Local talent: check your conditions before saying "there is nobody"

The short answer

When you cannot fill a position, it does not always mean there is nobody in the area who could work. The people may be there, but the hours, the days or the scope of the job do not fit them. If you divide the work into pieces that someone can take on in shorter hours or on fewer days, you can reach people your job ads never used to include.

That alone will not guarantee that people apply. What a company can do is prepare, so that more people find conditions that fit.

"Nobody" is sometimes "nobody who fits"

When an ad draws no applicants, it is tempting to conclude that the area simply has no one left. But look at the ad again and you may find it asks for all of these at once: full time, five days a week, overtime, and the ability to handle a wide range of tasks alone.

People who can meet every one of those conditions are scarce anywhere. Meanwhile, someone who could work "mornings only", "three days a week", "as long as it isn't heavy lifting" or "doing what I used to do" comes into range as soon as one condition is dropped.

Sometimes the shortage is not just the number of people. It is that the job only comes in one shape.

Many kinds of people want to work locally

People who could make a real contribution under the right conditions include, for example:

• Older workers: long experience, and able to keep going with hours and tasks that suit their stamina
• Parents with young children: available as long as school and nursery runs are left free
• People who want shorter hours: balancing care for a family member, study, or another job
• Experienced people: once worked in your industry and now work differently

Each group has different hours and different strengths. We look at older workers in more depth in our article on senior workers, and at parents and others who work shorter hours in our article on building work around short shifts.

The key is not to ask the same way of working from everyone. Drop the assumption that everyone must be full time, and the range of people you can take on widens.

Being able to work close to home also matters to many people. A short commute makes short shifts easier to sustain. When local companies offer work shaped around the lives of people nearby, those people find work without leaving the area, and the companies gain people who can support them over time.

Change the way work is offered, a little

You do not need an elaborate new scheme. The changes can be as simple as:

• Offering two or three start and finish times instead of one
• Splitting the day into morning tasks and afternoon tasks, so a half-day role exists
• Advertising physical work separately from inspection, record-keeping and preparation
• Offering work limited to the busy season, or to set days of the week

Picture a production line where one person handles parts supply, machining, inspection and shipping preparation from start to finish. Move inspection and shipping preparation into a morning-only role, and people with school runs, or who cannot stand for long hours, become candidates. The person doing the machining gets that time back for the core job.

Before changing anything, divide and record the work

The usual stumble is shortening the hours before deciding what the work actually is. If nobody has settled what must be done, and to what point, before a handover, then short-hour staff come in and the work drifts back to whoever stays longest.

Three things to do first:

1. Divide up the work: write down who does what, in what order, and look for natural break points
2. Record attendance properly: log start, finish and breaks for each person, so you can still keep track as shift patterns multiply
3. Decide how handovers work: agree what is passed on at a changeover — what is done, what is half-done, and what to watch out for

The more shift patterns you have, the more work it takes to total them up on paper or in Excel. Getting attendance records in order early makes it easier to add new ways of working later. For how to break up tasks that have concentrated around a veteran, see our article on work dependency.

Points to watch

Being flexible is not the same as tailoring everything to each person. Promise a different arrangement to everyone and the person building the rota carries the weight, while differences in conditions breed resentment. A small number of patterns the company can keep offering lasts longer.

Changing hours or days can also change how working time is managed and how social insurance applies. We do not cover those judgements here. Please check with a licensed labour and social security attorney (sharoushi) before you change your work rules.

Summary

A shortage is not only a matter of there being no people. The people may be there while the conditions do not fit. Divide up the work, offer a few set patterns of hours, and keep attendance and handover records in order, and it becomes easier to reach older workers, parents and people who want shorter hours. It is small preparation that helps local people and local companies keep going together.

Dividing up work and organising attendance and handover records are things APOUL's consultation can help with (accepting requests from 1 November 2026). We do not recruit or supply staff. For questions that need a labour-law judgement, please consult a licensed labour and social security attorney (sharoushi).