Picture this: You’re hosting a marathon event, the long-distance, foot-race kind of event that covers 26 miles. You’re recruiting for experienced and non-experienced runners, along with organizers, volunteers, entertainers, cheerleaders, etc.—you need talented and skillful people to help you pull off a successful event. Now can you imagine retaining all these people without establishing the starting position for the race, the outlay of the running course and where the finish line will be?
Successful marathon-event organizers obviously plan ahead and communicate countless details. Can you imagine the chaos if organizers of the Boston Marathon or New York City Marathon failed to anticipate what it takes to lead and manage over 40,000 people including runners, spectators, volunteers and other participants? To attract world-class runners annually, they anticipate what runners need to perform and they prepare way in advance for what the public expects.
Even organizers of smaller, lesser-known marathons must instill confidence that each and every running step of their races are accounted for including the starting, middle and finish points. In order to achieve their goals, the successful organizers apply recruitment strategies similar to employee recruitment strategies that successful business organizers use.
Taking it from the running streets of Boston and New York City to the main streets of America’s businesses…
An employee recruitment strategy serves as a laser for attracting and retaining star performers. Star performers are more apt to successfully ‘run the right course’ for your business because you plotted it out ahead of time. This is why successful employers take advantage of employee recruitment strategies—to ensure they have the right people in the right jobs. This is important, because the people you add to your team(s) are the purveyors or ambassadors for you and your organization. They are the ones who will represent your company culture, and they are the ones who will take care of your customers or clients.
I’ve seen the unintended consequences of what happens when employers inadvertently hire mismatches for jobs. Unfortunately these employers end up cleaning up messes, making apologies and losing out on revenues. It happens all too often: A new hire is a great person, yet performs unsuccessfully in a role that does not match their talents, skills or passions. For instance, you may have someone with a “sales personality” assigned to a customer service role. This sales-personality type may be somewhat overzealous, and doesn’t listen well. This can be a problem because although this person is a fine individual, they are not the right person for this particular job.
To avoid such unintended consequences, here are a few tips and pointers…
Adding new employees to your organization is a major investment. First, you want to define the position, which may require a job description. These tasks aren’t simply a luxury for a big or larger company. All employers should diligently do their research in order to leverage efficiencies. In effect, you want to create a very straight-forward career path for this position. So define opportunities and refine job goals.
When I speak to small or medium-sized businesses, they typically tell me that they do not have the resources to do this kind of research. My response is, “If you’re going to add people to your company, you’ve got to find the resources to do that first.”
Again, adding employees is an investment so it should have its own line item. The good news is—it can be done inexpensively. For instance, software programs are available to help you do that. There are even state-run institutions of higher learning, such as technical centers, that can help you do that. Then, there are local and national human resource associations; and, of course, if you’re a client of a professional employer organization (PEO), you have highly knowledgeable and certified professionals and resources available to you.
Your business can reap many rewards or benefits from having a comprehensive employee recruitment strategy, as it will help you:
- Attract the right people with the right skills, experiences, talents, etc.
- Hire the right people for the right jobs.
- Reduce employee turnover costs, which also reduces service disruptions
- Maintain a consistent process that helps minimize liability.
- Find time for coaching engaged and productive employees (instead of time spent on finding and interviewing applicants to replace employees lost to high turnover rates).
- Strengthen your foundation for sustaining high employee morale, which is especially important since employees drive desired business outcomes.
- Provide a mechanism for identifying future talent needs.
The ebb and flow of a business can be as difficult and challenging as running or organizing a marathon race. Employee recruitment strategies can help employers stay competitive for the tough races ahead.
Bryan Wempen is Manager of Strategic Alliances for PeopleClues. During the past 15 years, Bryan has become a nationally respected authority on strategic staffing operations.