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THE
PERFECT FIT: HOW TO FIND AND HIRE GREAT EMPLOYEES
Keeping top talent is critical to the success of
any organization. In today's job market, keeping
great employees is more difficult than ever. Companies
offer benefits that they never offered before in
an attempt to lure top talent. Signing bonuses and
retention bonuses, relatively rare and reserved
for senior managers five years ago, are now commonplace
for all levels of positions in many companies.
The
most effective employee retention strategy is a
strategic staffing strategy. Organizations often
overlook the powerful effect of employee selection
on employee retention. A successful employee retention
program assumes that you have great employees to
keep. To have great employees to keep, you must
have a staffing strategy that allows your organization
to identify applicants who:
- Can
do the job
- Are
likely to want to continue to do the job for your
organization.
Most
organizations attempt to maximize the fit between
the person and the job when searching for job candidates.
If done well, this approach guarantees hiring an
employee who can do the job. This approach, however,
fails to guarantee hiring an employee who wants
to continue to do the job for your organization.
To do that, your staffing approach must focus on
culture-fit as well as job-fit.
Employees
connect with culture, not jobs. Jobs are simply
a combination of tasks and responsibilities that
an employee must perform to receive a paycheck.
Organizational culture affects how a job is performed
within an organization. Organizational culture plays
a key role in finding and keeping great employees.
The employee who leaves your organization to go
to work for someone else doing basically the same
job for approximately the same amount of money is
the perfect example of the power of culture.
Other
examples of the power of culture include:
- Aon
Consulting recently found that 55% of workers
said they would change jobs for a pay increase
of only 20% or less; another 20% said they would
leave their company for an increase of 10% of
less.
Lou Harris & Associates, a national survey
company, recently found that 53% of US workers
expect to voluntarily leave their jobs within
the next five years.
The Fuqua Report uncovered that the top two reasons
people join a company are the opportunity for
personal growth and the company.
Noted HR expert, Jac Fitz-Enz of the Saratoga
Institute, found that the top two reasons people
leave a company are the supervisor and the culture
You
can create strong, long-lasting connections with
your employees by looking at some of the best practices
of companies well-known for their ability to recruit
and hire top talent. These best practices include:
The
WOW Factor: Know what qualities or characteristics
separate your company from your competitors. Communicate
that information frequently in the recruiting and
hiring process.
Applicant
as Customer: Know the characteristics and qualities
of your ideal applicant. Treat your applicants as
well as you treat your customers. Portray a consistent
image of your organization to your customers and
to your applicants in your advertising, marketing,
and recruiting campaigns or programs. Just as you
want your customers to continue coming back and
to refer other customers to you, you want your applicants
to keep coming back and to refer other applicants
to you.
Image
is Everything: Applicants want to work for a
company that has a strong, positive reputation within
the community and the industry. Find ways, such
as sponsoring a highly visible community event,
conference, or trade show, to create an image that
attracts top quality applicants.
Get
Real: Provide a realistic view of the job and
the organization. One of the most common reasons
employees leave a company is that the job or the
company was not what they expected when they were
hired. Provide a balanced description of the job
and the company so that the applicant (and you)
can make an informed employment decision.
For more ideas and dozens of examples of how other
world-class companies find and hire great employees,
read Finding and Keeping Great Employees (AMACOM,
1999). To find out how to order the book, click
here.
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