Recruiter's Essential Tips

Employers often tend to make counteroffer when an employee is about to leave the company. Anyway, the counteroffer is very tricky. This acts as a ‘quick fix’ but does not work for a long-term retention. Although counteroffer helps you to retain a potential employee, it may lead to other disadvantages. The major drawback is, it may demoralize other employees. They may have a thought like “So this is how I get a rise or promotion?!” . Another drawback is this may raise the ego of the person receiving the counteroffer. However, there are advantages like saving the time and money spent to hire and train a new professional. Review the performance of the employee and make the counteroffer if the person is potential enough to be retained. The counteroffer need not be monetary but even a new career path for the employee with more challenges. Analyze the reasons behind the exit of an employee and try to solve the problems. This may serve the long-term strategy to retain employees.

You may wonder what company policies do with job satisfaction. The policies are framed to communicate the strategy of the management to the employees. The way of communication matters a lot. In most of the organizations, the company policies are provided as thick employee manual that may overkill the employees. Sometimes, they may not go through the entire contents. Instead of making them read the legal information and rules, conduct the orientation to make them understand the guidelines. Ensure that every employee understands the policies and procedures rather than enforcing them as rules. Explain the key rules to be followed clearly. This includes maintaining confidential information, use of email and telephone, standards of conduct etc. You may convey the message that these guidelines are to be strictly followed. However, be prepared to have exception to the rules in unforeseen conditions. This will create a positive environment and attachment to the job.

The work environment plays an important role to make the employee to be emotionally involved in the job. The ISO definition for Work Environment is as follows: (Reference: http://www.praxiom.com/iso-definition.htm ) The term work environment refers to all the factors that influence work. In general, these include social, cultural, psychological, physical, and environmental conditions. The term work environment includes lighting, temperature, and noise factors, as well as the whole range of ergonomic influences. It also includes things like supervisory practices as well as reward and recognition programs. All of these things influence how work is performed. This does not mean to have a luxurious infrastructure, but a convenient workspace. Ensure a healthy and safe environment. Allocate some personal space for each employee with desk, lockers etc. This makes a psychological difference. Create an encouraging and friendly environment. Provide enough freedom to exp...

Positive inter-personal relationship has multiple impacts on job satisfaction. When an employee has good relationship with the manager, co-workers and customers, the performance automatically increases and results in high job satisfaction. Like job satisfaction, inter-personal relationship is also an emotional feeling and cannot be measured. However, an employer can organize programs that encourage teamwork. Arranging for frequent meetings and resolving conflicts immediately strengthen the relationship. Ensure that a positive friendship is shaped between the co-workers so that they enjoy working with each other. Start with building relationship among people with similarities instead of differences. Later the same kind of relationship can be established among people having differences. Effective inter-personal relationship leads to job satisfaction, high performance and success.

Having a good manager is the key motivating factor for an employee. When a manager can motivate employees and increase the productivity, the same person can also demotivate the employees and lead to frustration. Job satisfaction is the personal emotional feeling of the employee. When the employee is not receiving recognition for the performance, this emotional feeling is blown up. Especially when there is lack of communication between the manager and employees, it certainly affects the job satisfaction. A manager may easily affect the employee’s job satisfaction by ignoring the ideas, not recognizing the achievements, or by not having proper relationship. Many employees do not tend to leave the company, but their managers. The top management can consider the managers’ performance by obtaining feedback from the employees reporting to them. This may be a good start to have good managers and in turn to retain employees.

The previous session was concluded as Job satisfaction plays a vital role in Employee Retention. Sometimes, employers have the impression that highly-paid employees would stay with them for a long period. Even the highest paid employees may leave the company if they feel frustrated. Job satisfaction is the emotional state-of-mind that makes employees to be attached to the job. The factors that attract employees include good manager, inter-personal relationship, work environment, recognition, company policies, and of course Salary. We’ll discuss these factors in detail in the forthcoming sessions.

Employees are motivated when they find involvement in their job. Explain the vision of the company to the employees clearly. Provide details of the outcome expected from them. Simply setting a target would not make the employee to get involved in the job. Make the job interesting to them by explaining the results of their performance. Once employees find the job interesting and get involved in it, they gain the job satisfaction. Job satisfaction plays key role in the career of employees and makes them to continue with the company.

