Improve Your Hiring and Employee Retention Abilities
Posted June 27th, 2013
In a still recovering economy, many think it is still simple to find needed employees. This is not the case. Today, high performing, highly skilled workers are finding that (with their skill set and experience), they have a choice on where they want to work.
They are leveraging that choice, and they may not choose your organization.
In addition, your competitors are likely trying to recruit your top talent because (well) they (too) are looking for highly skilled and experienced workers. So how can you effectively hire and retain the right employees for your manufacturing organization?
Competitive compensation
A fair and competitive salary (including benefits) is the foundation of effective hiring and high retention. It is simply the cost of doing business today. When you pay a fair and competitive wage, you are telling your employees that you value them and the work they do.
In the manufacturing industry, the skilled talent pool is limited, so you need to reevaluate your salary range and be willing to pay in the upper end of that range if you truly want to make good hires.
Company vision
Having a clear company vision, being able to communicate it and get potential employees to buy into it are effective ways to get employees interested and engaged in your company – long term. Potential employees want to do productive work and feel an emotional connection to the company’s mission, and they want to know that the company cares about their well-being.
Strong Employer Brand
A well-known employer brand can be an incentive to potential candidates. The more a person knows about your brand, the more they may consider your business to be a possible place to work…maybe even a “cool” place to work.
A strong employer brand requires diligence. Repairing a damaged reputation is hard work.
- Amazon –recently became known as a dangerous place to work when the temperature in one of its warehouses reached 100+ degrees Fahrenheit. When multiple employees suffered heat stroke, Amazon did not do what was best for its employees; they hired more ambulances to wait outside the warehouse to take sickened workers to the hospital.
- Ikea – who has a stellar brand – took a hit to its employer brand when it faced backlash from leaked stories about their U.S. based manufacturing plant. Workers complained of racial discrimination, eliminated raises, a “frenzied” work pace and last-minute, mandatory overtime.
News travels fast in this social media age, and a strong employer brand does not mean much with stories like these two eroding confidence in your company. Spend adequate time making sure you do the right things and treat your employee’s right —not only because it is the right thing to do but because they are your best brand advocate.
If you are looking to hire, remember Bayside Solutions. We can provide the highly skilled, highly motivated people you need. Give us a call today!
