As we start to return to some sense of business normality and confidence returns, recruitment is back on the agenda – not just for us but for our competitors as well. This is stimulating some employees to consider a move that they might not have considered some months ago when we were in the grip of the pandemic.

There are basically only a couple of things we can do to combat this, work harder now to engage with the people we have – and start recruitment campaigns.

Retention

Keeping our great people is by far the most effective and lowest risk strategy, recognising that we can never keep every employee, however hard we try. It’s also worth mentioning that churn is not always a bad thing, losing demotivated staff who you cannot reinvigorate and replacing them with energetic, ambitious new blood with new ideas, can be a very positive outcome.

So what can we do now to ensure that as our teams return to work, either in a hybrid or office-based role, that they are motivated, engaged and valued and as a result less vulnerable to approaches from competitors or other employers?

Clearly, we cannot always throw money at the problem and indeed it is now commonly accepted that whilst money is important it is not the main motivator behind employee engagement – at least not for most people, but there are always exceptions.

A number of employers are starting to consider ‘refreshing’ the work environment for the return to work, whether this be simply a fresh fit-out or a complete revamp to better suit the hybrid model with hotdesks and break out areas. Either way, it’s a positive move that shows you are thinking about your teams and how to maintain a positive working environment.

If we put salary increases aside, and that’s not always possible, we can consider a review of our benefits packages to ensure we are an attractive employer to both existing employees and new hires. There are plenty of low-cost things we can do to achieve this which can now of course include working from home options, where this is both practical and desirable.

But what about some of the other things to consider that have a large impact? No one size fits all but here are a few of the things enlightened employers are doing to aid staff engagement and retention.

Shares and share options (there are many ways to address this), birthday holidays, an employee of the month awards, use of the boss’s flash car for the weekend, increased notice periods for key employees, training contracts, holiday allowances, buying additional holiday days, periodic company communication events with some form of social element, medical cover, increased pension contributions, fresh fruit in the office, learning grants and dress down days. The only limit to low-cost employee benefits is your imagination – what can you add to this list?

Assuming we have an alluring benefits package we also need to manage our people well to keep them motivated, engaged and get the best out of them. There is no doubt that one of the best management tools for employee engagement is regular and scheduled 121 meetings with all staff, individually, with their direct line managers. Much has been written about this and once it is implemented and set in the DNA of a business, it’s vital that business leaders embrace this methodology and manage it carefully ensuring their management team gives it the attention it requires and that they understand and respect the value of this to the employee. Continually rearranging and deferring 121’s is extremely demotivating to any employee.

An effective performance appraisal program is another vital tool in a business leaders armoury in motivating and engaging staff and it should be planned, scheduled and executed in a way that is respectful to the employee and not rushed through and perceived as a pain to the line manager. Some organisations choose to have an ‘appraisal season’ where all staff have their annual appraisal within a month of each other. Personally, I do not favour this approach as it presents a large volume of work to the line manager which when only done once a year can become a burden rather than simply part of the job. In my view it is far better to have annual appraisals on the anniversary of start dates, this way management is performing them regularly throughout the year and not trying to fit them all into a tight timescale which can detract from the quality of the appraisals and is never a good thing.

I’m a great advocate of new employees being appraised at 1 month, 6 months and thereafter annually. It’s a great way of ensuring that new recruits are on the right track, have been induced correctly and are in the right role.

Recruitment

Regardless of how well we look after our staff, we must recognise we will lose some who need replacing and hopefully as we grow we will need to recruit more staff into new roles.

There are many different techniques available to us now to find quality recruits including Linkedin, job boards, directly from the education system, headhunters, recruiters etc. At times we will need to use some, if not all these, and indeed other techniques but there is another alternative that is often overlooked.

Employee referrals are potentially one of the most effective means of identifying quality people who could substantially contribute to your organisation’s success. Employees should be encouraged to recommend or refer people whom they know and believe could be successful in your organisation. This will produce some of your best recruits as they are a known quantity and no one wants to refer a poor employee. So then it’s just a question of how much and when you pay your referring employees for bringing in top talent. The general consensus is not to skimp on the reward, after all you know what other recruitment methods cost you.

As regards payment, typically some or all of the reward is paid after 6 months when the new employee has settled in, some organisations choose to pay half at 6 months and a half at 12 months.

If you are in a sector with a lot of churn or you are growing fast my advice is not to wait until you have a vacancy to start the recruitment process but to be continually looking for top talent so that when a vacancy does occur you have a candidate on the bench ready to deploy.

Whatever technique you use to recruit it is going to cost you both in purely financial terms and a level of disruption to the business, it is after all an investment on which you want a good return. One way to protect this investment is to have a great induction system for new employees and perhaps a buddy scheme where you ‘buddy up’ new recruits with existing employees even before they officially start. It’s a great way of increasing the responsibility and boosting the confidence of the buddies you choose as well as making sure that your new recruit has a fantastic early experience with your organisation that can make the difference between success and failure.

Recruitment, retention and the value of 121’s are just some of the subjects we have been discussing recently with our Pabasso.com peer advisory boards members. We help leaders of growing businesses develop through shared experience and expertise.