Retention or Recruiting Which comes First?

If you want to keep an employee for the long haul then you had better have a retention strategy in place before the recruitment begins. Many companies treat retention as an afterthought, focusing all the efforts on recruiting the key employee. But if they want that person to stay more than three to six months they need to have a retention strategy in place from the start. “The recruiting strategy and the retention strategy need to be one in the same,” says Karen Droz, co-founder and president of human resources software maker Ovation Technologies. “If you desperately try to get them on board and when they get there it’s not the job they were presented with or don’t feel the love anymore, that’s a failure in the recruiting process.” One of the worst things a company can do to a new hire is the bait and switch. In that scenario the company tells them what the job will entail and the potential career trajectory, but when the person starts he or she finds the job is completely different than what they were selling. Doing that will often breed resentment and ultimately the employee will quit for greener pastures. To avoid that from happening, it’s important that the hiring company is upfront and honest about what the person’s days will be like. “You want to provide the candidate with the things people love about the job and culture as well as the challenges and demands,” says Droz. Companies need to be specific about the tasks and skills that will be utilized. Where you recruit will also have a big impact on retention. When Steven Canale, manager, global recruiting and staffing services at General Electric is recruiting college grads, his team tries to match recruits with the office they will be working in. For instance, they know it’s unlikely that someone from Miami is going to want to work at the Grand Rapids office for that long, just like someone who doesn’t want to travel all the time isn’t going to stay in a position that requires travel the majority of the time. “We might not recruit in Miami for a Chicago job,” says Canale. “Part of the recruiting process is to recruit from parts of the country that are similar to where they will be working,” he says. In addition to aligning location with the recruit, GE makes sure to provide an opportunity for the new employee to have a challenging work environment and one that fosters growth and development. “We continue to invest in them beyond the initial training and throughout the individual’s career,” says Canale. While people are motivated by money they also want a job where they can advance and stay for years to come. Because of that, companies need to have a plan in place for a particular hire in terms of their career path before they even start the interviewing process, says Kathy Harris, managing director of recruiting firm Harris Allied. Not only do they need to come up with a long term career path for the individual, but they have to articulate that plan to the candidate and be specific about what will happen to their career granted they meet the job performance goals. “They have to create a plan if they want to attract the right talent” and keep them, she says. “Most companies don’t think about retention. They go on auto pilot with some sort of process they have and they don’t deviate from it. Yet they are surprised when they lose someone they really wanted.” Once the person starts it’s a good idea to help that person get acclimated and immersed in the culture instead of letting them navigate it on their own. It also goes a long way to keep an employee if the company checks in periodically to make sure the job is living up to the person’s expectations. “Schedule catch up meetings as they go along, create a mentorship program once they’ve been there for about six months










To Become a Better Recruiter, and recruit easily, quickly and happily, Visit Hirepuss.com now to create a campaign
   
Now Why Should You Care?
By adoption, Employers/Recruiters are offered a blast in finding that essential talent required for company growth and compatible with company culture making the process enjoyable and less time consuming. Hirepuss offers direct talent-targeting, fetching out the exact candidates you need, cutting the recruiting time in less than half.


In general, we make you more money (through having the best employees), we save you more money & ultimately, we save your time.

2013 Hirepuss.Inc. All Rights Reserved.  love what you do

How To Stop Low Morale From Spreading

Low morale can be infectious and it only takes one employee to poison an entire office.

 If left unchecked, it can actually cripple a company, regardless of its size.

“The most common examples of morale issues are the hardest to discern and potentially the most dangerous,” 

says Laura T. Kerekes, chief knowledge officer at human resources consulting company, Think HR. “It’s where employees are physically present on the job but not engaged emotionally.”

Once morale becomes an issue, companies are apt to experience productivity problems that can hurt the bottom line. 

For instance, workers may take more time off, take longer to complete assignments and spend more time gossiping about the wrong doings of the company or supervisor, says Kerekes. If the situation isn’t corrected, really disgruntled employees may engage in workplace sabotage and even violence.

But a company doesn’t have to let it get that far. Taking a few proactive steps will ensure low morale doesn’t become a company-wide issue.
“If low morale is present managers have

to take a really proactive stance on it and have to identify the cause,” says Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half International. “If you don’t address it, it takes on a life of its own and sends the rumor mill into overdrive.”

