Recruitment: Number Two Priority

By Michael Guld

The financial textbooks refer to employees as human capital. The management textbooks label employees human resources. However, the most successful companies treat employees as human beings.  When revered and treated with respect, great people will take a company to the highest levels of success.

As a member of corporate America, you hear it all the time, “Recruitment is our number one priority!” While continual recruitment of talent should be a top priority – even when the company doesn’t have immediate openings – it should still be considered priority number two. At the top of the list should be employee retention because while good people are hard to find, great people are much harder to replace.

The short version of your company’s leadership philosophy should consist of two words…“hire right.”  When management hires the right people, great results follow.  Few leadership techniques will ever have a lasting impact on the wrong hire. When you think about your most successful, most productive and most enjoyable years in business, they tend to center around the years you surrounded yourself with the best people. And more often than not, it was rarely anything you did to make them great, except invite them to be part of your team. 

So, how do you keep your best and brightest from crossing the street and taking the next best offer?  Hiring is only the first step.  From there, you need to train, coach, engage, support, encourage, recognize, reward, promote and compensate them in a way that will exceed their expectations.  Contrary to managers’ perceptions, studies show that money is not the highest motivator in retaining employees; especially in the millennial generation (twenty something’s), which places a greater importance on lifestyle and professional challenge. 

As a result, management can no longer live by the former golden rule, “treat people the way that you want to be treated.”  A baby boomer’s motivations may be dramatically different than those of a 25-year-old Millennial.  Therefore, the golden rule is evolving to, “treat people the way that they want to be treated.”

In a leadership role, it’s vital to understand the unique wants, needs, desires, and goals of each staff member, and make sure your organization becomes a place where each can be realized. You may have superstar employees who, if left the company, could significantly impact your profitability. Provide these individuals with golden handcuffs in the form of increased salary, bonuses or other monetary and non-monetary incentives so they wouldn’t consider working anywhere else.  While initially this may not seem entirely fair, assets to the company should be treated as so; even professional sports franchises pay their athletes proportional to their value to their organization. 

As the saying goes, “people don’t care what you know until they know you care.”  Get to know your employees and take a true investment in their lives and well-being.  As a manger, there are many small yet powerful adjustments you can make to attract, hire and retain the best and the brightest.

The Power of MWBA: Get out from behind the desk and practice “Management By Walking Around” (MBWA).  There is nothing more insightful than spending time in the bullpen, getting to know your employees and asking questions in an informal setting.  MBWA breaks down bureaucratic boundaries and shows that you are accessible, approachable and real.  

The Power of Hand-Written Notes: Send handwritten notes congratulating employees on a recent success and let them know, as their leader, you appreciate their hard work – budget permitting, include a gift certificate to their favorite store or restaurant.

For married employees, send handwritten thank-you notes to their spouses recognizing the achievements of your employee and acknowledging the time they spend away from the family – budget permitting include a spa certificate, mall certificate or other token gift. 

For younger employees who are new to the workforce, send notes to their parents, bragging about their young adult’s successes and complimenting them on raising a great person. 

The Power of Random Acts of Kindness: Practice random acts of kindness by freely delivering movie tickets, dinner certificates, gift cards and other tokens of appreciation to employees who exemplify best practices.  This could be done informally or through a program entitled “Catch Me At My Best,” where co-workers or customers are encouraged to share a great experience.

The Power of Attractive Benefits: Time off with family and friends can go a long was in creating loyal fans, so offer paid days off to each employee for their birthday.  Also, provide better monetary and non-monetary benefits than those inside and outside your industry.  Paying a little more in health insurance, providing profit sharing or contributing to an IRA will be more than made up by the reduced the cost of attrition … not to mention improving overall employee satisfaction.

The Power of Recognition and Communication: Have peer voted employee of the month awards, branded to your company, with personalized certificates including, traveling trophies/banners and a $100 VISA certificate to the monthly winner.  Have monthly staff meetings to recognize successes, including awarding the employee of the month and publicly reading all the reasons for their nomination.  In addition, use these monthly staff meetings to uncover internal and external areas of improvement and set up action committees to develop solutions (inviting those most vocal to take a leadership position).

The Power of Living Your Own Culture: People are energized by organizational synergies and feeling part of something greater than their own contribution.  Living the company culture can be as easy as re-naming your associates.  Disney has castmates, Starbucks has partners, Owens and Minor has teammates, but most importantly, employees and leaders alike need to live the culture you create.  Calling your associates partners but treating them like servants will do more harm than good. 

The Power of Thank You: Use the magic words, “thank you” often.  People appreciate feeling appreciated.  Stated with true sincerity, you will receive the greatest return on investment than anything else you can do. 

Depending on the industry and the position, studies show the cost of employee attrition – which includes direct and indirect costs associated with rehiring and retraining – could climb upward into tens of thousands of dollars, and could increase to much more when factoring in the opportunity costs and lost revenue.  The goal is to create raving fans who have loyalty beyond reason.  It’s very difficult for other employers to lure away an individual who has an, “I love my job” attitude.  That is the bottom line.   

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