Candidate retention is one of the biggest challenges that a company recruitment department faces. No matter the scale of your business or the rate at which you hire new employees, getting staff to stay at a place of work for prolonged periods of time is a benefit regardless of your industry and should be something that all companies pay attention to.
The recruitment process can be incredibly long-winded, and finding the right employee for a role tends to take a considerable amount of time and resources. The last thing you want after this is for your new hire to leave the company after only a couple of months, meaning you have to start the entire process again and wasting many people’s efforts to onboard a new member of staff.
There are a variety of different approaches to improving candidate retention in the workplace, from steps to add to your recruitment process to overall changes that will affect the entire business. Here are four of the best pieces of advice.
Use Candidate Tracking Software
Candidate retention
begins right at the start of the recruitment process. Talented and promising potential employees can drop out of the race before you have even offered them the job, which means you need to keep them engaged right from the get-go.
Using candidate tracking software is one of the best ways to ensure that the people applying for your role remain interested in working with you right up until they are either accepted or rejected. Instead of manually keeping in touch with all applicants, the software can automate this process for you and make it much easier to see where you are in the recruitment process and who is still involved.
Applicant tracking software not only gives you an area to see where you are regarding recruitment and onboarding, but you can also set up communication that lets candidates know what stage they are at, when to expect to hear from you and what preparation they might need to do before the next stage. This level of engagement increases retention as you stay in the minds of your applicants and also demonstrate that you are a business that cares about the people they hire.
If candidates feel that they are being thought of during the hiring process then they will warm to your company and be more likely to offer the same level of consideration back to you.
Align Company and Candidate Values
One of the biggest reasons that a new employee may leave a role after only a short while is that they feel that the values of their place of work do not align with their personal priorities and beliefs. To tackle this common issue, companies can have values at the heart of their recruitment process to ensure that they’re hiring people who are going to be a good fit.
There has been a recent trend in the recruitment industry of candidates prioritizing strong company values over other aspects of a job such as pay and benefits; this has especially been used by specialist travel recruitment agencies as the travel industry has morphed over the years. Today’s workforce has strong personal values and wants to work with businesses that share the same priorities, and a misalignment of these can often lead to employees quitting a new role in a short period of time.
Firstly, ensure that your business is clear on its values and that these are communicated on your website and through your marketing material. Most job applicants research the company they are applying to work for first, and this will hopefully attract the right kind of people to the role from the very beginning.
Also, take the time in the job interview process to ask each candidate what their personal values are and have a discussion about what drew them to your business in particular. This way it will be clear if there is a misalignment and hopefully an applicant will realize that they might be better suited to working with a different company.
Look After Employee Wellbeing
Another significant reason that employee retention is low in a company is if employees themselves aren’t happy at work and don’t feel cared for by their employer.
A happy workforce is a more productive workforce, and a more productive workforce is better at their job and better for business. As an employer, it is in your best interest to look after employee wellbeing to increase retention, which can be done in a variety of different ways.
First of all, ensure that every member of staff is regularly given the chance to speak to someone else about how they are finding their role, their workload, and any other aspects of their job. Depending on the size of your company this could be done through meetings with a line manager or peer-to-peer catch-ups to identify problems early on and ensure that everyone is feeling supported.
Then, take an overall look at the business and identify whether there are any areas where staff are being put under unnecessary pressure or stress in their roles, whether this is because of their workload, the systems in place, or the resources they have at their disposal. Employee wellbeing should be prioritized by making sure that nobody is getting burnt out or having to work harder than necessary because of a flaw in communication, and as a business owner you should take responsibility for removing these.
Finally, think about what general systems, resources, and touchpoints you can put in place to promote positive mental wellbeing in the workplace. This could be through offering free mindfulness or relaxation sessions every month, giving employees more freedom in their working hours, or creating space for staff to talk about any struggles and be given support if needed.
If your employees are happy at work and know that they will receive additional help if needed, they are much more likely to continue working there for a longer period of time.
Make Interviews a Two-Way Experience
Finally, you can tailor your interview process so that applicants have the chance to ask as many questions as they want. This is likely to improve candidate retention because it means that successful applicants have a better idea of the role they will be taking on and are unlikely to drop out early on because something hasn’t met their expectations.
The best job interviews are not one-sided interrogations, they are two-way conversations in which the potential employee gets the chance to ask you as many questions as you ask them. Not only will this give you a better idea of what they are really like, but it also makes the interview much more productive and satisfying for everyone involved.
The majority of job interviews include a section at the end where an applicant is encouraged to ask any questions they might have about the role or the rest of the recruitment process. Whilst this is a key part of a good interview and one you should keep, think about the ways that you can encourage applicants to ask their own questions earlier on so that the pressure isn’t all on them right at the end. This could be asking if they have any specific questions after having certain discussions or trying to make the interview process more like a conversation to encourage more back and forth.
Summary
Methods for improving candidate retention typically fall into two categories; aspects added to the recruitment process and changes made to the workplace as a whole. Not only does keeping employees hired for longer save you time and money, but it also means that your business can continue running as efficiently as possible with minimal disruptions, which is better for everyone who works there. Having high candidate retention rates also makes your company a more desirable place to work, which in turn will make future recruitment efforts more successful. The benefits are endless!
