Your people ARE your company’s most valuable asset. It isn’t your office space or the equipment you own. It isn’t your data or even intellectual property…IT’S YOUR PEOPLE!! Yet many small business owners are often – understandably – so caught up in the day-to-day demands of running their business, they fail to have the right recruitment strategy in place to find and retain the best people in their industry.
If you want to attract and retain the right people in your business in 2020, you need to follow these simple tips:
Strengthen your employer brand
- Employee branding is at the heart of any successful recruitment strategy.
- Instead of recruiting someone based on their qualifications or experience, select candidates for a culture fit first and skill set second. Establish a “right fit” employee persona before starting the recruiting process, looking to your current high-performing team members to define what makes them so good.
- Understand the strengths of your company as an employer, and be crystal clear as to how you differ from your closest competitors.
- Check out our infographic on strengthening your employer brand to discover practical ways in how to do this.
Know how to attract millennials
Millennials (those born roughly between 1980–1994) will soon make up 50% of the UK workforce.
It’s vital that your recruitment efforts work for the generations you’re communicating with. You can find our top tips on communicating with different generations here.
Many employers rush to a ‘perks’-driven approach, but understanding what millennials really value in work is a much better way to go. Make sure you have a clearly defined set of values that your organisation lives by and promote them alongside the key purpose of the role and the opportunities for personal and professional development that exist within your business
Review your retention strategy
Losing staff is costly and can also impact morale and decrease productivity. To help reduce employee turnover and improve overall satisfaction amongst your team, ask yourself the following:
- Are you rewarding and recognising good work and high achievement?
- Are you providing sufficient training and development opportunities for your employees to learn new skills and develop existing ones?
- Do you have a clear career progression path for every employee so that both new starters and your existing staff have something to work toward?
A good retention strategy will not only help keep recruitment costs down but will also help to attract the right employees to your business because they will see what a great working environment you have for your people.
Consider candidates more holistically
It’s important for recruits to have the necessary skills and baseline abilities to execute their role. But don’t forget that staff can be trained to succeed and thrive…provided they’re a great fit in other ways!
It can be useful to remember three Cs: competence, character and chemistry.
- Competence is the skills and experience a candidate brings to the role, and their ability to learn ones.
- Character covers things like work ethic, attitude towards others and receptiveness to feedback.
- Chemistry means how well they will fit within the company culture and team; do they understand your values and goals?
By creating a recruitment strategy that works you will recruit great people faster and retain them longer. Let us show you how. We work with SMEs helping them to define their recruitment strategy and become successful employers. Contact us today to see how we can help.
