Losing employees is common for businesses. There’s also the risk of high turnover after the holidays. So, it’s necessary to get back on your feet and ensure productivity.
Start your year with strong hiring strategies. This blog will talk about best practices and actionable tips to ensure that you have the right hiring practices in place, covering last year’s turnover and preparing for this year’s objectives.
Speed Up Your Process: 16 Effective Hiring Strategies
The following are 16 hiring strategies you can utilize to spring back to productivity this year.
1. Unlock hidden talent pools.
Job boards are not your only source of applicants. You can improve your recruitment strategy by accessing diverse talent pools and databases to reduce the time-to-hire. This ensures that you have access to a wide variety of experts in the field and increases your chances of finding the perfect candidate.
This includes tapping passive candidates who may not be actively seeking a job but are open to exploring new opportunities. Social media recruiting in professional networks like LinkedIn or Facebook can also be a great source for targeting both active and passive talent in the market.
2. Host recruitment events.
Aside from traditional talent acquisition methods like job postings, increase your reach in finding ideal candidates through social events like job fairs. This allows you to tap into local talent and increase your visibility in the area. Also, it improves your recruiting efforts by allowing you to meet potential candidates in one place.
3. Encourage employee referrals through incentives.
While employees can contribute to recruitment marketing, offering monetary or other benefits might be more effective to encourage them to hire more qualified individuals through employee referral programs.
4. Simplify the screening process.
If you want to improve your recruitment strategies and candidate experience, enhancing your screening process can save time and ensure you identify the best candidates more efficiently.
- Use clear hiring criteria.
- Reduce the number of interviews.
- Streamline the application process by removing redundancies.
- Leverage applicant tracking systems (ATS) to automate resume screening, track candidate progress, and identify applicants based on predefined criteria. This can reduce manual effort and bias, ensuring a more efficient and consistent recruitment process.
5. Streamline job descriptions.
Ensure the job descriptions are clear and concise, accurately reflecting the job responsibilities and expectations. Avoid jargon, as some might be uncommon in other industries. Instead, use inclusive words that can be easily understood. Limit your job posts to only the necessary information and avoid overloading them with excessive details.
6. Conduct virtual interviews.
Virtual interviews can save time and resources. Instead of visiting on-site, you can meet up with potential job candidates over a video conferencing app like Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet.
Try reserving face-to-face meetings for the final interview. This can make the hiring process more efficient and also eliminate the need to travel to and from the office.
7. Define and nurture your employer branding.
Your culture is your shared attitudes, beliefs, and practices that ultimately define the workplace. It affects every employee’s experience, making them fulfilled and satisfied.
Showcase your company mission, vision, values, and culture on your online platforms and social media accounts. Inviting employees for testimonials can be a great way to provide a glimpse of your workplace environment. A strong employer brand helps attract more qualified candidates and other stakeholders.
8. Focus on job fit, not just technical skills.
Technical expertise is essential—it’s what gets the job done. However, there’s a huge benefit to employing candidates who align with your organization and culture.
Candidates must have a glimpse into what environment they’ll work in, the actual responsibilities they need to fulfill, and who they’ll be working with. This allows new hires to evaluate whether they fit well into the organization.
Here are a few things you can do:
- Have an in-office meeting.
- Include key persons from the team potential candidates may be part of.
- Observe how the applicant reacts to actual scenarios or practices in the office.
9. Highlight soft or transferable skills.
Aside from soft skills contributing to culture building, it’s strategic to equip your organization with people who possess valuable competencies and attitudes.
- Creativity leads to innovative ideas and services.
- Problem-solving and critical thinking enable wise decisions and tactical perspectives.
- Leadership qualities encourage an accountable, motivated, and positive work culture.
While technical expertise improves productivity, transferable skills are hard to teach and learn. This is why it’s important to seek qualities that help you produce excellent results and elevate your organization.
10. Focus on diversity hiring.
More than just a diversity effort, people from underrepresented groups have various experiences and diverse perspectives that can prove beneficial in the workplace. According to a study published in Scientific Research Publishing, businesses that focus on hiring people with disabilities have observed innovative solutions.¹
11. Build a talent pipeline.
Instead of starting from scratch every time you look for qualified candidates, maintain an internal database of your past applicants. Identify strong candidates and prioritize them. Update your database, including passive candidates for future roles.
