Recruitment with Deon Haar

Do you ever struggle with either recruitment or retention? Truth is this kind of struggle is surprisingly common. But it doesn’t have to be!

We’ve brought in recruitment and retention expert, Deon Haar, to share his wisdom with us.

A lot of industries are seeing what’s commonly being referred to as “The Great Resignation.” Of course, this is causing panic for a lot of business owners, but the fact is, people aren’t just up and leaving the workforce, rather, they’re becoming incredibly selective about the roles they apply for.

The first answer to this concern is to have a strategy in place to retain the people already on your team.

On average, 40% of employees are currently looking to change jobs in the next year. That is quite a scary number. If that number isn’t enough to shock you into using a retention strategy, I don’t know what will.

Here’s what people want from their employer, in order of most to least importance:

1. Remuneration.
2. Overall well-being.
3. Overall experience including peer relationships, levels of respect, and general engagement

Now there are two crucialthingsDeonrecommends doing to keep the people on your team active and satisfied in their roles:

• Have a chat.

Encourage all your managers to sit down with their team members one-on-one and have a meaningful conversation with them about how they’re feeling in their role. Finding out whether they’re feeling burned out, overwhelmed, or straight up fed up is crucial to helping you turn their role around and make it rewarding for them once again. Take time to learn what’s important to them, whether it’s career progression, flexible hours, or something else.

• Be flexible when you can.

Small changes in a person’s routine can make a huge difference to their work week. If one of your team members wants to start working in a hybrid setting or with more flexible hours, make it happen to the best of your ability. At the end of the day, when your team is comfortable with the give-and-take ratio of your business, they’ll be more productive and satisfied in their role.

The second half of the incredible insight that Deon brought to the table deals not just with employee retention but with recruitment.

How can you stand out from your ideal candidates in the recruitment process?

Putting a job ad online isn’t enough anymore. There are currently record vacancies on online job platforms like Seek and Indeed. Simply adding your opening to that list won’t get you very far.

Here are Deon’s 7 tips on how to make your business desirable to potential job candidates:

• Review your employer brand.

Your employer brand is how your company is perceived by people outside of it. A good way to help you identify is to ask someone outside your business to spend a few minutes online researching what people say about what it’s like to work for you.

•  Share your team outings. 

Share any type of morale-boosting or team-building activities your company does. This is a great way to show prospects that you’re a business that cares about its people and gives potential applicants a sense of what it might be like to work with you.

• Market your features benefits.

Building your employer’s brand is a marketing exercise. No one is interested in reading about all the things you do in your business and why your company is so great without being told how those features will actually benefit them if they were to join your team.

• Examine your candidate’s experience.

Take a look at what candidates see and understand about you based on your recruitment process, from start to finish. If you have a long, clunky application process, that will leave a bad taste in every applicant’s mouth–it will probably even dissuade people from completing their application. Avoid any unnecessary roadblocks and keep the process as streamlined as possible.

• Don’t skimp.

Do your research and make sure your remuneration package matches the average market expectations. If you’re way under, you won’t be a contender.

• Listen to market advice.

If you work with a recruiter, trust them to be the experts and do what they advise you to do. They speak to tons of candidates every day, so they know what the market needs.

• Try to have a bigger purpose.

Employees care about who they’re working for and they want to feel a sense of purpose at work. Regardless of what your business does, if you have the capacity to implement some sort of fundraising or charitable element, do it. Paid volunteer days are a great opportunity to make this change without breaking the bank.

Ultimately, being a good human goes a long way when you’re a business owner. Don’t skim over the small things and risk losing the team you worked so hard to build. It’s an employees market right now, and if you can do anything to show your team members and job applicants you appreciate them, do it.