Good talent is a b*tch to find right now…
When’s the last time you tried to recruit? When’s the last time you did salary benchmarking? How about replacing a ‘lost’ team member?
If you’ve had a crack at it, you’ll know the market has gone b-a-n-a-n-a-s.
This is a problem… and here is why you care
If you haven’t dug into the stats, unemployment in WA:
At the lowest it has been since 2013 (4.7%)
Is further stressed by the overwhelming number of job vacancies
Talent (e.g. your employees and prospects) are spoiled for choice with climbing salaries
For a leader (that’s you) that means:
If your people are unhappy, they don’t have to stick around (long service leave only means so much)
Employees value security with the COVID crisis, but as vaccines roll-out this will shift
Your performance/KPIs/business/team will suffer if you can’t attract and retain top talent
Thanks, Travis. So what do I do?
How to take back control
While we are all impacted by the talent problems and an increased need to retain top talent, here are some quick things to focus on/do to avoid being a statistic:
Keep it real – we recently recruited for a marketing coordinator and attracted 5x more candidates than competing ads. This isn’t a brag and we didn’t make it up (Seek showed us the stats). The reason? Authenticity of who we are as a brand paired with reality of the job/challenges the role will face and what they can realistically expect. Be honest and keep it real, without being boring.
Don’t keep poor talent – one of the fastest ways to lose your top talent is to keep the poor performing members of the team for fear of having vacancies. The problem with this is that the poor performer will stay and the top performers will leave because they know where the market is at (trust me, they know). Manage the poor talent, even if it causes some short term pain.
Adjust for skill deficits but never compromise on values – you won’t always find the most skilled/best skilled for what you’re after (please stop chasing unicorns) but you shouldn’t compromise on values. You can upskill people who are a bit short on skills, but you can’t fix a values deficit. If you’ve ever tried to fix a values problem with a new hire, you know this is virtually impossible. Don’t compromise on values.
Endure – recruitment is a bit like finding a partner (don’t read into that too much) IN THAT you might not find a good match the first few tries, but don’t give up. You have to have some tricky interviews that don’t get you what you want before you find the right one. Endure and remain authentic, you’ll get there eventually.
Keep fighting the good fight and let me know how you’ve tackled the talent challenges.