12. Align your salary and compensation packages with the market.
Salary and compensation are still the top reasons candidates choose an employer—and why some employees leave. Make sure that you’re offering similar, if not higher, salary and compensation benefits compared to competitors and industry standards.
Read more: Addressing Pay Equity: How to Answer Common Employee Questions and Build a Fair Compensation System
13. Offer flexibility and work-life balance.
Aside from competitive pay, employees are becoming more concerned with job flexibility and work-life balance. Have a look at these statistics about work-life balance from APA’s Work in America Survey.²
- 92 percent of workers value organizations that support emotional and psychological well-being.
- 77 percent of workers experience work-related stress, including emotional exhaustion, demotivation, and isolation.
- Only 35 percent of employers encourage work breaks, 29 percent offer assistance programs, and 12 percent provide mental health training.
- 33 percent of employees shared their intent to leave their jobs.
Job flexibility may seem like a counterproductive initiative. However, according to the Harvard Business Review, flextime improved the operations of Gap, a clothing retailer company.³ They boosted morale and productivity while increasing sales by 7 percent and labor productivity by 5 percent.
Aside from flexible work schedules, you can offer other benefits like increased PTO, wellness programs, mental health support, and parental leave. Additionally, encourage breaks, foster open communication, and support a balanced environment.
Read more: The Science of Employee Well-Being: How to Promote Longevity and Satisfaction in the Workplace
14. Practice transparency.
Leaders, hiring managers, and recruiters should be open about the recruiting process. This includes:
- Providing details about what kinds of tests candidates will be given
- How many interviews they need to accomplish
- Providing progress reports at every stage
- Adding a human touchpoint to guide them throughout the process
Candidates appreciate it when employers show they care about an applicant’s journey, and not simply to fill an open role. Furthermore, ask for feedback from your candidates, as it may uncover insights that can improve your recruiting strategy.
15. Elevate the onboarding process.
Effective recruitment strategies are wasted if the onboarding experience falls short. A negative onboarding could also lead to your hires seeking other opportunities, resulting in them ghosting you. Complete your recruitment strategy with a memorable and welcoming onboarding experience. To leave a lasting impression, here’s what you can do:
- Don’t rush the onboarding process.
- Set clear expectations and a timeline for what they must accomplish in their first weeks.
- Provide enough resources and a point person to help them integrate into their new organization.
- Assign mentors and experienced employees to teach new hires about work processes and responsibilities.
- Provide access to company tools, systems, and communication channels.
- Check in regularly to provide support and necessary resources new hires may need.
Read more: Building Strong Relationships with New Hires: Effective Strategies for Onboarding and Retention
16. Analyze turnover and make changes.
Candidate sourcing is a continuous process and will always be part of your recruitment plan. However, there are ways to improve your results to ensure quality hires and increased retention.
You may use analytics tools and artificial intelligence to help analyze turnover data. Compare it to historical trends in the industry and within your company. This should provide you with a clear understanding of why employees leave and what you can do to improve loyalty and satisfaction.
Using data-driven decision-making and various recruitment metrics can help improve your recruiting strategies and ensure long-term stability within your workforce.
Enhance your workforce strategy with Horizon America.
One of the best ways to elevate your recruitment process is partnering with a staffing firm like Horizon America. We specialize in talent acquisition for light industrial and manufacturing companies. With over 30 years of combined experience, we help businesses build a robust and reliable workforce. Let our recruiting strategies support your organizational growth. Contact us today.
References
- Jeetah, Roubeena. “Making the Case for Disability Innovation: Opportunity at Concrete Change for the Disabled Community.” Scientific Research Publishing, 2022, https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=115208
- “2023 Work in America Survey.” American Psychological Association, 2023, https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/work-in-america/2023-workplace-health-well-being
- Kalev, Alexandra and Dobbin, Frank. “The Surprising Benefits of Work/Life Support.” Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2022, https://hbr.org/2022/09/the-surprising-benefits-of-work-life-support.
