Top Ways to Recruit and Retain your Ideal Employees
By Ryan Krishnan & Mark DeVerges
DHG Search
What do you get with a booming economy? That according to recent statistical data1, there are more job openings in construction than there are people to fill those jobs… AND that more people are leaving their jobs than ever before2. The evidence is clear; keeping your best employees has become more important than ever, but also more difficult than ever.
Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great3, wrote: “start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.” Building the right team is integral to success in your business, but if you don’t know how to keep that team in place, the effort is pointless.
What Gets Measured, Gets Improved
It is helpful to do a “Self-diagnosis” of your company to find out where you can improve your culture of retention beyond just the salary. Nearly every company professes to hire great people and have a great culture, but that can’t always be the case; especially if you are having issues with retention. Ask yourself a few questions:
- Why do employees stay at my company, and why do they leave?
- What attracts new employees to my company?
- Is our compensation range and benefits package competitive for our market?
- Have we laid out a career path for our people, and are they on board with that direction?
When the Check Engine light comes on in your car, the mechanic needs to diagnose the problem before he can begin repairs. Find out where the Check Engine light has come on in your company; you have to identify the problems before you can start to fix them. These issues can range from work/life balance, to compensation and benefits; from an undefined career path, to an unhealthy office environment.
Once you have identified and remedied some of the known issues, it is time to be proactive about retaining your top employees. “Exit Interview” data can be helpful for identifying problems, but the data comes too late to fix the problem. It is like driving forward using your rear view mirror. A more proactive approach is to sit down with each of your employees on a regular basis and conduct “Stay Interviews” to identify the issues before they become catastrophic; utilize the data you receive to reinforce and improve your culture of retention.
Know thyself thy team
Referring back to Jim Collins; it’s a people business. Knowing your team is essential to long-term success today and, importantly, for tomorrow. Planning for tomorrow can help many companies improve their “today” by implementing strategic succession planning. Succession planning is only effective if the key members of your team buy into the goal, and becomes moot if those team members leave. Take the time to sit down with the key members of your team to hear about their career goals, to communicate your succession plans to them to make sure they are aligned.
Strategic Planning requires communication, creativity, and flexibility. The plan should include open communication between both parties to make sure the right person is placed in the right seat on the bus; there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for every company. Building a culture that allows for that critical and honest conversation is easier said than done, and takes time. The results are worth the process. Well implemented, this can ensure key employees have: bought into the plan, can see career growth, and feel they have both a say in the future AND their best interests represented.
Retaining your top employees should be built into the cultural fabric of your company, and focus on the family as much as the employee. This can be anything from hosting family picnics and sending birthday cards (Pro Tip – send Birthday Cards to the Children of the Employees), to company-paid trips and sporting events. Anything that “tips the scales” in your favor is a tool you can use for retention. Other job postings and recruiter calls will be hard-pressed to show similar engagement in their pitch.
Once a company is tracking and aware of their retention, then real progress can be made in recruitment. Building a culture of recruitment goes beyond posting jobs and using 3rd party recruiters. It involves utilizing all the resources and tools available to you in order to attract top talent to your company.
This includes the proactive use of tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Indeed, but also leveraging your company culture as a recruiting tool; as well as the best advocates of that culture – the people employed there. The things you have done to create a company of retention are now your greatest tools for recruiting; so use them!
Great culture, Employee Engagement, Flexible hours, Good benefits, Beneficial training, aligned Career opportunities
Become known as a great place to work, always be looking for top talent, use referral bonuses to benefit from your employee’s network. Each employee is your company’s #1 brand ambassador and can be trained to stay alert for opportunities to connect with industry peers or contacts. Utilize these industry relationships to identify potential candidates, and get to know top prospects over a cup of coffee. Let suppliers/vendors know you are hiring, and – when needed – don’t be afraid to use industry aligned recruiters.
The goal is to become the easy, obvious, logical, desired choice for any prospective candidates.
With a strong culture of retention, recruitment becomes easier. With a strong culture of recruitment, it is easier to make sure the right people are on your bus. Pretty soon, it may be time to get a bigger bus!
Ryan Krishnan and Mark DeVerges are both part of the team of Construction and Real Estate recruiters within DHG Search, a service of Dixon Hughes Goodman. They each have over a decade of experience working with some of the most dynamic construction and subcontracting firms in the industry.
For more information, they can be reached at 828-633-5625 or visit www.dhgsearch.com
References:
1 https://money.cnn.com/2018/06/05/news/economy/job-openings-unemployed-workers/index.html
3 Collins, Jim (2001) Good to Great, William Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-662099-2
