Hiring That Fits Like A Glove
This is the most multi-generational workforce in history, with seventy percent of organizations still hiring baby boomers, in addition to Gen X and Y employees. Within the Indian context, the IT enabled services face the highest attrition, followed by Pharmaceutical, Telecom, and Retail etc. Large organizations are sprucing up their Talent Management Systems, and looking at attrition and the reasons for the same closely.
If you consider the workforce to be the palm of a hand, then Recruiting, Onboarding, Nurturing and Engaging are the four fingers, with Hiring being the thumb. Together, they form the fist of Talent Retention.
Talent Retention
In the case of small businesses, CxOs especially need to practice a culture of impactful hiring. Well thought out hiring and onboarding programs are essential for creating an engaging experience, which in turn resolves large attrition headaches for companies.
Hiring the right people and putting them into the right jobs drives performance, engagement and productivity. Pre-hire assessment is a critical part of ensuring the right fit, as SMBs cannot afford frequent vacancies.
According to Gaby Cora, a leadership consultant and author, “There is really nowhere to hide in a small business. It is especially important for small business owners to pay attention to finding the right match for the particular job and the culture of their organization.”
With the rise of start-ups and entrepreneurial ventures, these businesses are fiercely competitive and demand success at all costs. And the greatest cost to a business occurs in the form of attrition. People are emerging as the key differentiators, and talent retention has become paramount for Human Resource objectives. Essentially speaking, a sound human resource management system can really save the day and produce higher ROI on manpower investment.
But is acquiring workforce enough?
What could be some of the challenges faced by SMBs (Small & Medium Businesses) in the hiring landscape that could be crucial or even fatal for companies, considering talent poaching is not uncommon, and Millennials are being charmed by interesting designations and wooed with higher salary packages? Retention issues can be any of the following:
- Human capital data is not measured and maintained manually
- Goal setting is unscientific and performance areas are unclear
- Efforts put into recruitment fade after the honeymoon period of hiring and onboarding
- Employee morale becomes lowered due to disconnect between company vision and personal goals
- There are not enough processes to integrate pre hiring, hiring, onboarding and engagement for talent retention
- Along with employees leaving, customers are lost too, at times, and hence business suffers
Perhaps, SMBs need to relook at some of their HCM behaviours, if attrition continues to remain high. In order to keep retention rates looking good, the focus has to be around engagement efforts for employees. This is possible only when the HR teams themselves have time to create valuable strategies for understanding and engaging workforce. Getting to know employees and what keeps them balanced and contributory is the real work for HR, which is no longer just administrative in function, but a strong pillar for their company business. Says the former COO of GE, Lawrence Bossidy, “I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.”
So what can be done to develop talent once acquired?
- Aligning employee career objectives with company’s goals and keeping employees connected to the brand at all times
- Streamlining manual processes to free up time for more human to human engagement for discussions and collaboration
- Regular competence assessment to identify skill gaps and implement training decisions
- Fair performance evaluations and transparent communication so that employees are at a desirable comfort level within the company
- Allowing employees fair amount of independence in the work environment, so they don’t feel burdened by incessant demands of admin tasks of leave & attendance, travel expense submission, salary clarification etc.
- Incorporating comprehensive processes that give access to human capital data anytime, anywhere, so requisite information is available 24 x 7 for data integration
- Developing high end technological solutions to keep the hire to retire process in tandem with changes, and without slack throughout the employee lifecycle
PeopleWorks has been supporting their clients with their talent management needs and working hand in hand to ensure growth remains uninterrupted for their businesses. PeopleWorks is an integrated Human Capital Management Solution that has been uniquely created for efficient workforce management, for small and medium enterprises. With PeopleWorks, all employee lifecycle management is taken care of within a single click. Employees have independent access to their details, and most mundane tasks like Leave, Attendance, Salary, Travel & Expense details etc. are self serviced on the portal. Employees can login to upload queries, and check the status of their requests at any given time with the Query module. By reducing email chains, and eliminating prolific interaction with HR, employees can focus on productivity, managers on team planning & building and the C Suite on strategic decisions for business targets and growth. A product suite like PeopleWorks encourages innovation, hygienic company culture and better work-life balance.
PeopleWorks has modules like Competence Assessment that use data and analyze training needs and allocate necessary resources. The Performance Management System is designed to give collaborative and fair assessment on growth and gaps, and sometimes can point to a better career option for the employee within the company.
The PeopleWorks solution offers great value to the hiring cycle of Recruitment, Onboarding & Nurturing and Managing hires. An integrated recruitment workspace covers raising offers, tracking requirements, acceptance and document submission by candidates. Relevant reports can be generated to forecast present and future talent needs. New hires are inducted into the organizational framework via My World module and Broadcast module to get introduced and stay in touch with other employees within the application. Greeting on birthdays, and relevant details of others employees are available in Employee Directory. Change in policies are updated and informed via Broadcast. This saves the hassle of bulk emails and paper circulars etc. Hence employees are a part of an end to end work life cycle, which is well taken care of.
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