The ongoing pandemic has caused many issues for businesses. Right now, one of the major issues is finding and retaining talent.
On top of struggling to find quality candidates, making the right hires takes time, and with other tasks on your plate, like managing your finances, the systems and details required for making the right hires can slip through the cracks.
To help you better navigate through the labor shortage and prepare for making hires in the future, we’ve put together this “how-to” to help you find and retain talent for your business.
How to Find Talent
Everyone wants to find talented, qualified, and experienced employees, however, it can be more difficult and time-consuming than you would like.
The go-to way to hire typically starts with looking for individuals who have skill sets that are most applicable to your company’s workload. This tactic is easier for some businesses than others, but at the end of the day, it’s all about finding the best candidate for the job.
Utilize your current employees
Go to your existing employees and establish a talent pool through a referral program. Typically a referral program offers a reward to employees who refer potential employees to apply for open positions. Because your employees are people you trust and are familiar with the demands of the job, it’s likely their referrals will be helpful in finding people who are a good fit for the position.
A typical referral program (when feasible) will pay employees a percentage or a lump sum for each of the successfully referred individuals they bring on to the company. This encourages your employees to refer friends, relatives, or other individuals they know and trust and leaves you with a job pool more optimized for the position you’re hiring for.
Know your business culture
Employees who are highly successful, creative, and experienced tend to place more value in the culture of their workplace. As a result, the most productive people for any position will look at the company culture to see if they are a good fit.
Workplace culture includes:
- A diverse environment
- Location flexibility (i.e. work from home)
- Company values
- Focus on growth and education
- Level of team involvement
- Company atmosphere
When potential employees ask about the culture of the company, be sure to have answers that are appealing to top talent.
Know what you are looking for
Knowing what you are looking for and your idea of the job responsibilities will improve the search process tremendously. High-quality talent looks for employers who can tell them exactly what is expected and how they can grow to improve their professional skills.
It’s important to remember you and your candidates are looking for the perfect fit. Growth and professional development matter to them just as much as it matters to you.
Get clear on what you are looking for, but also have a good understanding of what talent is looking for too.
Offer competitive pay and benefits
Oftentimes, the determining factor for talent is money. It is all about the pay and benefits. If your company can offer a competitive salary and applicable job benefits, then you will almost always attract the top most talented workers. Offering a salary instead of hourly pay is more appealing to talent thanks to the remote work variations for most workplaces. Job benefits should complement pay, and will typically include:
- Gym memberships
- Personal time off (PTO)
- Sick/mental health days
- Additional education
- Medical and personal services
The simple combination of competitive pay and good benefits will attract the best talent.
How to Retain Talent
Once you’ve built a team, you’ll want to do what you can to develop it and continue growing it to match the growth of your company. Typically this is done by rewarding individuals with pay raises for accepting and successfully completing challenges set out in the form of projects.
However, top talent often looks for a variety of other aspects as reasons to continue working with your company. To retain talent:
Build a culture around your team
As your team grows and becomes more established, maintain a focus on the company culture. The rituals, inner office behaviors, and even the dress code will indicate the culture of a company and as new talent is infused and your team begins to grow, your culture can, and should, change.
A change in culture is normal and will actually help your company avoid stagnation in the ranks. It keeps employees happy by providing them with a workplace they enjoy. Their enjoyment transfers into a feeling of value and gives them yet another reason to stay with your company.
Grow your team internally
Your employees are more likely to continue working for your business when they know they have room to grow.
Promoting internally and providing opportunities for talent to move up into higher positions is compelling for nearly every employee. When you begin to implement this structure, other employees will see that you’re backing your hiring claim of giving your employees opportunities to grow.
You should also set goals for individuals to achieve together as a team. This spurs inner office bonding and aids in creating a cohesive environment, which is important in retaining talent.
Offer additional learning opportunities
Continuing education can be a great way to keep employees. This added benefit makes them feel like you:
- Are advancing them professionally
- Value their skills and see potential
- Are preparing them for growth
This ties back into developing your employees professionally and building a culture that focuses on your employees.
Work with a trusted accounting partner
Finding and retaining talent takes time and energy. You want to do it correctly and doing so often pulls you from other tasks, like managing your finances. To free up some of your time, turn your finances over to a trusted accounting partner.
Outsourcing will allow you to focus on building a strong culture that is appealing for both new talent and current employees, creating an attractive benefits plan, and finding and retaining quality talent.
For more information about working with a trusted accounting partner, contact Adian Professional Corporation.