Tackling staff turnover with pre-boarding
In the UK it currently takes around 36 days to recruit an employee (potentially much longer for highly skilled or senior positions) from their initial application to the point they accept the job offer. When you add in notice periods, it can be a couple of months before your new member of staff is sitting at their desk. It’s no surprise businesses are keen to maximise employee retention, in order to minimise the disruption of losing an experienced team and having to replace them, not to mention the time it can take to train someone new and for them to get fully up to speed.
On the flip side, a degree of turnover is often a good thing; providing opportunities for promotion internally and bringing new ideas, fresh perspectives and energy to a business. If a business can recruit the right individuals, who are aligned with their vision and values these new members of the team can have a transformative effect.
The holy grail is attracting and keeping the right people … and this starts before you’ve even met them.
There are a few things worth considering now, which could make all the difference to finding the right employees in the future.
Your brand
The perception of your business brand isn’t only important in terms of attracting clients or customers, it’s a vital part of the recruitment and retention process. If your brand is poor, few people will be interested in working for you. Conversely, if you have a positive brand and consider how to promote it from an employment angle too, then you are boosting your chances of attracting and engaging the right people.
Even if there are no current vacancies, you want to be promoting your business as a great place to work; making it easy for people to learn about your culture and encouraging people to engage with you to hear about future opportunities and company news. If you get it right you’ve got a list of warm leads, people who already want to work with you, when you come to recruit for a new position.
Recruitment strategy
Taking the time to sit down and put a strategy in place when it is necessary to recruit can make a huge difference to the overall experience. If the hiring manager and recruitment team both understand the brief, the process is likely to be much smoother. This includes agreeing the job requirements and the hiring process and its timeline.
Without a strategy you run the risk of losing an ideal candidate due to delays in making a decision, burdening your team with extra work if recruitment is drawn out, or incurring extra costs bringing in temporary cover. If there’s a strategy, you’re much more likely to make a good decision … rather than rushing to fill the position, and then dealing with the probable retention or team dynamic issues which arise.
Job descriptions
Make sure your job description is accurate and up to date, not simply a rehashed version of the one you put together the last time you recruited for a particular role. Jobs evolve over time and its very likely there are extra responsibilities to take into consideration now. The job description is key if you’re posting a job online and will also help you to prepare interview questions, select who you want to interview and ultimately who you want to offer the job to. If your job description is inaccurate, you run the risk of recruiting the wrong person, because ultimately you have recruited them for the wrong job … and one or both of you will soon realise this.
Candidate experience
Potential future employees will start to judge your business from their initial interaction. It’s often easy to forget candidates are interviewing you too, and from their first interactions with your business they are starting to form a view about whether they want to work there … these early experiences will also influence their employee experience if they do ultimately join the company.
Make sure you get off on the right foot by ensuring a candidate’s interactions with you are all positive: from initial contact and applying for a job, to scheduling an interview which works with their schedule and making sure what they’re told during the interview is an honest reflection of the role and company. If a new employee feels they were mis-sold the job then you’re likely to have a retention issue on your hands in the near future.
It’s clear first impressions can go a long way to minimising the risk of unnecessary employee turnover in the future and attracting the right people when you do need to recruit, so make them count.
However, employee satisfaction is the sum of many parts and this includes the environment in which your staff work. A dim, dull, depressing office is unlikely to motivate or enthuse them. At Office Space in Town all our flexible workspace and serviced offices are designed to inspire and provide office space where our clients’ teams and businesses can thrive. If you are looking for an office to rent in London, Cardiff or Edinburgh or considering your future working space, do get in touch to see how we can help you.