Recruitment and Retention - Why You Should Care!
Voltage Leadership Consulting had the wonderful opportunity to start off the year by hosting a tour of breakfasts across the region. Our aim was to give back to regional leaders about important topics that could foster organizational growth.
To close out the year, we are refocusing back to how we started the year, around recruitment and retention.
Read on to see what Jeff, CEO, and Jennifer, Director of Leadership and Strategy have to say about leveraging your company’s recruitment:
1. Recruitment and retention is always something that businesses need to pay attention to, but why is it specifically important this time around?
2. How can a company be competitive when it comes to recruiting?
1. Recruitment and retention is always something that businesses need to pay attention to, but why is it specifically important this time around?
Jeff: Right now, it’s a numbers game. 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day. We need more leaders. As baby boomers are retiring, Gen Xers, your middle-aged folks, are coming in to fill those positions. But they’re the smallest generation and the younger ones might not have the requisite experience required. If you’re not recruiting and retaining top talent right now, it’s going to be hard to find other talent. So you got retiring, a small generation, and then some that aren’t ready. That’s why it’s good to go over retention. On the recruiting front, it’s a little bit of a buyer’s market for folks that are looking for jobs, if they’re talented and have good experience. That’s why this is critical right now. If you’re not doing a good job of outlining a career path and how you’re going to develop somebody, and understanding that you, as a manager, provide services to employees, then you’re going to have a hard time attracting and retaining employees. It can’t just be about the work. It’s also about how it impacts the community and often, the global good.
Jennifer: Recruitment and retention is important for the reason you described, it’s a numbers game. I also think that because business has been going well, companies know that they need to get people in the door, but they don’t know that they need to do it differently from the past. They don’t know that they need to start paying attention to the worker as soon as they ask for a resume. The interaction, from the beginning, is competitive all the way through the experience. It’s about how people feel they’re going to be treated by your organization through the whole process, and they’re watching that because they’re getting more than one opportunity to look for something. This shows them culture, so they’re paying attention to the recruiting process and how many touches they’re getting from people. They’re looking for that quick response, confirmation that their materials have been received, what the next step in the process is, and how long the wait is going to be. Then, if you decide to interview someone, address what they want to know about that process. Did you check on them to let them know what to expect when the interview came? Is it a panel interview or is it a one on one interview? Be good with the hospitality part of the process. In some ways, that’s your onboarding, your pre-onboarding process. Think, “what experience am I giving people before they even come through the door,” because they’re evaluating us, just like we’re evaluating them. That mindset is an important one.
On the retention side, we get so busy doing that work that we forget that every opportunity we’re with folks is an opportunity to retain them. Ask how they feel like they’re contributing. The complaint I hear most of the time when people are thinking about leaving is that they aren’t able to contribute all that they have to offer. They want a place where they can do that. It’s important to address that frustration with curiosity by regularly asking your team and your team members what else they’d like to be contributing, what they see is missing, what kinds of things that they could be offering that they’re not able to because of the way that their job is designed at the moment. Those kinds of questions are questions to be asking because you may need a reconfiguration of your current workforce more than you need to recruit a whole new person. You may have the talent sitting there, but don’t know because you don’t ask.
Jeff: Recruiting-wise, like Jennifer said, hospitality matters. We should be giving people a job offer within 24 hours now. This is not 2008 when you had lots of candidates and you could take your time. People have options, but what’s happening is folks come in and they interview, and it’s dragged out for weeks on end. Folks have options, so if you’re not prepared to have all the right people that day and make an offer within 24 to 48 hours, you probably shouldn’t bring the candidate in. So, be ready, have all the right people, make a decision, and then move on.
Jennifer: And keep following up once you make that offer. What’s the next phone call? What’s the next time you reach out to them? How do you give them an experience of welcoming hospitality so that they find the decision to feel irresistible because they understand how they’re going to be treated all through the work process? And then, is that really true? That’s back over to the retention side. How are you treating people? I like the process of re-interviewing people, not to threaten them with a new job, but to say, “I’m curious about what you’d like now and next. What kind of roles do you want?” It’s not the same as a talk about performance improvement or annual review. It’s a regular retention interview. Those are important to have and can save you a lot of headache on the other side. Then you know what people are curious about, what they’re interested in, and where they want to go next.
2. How can a company be competitive when it comes to recruiting?
Jennifer: Being competitive means being a good communicator both with social media and how you reach out to people. Have a good posting available on these social media networks for potential employees. Clarity in this is really important. Don’t be afraid to put the number out there, so that you don’t waste time. You don’t want to waste someone’s time when they’re looking for work. More and more companies are putting the actual hiring range, out there, as opposed to having it be commiserative with experience.
Jeff: Money’s a thing, but it’s also about the path. How are you engaged with folks? How do you develop and grow them? I’ve worked with a couple of folks recently, where they came in and worked really hard to get them through the door. However, they didn’t have clear expectations and a path of where they’re going. One bounced and a couple stayed, but they may not stay for a long time. So, I think being competitive in the recruiting process is a couple things. 1. It’s having a good offer. 2. It’s what is the plan to help you grow, and develop in a way that can help win the day? 3. It’s about being clear about what this person is going to do, how will they change the organization, and why is that so critical? If you can do that, you don’t always have to have the best offer. Knowing that I’m going to come in and make a difference, may be enough for some folks
Jennifer: The last thing I want us to talk about with retention is the team’s responsibility in retaining their peers. They need to have some practices inside of the business set up to onboard their partners and their colleagues. This teaches them how play nicely in the sandbox together. Think about what conversations you need to have and how you invite people to your ground rules? How will you let them know that you want to co-create and recreate what the norms of the group are because there’s a new person? Being able to pause for that moment and have that conversation allows the group to change its shape and welcome the new person. But also, it shows the new person how they need to behave and be successful in the group. It makes it faster.
Jeff: Find a way to recognize the person within 30 days. Make sure they’ve done something well and give recognition within 30 days. Let them know they’ve made the right decision.
For more examples on the importance of recognition and retention, here are two case studies to look out:
