Want to attract and retain the best talent for your business? Follow my 8 steps for success and create a culture that will steal talent from your competitors.
Every entrepreneur wants the best talent for their business.
When it comes to employees, businesses need to make sure their talent acquisition process is seamless in order to meet company needs and propel their growth.
In any business, recruitment can be a complicated process, one with risks when trying to find the perfect employee for a specific role.
For some roles (especially more technical ones), the talent pool can be small and very competitive, therefore how do you make sure your business gets picked over someone else’s?
If you want your business to succeed, make sure to follow my 8 steps to talent acquisition and attracting the best employees below.
STEP 1 - Define Your Vision, Mission, & Values
To start, you must have a clear set of vision, mission, and values for your organisation.
Here are some examples to make it easier to understand:
• The vision of my company, Progressive, is to help as many people on this planet invest for freedom, choice, and profit.
• My personal vision is to help as many people on this planet gain better financial knowledge.
• Our values revolve around being progressive, innovative, and personal.
• Additionally, we have cultural values like resourcefulness, loyalty, ambition, and continual development.
These values must be well-articulated, written down, and easily accessible. They should serve as your North Star, guiding your decisions and actions.
And, when it comes to hiring new employees you want to make sure they align with your vision, mission and values in order to be a good fit.
STEP 2 - Create a Comprehensive Job Description
When advertising a job role there are some vital steps you need to take in order to get the best job talent:
1. Make sure that your job description starts with the company's vision, values, and mission.
2. Next, provide a detailed explanation of the role.
3. Clearly define the ideal type of person you are looking for.
4. Specify the key result areas and income-generating tasks within the role.
5. Outline the operational tasks, responsibilities, and Minimum Standards of Performance (MSOPs) for the position.
Many employers are vague when hiring and fail to clearly outline these crucial aspects.
STEP 3 - Be Clear about the Job Requirements
1. Define the job role and its responsibilities clearly.
2. Identify the type of personality profile and skills required for the role.
3. Avoid hiring people who are simply mini-versions of yourself. Be specific about the personality and skills necessary.
4. Put together an attention-grabbing job ad using reverse psychology to attract qualified candidates who genuinely align with your requirements.
5. Test different talent acquisition platforms to find the best fit for your location and industry like LinkedIn recruiter, Indeed and Reed.
6. Consider using recruitment agencies to do the work for you.
7. Consider using referrals and building a referral system to boost your recruitment efforts.
1. Conduct two interviews for junior staff and at least three for senior positions.
2. Start with a phone interview, followed by first and second face-to-face interviews.
3. Consider having someone else handle the initial screening, or even the telephone interview, to save time.
4. Design creative interview questions to get genuine responses without leading the candidates.
5. Avoid generic questions that can be easily researched online and focus on getting unique insights into their personality and passions.
6. Encourage candidates to interview you as well, and assess their level of interest and research on your company.
7. Understanding their ideal role and skills before diving into specific job details can be helpful in making informed decisions.
STEP 5 - Facilitate a Thorough Onboarding Process
Many businesses don’t realise this, but the onboarding process is one of the most important stages of acquiring top talent.
This gives them their first impression of your business and if they don’t like what they see/how they’re treated, they might leave before they’ve even properly started.
Make sure that you:
• Provide a comprehensive onboarding process for new employees, including shadowing and office tours.
• Give them an overall insight on how the business works as a whole, the history of the business, projections/expectations for the year ahead as well as how each department works with each other.
• Make sure they are given training on how to use various softwares, the filing system, technical equipment and anything they’ll need to use every day in their role.
• Familiarise them with the company's vision, values, culture, and team members.
• Make sure they have all the necessary resources and information like HR policies, annual leave allowance, sick pay information, grievance procedures and more.
• Reduce ambiguity, ensuring the employee knows what’s expected of them in their role, how they will work with others in their team and wider teams, what their targets are and who they report to/can ask questions to if they have any.
• Emphasise the perks of the job: commission, bonuses, private healthcare, private dental care, vouchers, paid maternity leave, subsidised gym memberships, free fruit etc.
• Most importantly, provide a positive employee experience and ensure that the workspace is a welcoming environment, taking them out for lunch on their first day doesn’t hurt either.
STEP 6 - Focus on Employee Development
When talent acquisition goes right and you recruit the best talent for your business, those employees want to know that they’re valued, otherwise they’ll quickly find somewhere else that does.
In order to do this make sure you:
• Offer ongoing training. Good talent has a thirst for knowledge and a hunger for learning. These employees want to be continuously improving so that they not only offer your business more value, but are also rewarded with pay rises and promotions.
• Thank and reward hard work. Employees want to feel appreciated for their hard work and commitment to your business. A simple thank you goes a long way. Buying morning coffees for your team will get noticed. But most importantly, when the business is doing well, employees also want to reap those rewards. Monthly/quarterly bonuses and yearly pay rises will not only improve employee retention but also performance as well.
STEP 7 - Monitor Probation and Offer Constructive Feedback
Probation can be a nerve wracking time for some employees, while others make it their mission to excel and impress in order to leverage their salaries/value once they’ve passed.
No matter the employee you need to make sure to do the following:
• During probation, focus on feedback and support rather than punishing mistakes.
• Offer guidance and onboarding to help probationary employees succeed.
• Overcome any obstacles with further training and shadowing of other employees.
• Extend probation if unsure about the employee's fit for the role.
STEP 8 - Conduct Exit Interviews and Seek Honest Feedback
• Have exit interviews with employees leaving to obtain valuable feedback.
• Encourage honest responses to identify areas for improvement and growth.
• Make sure the company's vision, values, and culture are consistently communicated and upheld.
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