The search for top talent is always a priority for managers trying to harness a capable and robust workforce. However, the effort to retain talent once hired is just as critical. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3 million Americans quit their job every month; other studies indicate that roughly 30% of all new hires quit before getting to the half-year mark.

This trend can be the leaking bucket in your company. It paralyzes your business’ core functions, and the process of hiring and training a replacement can be a costly one.

But how do you retain your mission-critical employees in such a highly competitive job market? In this article, we’ll explore seven employee retention strategies to help you maintain a talented workforce years on end and ultimately drive your business growth.

 

1. Get it Right from the Start

Some estimate that as much as 80% of employee turnover is due to poor hiring decisions. It’s vital to realize that retention starts from the beginning of the hiring process, from the application and screening to choosing the ideal candidates. Identify what skill sets, values, and experiences you want to emphasize in your company, and then look out for those in your candidates.

This approach allows you to hire people who fit your company’s expectations and whose expectations you can fulfill. A team that resonates with your company’s culture is more likely to stay and contribute, thus leading to increased productivity.

Working with a staffing and talent firm that can evaluate your company’s goals and staffing needs is also an excellent option to onboard the ideal candidates for your company.

 

2. Invest in Employees Professional Development

Helping your team achieve their long and short-term goals is one of the most crucial employee retention strategies. A significant percentage of employees report that their job satisfaction is tied to having a clear path for career growth.

Think of investing in your employees as a long game; it links their career development goals to your company, which prompts them to say. The longer they stay, the more productive they become, which ensures your return on investment.

Consider designing in-house training and mentorship programs to foster professional development. You may also want to adopt other methods such as paying for your employees to attend conferences and workshops, offering tuition reimbursements, and promoting from within whenever possible.

 

3. Provide and Receive Feedback

Your employees need feedback to do their best at work and focus on areas of improvement. Frequent positive feedback motivates your workforce and gives them the determination to be their best. Constructive criticism is equally essential to rectify an issue that may otherwise escalate into more significant problems for your business.

On the flip side, employees are also seeking an opportunity to give you feedback. Your team may disengage if they feel you’re not open to their thoughts or ideas. It’s essential to create a culture of communication where your staff feel comfortable and safe to share their feedback with you or the management.

Keeping lines of communication open is critical to employee retention. Two-way communication builds trust and encourages transparency.

 

4. Engage Your Employees

Modern-day employees care about fulfillment and making a difference as much as they care about paying the bills. New staff members want to contribute towards positive change in the company or the community and feel you hired them for a reason.

As such, it is important to give your members stimulating assignments and varied tasks, involve them in decision making, and make conscious efforts to cultivate inclusion in your company.

Philanthropic programs, social programs to facilitate bonding amongst coworkers, and unity around a shared vision for the company nurture inclusivity and give employees a sense of meaning and belonging.

 

5. Out of the Box Benefits

Offering your employees competitive wages and benefits is important, but it is not always about money. While your team members need the financial security of a good salary, health, and retirement benefits, these are the bare minimum when it comes to employee attraction and retention.

Look beyond these staples and evaluate what will truly serve the needs of your employees. For instance, flexible work schedules, stock options, and other financial incentives like gym memberships, fitness training, child care, and sabbaticals are popular benefits that employers use to enhance retention.

Another alternative is to solicit your teams’ feedback to understand the benefits that would ideally enhance their lives and wellbeing. You may also want to allow for tailored benefit options to account for employee demographics in your team. For example, boomers and millennials will be motivated by different benefit packages.

 

6. Encourage a Healthy Work-life Balance

All the benefits in the world cannot compensate for burnout and chronic overwhelm. Overworking your team will cause them to lose focus and possibly give up on your important projects. In contrast, when you don’t overwork your employees, they will have the energy to work more productively. Perform regular top-down evaluations on your workforce to ensure that no member of your team is getting overworked.

Encourage all levels of your company to prioritize healthy workloads that strike a balance between work and personal life. Ensure that managers are modeling a good example so that other employees feel comfortable to adopt a work-life balance.

 

7. Understand What Makes Your Employees Stay

More and more companies are adding stay interviews to their employee retention toolkit. These are typically discussions with employees to understand why an employee wants to work for your company and what it will take to keep them.

Gaining insight into why your team would want to stay is a significant metric to help you identify which policies best contribute to your employee retention strategy as well as highlight areas of improvement. Be open to the feedback you get and use it to streamline your internal policies.

 

Keeping Your Workforce

Are you looking to build a dynamic workforce that will stay its course and guarantee your ROI? Look no further. Dover Staffing, Inc is an award-winning staffing solutions company in Atlanta, GA. We have rendered superior talent and staffing services to build our name as a dependable staffing company over the years.

