Hiring managers, it’s time to get proactive--with your own workforce.
Don’t kid yourself. Recruiters are constantly preying on your employees these days. They have their sights on your great people, and they’re actively wooing them. To protect your company’s productivity and growth momentum, you have to protect your workforce. It’s time to sharpen your skills in the art of talent management.
Here at Power-4, we like to remind our clients that hiring is both an art and a science. The science side focuses on finding talent with the right knowledge and skills, the art side calls on psychological and emotional factors to sell your company and land talent with the right cultural fit.
However, companies that prioritize retention have fewer hiring needs. And when it comes to retention, art plays a starring role.
Most people don’t leave their job just to get a raise
They leave for a more compatible or invigorating culture, stronger leadership, and to secure better career development and advancement opportunities.
All it takes is a bad month, a bad week, a day, or even just one really negative experience, and your wonderful employee will start listing to those recruiters who are calling. Will they take the next step and quit, leaving you with another gap to fill where a valuable, experienced employee used to reside? When great employees leave, it’s frustrating for you and your talent acquisition team, costly for your firm, and disheartening for those left behind. It can turn into a downward spiral.
People are your greatest asset
If you’re losing top talent to competitors, it might be because you’ve lost touch with them as people, not just workers.
Communication isn’t as easy as it used to be. Before the pandemic, you could meet up with folks informally for water cooler conversations. You could go to lunch with them, or stop them in the hallway for a quick chat. All excellent opportunities to ask an opinion or pass along a few words of praise. Now, with so many people still (and maybe forever) working remotely, in-person affirmations like that no longer exist.
That means you have to make a point of reaching out to individuals with Zoom calls and in other ways so you can stay in touch.
Don’t wait to sing their praises
You can often hear managers telling an exiting individual how much they were appreciated and lamenting their loss as they’re headed out the door. By then, it’s too late. And no one knows that more clearly than the person who’s leaving. If you thought so highly of them, why didn’t you say so all along? Offering them a last-ditch counteroffer would be even more insulting.
Treat everyone like a hot candidate
You work so hard to recruit the best talent, you have to work equally hard to keep them. All too often, signing the hiring paperwork signals the end of your recruiting process. That fabulous new individual becomes one of the many. To keep them (and everyone else) excited about joining your team, you have to keep that new-hire enthusiasm going. And we’re not talking about birthday parties and Pizza Fridays, but meaningful, personalized support and interactions.
Dig Deeper
Engage directly with employees to build trust. Get in tune with individuals, teams, and departments. Ask questions and actively listen to detect specific personal or broader issues, potentially negative undercurrents, and also great new ideas so you can do something about them. Regular communication at all levels leads to higher morale and a happier cultural environment. Especially if you actually follow up on what you learn.
Talk about – and overtly promote – career pathways within your company
If there’s no way to grow and rise within your organization, achievement-oriented talent feels forced to leave. Building greatness from within relieves some of your recruiting pressure. And by giving employees the personal and professional development opportunities they want, you’re reinforcing retention.
Fill gaps faster
In some cases, bringing in contingent labor to fill the gap left by a key departing employee can actually serve as a retention tool. Specialized contingent workers, especially in IT, can ensure projects in progress stay on track, and they can take on new work waiting in the wings. That boosts morale because good employees want to see the company grow. But it can also provide teachable moments, as contingent experts pass along their knowledge to permanent staff.
Whether you’re the hiring manager, recruiter, talent acquisition leader, or anyone else involved in the hiring process, it’s your job to create an ongoing environment that inspires retention. But, of course, you also need to bring in new talent – exceptional contingent or permanent hires ready to roll up their sleeves and get stuff done. For that, a trusted recruiting partner can be your greatest asset.