The competitive nature of recruitment raises many challenges for hirers and missing out on a new hire or losing valued team members for any reason can not only cause setbacks but frustration surrounding the entirety of the lengthy recruitment process.
Good recruitment and staff retention are centred around effective and honest communication. We look at how hirers can limit staff attrition and win over new hires by focusing on communication.
Shared values and direction
Western culture shows a trend in the rise of individualistic attitudes, which brings with it many positives: ambitious, self-sufficient and gratifying staff. However, there are drawbacks- notably, it raises a challenge for businesses when staff are increasingly less gratified by group achievements, particularly when our industry relies on collaborative work more than many.
Shared values and mission statements are often considered a tick-box exercise by HR departments, that could get tweaked every 5 or 10 years, are neglected by team members and are not fully used to their advantage.
The often-unconsidered benefits of key values and mission statements come when they are well communicated internally and externally and are supported by management level and higher. As they become embedded into the culture of an organisation they acquire power to influence business decisions, offer direction and vision, and those outside of the decision-making processes can understand the rationale behind business decisions.
Strategy and objectives
This point shares the same principles as the previous. If your business is strategically aiming to achieve goals, how well are these being communicated to all persons in the business and how well are they pulling in the same direction?
This doesn’t mean a quick announcement, but constant reinforcing and making sure everyone is aware of strategy ensures you are streamlined to get where you’re heading, as quickly as possible.
Inter-functional barriers
Question communication between functions in the business. Are there barriers present? Is there unnecessarily restricted information? Is it accepted and encouraged for HR & Accounts to speak directly with Sales, Marketing, Design or Technical? Or, is communication required to flow through management? If so, ask: is this necessary and what value is it adding to your business?
Not only will this allow for accelerated communication, but increased interconnectedness of all functions within the business, sets a great foundation for collaborative group working and assurance that values, objectives and direction of all functions are aligned.
Creating environments that facilitate safe communication
As new market forces emerge, budgets tighten, and technology takes more precedent- the industry requires new and better solutions to everyday problems in order to remain competitive and cutting-edge. The need to innovate and create is paramount!
The built environment is dependant on expressive, creatively-skilled minds and the ideas that they bear. But also an environment that churns and critiques ideas, especially at the inception of new projects.
The risk of being perceived as unintelligent for putting forward new ideas that challenge common practice and trialled methods can be enough to kill innovation. Those beneath management are most at risk of silencing themselves, which can largely slow down diversity within idea-generation.
A controlled forum-style environment that encourages, supports, entertains, and safely critiques ideas in all their forms- requires an investment of time to build the required trust, but creates an effective tool for businesses.
Communicating in interviews
At its’ core level, an interview is a conversational exchange which requires both parties to be mutually persuasive. But faced with any form of persuasion, there is a tendency to be vigilant of exaggeration and credibility, raising the importance of clear and transparent communication.
For messages to be most impactful, business values, culture and style should not only be verbally communicated, but should be evident within the entire interview process- actions speak louder than words.
The plethora of interview-styles needs to be considered in relation to the unintended messages they communicate. At one end of the scale, rigid interviews with assessments can communicate a lack of trust, compared with more relaxed approaches. Alternatively, informal interviews could communicate a lack of professionalism and structured processes.
If a candidate asked multiple members of your team a question such as “how does this business show its employees they’re appreciated?”, would the answers be improvised by the interviewer or could you be confident that each interviewer could communicate a similar message?
Not only this, but should the new hire join, how well does their experience as a new employee align with the way the business was sold to them? Will your workplace substantiate the claims you made in the interview, if not, be aware the message this communicates too!
Interested in bespoke advice on how your business can attract and retain staff? Arrange a chat with one of our specialist consultants!
Tags: Advice Thoughts
