Show Special kbb Birmingham 2018
Opinion
How to… attract, motivate and retain employees
In the first of two pieces on the importance of attracting, motivating and retaining employees, Andrew Pearce, director of human resource software provider Agathon HR, explains how balancing their emotional needs with the practical responsibilities of employing them could be the key
W
hen the responsibility for HR comes down to the owner of a business, we always see boundless energy and passion.
Fantastic attributes when looking to attract and keep employees. But enthusiasm alone does not run a business – people do.
According to the CIPD Resourcing Talent Planning Survey 2017,
three-quarters of
organisations surveyed experienced recruitment difficulties in the past 12 months. Finding high- calibre applicants to fill key roles is getting harder, so what can businesses do to improve their chances of finding the best people for the job?
Reputation To attract talent, the employer needs to make themselves more attractive to applicants. The first step is by improving the corporate website, as this is the organisation’s shop window – not just to gain customers, but also to attract talent. What is
your company about? How would a prospective employee fit within that team? Increased presence on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn can help, but also think about creating a positive impression with manufacturers’ sales reps – they will know local designers looking for new challenges.
Policies and procedures
Improving company policies and procedures can also have a positive impact. Make sure potential employees know you respect equality and diversity in the workplace – for example the gender pay gap and social mobility. Make sure your recruitment process is efficient, so every applicant receives a timely reply. Be open-minded about where to advertise. Using Facebook or Instagram will give the impression that you are forward-thinking.
Up-skill rather than recruit
More companies are looking to up-skill existing staff for hard-to-recruit roles and are reassigning
Keeping your employees happy
You’ve employed your newest recruit, so you can relax and get on with the day job, right? Wrong! Now’s the time to keep your team motivated. Often this involves more practical solutions. When did they last attend a training course or industry event? How has their pay increased over the past years? How much holiday are they allocated and how do they track it? Would flexible hours be an option?
Create learning and development opportunities The most popular way to improve staff retention is through increasing learning and development opportunities, demonstrating how important that employee is to you.
Improve the working environment While the physical environment is important to keep employees happy, it’s also about the psychological environment. Simple changes, such as offering artisan coffee or a cheeky prosecco, make for a memorable experience for visitors, while having the benefit of making employees feel proud and happy in their space. Happy employees are less likely to look elsewhere.
Be flexible
Making people feel obliged to work longer hours than necessary to impress management is not the best way to motivate them. Flexible working options – even allowing them to work from home regularly – can provide an invaluable benefit to employees, making them more likely to be flexible when the business needs an extra hand.
Equality and diversity One of the main reasons people resign is a perception of unfairness. Treating people fairly, whether in the distribution of rewards/opportunities or the way people are spoken to, can help towards maintaining a happy workforce.
recruitment budgets to training and development. Do you have an employee with a positive attitude who could benefit from project-management skills and develop into an operations manager? Workforces are changing, employees are often now looking for a more personal package, but how on earth can you keep track of all those details? We often see clients tracking holidays, flexible work hours or training records with a mix of spreadsheets and convoluted systems that, by their own admission, are overcomplicated and take a disproportionate amount of time to manage. Look at systems to help you manage details like flexible working systems, holiday bookings, tracking of hours worked plus any disciplinary actions. Stay balanced. Share your passion, but introduce initiatives to make your team feel more valued and make sure your systems are robust, so all employees know they are being looked after fairly and efficiently.
Then you’ll reap the rewards.
March 2018 kbb Birmingham Special Edition kbbreview 61
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