Facing a shortage of specialized workers, local companies use Durango’s quality of life, more competitive wages and other perks to recruit and keep qualified candidates.
Mercy Regional Medical Center; FredrickZink & Associates, an accounting firm; StoneAge Waterblast Tools; and Visiting Angels, a provider of in-home personal-care assistants – all represent diverse sectors, but they all face similar challenges hunting for the right new hires.
While hiring locally is preferred, most of these firms need people with unique skills who must be recruited from outside the Four Corners.
By hiring outside the area, companies take a bit of a risk: A new hire may fail to adjust to a lack of big-city amenities or to Durango’s “beauty tax,” its high cost of living, said Betsy Fitzpatrick, director of human resources at StoneAge.
“The enchantment wears off after a few years,” she said.
Mercy works to use the regional beauty to its advantage when recruiting specialized registered nurses.
For example, Mercy sometimes has trouble finding nurses for the cardiac catheterization lab, which specializes in heart procedures, said Cathy Roberts, vice president of mission integration.
While some recruits start out talking about the salary, Pati Sandhaus, manager of human resources, works to shift the conversation to Durango’s quality of life.
“A lot of people will come for that quality,” she said.
FredrickZink is in a different industry, but it faces a similar challenge. As older certified public accountants retire, the industry is facing a dearth of experienced CPAs ready to move into management, said Kristi Cowham, the firm’s administrator.
FrederickZink is approached by people from all over the country seeking employment throughout the year, but it is looking for a very specific applicant: Someone with substantial experience who understands Durango’s economy.
“If they don’t have a background in a smaller mountain-town type environment, we probably would not hire them sight unseen,” she said.
Once Cowham finds the right candidate, the company works to keep them by allowing staff to work from home and to keep a flexible schedule, she said.
Similarly, StoneAge must put out a call nationally for machinists and senior mechanical engineers, positions that are perennially challenging to fill, said Fitzpatrick, the firm’s director of human resources.
Finding local, experienced manual machinists is next to impossible because few companies nearby do major manufacturing. In fact, it has become somewhat a dying trade as companies move manufacturing overseas.
The company offers relocation assistance to help new hires with the cost of moving. However, it doesn’t cover the full cost, she said.
“It’s a little bit of a litmus test,” she said. The applicants’ willingness to cover some of those costs is a testament to their commitment to moving.
To help filter applicants, Fitzpatrick asks people to describe their interest in the Durango area as part of the cover letter.
Rather than unique certifications, Visiting Angels is looking for applicants with unique dispositions and experience who can care for elderly clients who need help with daily tasks, said April Holthaus, marketing director for the company. Visiting Angels is a regional in-home care franchise working to fill a rapidly growing need for nonmedical personal-care providers as the population ages.
Durango and the surrounding area is the epicenter of need within the company’s region, which serves towns from Dove Creek to Alamosa.
Over the last few years, the company increased wages in Durango to keep pace with the cost of living, and it is still constantly recruiting, Holthaus said. Some caregivers commute from Cortez to help meet the need in higher-priced Durango.
To help employees prepare for difficult situations, the company provides training in first aid and CPR. Training also is conducted with a hospice, which allows workers to learn to care for people who are grieving, among other skills.
As the local economy grows, personnel challenges facing companies may grow.
With unemployment around 3 percent in La Plata County as of November, the market for employees may get tight, and more businesses may have to recruit outside the area, said Roger Zalneraitis, executive director of the La Plata Economic Development Alliance.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
