Are You Using This ‘Secret’ Recruitment Tool?
A good bar owner must know how to mix up good drinks, listen to your problems, and call a cab when someone’s had one too many. But for Jimmy Gilleece, owner of Jimmy’s at Red Dogs in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, a good bar owner must also be compassionate. In March 2018, when a bar patron lost her wallet outside his bar, Gilleece helped both the woman who lost the wallet and the thief who stole it. The story started with a frantic phone call. A woman had lost her wallet at the pub and was desperate to find it. She wasn’t worried about the money, but about her wedding ring, valued at $10,000, that had been left inside. Gilleece spent three hours combing through security camera footage before he spotted the wallet sitting on a bench outside right as a young man approached and took it. With a little detective work, Gilleece tracked down the thief, 17-year-old Rivers Prather. At the time, Prather was homeless and living alone in the woods just outside of town. Prather admitted to taking the wallet to buy a sandwich with the money inside before throwing the wallet in an ocean channel. He claimed he didn’t know a ring was in the wallet, but due to the cost of the wedding band, the teenager was suddenly facing a felony conviction for theft. Instead of declaring the ring lost at sea, Gilleece hired divers to search the channel. Miraculously, they found the wallet with the ring still safely inside. Once her ring was returned, the owner dropped the charges against Prather. Meanwhile, Gilleece continued his mission of compassion. “I could tell he wasn’t a criminal,” Gilleece said about Prather during an interview. “He was just somebody who needed a little help.” Gilleece invited the teen to come live at his house with Gilleece’s fiance and their two children. He also helped Prather find two jobs and set him on the path to a brighter future. “I couldn’t be luckier,” Prathers said in an interview with CBS. “He could have given the footage to the police, and [instead] he chose to help me. He’s made me part of his family … I say thank you to him every day. I’d do anything for him.” Gilleece reminds us all that no matter the situation, a little bit of compassion can go a long way.
How Paid Family Leave Attracts Top Talent
In the United States, new mothers aren’t entitled to any paid family leave. This makes the U.S. the only major economy in the world without a federal family leave program. Despite this, a 2016 study by Pew Research Center showed that 82% of Americans say mothers should receive paid parental leave and 69% say fathers should receive paid leave as well. According to Time magazine, paid family leave is gaining bipartisan support, and large human resources consulting firms, like Mercer, argue that offering this benefit will actually help companies attract and retain desirable employees. Paid family leave encourages parents, usually mothers, to return to work after a brief absence instead of completely exiting the workforce. With the average cost of hiring and training a new employee being $4,000, offering paid family leave may be as cost-effective for your business as bringing on a new hire. Indeed, many companies are already rolling out generous family leave policies. At Microsoft, new mothers enjoy a whopping five months of paid leave, and new fathers, adoptive parents, and foster parents get three months of paid leave. Furthermore, Microsoft only works with suppliers and vendors who offer a minimum of 12 weeks of parental leave. Microsoft is not the only technology giant using their leave policies as an employee recruitment tool. At Netflix, workers get an entire year of paid time off with full benefits. Plus, other companies in myriad industries now offer plentiful family leave as part of their employee recruitment strategies. Professional services conglomerate Deloitte doesn’t stop there. According to its website, “It’s not just having programs in place that is important. There needs to be a workplace culture to support it, too.” Of course, not everyone agrees about the best way to provide paid family leave, but one thing is certain: As competition in the labor market grows, paid family leave will continue to be an increasingly valuable recruitment tool.
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