What's more important? Employee attraction or retention?
04 Jul 2017
When it comes down to business, your staff are your most important asset. Without them, your business would not be anywhere near as successful, purely because you wouldn’t have enough man power to manage everything. But what’s more important? Employee retention of attraction? Let’s find out.
- Let’s start with employee retention.
Maintaining staff seems much easier to manage than to go through the rigmarole of having to sieve through a pool of potential candidates, take the time to interview them, hire them and then train them for the job. But in today’s day and age, it seems that giving your employees a steady wage is no longer enough… they want more. Research suggests that incentives, a positive and bright working environment and staff benefits such as training/career progression opportunities, incentives and various schemes (i.e. health care, childcare etc) are the key to retaining your most dedicated employees.
On the flip side, these extra benefits could potentially be costly. Let’s take a training course for example. The expense of this could be anything from £100 to £3000, which if you multiply that by the number of employees in your business, there’s a chance your jaw would drop. Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to fork out for every individual, but you see our point. For further inspiration on how to boost team morale in the office, check out this blog – Top tips on how to motivate your employees.
- Moving on to employee attraction.
What attracts potential candidates to your company? Why should they invest and devote their time and themselves to you? A recent survey conducted by First Recruitment Group revealed the true contributing factors candidates look for when applying for a job. Unsurprisingly, it revealed 90% of workers consider pay as their highest priority, with 60% saying the reputation of the company was important, which leads us to this… what makes you different from the rest of the competition? It’s a two way street. Not only does the candidate have to appeal to you, you must appeal to the candidate.
A further 75% of people surveyed said they’d research the company before applying for a job, so a few questions to ask yourself are, are you active on Social Media? Is your website the best it could be or is it looking a bit dated? What kinds of reviews are people going to see when they search for your business on Google? Another point worth mentioning which some companies often forget is a good job advert could be the difference between hiring the perfect candidate and missing out on the opportunity. Don’t be the same as everyone else. Find out what your competitors are doing and do something different! Let your audience know if you have dress down Fridays, company social events and treat the office to a bacon butty every now and then. Be a dolphin in a pool of goldfish!
- Our Conclusion
To recruit new staff is a costly process, in terms of identifying the talent, bringing that individual up to speed, and equipping the individual before you start to see a return for your investment.
For us an energised, developing, focused and happy workforce, makes the best team. We invest significant time and resources into enhancing the skills within our teams, by imparting experience, one-to-one mentoring, team building, and training. This honing of the team is designed to continually improve us, if we lose this focus, then the investment is lost to you, and could even benefit your competitors, which will be at your expense in more than one way!
Don’t underestimate the power of technology
A candidate attraction and retention strategy can be a time consuming and complicated thing to keep track of. As you candidate requirement increases, you need to ensure that you are keeping them all engaged throughout the hiring process. As you hire more staff, you need to ensure that each candidate meets compliance, and is on boarded in a standardised way that ensures you maintain a quality reputation. Monitoring employee satisfaction is also an important part of your continual improvement as a business. You can underpin and automate much of these processed through a dynamic, interactive and live talent pool Applicant Tracking System, as well as a Vendor Management System, designed to meet your future needs.
Click here to read about some of the technologies available.
These kinds of systems ensure that the relationship you are developing with the potential candidate is one that leaves even the unsuccessful ones with a good feeling about your company. Communication sent at the right time, recording and filing of information, analysis of your candidates and where they are coming from can all be valuable.
Reputations are hard earnt, and easily lost. Remember, they could become a customer, or even a very driven competitor. If their experience with you during the recruitment process was good, they will respect you, and want to be a customer, however if it was bad, then forget their custom, and beware, that you may just have given birth to your fiercest critic!
We have ideas on how we can help our clients, in regards to attraction and retention of talent, and would welcome the opportunity to talk to you about the challenges you are facing.
Click here and contact us today for an informal, no obligation discussion
