Why Mid-Market Companies Have a People Problem

It turns out mid-market companies have a lot of the same concerns that smaller companies do.

Chiefly, such companies, typically defined as having revenues between $50 million and $1 billion, are worried about having access to enough qualified employees, according to Tag Employer Services, an Inc. 5000 company that provides administrative services like payroll and health care benefits to mid-tier companies.

Tag surveyed 400 mid-market company executives between early November and early December about top concerns for the coming year. The companies had, on average, 200 employees or fewer.

Although more than three quarters of executives said business growth and profits were their biggest concerns for 2015, 54 percent said employee recruitment and retention were their next largest worry. Cost control and reduction came in third, reported by 50 percent of respondents.

When it comes to employee retention, it’s not offering competitive salaries that’s the most pressing issue. That’s just table stakes, says Joe Johnson, Tag’s chief operating officer. Rather, it’s lack of internal resources for hiring and lack of the proper analytic tools to make the right hires and to assess the proper employee fits.

“When a skilled worker departs it is really felt by mid-market employers,” Joe Johnson, Tag’s chief operating officer said in a press release. “They’ve got to scramble to find a new person with just the right mix of competencies…and they have to plug the gap, deadlines are missed and labor costs jump.”