How To Retain and Recruit Top Talent in Your Team
You’re constantly stressing about recruiting to make sure you can meet the needs of the clients you support. When you’re not recruiting, you’re worrying about losing good team members who have reached tipping point. There is a significant impact on the quality-of-service delivery, customer happiness and team morale when you have a constant turnover of employees. Not only that, there is ultimately financial impact on the business. No wonder it’s stressful!
When you don’t place enough emphasis on resilience of your team it will result in employees off sick, low morale or motivation, increased staff turnover and poor team spirit. The knock-on impact of this falls on you as the business owner. Constantly recruiting in an industry that struggles with excellent quality staff, costs of recruitment, the time lag between training and delivery of service to your standard and difficulty in building an effective team culture due to constant turnover of team members.
You can’t control everything that causes difficulties with recruiting and retaining staff, don’t waste time and energy on those things. Focus on the things you can do that are in your control. That’s what we’re covering below, the things you can control.
What causes problems with recruiting and retaining the best employees?
#1 Your competition for retaining and recruiting excellent quality team members isn’t just other companies in the same industry, it’s the local supermarket, delivery businesses and maybe even benefits. So, what you offer has got to be enough to beat a job at the checkout or delivering parcels or just sitting at home.
#2 Your company values aren’t lived out throughout the business. So, when you recruit you don’t consider whether the candidate holds similar values. This causes costly problems once you’ve recruited that person and if not dealt with can switch good employees into not so good employees.
#3 Operating in desperation mode. Which results in saying yes to almost anyone that turns up for an interview. Again, recruiting the wrong people probably costs you more than if you’d just said no in the first place.
#4 Not offering a clear supported career pathway resulting in employees just turning up for a job rather than a long-term career with you.
#5 Accepting contracts at a rate you can’t afford to deliver at. This results in elevated levels of stress, poor service, employees feeling like your customers are just on a production line.
So, what can you do to improve the things that are in your control? That’s the important thing here, controlling the things that are in your control, not wasting energy being dragged down by external factors outside your control.
Here are 10 actions you can you take to help Retain and Recruit Top Talent in Your Team
#1 Create a flag system
Look back over the employees that didn’t work out and have left or been asked to leave. What were there red flags that could have showed they weren’t a good fit earlier on? Who are your best employees? What are the things they say or do that make them the best employees? These are your green flags. Add these to your recruitment process to measure in future before offering someone a job.
#2 Conduct exit interviews or surveys to understand the real reason someone has left
Don’t just assume you know or go by gossip. Use those insights to improve things for future.
#3 Review your induction process
Is it setting new employees up for success or is it just a tick box of mandatory training to meet compliance needs? Make sure your induction introduces employees to your business values, how they fit in the organisation, how their work contributes to the business goals for example. This is also another opportunity to pick up red flags.
#4 Review your organisational structure
Have you got the right structure? Have you got the right support in place? Is the team constantly firefighting in the business? Are roles clearly defined? Are the right people in the right roles?
#5 Set a clear career route
For each role in the business, so employees feel they are building a career not just turning up for a job.
#6 Show genuine appreciation for the work your team do
We all like to be appreciated. Not everyone needs a big show of appreciation though, sometimes just a little thank you at the right moment can be enough.
#7 Set a good example yourself
As the leader of the business without realising it how you talk about the team, customers and experiences has a considerable influence on how your team talk and react to situations.
#8 Ask your best employees to be part of the recruitment process
Let them meet the candidates and feedback to you.
#9 Develop a clear and compelling employer brand
That highlights your company’s mission, values, and culture, and communicate it effectively to potential candidates.
#10 Regularly check-in and communicate with employees
Take steps to address any issues or concerns they may have, to retain top talent. This is not a tick box exercise; you need to genuinely want to hear their feedback and be willing to address concerns.
If all this sounds like hard work, that’s because it does take time and constant effort to keep a team working together to a high standard. But this is a far more enjoyable experience than constant battles due to poor performing employees and recruitment struggles. Start with small changes today and build from there.
How can we help?
As an accountant we’re not just about the numbers in isolation. The numbers are a result of what happening day to day in your business. So if you are struggling with recruiting and retaining the best employees for your team, it’s our job as your accountant to work with you to understand what impact it’s having, which contracts are profitable and what benefits you could offer your employees. If you’d like this level of support from your accountant get in touch with us and find out how we could help your business.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]