with goals of creating strategic partnerships, promoting the significance of the club in our community, and highlighting our employment opportunities. As the conversations continued, the size of this task force grew: when the group reconvened at Farmington less than a year later, more than 50 organizations and community leaders met with us to create a plan to help Charlottesville “Get to Work.”
As a result of these meetings, we were asked to collaborate with local job training and workforce planning programs, teach job readiness workshops, host club visits, and conduct professional culinary, ServeSafe certification and TIPS certification training programs. In a three-year period, this collaboration has resulted in the direct hiring of 30 employees, most of them into positions that are typically a challenge to fill. An unexpected outcome has been agency representatives referring their own high school and college-age children, who are working in seasonal and part-time positions.
An important component of our workforce planning strategy is reviewing policies and procedures that hinder our ability to attract applicants. One example is the updating of our standards for staff professional appearance related to tattoos. Our old standard was no visible tattoos, but because of that policy we were having a hard time filling steward and cook positions. At the same time, we realized that many of our members have visible tattoos. Our standards were no longer relevant to either our job candidates or our member expectations. A task force of department managers collaborated to create club-wide standards that stress “professionally reasonable” rather than outright prohibition, allowing for department flexibility and management judgement in deciding what is appropriate for professional staff appearance.
Tracking applicant data allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of our recruitment efforts, so that we can continue to make improvements and develop meaningful recruitment budgets. We track the number of position vacancies, types of recruitment advertising and activities, number of applications and resumes we receive, number of hires, and source of hires. By communicating this information on a regular basis to our hiring managers, we can stay informed of their current and anticipated staffing needs, inform them of the status of the recruitment and hiring activity, and encourage their involvement in the process. To improve the collection and presentation of this information, we are developing a dashboard report to distribute to hiring managers on a regular basis.
Have we found the solution to meeting all of our staffing needs? No. It is still a challenge to fill our culinary and housekeeping teams and we will continue to be concerned about finding enough staff to meet the growing service needs of the Farmington 2027 strategic plan. Farmington’s workforce planning initiative is making its way into the club’s operating culture as a process for identifying and responding to our short-term and long term staffing needs. An advantage of this process is that it is not limited to employee recruitment and selection—it also provides a framework for compensation, staff engagement, training and development, and performance management. Most importantly, it is a process that supports our working together to continue to be a flexible and responsive workforce.
Allyn Gutauskas is human respource manager at Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Va. She can be reached at 434-245-0672 or [email protected].