According to human resources experts, good managers will always have their pulse on the morale of his or her employees and will be able to know immediately if morale is starting to dip. But knowing and doing are two different things, which means if a company wants to prevent the low morale from spreading, they have to address it head on with the employee as soon as they get a whiff of it.
“Having the emotional intelligence and savvy to know what employees are thinking and feeling, and being able to nip issues that may have a negative impact on morale in the bud before they have a chance to spread is critical to a company’s overall success,” says Kerekes. “In my experience, morale issues get out of hand when the situation is allowed to fester and leadership is ignoring or avoiding the tough conversation in the hopes that it will correct itself.”


According to McDonald, managers need to meet with their direct reports formally and informally on a regular basis both in groups and one-on-one if they want to quickly identify any changes in morale. McDonald also says managers that go out of their way to reward employees for a job well done are less likely to suffer from morale problems than those that never reward their employees. “Many times the recognition is left to the HR department. The best managers tailor it to each person and don’t leave it up to HR,” says McDonald.


While low morale can come out of nowhere, usually when it’s widespread, it’s due to changes in the company, whether it’s a new business direction or layoffs, and a lack of communication on the topic. That’s why it’s important for the company to communicate with its employees, especially if there are big changes adrift. According to Kerekes, if managers watch for signs of low morale like reduced productivity and actively communicate what they can share about what’s happening in the business, they have a good shot of isolating the morale issues and correcting it before it gets out of hand.
If the low morale is coming from one person, experts say it’s critical that someone within the company, preferably a manager or supervisor, sits down with the person to figure out what’s going on.

The complaints may be something that is easily fixed. If the manager can’t rectify it, it’s time to get HR involved. If the company bashing still doesn’t end or the person’s work suffers the best option may be to let the disgruntled employee go. “You don’t want to jump to that conclusion first,” cautions McDonald.


Even if it’s one person that’s creating all the problems, the company shouldn’t treat the incident in isolation. Yes, the manager has to speak one-on-one to the unhappy employee but they should also assume more employees are suffering from low morale. “Even when an employee says ‘we all feel the same way,’ it is incumbent on the leader to follow up with each team member to understand the issues and to problem solve for workable solutions,” says Kerekes.

Amazon Salary and Levels

5 (Free) Background Checks To Run On A Prospective Employer

For years, employers have been able to run background checks to get the low-down on prospective employees.  Now, thanks to technology-fueled-people power (of which Glassdoor.com is a fine example), the playing field is more even.  You can get the low-down on important, but heretofore difficult-to-know-about aspects of a prospective employer.
First a bit of background.
I’m assuming that your preference is to work for a Good Company — one that is a good employer, good seller, and good steward of the community and the environment. The evidence is very clear that these good guys make more money than their less worthy counterparts.  Hence, they are more likely to grow and prosper, which means your long-term prospects are better if you’re working for a Good Company, as opposed to one of the bad guys.  And, of course, working for a company that has happy customers (and employees) is a heck of a lot more pleasant than working someplace that has unhappy customers (and employees).
So, how can you run a background check on a prospective employer?  Here are five places to look:
Overall Good Company Grade

1. The Good Company Index® grades the Fortune 100, assigning grades of A to F, baseda company’s track record as an employer, seller, and steward.
Good Employer

2. Glassr.com is a fabulous source of information on whether or not a company is a good employer.  It has anonymous employee reviews, plus lots of other information on more than 130,000 companies.
Good Seller

3. wRatings.comis a great source of information on whether or not a company is a good seller.  It ranks 4,000+ companies every week based on how well they meet customer expectations.
Good Steward

4. To check a company’s environmental track record take a look at Newsweek’s Green Rankings and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index

5. To check whether a company is a good steward of communities take a careful look at their website to see if there is evidence that they are systematically using their core capabilities to contribute to the community or society.











To Become a Better Recruiter, and recruit easily, quickly and happily, Visit Hirepuss.com now to create a campaign
   
Now Why Should You Care?
By adoption, Employers/Recruiters are offered a blast in finding that essential talent required for company growth and compatible with company culture making the process enjoyable and less time consuming. Hirepuss offers direct talent-targeting, fetching out the exact candidates you need, cutting the recruiting time in less than half.


In general, we make you more money (through having the best employees), we save you more money & ultimately, we save your time.

2013 Hirepuss.Inc. All Rights Reserved.  love what you do