Herbein Q+A 360 Edition: Recruitment and Retention Today

BY SCOTT G. SMITH

Every business is grappling with talent attraction and retention right now.

This significant challenge is compounded by current factors such as workforce demographics, the ratio of people exiting versus entering the workforce, and labor participation and unemployment rates. Taken together, attracting and retaining talent will continue to be complex for the foreseeable future.

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HOW DO YOU INCREASE CANDIDATE INTEREST?

Proactively plan, rather than then reacting to unexpected openings. You need to understand what our future workforce requirements are going to be. Factor in retention challenges and skill requirements and build relationships to proactively fill those positions.

Develop a strong branded value proposition with your marketing group. Gone are the days when we could post a position on a website. Today, recruiting mirrors marketing and branding. When recruiting, you are competing with other similar organizations, so you need to scan your competition and give potential employees a reason (beyond financial) to change. Once these key value propositions are developed, share them on social media and equip your current employees with messaging and tools to be “recruiters.”

Understand the candidate experience all the way through the hiring process, the job research stage, the application process, the selection process, and all the way through to onboarding. These processes may be outdated and in need of reflection. Candidate expectations today are different than they were just a few short years ago. You now need to measure your process and see how they align with candidate expectations. When you meet and exceed these expectations, you have a much better chance of success.

Tips For Retaining Talent

Listening to your employees is essential in keeping them. Since employee retention is a dynamic issue, implementing listening posts, such as surveys, to understand your employees’ perspectives and perceptions is necessary for developing individualized plans. Think of retention as you think about customer service (customer retention).

Evidence shows the number one reason people leave companies is due to a poor manager or team culture. Unlike employee recruitment which relies on the value proposition, compensation levels, and company values, employee retention is much more reliant on the “day-to-day” within a company culture. Developing those management skills is essential

RETENTION IS A BROAD ISSUE: HOW DO WE KNOW IF OUR EFFORTS ARE EFFECTIVE?

Ask, listen, acknowledge, and act. You need to understand the company culture at a team level, you can task a team manager with facilitating a process of continuously improving those things which are creating a negative employee experience and leveraging those things that are creating a positive employee experience.

Repeat and continuously improve. When measuring the impact of your changes, it is important to be consistent over time. A pulse survey on a focused area can show the impact in a shorter horizon, while a consistent yearly survey can show the impact on a team level. It is important to get into the cycle of surveying, analyzing your responses, and proactively responding at a team level.

Measure “Employee Referral Rate.” Reward the behavior of referrals not hiring and retention. Make rewards emotionally engaging and memorable. If employees aren’t talking to friends and family, it is either because they are unable or unwilling.