By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
With an unemployment rate around or under 2 percent, finding help is often challenging for businesses in Ellis County.
In an effort to help alleviate those concerns, one business took an out-of-the-box approach recruiting graduates from one of the largest technical colleges in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
“Our challenge is, while we are one of the largest employers, we would like to be even bigger,” said Joe Leroux, operations manager at Hess Services.”
The first group of 10 recruits from Mech-Tech College is set to arrive in Hays this week after a month’s long process ensuring the recruits have everything they need to successfully settle in Ellis County.
“The intent is for them to be here for the long term,” Leroux said. “It’s not contract work. It's truly young men and women wanting to locate here to be a part of Ellis County.”
Interest at the company in recruiting from the school started when Hess employees that had previously relocated from Puerto Rico said finding jobs on the island is difficult after graduation for many in technical fields, while Ellis County has the opposite problem.
Many phone calls were made and once the interest was established, Leroux said, he made the trip to speak to students directly.
“We wanted to show them the proper courtesy and respect and let them see that this is important enough to us that we are going to send somebody in person,” he said.
“Picture yourself as a mom or dad of one of these young 20-something-year-old school graduates in Puerto Rico, hearing about this job opportunity, you are probably going to have some questions,” Leroux said, as the company has spent hours and days working to ensure the effort would be mutually beneficial.
While on the island Leroux, traveled to three of the five Mech-Tech campuses and met with hundreds of candidates. Out of the larger group, 60 candidates were selected that had already graduated and were ready to move at any time.
From that group ten were selected for the initial group to travel to Hays and begin with Hess.
Leroux said the number was limited to ten in the first group so the company could spend time ensuring they succeed in Ellis County and within the company, but if things go well many more will follow in the first group’s footsteps.
“We want to make sure we take in a small enough group that we really can take care of transportation and housing needs in such a way that they don’t feel overwhelmed,” he said.
Hess will cover the cost of travel, along with housing and transportation for their first 90 days to help them settle into the area.
Making sure the move into Ellis County for the workers is a positive experience is one of the goals of the program and the primary reason the first group was limited to ten.
“We want to help them be a part of the community, learn about the community and what it has to offer in forms of business, recreational activities and whatever facet of their personal life is important to them,” Leroux said.
They also want them to be able to have time to successfully complete the onboarding and internal training.
With the group set to arrive this week, Leroux said many community organizations have been excited to meet the recruits and welcome them to Hays.
“I have been overwhelmed by the response from all of these groups,” Leroux said. “There seems to be a sincere interest in welcoming these first ten and then as many more as we plan to bring in the future.”
While recruiting from so far away may seem extreme, Leroux said local options had been exhausted in bringing in the help the operation needs to complete their growth plan.
“Truly, we need more people working here before we take on more business,” Leroux said. “I felt the Puerto Rico hiring program was a unique, out of box way to deal with it.”
“I wouldn’t say that we are chronically short-handed as much as we can’t take on more business like we would love to because we seem to be stuck in the 350 (average number of employees,” Leroux said. It’s a little frustrating because we have good opportunities here.”
The business had simply exhausted local and regional options, with recruiting throughout the region not yielding results, as skilled labor shortages are a problem throughout the U.S.
“When you look at the low unemployment percentage in Ellis County and the surrounding area that doesn’t leave you with a lot of unemployed, job-seeking adults in the age range and the skill set that we are looking for,” Leroux said.
"These men and women are not taking a job that somebody in the area could have filled. These are vacancies due to our growth plan that we can’t fill with local applicants.”
“So in order to get bigger we realized we would have to do some unconventional recruiting techniques, and this is one of the things that we tried in that effort,” he said.
Leroux sees the program as being good for not just Hess but for the region.
“We as a company won’t succeed if the community doesn’t succeed and the economic growth of the community, our company and all of the area companies are very much hand in hand,” he said.
“With these people coming here and bringing their families over once they are established, that’s going to contribute to the growth, and the ripple effect over time, I feel, will be very positive for area businesses and the community as a whole.”
It also helps out fellow Americans that cannot find jobs in their field or find work that pays the market rate.
“Our job market is the exact opposite (of Puerto Rico’s,)” Leroux said. “It was really great to connect job seekers from one market that didn’t have the work with employers in another market that do have the work.”