This common phrase in business marketing is one you may hear often: our employees are our most important assets. Although this is a true statement for companies who are successful at capitalizing on it, the process of finding the right people can be a challenging one. Here are some things to consider in recruiting, hiring and retaining the best and the brightest.
Recruiting
It’s important to begin by understanding your company’s culture and goals as well as what kind of people can help deliver those goals most effectively. Once you have created an ideal candidate profile, you’ll want to think about what kind of message resonates with them and where you can find them. You’ll also want to evaluate what they think of your organization and whether you present an attractive work environment for your potential candidates.
Don’t forget to go back to tried and true recruiting spots, whether it’s within a certain market segment, from a particular company or from a particular school or training program. You may want to recruit from within your own organization as well.
Hiring
Besides the obvious result of successfully hiring strong candidates, you’ll want to be able to measure your overall recruiting program to understand the costs of those hires. Be sure to put in a place a measurement system to help you understand the number of clicks to a hire or the cost per hire.
Whether you’re creating an employment brand to attract many new applicants for an abundance of jobs or conducting a handpicked, targeted search for a few hard-to-fill positions, you’ll want to understand the particular goals and best strategies to hire successfully.
Retaining
An important but sometimes overlooked component of finding the right people for your organization is keeping the right people in your organization in the first place. If you have some true gems among your ranks, work hard to keep them.
Provide a safe platform through social media or blogs that allow your employees to communicate with you. Having a good handle on employee morale and an early warning to discontent is key in retaining the best employees. In addition, potential new hires will be more likely to trust comments from existing employees than what’s simply in the recruiting brochure.
Many organizations today focus on the externals like ping pong tables, yoga classes and free lunches. However, most employees want a place where they are valued, trusted and treated as a true team member. Foster trust, transparency and a sense of understanding about your employees’ overall lives, providing flexibility and benefits that will be valued for the long run.
GYC Vegas is a Las Vegas public relations firm that can help you create an employment brand, fine-tune an existing recruiting program or help create a hiring strategy from scratch. This public relations firm Las Vegas has years of experience in all facets of marketing and communications in multiple industries.