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Hiring and retaining quality teams is one of the most pressing issues facing a business today. According to an study with 17,000 employees, millennials are the largest group to face layoffs as a result of the market downturn, while Gen Z leads the movement in the Great Surrender. For companies retaining their workforce, employee engagement remains a long-standing problem that needs to be addressed, with only 34% of employees feel involved at work.
As the CEO of a recruiting service, I have seen firsthand how several factors determine whether or not companies achieve sustainable growth, supported by the right human capital. Faced with these issues during the pandemic, my company was able to triple our revenue, retain engaged staff and hire more divisions by addressing these key components that ensure you have the right team and culture. adopts and retains.
Here are the seven areas to prioritize to scale with the right team.
Related: 3 Prudent Hiring Practices to Acquire the Best Talent
Contents
1. Transparency
In times of turmoil, your team may be nervous. Involve your team in your decisions and let them know what to expect to maintain employee engagement. During the Covid lockdown, my partner and I told the team exactly what we were thinking and what was coming. We were very honest that we didn’t know what to expect as none of us had ever faced a pandemic like Covid,
We told them, “You are in good hands. We are not panicking. Not only will we survive this, but we will prosper, and we have a specific plan to do that.” This reassured our team as they knew they were in good hands.
2. Proactive Engagement
During a volatile market, many companies may be tempted to take over a business, quality or not. But recruitment, especially contingent search, is never about the number of vacancies, but rather about the effort and quality of the searches. That’s why we had very honest meetings with our customers to see if they really needed us or not. For those who weren’t sure, we went ahead and gave them space; our business shrunk by 80%. In doing so, we let the team focus only on the customers we had and provided them with the white glove service they needed.
3. Increase goodwill
Increase goodwill and trust with your customers and staff in uncertain times. For example, don’t lay off staff, stop paying suppliers, delay rent payments, and don’t cut benefits. Instead, maintain integrity, pay your staff salaries and bonuses on time, and pay your partners, suppliers and rent.
At my company, certain people even got promotions and pay increases, which kept morale and confidence high and sales were close to zero. As a result, my co-founder and I had to go four months without a salary. As Simon Sinek says, “Great leaders…understand that the real cost of leadership privilege comes at the cost of self-interest.”
4. Adaptive Risks
Studies show that 55% of workers in America plan to look for new jobs. Attract top talent by providing the right qualities that employees are looking for and attract them to your company or encourage them to stay.
In response to the market uncertainty of the pandemic, we went on the offensive. After four months of squatting, we decided to hire a whole new group of recruiters and account managers and let them become market masters in specific technologies. We have tripled our revenue in one year by planning to meet the upcoming pent-up demand and focusing on the long-term view of the growth trajectory for the coming years.
5. Tenancy law
Too many companies use the “post and pray” method to hire people, which leads to misalignment. The price of a bad rent is up at least 30% of the employee’s first annual income. In addition to the monetary cost, poor hiring can lead to cultural disruptions, lost customers, inefficiencies in processes, and possibly the layoff of great employees you don’t want to lose.
To prepare our teams for success, we streamlined our interview and onboarding process to make hiring more consistent and aligned with our vision, mission and values. We also hired groups of three new employees at a time to get more economies of scale with training time.
Related: 5 Best Practices to Proactively Find and Recruit High Potential Talent
6. Culture is the key
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 47 million Americans have quit their jobs, marking a huge departure from the workforce. A positive team culture is easy to nurture when the economy is booming and businesses are growing, but how do you sustain it in tough times so your team stays engaged?
Even during the market downturn, my company continued to invest in having fun. We went wine tasting and karting. We stopped at a local casino and relaxed over a picnic. We had weekly happy hours and catered lunches and game nights. We laughed, took care of each other and stayed positive. This instilled confidence in the entire team and helped us remain resilient. By focusing on the right culture, you can keep your teams engaged and connected with each other and your business. We were able to weather the storm, stay together and scale during the slump in 2021 and 2022.
7. Preserve and Maintain
Many companies, a recent example of this being Coinbase, rent at a rate that exceeds the needs of their business and then let them go when they no longer need them. Instead, think long term before you get rid of good people just because they are having a hard time or because you don’t need them right now. Keep a year of operating expenses so you too can weather storms and not have to make short-term decisions based only on current needs.
Focus on the human element and see your employees as people, not assets that you can buy, sell and trade. This builds loyalty and trust on both sides. If you have good people, you should do everything you can to keep them. It will pay off for everyone in the long run.
In the current economic climate, companies must focus on meeting the needs of their workforce, attracting top-quality human capital and retaining these employees in a downturn in the market. As a result, the company remains healthy and grows sustainably every year.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.