We are living in a world where finding talent for your business can require teams of people. Big businesses like Google, Airbnb and Virgin are famous for their rigorous selection processes, sometimes involving thousands of applicants, teams of recruiters and seemingly endless rounds of interviews. That’s all well and good if you’re a multibillion-dollar enterprise, but where does that leave small business? Finding talent is hard, and holding onto it is even harder. This month, we’ve put together a guide to the employee life cycle, offering tips in brand management, recruitment, engagement, and performance.
1. Know your brand
Finding the best kind of talent starts with the way an organization attracts people in the first place. If you can give potential applicants the right information from the get-go, you save yourself time by allowing for a self-elimination process before people even bother to apply. Providing information means understanding what resonates with employees from an employment or talent brand perspective. What kind of perception do job seekers have of your brand already? Is there a need to emphasize how your workplace culture has changed? Specialist recruitment agencies like, The Creative Store, in Surry Hills can help you to hone in on what your major selling points should be. Sometimes it helps to have an outside eye determine where your strengths are.
2. Diversify your recruitment strategies
Recruitment agencies and websites can be hugely expensive, but they don’t have to be. Diversifying your candidate sources not only widens your pool, it often speeds up the process of finding new talent. Online tools for sourcing talent like LinkedIn, Rocket Reach, and Glassdoor are great ways to discover new talent. Other tools like Evernote and Google docs can be great ways to communicate with other employees and keep a list of promising candidates. Also, free online survey tools like Survey Monkey can be a great way to get feedback from candidates about their recruitment experience, ensuring that you are improving your talent acquisition strategies along the way. Once you have found your candidates, think about creative application processes that allow people to demonstrate their creativity and determination for the role. Get specific about the type of recruitment website you want to use. For Arts specific recruitment, try Artshub. For newly graduated employees, try GradConnection. If you’re looking to employ someone on a more casual, one-off basis, try OneShift. For the IT technical and sales professionals, we recommend our client 44 Recruitment, or for board and senior management positions, Paramount client Aegeus Executive Search.
3. Be part of the evolution of employee engagement
Increasing employee engagement is a crucial part of any businesses strategy. Given how few employees are actively engaged, it is essential to make the most of your employee potential. Make sure that your leaders and managers are engaged and knowledgeable about their staff. This means not only knowing who they are but having an awareness of their unique skills and talents, their beliefs and goals and the life experiences that have got them to where they are today. If you’re ready for total employee engagement overhaul, then look no further than Meme Partners. Meme Partners describe themselves as engagement specialists, with a focus on helping employees and employers align their needs to form Collaborative Ambition. To hear Kate Messenger, the director of Meme Partners, talk more about their process, join us at this month’s Insight!
4. Form an organizational performance group
A huge factor in employee engagement is the ability to feel as though your opinion matters. This means not only feeling heard in the workplace but feeling as though you are free to voice your concerns around the administration, operations, and performance of the business. A great way to allow employees to feel heard and like they can make a difference is by forming an internal team who can interview, analyze, and study how teams, projects, and programs are working. By examining the company’s job opportunities, reward systems, and career paths, this group can keep tabs on how the business is functioning and changing over time. For more strategies, have a listen to Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk on how to Inspire Action. As the author of several bestselling books on leadership, his sentiments about how leaders can inspire trust, cooperation and change within the workplace should not be missed! Alternatively, grab yourself a copy of Dave and Wendy Ulrich’s The Why of Work. After years of interviewing thousands of people–from customers to top-level executives, the Ulrich’s have synthesized the ins and outs of creating meaning and purpose within the workplace.
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