With the national unemployment rate hovering at a 50-year low of 3.5%, and with the rate for experienced labor even lower in certain geographic pockets, it looks like distributors could be in for a challenging year on the human resources front in 2020. 

To help, we rounded up these five hiring tips that all distributors can use to sharpen their HR skills: 

1. Use video recruiting. If your distributorship still relies on in-person interviews to cull down candidates, it’s time to switch to the digital approach. “Video has been increasingly used by organizations in their recruiting processes to convey what tasks the job entails and to showcase the organization’s culture, mission and values,” HRMorning points out, noting that video allows you to speak to prospects remotely, record interviews for feedback from other team members and assess personality traits.
2. Get social. Develop social media accounts for your company on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Develop YouTube videos and blog post series to recruit and network with candidates. “Through these social media accounts, you can show prospective candidates what it is like to work at your company and highlight why your employees love coming to work every day,” Glassdoor recommends. Get existing employees involved in the cause by training them on how to build their online networks in a way that also helps recruit candidates. 
3. Leverage referrals. A tried-and-true recruiting tactic, referrals allow distributors to tap into networks of people that might otherwise not see a job ad or post a resume online. “Referrals work for a simple reason,” Staff Management recommends. “Workers who support the company want to facilitate connections with the family members and friends they think might be a good fit.” To leverage referrals, distributors can set up formal programs (with incentives for successful hirings) and even use informal social events (e.g., a company picnic or BBQ) to generate new referrals. 
4. Offer more flexibility. According to a recent International Workplace Group study, 80% of respondents would take the job offer that came with flexibility versus one that didn’t. Flexibility means different things to different people, with some describing it as the ability to make decisions regarding their working hours, others seeing flexibility as individual management of their workloads, and still others relating it to being able to choose their work locations.
5. Differentiate yourself. There are perks that make your workplace distinct when compared to other distribution firms, and when compared to job opportunities in other industries. For example, if your company is located somewhere that’s hard to access using public transit, you can increase your candidate pool by providing a free shuttle for workers. The same goes for education. “As with other occupations,” Staff Management notes, “industrial workers are often drawn to jobs where they’ll have the chance to learn new skills or gain knowledge and certifications that could help them progress in their careers.”

Also see: “The Workplace Attributes that Appeal to Gen Z.”