Keep Your Staff: Fight Recruiters With Their Own Weapons
by Steve Klingensmith
Phone calls,
email, and direct mail to your employee’s home address. Every day, the competition is working to steal your company’s most valuable assets. Like hawks circling for the kill, these predators are waiting for a vulnerable moment to swoop down and snatch your top staff. Unexpected employee turnover is one of the biggest, most costly problems facing companies today.
What can you do to protect your human capital investment and “recruit-proof” your employees?
First, be aware and realistic. Don’t lapse into a false security just because everyone on your staff seems happy. Some of those ringing telephones you hear each day are recruiters calling your employees hoping to entice them away. Even in a down market, talented people are in demand. There just aren’t enough to go around.
Second, learn to use the recruiter’s own methods to fortify your workplace. I call these methods “motivators for change.”
Here are the key “motivators” recruiters use.
Compensation and benefits
Sure, many trend watchers say that compensation isn’t a factor. But consider this: It is the number one motivator recruiters use to lure candidates away. Face it—the compensation package really does matter. A competitive compensation includes great pay bundled with good benefits plus stock options and other perqs. How does your package measure up?
Are you prompt to award bonuses? Money is how we keep score, and a bonus, even a small one, confirms good performance. Why wait for an employee to come through the door asking you to match an offer from the competition? Adapt a proactive, offensive mindset, rather than a reactive, defensive stance.
Reward performance now. In many cases, by the time a job offer is made, the recruiter has had ample time to sell your employee on the other company. Not only that, recruiters are well trained and skilled at handling counter offers. Their tactic is to inundate your star employee with details on how dangerous it will be to their career trajectory to accept your counter offer now.
Location
Time spent commuting is time lost to family, friends, and personal interests. If the eagle-eyed recruiters see that your talent is spending lots of time travelling to and from the job site, they’ll add a shorter commute to their arsenal of lures. They’ll point out the wear and tear on the vehicle, expenses for gas, and the diminished quality of life.
Fight back. Pinpoint your long-distance commuters. Look for creative ways to make travel time more pleasant. Keep a collection of books on tape or special interest tapes and CDs, including seminar material, or self-enrichment series. Consider working out an arrangement with a nearby gas station to receive a discount on gas purchases for employees in exchange for the business. Or every now and then, fill up their tanks on the company. If any portion of an employee’s job can be done at home, designate a few days each month as telecommute days.
Company stability and potential
Your best defence is to create a total work experience so attractive that your brightest stars will be reluctant to leave. Statistics show that most employees will move on eventually. Your job is to hold on to top talent as long as possible.
Be open and honest about the direction the company is moving in. New client wins? Increased revenues? Share the good news. When the news is not so good, present the facts honestly while keeping the facts framed within the big picture vision for the future. Brief biweekly or monthly update meetings can help employees feel comfortable that there are no secret changes underway, and will dispel any rumours generated by the competition and their recruiters.
Impact
Make sure your managers and executives are recognizing the impact each person on their team is making for the organization. Recognition should be public—and it should be frequent. Recruiters paint all job offerings as “high impact” and “critical” because they know it strikes a vital psychological chord. We all want to feel as if our work is important and making a difference.
Can you afford to take any of your employees for granted? Of course not. So acknowledge each one as often as possible. It’s easy to do. It’s free. And it goes a long way towards strengthening the bonds between employee and company.
Personal opportunity
High performers are eager to advance in their career. Develop ways to let your employees know what opportunities are ahead. Even if you cannot be specific, if someone is slated for a promotion, let them know right away. Keep the doors of communication open so that employees feel comfortable alerting you that they are impatient to get ahead.
Try to create a corporate structure that provides learning opportunities and nurtures personal as well as career development. Can you make the work more challenging? Rotate tasks so that team members learn new skills? Pay for seminars and workshops?
Relationships
Mutual rapport among executives, managers, and employees can play a crucial role in retention. People tend to stay where they feel comfortable, wanted, and appreciated. You can enhance the opportunities to establish rapport with excellent training, quick intervention, or troubleshooting with difficult colleagues and supervisors and by keeping office procedures simple and free of red tape.
Your employees may need to be told, face-to-face, that they and their contributions are appreciated. Personal treatment of employees pays off. When staff members feel the company is an important part of their lives, it is much harder for a headhunter to pounce. Sometimes, relationships are a more compelling reason to stay than money.
There are many creative strategies for holding on to personnel. Your commitment and ongoing effort are essential.
Yes, it is hard work. However, smart companies understand that the contributions of excellent employees make the difference between success and failure, and they take actions to retain top people.
Steve Klingensmith is President of Infinity Recruiting, a Detroit-area recruitment outsourcing and consulting services firm. He can be reached at skling@infinityrecruiting.com.
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
