Attracting and Retaining Talent in a Job Rich market place
In the changing economic climate where uncertainty prevails, many employees thinking of finding new and better work opportunities are sitting tight in the roles. Although this is good news for retention figures, it does make it more difficult to attract good candidates to your firm if you need to recruit.
Firms are looking at creative ideas to attract staff and retain staff in the long term.
Improving company benefits is a good way to improve high calibre candidate attraction and retention. Offering a good salary with little in the way of added benefits apart from standard benefits does little to attract quality candidates in a relatively job rich market place like that of the Accountancy Profession.
London and other areas of the UK suffer from the highest working hours per week in Europe in addition to a work culture which is often not family friendly. Shrewd employers wanting to attract high calibre staff from opposition companies and desirable sectors capitalise on this by offering a flexible, family friendly work environment in addition to an attractive benefits package.
A good work-life balance, interesting challenge and job satisfaction rank higher than salary with most professionals as long as the salary is fairly market related. The ability to gain new skills and enjoy variety in their roles is also a high priority. Adding a good bonus scheme is a great motivator that helps get the best out of people especially if linked to personal performance. Driven employees on a good bonus schemes are happy employees and need less management supervision than unmotivated individuals.
Given the widespread publicity about pensions and the aging population, a good company pension scheme is very high on the list of job seekers. Private healthcare is another desirable benefit with long NHS waiting lists.
For smaller companies, softer benefits can be a cost-effective way to help attract and retain good staff. Reduced gym memberships, finishing early on a Friday, free lunch on a Friday, work from home one day a week etc are some of the soft benefits used by clients to give them a competitive edge in the hunt for candidates.
Smaller firms are often concerned with the costs of offering increased benefits. These costs are often outweighed by the increased productivity of a happy workforce in addition to savings in recruitment costs due to better staff retention.
Written by Jeremy Dargie Director from AAP Recruitment (www.aaprecruitment.com), providers of Accountancy, Sales, Executive, HR and Marketing staff.
Telephone: 01795 436969, email: jeremy@aaprac.com
