Talent Attraction: The Business Case for Effective HR Practices
Investing in the recruitment process yields significant rewards.
Companies that prioritise their ability to hire exceptional talent consistently outperform their competitors.
According to The Boston Consulting Group, the best hiring organisations experience over three times the revenue growth compared to the poorest performers in any industry.
The Impact of Recruitment Quality
The quality of the recruitment process can significantly affect a company's bottom line. Key statistics include:
- 50% of candidates are unlikely to purchase from or recommend a company after a negative recruitment experience.
- 68% of job applicants abandon applications due to time and complexity.
- 60% of candidates report not hearing back after interviews.
- 42% of disgruntled candidates will not apply for positions at that company again.
- 22% will advise others against applying, and 9% will ask others to boycott that company.
- 40% of employers globally are struggling to fill positions (Manpower Group 2016 Talent Shortage Survey).
- 75% of organisations experienced recruitment difficulties in the last year, with 10% having trouble filling over 50% of roles (CIPD Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey 2017).
- Bad candidate experiences cost Virgin Media an estimated £4.4 million annually, leading them to prioritise candidate experience.
Challenges in Selection and Diversity
Challenges in recruitment often arise from the selection process rather than a lack of available talent. Consider these points:
- In the candidate-scarce IT market, 60% of hiring managers reported that evaluating skills is their top challenge (HackerRank 2018 Developer Skills).
- Diversity management supports profit, innovation, and competitive advantage:
- Racially and ethnically diverse teams are 35% more likely to achieve financial returns above their national industry medians.
- Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to do the same (McKinsey).
- 75% of women who lack confidence at work cite poor relationships and lack of support as contributing factors.
The Cost of Turnover and Absenteeism
The costs associated with employee turnover are substantial:
- The cost of employee turnover is estimated at 40-400% of an employee's annual salary.
- Only 15% of businesses report calculating the cost of labour turnover.
- Hard costs of turnover, including hiring and training, can reach 150% of the employee’s annual salary. Replacement costs can be 2.5 times the annual salary.
- Soft costs include lost time and reduced morale, leading to further turnover (jumpstart-hr.com/the-true-cost-of-employee-turnover).
- In contrast, great hires can motivate and inspire future talent, supporting growth and innovation.
- 1 in 4 people experience a mental health problem each year, and mental health is the number one cause of sickness absence.
- 9 out of 10 people with mental health problems report experiencing discrimination at work.
- Lonely workers think about quitting their jobs twice as often as non-lonely workers (Cigna).
Engagement, Retention, and Onboarding
Understanding what drives engagement and retention is essential:
- 90% of workers are more likely to stay at a company that acts on feedback (Achievers).
- Employees who are very satisfied with benefits are nearly 4 times more likely to be satisfied with their jobs (MetLife).
- 26% of employees feel being undervalued and underappreciated is the highest barrier to engagement.
- 54% of people are likely to leave their job due to a poor onboarding experience.
- Over 30% of new starters have had a poor onboarding experience, and 20% have left a role for this reason (Webonboarding Survey, 2017).
- 82% of employees say a lack of progression would influence their decision to leave their jobs (CareerAddict.com).
The Future of Flexible Working
The COVID pandemic has highlighted the importance of flexible working:
- Companies with flexible work arrangements saw 137% higher headcount growth (LinkedIn).
- However, over 50% of organisations lack formal processes for return-to-work and stay-at-work programs.
