With the latest Salary Guide for the Offsite Construction Sector included in this issue, Jim Roach, Managing Director of specialist recruiter ARV Solutions, reminds us that recruitment and retention is always a challenging process.
The latest Salary Guide for the Offsite Construction Sector should have fallen from your Offsite Magazine by now. Hopefully you will have a read, find the content useful, take it on board and keep it on hand when reviewing your staff salaries and recruiting – and if it fell out before you got to read it, please get in touch, and I will send you a copy.
I write this piece in the context of a European visit from the US President, with extreme hard-hitting messages designed to grab everyone’s attention. Whilst I am not afraid to put my head above the parapet occasionally, my style is hopefully more along the lines of trusted advisor and somewhat less extreme. But please, read my advice and take it on board all the same. My views are founded on nearly 30 years in the role and I don’t need to get reelected.
A salary guide is a really useful benchmarker, but for really successful recruitment and retention it is only part of the story. There are companies out there paying well and still losing staff, plus failing to attract new staff. There are others who we tend to believe aren’t paying enough but are attracting fantastic people to their businesses and have great loyalty from staff.
Live the Company Culture
Some of this is about staff benefits, flexibility and work-life balance. Beyond these, it is really important to evaluate what sort of company culture you want to have and be seen to have. Good policies are a good starting point, though too often end at
the door of the HR office. If the reality doesn’t live up to the expectation all the way across (and up and down) your business, then you will still have a problem. Living your company culture is the only end point.
They Say People Leave Managers
They also don’t join Managers, if the recruitment process doesn’t go right. In this fast-moving recruitment market (it’s really fast moving right now!) some of the best candidates never get to meet your great Managers, because they met your competitors sooner. Those that meet Managers who do a less than fantastic job interviewing and selling the company now often get turned down by the people they really wanted. It has never been more important to make the interview genuinely two-way.
Perceptions are Reality
We work with many great employers – however, we often have a problem where candidates have heard a bad new story and don’t even want to attend an interview. Often the bad news will come from perceptions rather than reality. Ex-employees for
example, may not be the most positive about a previous employer and this can become a widespread bad news story after a few people have passed it on and exaggerated it – it’s a small world. Fortunately, as we generally get to see both sides we can put people right against incorrect perceptions – but everything you can do to maintain a great reputation in the market (and avoid the negatives) is worth doing.
The hiring market is challenging right now, however by doing more of the right things and working with the right advisors, you stand a better chance of not being trumped in the battle for talent retention and attraction.
Original Link - Offsite Magazine
