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MANAGING MAILROOM HIRING

Post-press business is surging along with the nation's economy, but is also sapping valuable resources: It's hard to hire mailroom workers in markets where unemployment is so low.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has had to become innovative in finding, hiring and keeping workers for the odd hours and challenges of the mailroom, said Astrid Garcia, who as vice president of operations handles hiring and human resources. It's even more critical when you realize the paper has seen a 17 percent increase in inserts, she said.

"I do not have a magic pill for this," Garcia said. "A lot of effort goes into hiring people. Listen to what the market is telling you about recruiting." Among the paper's practices:

• The company has a sound relationship with a temporary agency which keeps a pool of workers at the paper's disposal, she said. The workers are trained on all equipment as are part-time employees. New workers are hired from the temp pool.
• Transportation assistance is offered to workers who rely on buses and other public transit.
• The paper recruits in all imaginable fashions but has found luck with word of mouth from its existing employees. "We found good employees bring in good hires," she said.
• Once a worker is hired they are offered a sheaf of company benefits, even if they are part-timers. And newspapers large and small should think of what perks it can afford to give to keep good, well-trained workers, she said. "Once hired, you need to figure out how to integrate them into the workforce and minimize turnover," she said.



Garcia spoke Wednesday at the Post-Press session "Current Issues in Packaging and Distribution." Also on the panel: Alan Flaherty, principal with ComPlan Inc., and Wayne Bean, vice president of operations at Tuscon Newspapers.

Bean talked about the challenge and methods being used to provide a single Sunday package for single-copy sales, what he called an idea situation for papers, advertisers and readers.

Bean said numbers of inserts will continue to grow. He called upon manufacturers of packaging machinery to develop an affordable device "that can put complete packages in plastic at press speed."

--by Bob Sims



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