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Executive Recruitment Articles: Staff Retention Starts with an Effective Recruitment Process - Dudley Child Executive Recruitment

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Executive Recruitment Articles: Staff Retention Starts with an Effective Recruitment Process

Human capital is widely perceived to be the most valuable asset any business can hope to attain. The due diligence process for mergers, acquisitions and business valuations looks closely at the management capabilities of a business to determine the future sustainability and validity of a company and its business objectives. Therefore, the retention of your team’s best people should be high on the list of priorities for any manager. Naturally a certain level of churn in your staff is healthy for a business and allows it to diversify its capabilities bringing in fresh ideas and direction, whilst removing any under performers and stagnant team members. The cost of high attrition figures can be inordinate. Initially there is the cost of managing an individual out of the business, and quite often a role will be left empty until the successful replacement starts with the business, this consequently stretches other individuals who pick up aspects of the incumbent’s role, distilling the value that can be added to your customers. The next cost to consider is that of recruiting. Even if you opt for an alternative to using a recruitment organisation there is the time required to conduct interviews, review CV’s, advertise, network etc. Once you have made an offer and had it accepted, the next step is bringing that individual on board which has its own associated cost, all the while there is always an element of risk until your new acquisition is in the business day one. Research suggests that the cost of attrition is equal to one and a half times the departing employee’s salary.

As you can see, there are many factors to consider when recruiting new people into your business and this detracts from the service that can be provided to both internal and external customers whilst also costing a significant figure, not to mention the intangible cost of the effects of lowered employee morale and motivation, which can happen when you lose key players. So, why do people leave their jobs?

In a recent survey conducted by Dudley Child Executive Recruitment Ltd on 100 senior/mid managers, the following reasons were cited for leaving their job.
Redundancy – 58%
Career Progression – 19%
Instability in job function – 12%
Not being challenged – 7%
Compromise agreement – 4%

Clearly we are in the midst of recession and the key drivers for most individuals are now reaching the lower end of the Maslow scales and are centred around their basic needs and security. However it is clear to see that even in uncertain times there are a number of individuals that would leave their current organisations either because it is not giving them what they want or because of friction amongst peers and superiors. Ina recent article written by Paul Quinn and Alison Aprhys of Quitessential Marketing Consultancy, there were 10 indicators for people quitting their job. A majority of these were aligned to poor management; however a number of reasons cited included factors such as lack of empowerment, lack of challenge and change in employee’s personal situation.
So how can the recruitment process start to identify these issues?

When recruiting you must consider a number of factors that are not typically linked to recruitment, it is important to take into account your entire organisation and how the incoming individual will interact with all the functions, customers and management. One of the key elements of any interview process should be investigation into motivations and aspirations. This can tell a potential employer a vast amount about how the individual thinks, how they will function in their business, their key values, how they will interact with peers and customers and most importantly will act as an indicator to the longevity of employment in the business. For example, if an individual has aspirations to move up quickly through the ranks in your organisation but the business corporate objectives do not facilitate such dynamic career progression there is a good chance that that individual will leave once they reach their ‘comfort zone’. Another example to illustrate the point is an individual that is motivated by money will not stay in a position long that offers no overtime, bonus or commission. The key to making assessment in investigating these areas is aligning an individual to the short, mid and long terms goals and objectives. Make sure you take the long term view as well as considering the short term benefits of having that person in place. This may seem like a basic part of your recruitment process but these mistakes are rife.

You must also consider an individuals current and historic personal situation. Do they commit to long term aspects of their life i.e. mortgages, marriage, children etc. Do they make regular moves either in home or job? Do they manage their personal life effectively? Have they successfully completed courses or assignments that they undertook? What other responsibilities do they have in life?

All the above factors should assist you in building a profile of how that individual thinks and behaves and should give you an expectation of how long they will stay with you and your organisation.  Clearly the above factors are taken into consideration when recruiting; the recruiting manager must also then manage the individual effectively, which in theory is relatively straight forward. Understanding your people and communicating effectively should be seen as being the key to successful staff retention after that point, which is easier said than done.  

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