Retention IS Recruiting – and vice versa!
A recent headline announced companies are shifting focus from recruiting to retention in 2023. To me, these two things are actually very similar, and I believe doing something in one area helps the other. At its purest level, if you can keep the people you already have, then recruitment isn’t necessary. And if you recruit employees and show them a path to grow with the organization, they will stay, reducing future recruitment pressures.
Look at the following levers to keep your existing people and help recruit new ones:
Conduct stay interviews: Talk with your top performers and find out what keeps them there – and what more you can do to keep them going forward.
This helps you know the advantages to highlight in job postings and showcase on your career pages.
Revamp application process: Audit your processes for internal and external candidates. Are you making it hard for current employees to move around the organization? Is it easy for them to show interest and raise their hand for lateral and promotion opportunities? Are they given a preferential look as internal candidates?
Any change you make to simplify and ease the application processes for internal employees can be applied to external candidates as well.
Relook and modernize benefits: Use information from stay interviews and focus groups to identify opportunities to change some traditional benefits to be more modern. Examples include equal parental leave for same-sex couples who adopt, bereavement leave for all those considered family for an individual (vs. the traditional list), and flexible holidays to account for those who may celebrate holidays like Kwanzaa or Passover.
All of these things will ensure your organization is seen as inclusive and can be marketed as differentiators to candidates.
Invest in your front-line supervisors and managers: These are the most influential people for retention. Giving them the tools they need to be excellent leaders will help keep your employees.
Leadership skills are evident in interviews, and candidates will want to work there too. Bonus: Invite staff to talk to candidates about their experiences working with the leader to close the deal.
Draw clear career paths: Show your internal employees options of where they can go from their current role and what it takes to get there (additional education, experiences, accomplishments, etc.).
Clear development paths are also great for recruiters to use when talking to candidates about where a role can lead.
Instead of taking an either/or approach to retention or recruiting, start this year with “and” focus on things that will drive both recruitment and retention.