For more information on staffing and employee retention, feel free to contact us today, and we will be more than willing to assist.

 

Image credits: Photo by August de Richelieu from Pexels

Working with staffing and talent firms gives you a host of advantages and flexibility in the hiring process. From cutting costs to finding experts in your niche, a staffing agency can make a difference in your company’s success and growth. Not to mention your business can save more time and increase productivity by eliminating weeks of interviews and acquiring additional help (temporary or permanent) to assist with your existing staff’s workload.

For all of these reasons, it’s important to establish a successful partnership with the right company to maximize your opportunities and minimize risk. In this article, we’ll share 5 key tips to help you achieve a successful partnership with your staffing and talent firm.

 

1. Have a Thorough Understanding of Your Staffing Plan (or Create One)

Before choosing the right company for you, you should have a good understanding of your staffing plan and goals to communicate with the chosen firm. Open communication is an important part of a business relationship, so the better you understand your goals, the better you can assess whether the company in question can meet those expectations.

We recommend discussing some of these key features with your staffing firm:

  1. Goals -What is your endgame? Present what your desired outcome is along with an outline that aligns with your endgame. This way the firm can confidently assist you in achieving your goals.
  2. Company Culture -In order for a staffing firm to connect you with the best prospects, they will need to understand your workplace values, attitudes, practices, and more. The more you share, the more successful the firm will be in supplying the right staff.
  3. Expertise -While it might seem obvious, it is essential to note the importance of communicating exactly what you require so you can retain top talent.

 

2. Choose a Company That Suits You

Choosing the right company could be considered a “no-brainer,” but it’s crucial to the success of your partnership. For obvious reasons, if the agency isn’t the right fit, it can be more challenging to meet your expectations. The point of seeking out a staffing agency is to obtain top-notch talent in your industry, so it is vital that you also find a company known for following good business practices with a reputation for providing nothing but the best.

Some important components to consider:

  • Compatibility
  • Reliability
  • Credibility and track record
  • Verified credentials

You’ll also want to make sure all of your bases are covered when it comes to liability by ensuring you are working with a firm that carries the appropriate insurance policies, like workers’ comp and general liability. Don’t settle for just any firm –find the one that allows you to focus your attention on growth and profits while they handle your hiring needs.

 

3. Be Open and Honest About Your Staffing Needs

Another important key to a successful partnership is to be open and honest about your staffing needs right off the bat. Take as much time as you need to communicate clearly so your staffing firm has all the necessary information to properly assist you.

The goal of a staffing agency is to provide you with employees that best fit your business, but they won’t be able to if you’re not straightforward. Explain what you’re looking for in an employee including how many individuals you are seeking, skills, pay rate, timeline, personality, and any other important details you can think of.

 

4. Be Aware of Your Relationship and Responsibilities

Being aware of your relationship and responsibilities –especially in legal aspects –is incredibly important to the success of your partnership with your staffing and talent firm. The more you understand about the partnership you’re getting into, the less risk involved. Your legal responsibility is different than the typical contract between employee-employer hiring. Discussing the differences allows you to enter into a successful partnership with a complete understanding of what that entails.

There are employee safety/health requirements, legal rights, and obligations aligned with both parties when dealing with co-employment, and your success will be impacted by your ability to navigate these issues.

 

5. Keep in Good Standing

It isn’t an easy process to find the right staffing agency out of the many options available to your business. So, when you find a company worth working with, keeping your relationship in good standing is also important. A long-term successful partnership ensures that the staffing agency meets your evolving needs, and you are provided with the custom and qualified talent you need.

Some advantages of a long-term partnership over short-term include:

  • The company has a firm understanding of your wants, needs, and expectations.
  • Reliability and trust are built over time with you directly, as opposed to relying on outside reviews and sources.
  • You’ll spend less time covering the basics and more time on important matters that need your undivided attention.

 

How a Staffing Agency Can Meet Your Needs

A staffing agency is a perfect place to try new hires and find the right employee for your business. It can be great for business fluctuations and eliminating the challenge of meeting high-volume workloads that are only temporary. Dover Staffing allows your business to focus on its growth and success instead of the headaches of hiring and maintaining staffing requirements. Contact us to learn more about how Dover Staffing can help your company meet its staffing needs.

Significant shifts in the job market and business landscape are ushering in a new era of change, complexity, and opportunities for companies as they seek to acquire top talent. The advent of the internet of things (IoT) and related technology have helped drive these shifts, up-ending business models, processes, and strategies along the way.

