You may already be aware of the labour shortage that the UK is currently facing. Many businesses are struggling to recruit, and others are struggling to retain staff. Here are our top tips for recruiting and retaining employees while the labour shortage continues.
Recruiting
1. Be creative when recruiting
Job seekers will spend hours, if not days reading through job descriptions, so it’s important to ensure that yours stand out from the crowd. Be sure to take the time to create a job listing that grabs attention and sheds light on why your company is a great one to work for whilst remaining professional.
Ensure that you clearly state the full job description and each of the employee benefits that you offer, and always consider being transparent about the salary that is being offered. Often job seekers will avoid applying for roles in which they are unaware of what the pay may be.
2. Evaluate your education requirements
It’s needless for us to say that education is important. But as is relevant work experience and your company’s willingness to train employees. It is often worth re-considering education requirements where you can, as long as this can be made up with relevant work experience. Sometimes (but not always), someone who has a plethora of work experience can be just as valuable as someone with a high level of education.
3. Re-evaluate salaries and benefits
There are currently a vast number of job opportunities available in the UK, and salaries often hold a lot of sway over potential employees. This is even more prevalent now during the cost of living crisis, therefore higher pay expectations are a growing trend.
Is your company able to offer higher salaries and additional benefits? These can include retention bonuses, private health care, flexible working arrangements, company outings and more. If you can offer any of these things, you should certainly include them in your job listings.
Retaining
1. A great company culture
Offering a happy and diverse working environment is a great way to retain employees. Take time to evaluate and aim to increase diversity amongst your employees by welcoming individuals of different ages, genders, ethnicities and life experiences whilst simultaneously fostering acceptance.
By spending time building a supportive work culture, you will in turn increase employee relationships, heighten productivity and enhance employee satisfaction.
Employees who show that they care are more likely to retain their staff.
2. Learn to be flexible
Flexible working has become increasingly popular since the Coronavirus pandemic, with many companies offering hybrid working arrangements. This has made many workers re-assess their work-to-life balance, driving many people to seek new working options such as remote and hybrid.
If an employee comes with a request for working more flexibly, or for working from home, take the time to listen. Even if you cannot accommodate what they are asking for, it is important that each of your team members feels like they are being heard. If you do have to turn down such requests, take the time to explain why.
With this in mind, if a job can be done remotely, you could consider offering this as a perk, even if this is just a few days a week. This will then allow you to retain more members of your team as well as widen your talent pool when hiring.
3. Offer an abundance of training and growth opportunities
Keen learners will always look for roles which offer growth and development opportunities. Often they want to work for employers that will offer the right training that will enable them to grow within a company.
As well as offering the correct training, it is also important to recognise achievements. This can be verbally to an entire team or just to an individual to ensure that they know that their hard work is being recognised. Where possible, offering promotions and pay increases are both great ways to retain staff.
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