5 proven ways to attract and retain great talent

attract and retain great talent

Your people are the backbone of your company. As such, it’s crucial to attract and retain great talent in order to keep ahead of the competition. But how do you do it? We’ve pulled together our five top tips to securing and retaining the best talent, based on over a decade of working in recruitment.

Preparing to build your team

Competition is fierce, the winning organisations are the ones that are focused on doing everything they can to attract the very best. Having built boards, management teams and vertical streams for fast growth businesses, we believe that if you want to recruit the best, it is essential that you have a clear purpose and strong employer branding.

However, if you want to avoid recruiting costly, inefficient teams that do not deliver and ultimately do not stay, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

  • Have I developed a people plan that aligns with my business strategy?
  • Have I got the structure right for the next stage?
  • Can technology deliver what another pair of hands might?
  • What does the competitive landscape look like?
  • How does my structure benchmark against the competition?
  • Do I understand my current talent capability
  • Have I developed the lines of accountability and responsibility, job descriptions and KPIs to align with the requirement?
  • Have I got a good mix of stars of the future and key performers?

As ORESA Consultant Karly Olsen-Haveland says:  “Ensure that there is a strong succession pipeline and that you really know who the key critical role holders are. This may not be just the high performers but those with high potential who might not be in the right roles or performing at the top of their game currently but may keep the lights on in tougher times.”

Recruiting

Whether you are recruiting yourself or using a specialist Executive Search company like ORESA, you should expect to invest in the process to get the outcome you want. You also need to be prepared to ‘sell’ your company and industry to prospective candidates who may well be in more than one process and/or have no real need to move.

Ensure you keep the new recruits

Over the last ten years the average percentage of hires that leave an organisation within 18 months of joining has been between 25% and 40%*.  The cost to organisations is significant and includes business disruption, team/department destabilisation, and replacement costs. In a recent case we saw a cost amounting to c. £1m excluding the lost sales! One way we have addressed this is to develop pre-boarding for our clients. The pre-boarding service enables new hires to get familiar with their new company and the culture before their first day at the job, so they know what to expect and build a sense of belonging.

Employee satisfaction and retention

Christmas and the New Year are classic ‘change’ points and employers should be prepared to face employee loss if they are not willing to focus on employee satisfaction and retention.

Being valued is incredibly important to people, and surprisingly a bonus is not generally a key driver. It is a ‘nice to have’, but not necessarily a ‘must-have’ like any of the following:

  • Praise, recognition and attention from managers and leaders.
  • Having line managers that care about individual development and will ensure that their life goals and needs are being heard and addressed.
  • Personal development and well-being: whether helping them overcome challenges at home, accommodating flexible working patterns or providing support tools.
  • Opportunities to grow/ learn e.g. skills for a Non-Exec board role or to lead key projects.
  • Mentoring others, undertaking coaching qualifications, other ‘professional’ qualifications.

See What’s Possible

Put simply, if you want to recruit and retain the best teams, you need to ensure that you have or are working on the following points:

  • A clear and authentic company proposition.
  • A prospective employee proposition that will attract and engage.
  • A recruiter that adds value to your hiring process and will get under the skin of your challenges to find you the best talent.
  • An internal culture and incentive policy that will genuinely value and holistically reward individuals.

If you’re looking to build your executive team, restructure a department or audit your staff’s skillsets, get in touch today.

Source *hr.com

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