Important questions: How much will replacing key roles cost you and your business? What will the cost of recruitment be? Are you prepared for a surge in flexible working requests? How can you retain your best staff and increase productivity, whilst accommodating employees’ requests? Is there a valid business reason for rejecting the flexible working request? Could you consider a trial and see if any reasonable adjustment can be made? Important stats: Companies rated highly on flexible work arrangements saw 137% higher headcount growth (LinkedIn) Employees said the three most contributing factors to quitting their jobs were a lack of career advancement opportunities, low pay, and the absence of a salary pay raise (CareerAddict.com) More than 50% of organizations lack formal processes for return-to-work and stay-at-work programs (The Standard) Covid-19 has revolutionised the way people work. Many staff have been trying new work patterns, including working from home or more flexible hours. Employers and employees alike have had to adapt to reduced customer demand and travel restrictions. Whilst employers can now request staff to return to the office where it is safe to do so, we expect it is unlikely we’ll see an immediate return to business as usual. 94% of employees want to work more flexibly going forward (Working Families survey – 1000+ employees). This will help them achieve a better work-life balance, especially if they have caring commitments. Of course, some employees will be eager to get back into the workplace or to their normal hours. Others, though, are likely to use the right enshrined in the flexible working legislation to ask to keep working remotely, or on reduced hours or a different working pattern. It is important to note that any employee with more than 26 weeks’ service can make a formal request for flexible working; as an employer you must make a reasonable decision within a reasonable time frame – usually 3 months. What if you receive multiple requests all at once? You can, of course, refuse the request on a number of very specific grounds. Reasons to turn down a flexible working request include a valid business reason for doing so. Examples include, an unreasonable cost to implement the change, there will be a negative effect on the business’ ability to meet customer demand or there are planned changes to the business, for example, plans to reorganise or change the business and thinks the request will not fit with these plans However, as the COVID pandemic has demonstrated that people can work from home without negatively impacting on the business, this will be more difficult to justify so what can you do to be an employer who retains and develops talent, rather than having to recruits and replace, and deal with the invisible and visible costs of turnover. Contact us today if you would like advice; enquiries@DandHRassociates.com
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Working with Benchmark.games, we developed a gamification took to support senior auditor level recruitment and employee development, specifically for an independent accountancy practice based in London. Why? To better understand trends in behaviour and strengths among high performers in the business; it has been a fun tool to use with the current team. To support candidate selection, improving objectivity and reducing bias in the hiring process. As an additional selection and assessment tool to: o Better understand a candidate’s competencies and predict behaviour o Better understand candidate traits and hire for potential not for experience. o Enhance the candidate attraction and selection o Better qualify not disqualify applicants o To improve objectivity and reduce bias during the selection process. Conclusion: It’s tough to attract and retain great talent in a market short of critical skills. Cultural fit, together with aptitude, is essential to avoid repeat hiring and the associated replacement costs. Something different that candidates had not experienced before to stand out from the competition – very well received. We innovated: There are many examples of amazing companies who have lost competitive advantage through lack of development; the risk of not taking action can be high. Supported with a high-quality recruiting experience that better informed the business and the candidate. A learning experience for all involved which is the way it should be! The Tool: There are two sections - firstly a game assessing key competencies (such as analytical thinking, learning ability, accuracy and conformity) and secondly a short audit-related quiz. The full list of competencies being assessed in the game were: Analytical thinking Learning ability Flexibility Conformity Monotony Tolerance Speed Accuracy Get in touch if you would like to find out more; we would like to help you innovate! enquiries@dandhrassociates.com +447515559703
A recent advertorial in Sussex press detailing our work. You can download the file here Your company faces major challenges in finding the best employees to fill its key roles. Competition for talent and scarcity of the right candidates can make you dependent on recruitment agencies, but high costs and underwhelming service could leave you feeling dissatisfied. Suddenly, you find yourself further away from having the team you thought would help shape the future of your business. Dand HR Associates is a Lewes-based HR consultancy practice offering tried-and-tested HR services and recruitment expertise to providers of financial and other professional services. Our friendly and professional team can be as hands-on as required, giving you all the tools and support you need for business development and growth. In the current economic climate, businesses have never been more aware of both the