A survey by Oxford economics has cited globalization, advances in technology, changes in labor demographics, competition, and customer needs as the primary factors that will influence organizations’ talent requirements in the years to come. Have a look at our highlights of the most significant trends in the recruitment and talent search process in 2021 and beyond.

 

1. AI and Automation in the Recruitment Process

Most lists of recruitment trends these days will include something about artificial intelligence. The use of AI in the recruitment processes has gained momentum, and task automation is now a critical tool for any recruitment team.

Artificial intelligence has relieved recruiters of some of the most time-consuming and mundane tasks, allowing you to focus on more important actions and initiatives. And technology could take on an even greater role in the coming years. Firms are increasingly using AI to source and screen candidates as well as schedule interviews. Businesses that fail to adopt these recruitment automation tools are likely to lose candidates to more tech-oriented competitors.

While AI may not currently handle the actual interviewing of candidates, it has rendered the screening process faster and easier. Skills testing and AI-driven interviews may just prove to be the initial steps towards a more fully automated recruitment process.

Some benefits of AI in the recruitment process include:

  • Saves time
  • Improves the quality of talent hired
  • Streamlines screening

 

2. Workplace Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity entails building a labor force that comprises people with different levels and types of talent, capabilities, religion, age, gender, and race. It’s well established that diverse teams perform better, so it’s no surprise that there is a raising need for employers to embrace inclusion in their hiring and business practices.

Some of the benefits of workplace diversity include multiple perspectives on business matters and projects, better employee engagement, enhanced team creativity, and faster problem-solving. Employers are working on policies that eliminate bias at all organizational levels and are phasing out outdated requirements that hindered workplace diversity.

Likewise, the best staffing agencies are renewing their efforts to provide adequate focus for underrepresented demographics, ensuring all candidates can attain equal opportunity for employment.

 

3. Creation and Maintenance of Talent Pools

The competitive talent market has sent businesses scrambling for every likely source to address the shortage of qualified skills. Traditional recruitment strategies have been primarily focused on external hiring. However, soaring skills deficits are now prompting recruiters to search internally as well, giving rise to the creation of talent pools.

Talent pools offer organizations a solid and effective alternative to address their talent needs. With competitors dangling irresistible offers to court potential candidates, businesses need to stay ahead or risk losing their best staff and missing out on the best talent in the market.

Job promotions can be a good way to foster loyalty within your current workforce, while offering competitive compensation and benefits packages will turn the heads of the most skilled candidates in the market. Consider also creating a database of applicants who fell slightly short for previously advertised positions. You can then extend invitations to them in the event you scale operations or they are a good fit for another opportunity.

 

4. Data-Driven Recruitment and HR Analytics

The use of data-driven metrics is quickly gaining momentum in today’s recruitment landscape. This relatively new and significantly superior recruitment strategy involves making hiring plans and decisions based on data and scientific methods. Companies
will increasingly depend on logic-driven analytics to better understand the supply and demand for talent in the coming years.

Under the data-driven approach, recruitment teams can identify the most pressing organizational issues and use analytics to describe these issues as well as evaluate likely outcomes. Best practices for data-driven recruitment entail the consistent use of data analysis to get insights, assess alternatives, and monitor progress.

Data analysis is the key to workforce planning. It will help you be forward-looking and proactive so that you can visualize and anticipate where your business is heading and what kind of talent you will need moving forward.

 

5. Employer Branding

Two-thirds of job seekers consider a prospective employer’s brand before applying. Many factors contribute to making a great employer brand, and employee perceptions about what is most valuable in a prospective employer’s brand are continually evolving.

Today’s employees are looking beyond corporate prestige, monetary incentives, and perks to also take into account business values, culture, and alignment to ethics. Most candidates want to work for a company that contributes positively to the world.

Your employer brand entails every touchpoint a prospective candidate has with your organization. Your social media presence, careers site, the recommendation of current employees, and reviews of your company significantly influence how your organization is perceived.

As a result, leading organizations are shifting from a more generic employer brand to a concerted and strategic effort at attaining brand resonance. This means listening with empathy to candidates, job seekers, and employees to craft a brand proposition that attracts the skill and talent you want.

 

6. The Proactive Recruiter

The role of a recruiter continues to be more dynamic and diverse year in year out. The talent market is highly competitive, and recruiters must shift to proactive hiring methods to thrive.

Efficient technological tools, in-depth knowledge of the job market, and effective recruitment strategies will help you accelerate and streamline your hiring workflow.