Awards and rewards are excellent methods to motivate employees. But be careful while rewarding them. Sometimes this may lead others who don’t receive the rewards to think that you are showing ‘favoritism’ to certain employees. When employees feel that they are being ignored while the co-worker gets a reward, it results in frustration. Make the reason clear to every one when an individual is rewarded, like “outstanding performance”. Favoritism has a great impact on the performance and may lead to conflicts. Avoid this in a work place to ensure consistent productivity.

Retaining talents plays a major role in the long-term success of any business. The bottom line of employee retention is recognition . Good recognition of the performance motivates an employee rather than any other factor. Being nice and friendly to an employee is not recognition . Try to provide a frequent feedback about the employee’s performance. Make the employees feel that they are contributing highly to the success of the organization. This acknowledgement inspires any employee to stay for a long period.

Nowadays, employees hop jobs frequently. Not only hunting for talents, but retaining talents has also become one of the responsibilities of HR Professionals. Not all people work for money. Every employee has a different reason to stay in a job. Some may like to face challenges, some to achieve personal goals and others may be interested in specific activities. Find out the activity that inspires an employee by conducting an internal survey. Motivate the employees by organizing different programs that may attract them. This may be a soft-skill training session, games or some fun-filled activities. Such exciting events help you to retain your best talents.

Back again to "Employee retention" - Analyzing the reasons as to why employee quits job . The post below discusses on the impact of employer branding on recruiting and retaining right candidates. The Accenture's latest survey of CEOs shows, 60% of them are worried about the need to attract and retain the best people. The organizations can no more aim to be all things to all people. They should focus more on what it takes to build and sustain employer retention that binds and attracts the right talent.Employer branding is not just recruitment and resourcing. It's a complete organizational responsibility and opportunity. It is definitely something that CEO needs to care about. Employers should understand what engages people and should be clear about what an organization offers and does not. This means you are more likely to recruit and retain right candidates.

Explain the company goals to your employees and explain how an employee's efforts fit in. The management has to solicit employees to come up with suggestions on how to improve the processes in the organization. As I was writing this post I remembered an article published in Inc.com titled "In A Former Life" written by Ilan Mochari. This was an interesting interview with Kenneth Kannapan CEO of Plantronics, a $400-million maker of telephone headsets based in Santa Cruz, California. Here is the article by Ilan Mochari from inc.com CEO S. Kenneth Kannappan discusses how he discovered the key to motivating employees while working at his first job. Present life: CEO of Plantronics, a $400-million maker of telephone headsets based in Santa Cruz, Calif. Former life: In the summer of 1978, after he graduated from high school, Kannappan worked for an electronics-repair shop in Northbrook, Ill. "It was $3.50 an hour. There was very poor ventilation. But at the time, jobs were ...

I recently read an article in About.com titled "Two Musts For Employee Motivation" written by Susan M.Heathfield. The article is based on an attention-getting Gallup Poll about disengaged employees which was highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal. Here is the paragraph. Gallup found 19 percent of 1,000 people interviewed "actively disengaged" at work. These workers complain that they don't have the tools they need to do their jobs. They don't know what is expected of them. Their bosses don't listen to them. Based on these interviews and survey data from its consulting practice, Gallup says actively disengaged workers cost employers $292 billion to $355 billion a year. Furthermore, Gallup concluded that disengaged workers miss more days of work and are less loyal to employers. Gallup polls helps us realize the importance of employee motivation in organizations today. We will discuss more on motivation in the forthcoming posts.

I'm now back with a post on Employee Retention. In the previous posts I've written about " CEO Role in employee retention " & " Rewards Best Employees at the right time ." I recently came across a Reader Poll: "How Many Conferences Does The Boss Send You To?" in LeeOdden's blog . You may wonder as to Why am I ranting about the poll. However a close watch will help you to witness a relationship between conferences/workshops/training programs and employee retention. When you send your employees to attend such conferences and workshops they learn new methods, and they learn how to apply them on job. This creates a positive thinking that their employer is ready to invest for them and interested in their development. And the employees go back to perform much better than before.

Reward the best employees at the right time. If you are running a business you would create special offers to Customers to honor them. Everyone quest reward or appreciation towards a work or a project. The enthusiastic level of the rewarded employees is always very high. Don't fail to reward your employee at the right time.

CEO of the company has tremendous power to reinforce corporate values. He should be definitely someone employees admire and respect. He should be willing to communicate with all the employees. This will give the employees a secure feeling. CEO can easily pave the way for employee retention more than any department head or HR. I would be publishing more tips on employee retention for the next few days