Finding and retaining staff

Australia’s skills shortage is making the process of finding and retaining staff increasingly hard. But don’t let the skills shortage get you down; here are some simple and inexpensive staff recruitment methods.

The focus of organisations on finding and retaining staff has greatly expanded over the past decade. This is partly in response to the high staff turnover that many organisations now face. The problem of increasingly high staff turnover can be attributed to employees and employers both becoming increasingly stretched. But how can this be allowed to happen?

Part of the problem is that business leaders are still not recognising the true cost of employment to their business, and not placing enough emphasis on what is popularly termed human capital management, which is often described as a strategic approach to people management. It is about managing people effectively and efficiently, understanding skills sets, attracting and retaining talent and looking to future recruitment needs.

Clear Communication

In business, ‘capital’ is acknowledged as a resource available for production and a company’s workforce is no different. However, unlike physical assets, human capital cannot be emulated. Considerations should be made for the emotional and social complexities of organisational workforces and employers should appreciate that employees can be influenced but not controlled. By communicating clear, actionable steps, or missions to employees while allowing them the flexibility to accomplish the missions as they see fit, they are more likely to release their own creativity and innovation.

All too often there is a break in the link between employer and employee and this implies a breakdown or lack of communication, which essentially comes from lack of clarity in a company’s employer brand strategy, if in fact it has one at all. Employer branding has been bandied about as a new approach over the past five years or so, but has only been taken seriously more recently with the ‘war for talent’ caused by skills shortages and fierce competition to recruit the best candidates. This has forced companies to look more closely at how they go about attracting and retaining the best staff.

Employer Branding

So, what is the current definition of employer branding? Put very simply, it is about becoming ‘the employer of choice,’ which means focusing on how potential employees feel about the organisation, what is important to employees and what are the deciding factors for choosing to work for a particular company.

It is not about investing in huge advertising budgets and brand image or promising more than employers can deliver. Rather, it is about behaving and being recognised as an exemplary employer, and that has to permeate throughout the fabric of an organisation to be credible and successful.

Corporate social responsibility – an end to lip service

Behaviour is the key word here, with the reputation of a business now less centred just on financial performance and market positioning, and increasingly being judged on its ethical values, including commitment to the environment, communities and an overall sense of social responsibility. Companies can no longer just pay lip service to this either, they are expected to ‘behave’ as responsible companies with direct action.

Research has shown that candidates looking for a new job are placing significant importance on a company’s ethical values, so key to any employment brand has to be a clear communication and demonstration of the company’s belief system. Other priorities are good training and development opportunities, a healthy work/life balance and positive working environment. It will come as no surprise to hear that employees want an interesting and rewarding job. Developing organisational values and processes to support these priorities, supported by clear communication, sits at the core of the employer brand.

Standing Out From the Pack

On paper this all sounds quite straightforward but to develop a successful employer brand that attracts and retains a company’s ‘ideal’ employee is not easy.

Like any other form of branding, it’s all about differentiation and being seen and heard above the competition. So, companies need to work very hard to identify what factors make them different as an employer and develop policies, behaviours, and communication that support that, within the context of the business and its overall vision and objectives.