Attracting great talent is one of the biggest challenges businesses face. The stakes are high and the success of your business is dependent on the employees you hire.
Finding the right employees for your business is an important step in the hiring process but retaining high-quality talent is even more crucial. High employee turnover costs the business time and productivity.
How can you ensure your business attracts candidates who will add value to your business? It all starts with implementing a proven recruiting and hiring process. This article provides actionable tips on how employers can recruit, hire and retain high-quality employees.
Recruit and Hiring the Right Person
Recruiting and hiring is more than just posting a job online and reviewing resumes. To ensure you find the right candidate, you need to be very specific about what you are looking for in a potential employee.
Develop an effective job description to attract the right talent
Ensure the description is an accurate representation of your company, its values, the role itself, and the experience and qualifications necessary to qualify. Craft the description to attract talent by highlighting any unique benefits and perks that set your company apart from competitors.
Determine the qualities of your ideal candidate
Define the qualifications and skills you believe are ideal for the candidate to possess. Aside from the job qualifications, think about the soft skills you believe a successful employee must obtain. Of course, many businesses look for soft skills such as good communicator, well-organized and team player, but consider listing skills that are more specific to the job itself. For example, the ability to manage and perform multiple tasks at once or the ability to send a high volume of emails a day. The more specific the better.
Identify your best candidates
Review the resumes you received to identify potential candidates. To weed through the resumes, know what experience, education and skills you want candidates to possess.
Screen qualified applicants
Once you identify the candidates meeting your criteria, schedule a phone interview to help narrow down the candidate pool. Plan and compile a list of screening questions to help you identify ideal candidates. The questions should focus on salary expectations, qualifications, experience and work history. Ask the same questions in each phone screen to effectively compare candidates. Phone interviews enable you to obtain more details on the candidate’s background and experience, as well as assess their fit for the role and company.
Conduct in-person interviews
Ask a consistent set of questions to maintain a structured interview and offer a sound basis for comparing applicants. Involve your entire team in the interviewing process to get their feedback on which candidates aced the interview. While the hiring manager will ultimately make the final decision, having your employees conduct a group interview can help you determine how well the candidate will fit in with the team and company culture. Sometimes the most qualified candidates won’t be the best fit for your team, so bringing your employees into the mix will help determine which candidates are worth moving forward. Not only does this help hiring managers, but it shows employees that you truly value their opinion and role in your company.
Perform background and pre-employment checks
Before extending a job offer to a candidate, it’s important to perform a background check to uncover any potential issues, such as dishonesty. Education and employment verification are important to ensure the candidate has been honest about their experience. A background check saves you time and money in the long run. It’s better to find out if the candidate has any red flags before you hire them to avoid running into an issue after they’re employed.
Retaining the Right Hire
Once you have successfully hired high-quality talent, your job is to do everything possible to ensure they remain with the company long-term and do not face career plateau.
Provide competitive benefits for your employees
Benefits are extremely important to employees. They often base job decisions on the quality of benefits offered by their employer. To attract and retain high-quality employees, you need to offer high-quality benefits including medical, dental and vision insurance; paid time off and sick time; short-term disability insurance and retirement savings programs.
Offer competitive salaries
Don’t let your budget dictate the salaries you offer. Ensure your employees’ base salary is competitive to your industry and local market.
Keep employees engaged with perks
To increase employee morale and decrease employee burnout, offer employee recognition such as free lunch/snacks, flexible work schedules, remote work days, company outings, happy hours, etc. Employee engagement decreases the risk of employee turnover and promotes a healthy work environment.
Invest in training and development
Employees want to advance in their careers and seek opportunities to learn and grow. Ask each employee what their short and long-term goals are and create a training program to meet those needs. Offerings can include training courses with the ability to earn certifications, industry events and conferences, networking events and team knowledge meetings. Going the extra mile to help your employees expand their knowledge in your industry will not only benefit their personal and professional growth but add value to your company as a whole.
Create open communication between employees and management
Schedule regular meetings and allow employees to suggest ideas and ask questions. Implement an open-door policy to encourage employees to feel comfortable approaching managers with any ideas, concerns or questions. Managers should be open with employees about their performance and any improvements they need to make.
Set employee expectations
Ensure your employees know what their job role consists are and what is expected of them. Make sure employees understand their responsibilities so they can meet performance standards.
Recognize and reward employees
Everyone likes to feel appreciated for their efforts. Thank your employees when they go above and beyond their job responsibilities with an email, gift card or just verbal recognition. Share how their hard work is contributing to business goals and the success of the company. This small incentive goes a long way.
Summary
Hiring the right people for your company can be a very challenging process and poses a great risk. If you want to attract and retain top talent to your company while keeping employee turnover low, implement a proper strategy to get you there. Focus on building a strong company culture that will attract long-lasting employees.
About the author: Corey Doane is a contributing editor for 365 business tips. She has a B.S in Public Relations from San Jose State University and has experience in PR, marketing and communications.