Top Tips for Finding & Keeping Talent

By Karen DiGioia

In my role as a Human Resources consultant, I work with lots of clients across a wide range of industries. In 2020, the vast majority of conversations centered around one topic: COVID-19. Recently, however, I’m seeing a shift. Can you guess the most common topic in 2021 (no fair peaking at the next sentence)? It’s the growing challenges associated with finding and keeping talent.

While the challenges associated with COVID are not fully behind us, employers seem to have “all (or at least most) things COVID” sorted out. Things are moving in the right direction … even though we’re not yet back to business-as-usual. We’ve gotten used to remote work. We know what to do if someone gets sick (step 1 – stay home!). We’ve worked out most of the kinks, and for many, business is picking up. Now, if we could just find (and keep) talent, we’d be set.

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no easy answers. There are, however, a number of ways that you can better position your agency to attract, motivate, and retain the talent that you need. Ways that will improve your agency through its most important asset – your employees.

TALENT ACQUISITION

Never (a strong word, I know) underestimate the importance of talent acquisition. On a personal side, many of us try to remind ourselves (at least periodically) that “we are what we eat.” For organizations, the adage should be “you are who you hire.” Resolve to invest the time and money it takes to find and hire the talent that you need to move the agency forward and achieve strategic and operational objectives. With the right people in the right roles, anything is possible!

But where do you start? You might be thinking, “I post the position.” While that’s one of the first steps, it’s best to first take the time to clearly define the job and understand your needs. If you don’t already have a job description in place, write one. Then write a candidate profile. In the same way that the job description describes the job, a candidate profile describes the ideal candidate including experience, traits, qualities, soft and hard skills, and abilities. Word of warning: Make sure that your profile doesn’t include demographic information such as age, race, gender, etc. … or anything else that isn’t truly related to a candidate’s ability to do the job.

Next, use the job description and candidate profile to develop a list of interview questions that will be used for each candidate to explore their experience and traits to determine who is best suited for your position when that time comes.

Now that you have the job, ideal candidate, and interview questions defined, you’re ready to begin your search. In addition to using job search websites, make sure to also list it on your website, use social media and, most importantly, ask your employees, your associates, and even your customers. More positions are filled through networking than any other way, so use your personal and professional networks to cast the broadest net possible.

Once you have your candidates, use your job description and candidate profile to determine those that meet the qualifications. Be certain to reach out to those candidates who won’t be interviewed. A short note or email is all that is needed to let them know that you appreciate their interest, but they don’t meet the requirements at this time (do the same thing later with those who were interviewed but not selected).

Now it’s time for the interview. Use the interview questions that you developed earlier to ensure that you are comparing your candidates on an equal field. Also, make sure that you treat your candidates like you treat your customers. Gone are the days where an employer is “doing candidates a favor” by considering them for a job. When selling your home, you fix things up to attract potential buyers. In the same way, you want to put your best foot forward when interacting with candidates.

Once the interviews are complete, compare your interview notes and determine which candidate best meets the requirements for the job. Now you’re ready to make the offer.

Remember, it’s a candidate’s market. Your top candidate may have several offers from which to pick. Think of the interview process as a courtship (does anyone use that word anymore?) and now you’re ready to “pop the question.” While there’s no formula for the perfect job offer, here’s a list of some best practices:

▲ Move as quickly as you can – good candidates don’t stay on the market for long

▲ Make the offer over the phone (or in person) – don’t do it by letter or email

▲ Be enthusiastic, positive, and honest

▲ Make sure your offer is competitive

▲ Try to get an acceptance at the time of the offer but understand if your candidate needs time to think about it

▲ Follow up in writing

If all goes as hoped, congratulations are in order! You’ve found your candidate, made the offer and the candidate has accepted. Now what? Is your work done? Of course not! Your focus now with your new hire and your existing employees is on motivating and retaining a group of engaged and productive employees. Let’s talk briefly about many of the ways this should be done.

ONBOARDING

Once you’ve found the right talent, make the investment to properly onboard your new employees and integrate them into your team. It can be especially challenging to integrate and support new employees if some or all of your team is working remotely, but to ensure that your employees are fully engaged and maximize employee effectiveness and retention, this is critical.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Supplement your once-a-year performance appraisal with a continuous performance-management process, providing employees with regular feedback and ensuring that they have a clear understanding of priorities and expectations. Employees who know what is expected and how they are matching up to expectations are motivated, successful, and engaged. They also have higher levels of job satisfaction and higher retention rates.

COMPENSATION

Ensure that your pay programs are competitive with the market, administered in a manner that is fair and equitable, and achieving desired results. While pay and benefits are rarely the primary reason employees will choose to work for your agency (or not), it’s important that your programs enable you to attract, motivate, and retain the talent you need.

TRAINING

All too frequently we take our best tactical employees, promote them to supervisory or management roles, but don’t provide them with the appropriate tools – including management/supervisory skills training. We are then surprised when they don’t know how to manage. The impact of this on our employees and our agency is considerable. Working under a weak manager is like sailing without a rudder; in the absence of strong management, your employees will have no direction. Your best employees will leave, and your weakest employees will stay.

While management skills do not come naturally for most, they can be taught. An investment in training is an investment in the agency.

COMMUNICATION

Communication is such a simple, complicated, frustrating, and crucial topic. If we want people to know what’s going on, know what we expect from them, and know how they are doing, we need to tell them. (Communication really should have been first, but if I move it now, I’ll miss the editorial deadline!)

Communication can be easy, like ensuring that you have an organizational calendar in place that includes key dates for everyone – holidays, pay dates, open enrollment, and performance management dates. Or communication can be more complicated, like telling an employee that their performance isn’t meeting expectations.

Don’t lose sight of the fact that communication is a two-way street! Listen to employees. Give them the opportunity to be heard. Gather feedback and, if possible, consider finding a way, periodically, to do it anonymously. You may think that you have a pulse on what your employees think and feel but you could only be hearing the things they are comfortable saying directly. Be willing to listen to what else they may have to say.

EQUITABLE TREATMENT

The word “equity” has gotten a lot of press recently. Have you stopped to consider what it really means? The dictionary definition of equitable is “fair and impartial.” Look at your agency and the decisions that are made. Look at hiring, promotions, compensation, and overall treatment of employees. Are you “fair and impartial” in all things? Strive to uncover those places where you are not and to fix inequities.

PRIORITIZE HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Prior to take off (if you can remember flying), the flight attendants always review safety instructions. When they describe what to do in the event of a loss in cabin pressure, they remind us to put on our own oxygen masks before trying to help others around us. The premise being, if we lose consciousness while trying to help someone else first, we won’t be helpful to anyone.

In some ways 2020 and 2021 so far could be viewed as a global loss of cabin pressure. Make sure that you and your employees make self-care a priority before trying to help others. During “challenging times” (there, I said it), it can be difficult to take a “time out” for ourselves but, if we don’t, we won’t be able to help others.

BE FLEXIBLE

While 2020 brought us many challenges, we also learned some things, including new ways to get work done. One of those “new ways” for many organizations was remote work. While some organizations were already equipped for this, many were not. As the world opens up again, I urge all employers to hang onto remote work to whatever degree they can. While some organizations have been very public about their intention to never (still a strong word) go back to “in person” work, for most organizations, at the very least, some level of hybrid work that combines in person with remote work is here to stay. One of the most common interview questions from candidates today is, “Is remote work an option here?” Employers who don’t embrace at least some degree of remote work, when it’s a viable option, find themselves at a significant disadvantage when trying to attract (and retain) employees.

How many times have we heard it? 2020 was a challenging year, and 2021 continues to provide us with challenges of its own. The good news is you don’t have to go it alone. As part of your IA&B membership, expert advice is just a phone call or email away. Have an employee-related challenge that you’re not sure how to handle? I can be reached at 610-779-3870 or karen@mostellerhr.com.

Karen H. DiGioia provided this article on behalf of Mosteller & Associates, IA&B’s contracted human resources consulting firm.