 

Who We Are

DoverStaffing is a full-service staffing solutions company rendering superior staffing services for more than two decades. We are recruitment moguls and leverage care and integrity to bring you top professionals to fill your company’s skills gap. We staff companies and businesses across all sectors, from corporate to medical and everything in between. Feel free to contact us today for more information and expert advice on emerging recruitment trends!

When sourcing training, companies generally have three options: e-Learning, public scheduled courses, and in-house training. The latter has gained a lot of momentum in recent years as organizations turn to internal training methods to enhance their employees’ skills.

At the same time, this benefit can be supercharged when it is available from a leading staffing and talent partner. Here are some of the benefits of working with a staffing firm that maintains its own in-house training department or division, and why companies who partner with hybrid staffing-training firms are better positioned for success.

 

Reason #1: Serving customers more effectively

Well-trained employees will have the skills they need to serve your clients better. In addition, these skills are developed through both candidate selection and employee training. Wouldn’t it be amazing if your talent was both screened for key skills and trained to maximize the effectiveness of those skills? A staffing firm with in-house training can provide this double-benefit to your organization.

Because the training is close to your operations and optimized for your talent selection process, you won’t have to struggle to teach your new employees basic skills since your staffing partner’s training division is always on hand to spot those needs and supply the necessary instruction. As a result, new employees become more useful and valuable more quickly (and in some cases, they arrive with far stronger skills to boot).

Staffing firms with in-house training divisions also help both new and existing employees keep abreast of the workplace’s current health and safety skills. According to OSHA requirements, the responsibility for health and safety training lies in employers’ and organizations’ hands. Since in many cases personnel come through and are partially managed by your staffing partner, knowing that your staffing partner can also train in these areas can significantly boost your peace-of-mind.

 

Reason #2: Less expenditure on traveling

A staffing partner who offers in-house training to your organization reduces the cost of traveling considerably because your employees don’t have to leave the workplace to learn and, in fact, they can even learn prior to starting with you if they participate in a pre-employment training program designed specifically around your requirements. The rising cost of fuel only adds to the expense of traveling for training. And if your employees use company vehicles to commute to the training center, costs could mount still higher when you account for fuel, parking, tolls, and maintenance.

 

Reason #3: Customize training to your company

A staffing partner who offers in-house training is also more efficient when it comes to the actual instruction. This is because the courses are tailored to meet the specific needs of your company. Real-life examples involving your firm’s situation come in handy for helping employees grasp the content more easily, and the staffing company’s leaders are already fully conversant with your talent requirements since they’re searching every day for new individuals who meet those qualifications.

Public scheduled courses and traditional outsourced training may not be as effective because they use generic examples to drive the point home. They don’t have the advantage of being more specific because they serve trainees from many different organizations, or even if they include just your team, they rely on a generic curriculum and instructors who have no direct experience with your company. A staffing and talent partner, on the other hand, is ideally positioned to provide the best fit.

 

Reason #4: More focused training

Running a tailored training program for a single trainee cohort or group of new hires allows for focus on the specific skills and subjects relevant to your firm. Since the staffing partner is building your talent profile in partnership with you, they can not only deliver ideal training suited to your requirements –they are also perfectly prepared to actually recommend, create and configure that training so you don’t have to.

 

Reason #5: Promotes team building

Staffing partners offering their own in-house training also provide a good opportunity for team building activities built around your business. This is because the training brings together employees from different departments and levels for training. They can then interact, get to know each other better, share ideas, and learn how to collaborate better with each other.

The training also creates a friendly atmosphere necessary for team building. In this environment, employees may also get the opportunity to understand each other’s roles in the organization and boost staff morale. A friendly working environment sets the stage for better productivity.

 

Reason #6: More convenient while also being more flexible

Companies who work with a hybrid staffing/training partner benefit from all of the convenience of precise, in-house training without the demands, costs and challenges of building an in-house training infrastructure. In addition, it’s often best in business to let the subject-matter experts drive new initiatives in each area of the enterprise. With that in mind, who better to build and manage your training operation than the people who you already trust to find and grow your future talent? Your staffing partner is a human capital expert –this is their subject-matter expertise. Take advantage of that and you gain a true win-win.

 

Why partnering with a staffing company that offers its own in-house training operation puts you ahead

Building a talent pipeline that can continue to grow and scale with your business requires many essential components. These include a powerful human capital strategy, highly effective talent searching and acquisition, and integrated and ongoing training and development. By partnering with a staffing firm that can offer two or even three of these components in one organization, you gain the expertise of the human capital experts, plus the firsthand experience and knowledge of the team that is already finding your future workforce. And that’s a true win-win!

If you need more information or help concerning building the right staffing and training program for your enterprise, contact us today.