How do you capture feedback on your recruitment process?

Of course, you try to ensure your recruitment processes are best practice but what if they're not? How would you know?

We once worked with a client that advertised jobs for this role as an "outdoor job" and they couldn't work out why so many of their new recruits were leaving after 3 - 6 months. When we spoke to the new recruits it became obvious. They were being attracted by the outdoor component of the job but the reality was that half the role was working inside doing repetitive tasks.

Once they made changes to the advertisement to make it more accurately reflect the job, tenure increased because the organisation began attracting candidates that were prepared to do both parts of the job!


It is an important  part of the recruitment process to get feedback from new recruits about:

1. How accurate was the recruitment advertisement in its portrayal of life on the job?
2. Did the recruitment process make you feel your application was valued by the company?
3. What additional communication would you have liked?
4. What could be improved about the interview process?
5. What other improvements could be made to the recruitment process?

Does your organisation have a process for capturing feedback about your recruitment process? Have you ever been asked about your experience when you have started working with an organisation?  We're looking forward to hearing your stories!

What are you doing to prevent Christmas departures?

Have you noticed that resignations spike before or after the Christmas break in your organisation? The end of the year is a time to reflect, especially if it has been a particularly challenging year like this one.

Even though many organisations know about the 'Christmas disconnection', very few do anything proactive about it. So here are our top 3 ideas for you to act on this year:

1. Encourage managers to meet with their team to discuss the outlook for next year and the employee's valuable contribution in the future. Have the managers personally wish everyone a nice break and have something to look forward to in the New Year like.......

2. Have a new year BBQ! Organise a team lunch or activity that people know about before the Christmas break. Make coming back to work a celebration and use the opportunity to re-engage the team.

3. Don't leave any issues unresolved over the break. If the employee has any role issues or HR applications outstanding, have them addressed ASAP. Anything that isn't dealt with could fester over the break.

What have you done to make sure Christmas isn't a disconnection event in your organisation? Looking forward to your stories!

Are your managers accountable for retention?

It is well known that managers are the major factor in employee retention. Our 9 years of research has shown that 70% of employees are 'pushed' out of organisations in Australia and 70% of those leave primarily because of their direct manager's practices. But very few organisations do anything about it and have processes in place for dealing with toxic managers.

You probably have a good idea who your 'toxic' and 'magnet' managers are. The toxic ones lose members of their team because of their lack of ability to connect and engage while the magnets have happy teams with long tenure and high performance.

Your exit interview process is the vital key to discovering your toxic and magnet managers but once you know, what do you do about it?

We'd love to hear how your organisation deals with toxic managers. Do you have any stories of toxic managers? If so, what did you do about it? How do you reward magnet managers? How do you make your managers accountable for retaining their teams?

Team bonds

In our research, we interview our client’s employees to find out what makes them decide to stay. The most common #1 positive at work? ‘The people I work with’.

Creating the sense of 'team' and encouraging the positive aspects of work should be a priority for team leaders and managers.

Last week I was talking with an HRD about how she creates a sense of togetherness within their team. In their quarterly team meeting, each person has to present three 'wins' that they have achieved at work during the quarter. All achievements are celebrated by the team and the sense of togetherness is developed. This is a simple initiative but has created a great sense of sharing and team interaction as everyone now really looks forward to this quarterly meeting.

How does your organisation encourage togetherness? How do you celebrate success? We'd love to hear your ideas and experiences for how a sense of 'togetherness' can be created?!

Do your managers skill share?

In my research, I speak to a lot of employees about their managers and last week I spoke to two employees from the same company that had very different manager experiences. One said:
 
"He very rarely has discussions with me - he is on a needs only basis. I don't know what he wants or even if I'm doing a good job, let alone learn anything from him". While another said:

"I have learned so much from my manager. He spends time with us one-one-one and has asked us all what skills we want to develop and coaches us in that area. And if he makes an appointment with us, he keeps it. Couldn't ask for more".

Aside from the great impact that this kind of manager has on an employee, here’s what’s so great about managers like this: when your training budget is slashed, a low cost, high impact substitue for training is having your managers allocate time for one-on-one skill sharing. Remember that we’ve spent 10 years in talking with current and former employees? What we learned is that employees learn more, faster, from their managers (and then from their peers) than via any other training source.

Who’s doing this well in your business? Can you see examples of managers who REFUSE to share their skills for fear of being superseded (or because they’re just not very nice!)? What have you done to successfully get managers developing their people?