Your employees are the most important part of your business. It is commonly accepted that quality staff are essential for everything from business growth to retaining existing customers. However, despite the fact that hiring employees is a long-term commitment, many businesses take a haphazard approach to recruitment.
It is important to understand what strategic recruitment involves. Recruiting in this manner ties in strongly to your company’s business plan and the overall strategy for the business, as this determines the organisational requirements. Your company will have short, medium and long-term staffing requirements, and your recruitment approach should match these needs. Here are some ideas to assist you in your strategic recruiting efforts.
- Build a pipeline of candidates: keep in mind that the process of finding good staff is always time-consuming; you can’t ramp up permanent recruitment instantaneously. Especially for your short-term to medium-term needs, make sure that your pipeline of potential candidates is always filled.
- Employer branding is crucial: top-level executive staff are picky about which companies they work for. As part of your strategic approach, you need to make sure that your reputation in the market is enviable. You will be able to recruit the best talent at a good price because the employment market will see you as an attractive proposition.
- Focus on diversity: it is common for hiring managers to recruit individuals who match their own personality types and backgrounds. However, it is well known that businesses thrive on diversity, so specific policies around recruiting a diverse workforce are really key to getting your recruiting strategy right.
- Dip in with contractors: sometimes you do not need a permanent employee, and contractors should be part of your recruitment mix. The prevalence of umbrella companies makes this easy as they take care of issues around contractor pay and taxation.
- Source your candidates widely: don’t stick to the same old job board when you are recruiting. Think about using social media to reach out to younger candidates or to candidates who are more upwardly mobile. For some positions, consider forking out for top talent by means of an executive recruitment agency.
- Create a culture of recruitment: offering rewards to existing employees who convince friends and ex-colleagues to join your company is not unknown, and it is an excellent way to build a loyal and close-knit team of workers. Getting your staff so excited about their place of work that they evangelise about it is ideal.
- Look at your recruitment process in its entirety: if you find that new employees leave quickly or perform poorly, try to see where in your recruitment process you are going wrong.
Not thinking strategically about recruitment can be very costly, especially for smaller businesses who can find that their ability to grow over time is hamstrung by ineffective employees. Putting real thought into your recruitment process and recruitment plans will pay off in the shape of better-performing staff and improved business performance.