A report by Oxford Economics estimates that the average cost of recruiting a new employee is more than £30,000 per employee. This startling figure includes the lost output a business experiences while a new worker gets up to speed, items such as agency workers to fill the gap, advertising and recruitment costs and time spent by management and HR interviewing and processing applications. When you consider the financial implications it is vital to get it right.
In the first of a series of articles on recruitment, we touch on current recruitment trends and look at the things to get right before you even place that job advert.
Trends in recruitment
The Employer Skills Survey, published by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, recently reported that around a quarter of jobs across the South West are ‘difficult to fill’ due to a shortage of skilled recruits.
While Devon and Cornwall have diverse economies, and we await any ‘Brexit effects’ on the labour market, our businesses face many of the same challenges as the rest of the UK: increasing difficulty in finding the talented professionals needed to drive growth, less choice of candidates, an expectation of having to pay more to acquire the best candidates, and an acceptance of needing to be flexible with defining job roles. The result is perhaps being forced to settle for a candidate that meets most, but not all, criteria.
First steps
An effective recruitment exercise relies on good preparation, as much as good process execution. Many recruitment problems can be traced back to a hurried response to an employee departure. You should consider the following points on an ongoing basis and particularly prior to publishing any adverts:
Succession Planning
Is succession planning part of your business? Are your training and development efforts providing you a potential pool of employees from which you are likely to find an effective replacement as employees resign or retire? Have you considered apprenticeships to help ‘grow your own’ talent?
Resource & Skills Planning
Do you have a clear and budgeted resourcing plan? Is a permanent full-time hire needed, or do you need something different, for example, if workloads are seasonal? Is it new staff (headcount) that you need or are new skills required instead? What about current employees – can your hiring needs be met by developing their capabilities through training or coaching?
Labour Market
What is the likely availability of suitably skilled staff for this role, in this location? Is it likely to be a ‘hard-to-fill’ role? Do you understand what competing organisations are offering compared to your terms / benefits? Can you access benchmark data to ensure you are competitive in the overall package?
Your ‘employer brand’
In a competitive labour market, how does your brand resonate with candidates and current employees? Are you actively developing and managing your employer reputation? This may include employee benefits, but also wider aspects such as your approach to work flexibility. Do you know what is being said about you on-line and on social media, when a candidate ‘Googles’ you?
Exit data
Are you conducting exit interviews or surveys? What are you learning from that information – both in terms of retaining talent and how this relates to attracting new candidates?
Managing recruitment
Can you manage recruitment in-house or do you need external help? Have you developed relationships with good agencies that know your sector and/or location well? Have you negotiated effectively on terms, or are you paying too much and carrying too much risk?
Our team can help you run a fair and effective recruitment process in a number of ways, for example reviewing or drafting documentation, undertaking or taking part in selection interviews for you or assisting with the design of an induction process.
In the next article in this series, we will look at the process of fair recruitment.
To discuss this or any other HR issue call 01392 210700 or employment@stephens-scown.co.uk.