financial and personal cost of a poor hire. Recruitment is an underrated and often overlooked skill in the HR sphere, given its pivotal impact on vital business issues such as performance, company culture and customer experience. Leadership teams often come to us following bad hiring and performance management experiences, having been unsuccessful in their own attempts to find talent and let down by the traditional agency routes. And when faced with sensitive and critical challenges about staff, clients value our unique beginning-to-end approach, which features three core services : We offer an outsourced HR strategy and operations service which can address your skill gaps, manage employee relation setbacks, reduce staff turnover and help to maintain a self-sustaining culture. The structured model of career coaching that we use will support individuals to recognise and use their full range of abilities to make career related decisions and to manage career-related issues. We offer a range of recruiting and employer branding services . This can include enhancing your recruitment marketing and presence on professional social media channels, proven to attract the best candidates and save thousands of pounds in recruitment agency fees, to supporting clients with urgent, critical, or sensitive hiring. We advise throughout the whole recruiting process – from redefining the need, designing interview processes and selection tools to effective onboarding – resulting in new employees who are motivated, productive, and proactive in their career paths. Many of our clients simply do not have full-time senior HR staff or access to specialist HR expertise. By working with us, they benefit from our flexible and professional HR insight – but only when it is truly needed. Our approaches are proven to make a lasting difference and to help leadership teams feel more confident, whilst making businesses more self-reliant and keeping down recruiting costs. So, if you are tired of bad hires and hiring in a high-risk way, contact us today.
There is nothing more important than recruiting the right people; this statement from an old manager empowered me as I entered the world of recruitment. Richard Branson demonstrates the importance of Talent Attraction and Management. No matter how big or successful Virgin has become, he believes talent is the number one driver of success and states there nothing is more important in business than hiring the right team. Together with Patty McCord, formerly the Chief Talent Officer at Netflix and author of ‘Powerful; Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility’ they are all saying the same thing: The best person for the job might not always be in front of you, so be strategic on how to find them and set the right culture for them to thrive! If you are interested in how people are motivated to be better, then this article and presentation by Patty McCord is a great read. Patty McCord used the following five principles to help shape Netflix’s approach to talent: Hire, Reward, and Tolerate Only Fully Formed Adults - Adultlike behaviour means talking openly about issues with your boss, your colleagues, and your subordinates. Tell the Truth About Performance - if you talk simply and honestly about performance on a regular basis, you can get good results—probably better ones than a company that grades everyone on a five-point scale. Managers Own the Job of Creating Great Teams - recruit people with the right skills, thinking to the future and the specific results and differences you want to see compared with today. Leaders Own the Job of Creating the Company Culture - Patty's foosball (table football in UK) example reminds me of a clip of Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO and co-founder of digital agency VaynerX stating ‘A lot of companies believe that having a foosball table, open seating and free pretzels mean that you have a great culture, but that doesn’t work’. Good talent managers think like business-people and innovators first, and like HR people last. https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr# Enjoy! For all of your outsourced HR needs, and advice on setting the right company culture through the recruitment process and beyond, please get in touch: david@dandhrassociates.com
Quoting Reed's 2017 survey on Job Descriptions; Why you should always state salary in your job ads https://www.reed.co.uk/recruiter-advice/why-you-should-always-state-salary-in-your-job-ads/
I read this book whilst travelling through Italy in my twenties. The book, and quote in particular, is still important to me today. My views and passion for human resources stem from my belief that there is no investment more worthwhile for an organisation than an investment in its people. There is nothing more important and worth taking care over, than recruiting the right people, and not hiring the wrong people. The importance 'of being among people with a purpose and a sense of dedication to carry out that purpose’ is an anchor for me and the business. We want to work with businesses and people who care about their people. We work best when there is a need, a sense of urgency and aim to make a real difference. We enjoy adding genuine tangible value to our clients' businesses and wellbeing and enjoy being a partner in their success. Our values can be found on our services and team page on our website which details how we work: individuality, professionalism, fun, teamwork, and creativity. And so, it begins, building a business that works with people who have a purpose. We are anti-faffing. We are pro-relationship building. We would love to hear from you to discuss how we can apply our passion for people and recruitment to enhance your business. Please get in touch: david@dandhrassociates.com
