The Key “R's”, or is it "Ours", in Business Success

Business and Organizations that invest in its people…win and prosper

As we head into 2020, some organizations with new intentions, new energy, or a strong desire to change.  There are two core issues Recruiting and Retention that are at the heart of an organization's ability to scale. As you plan ways to scale your company – make sure the base is solid to build on.

Recruiting – the process of attracting, qualifying and selection of the best talent.

Often falls on the shoulders of Human Resource professionals that are mainly administrators or line supervisors/manager better equipped to keep operations going. The recruiting process is more akin to sales and marketing. A very different skill set. And a very different audience than your Marketing team is targeting. Three areas to define in your recruiting process:

1. Your ability to identify a predictable way to attract talent, like marketing, directly impacts how fast you fill openings. 
2. The second challenge is defining the process that helps your team to qualify candidates systematically.  
3. And finally, a decision process that allows you to pick the most qualified candidates not just to solve today's problems but help grow with the company to solve tomorrow's challenges.

According to a recent Forbes article, the breakdown of turnover costs by organizational level is as follows3:

? 50% of salary for entry-level positions

? 125% of wages for mid-level positions

? 200% of salary for senior executive positions

Retention – the process of creating open communication, ongoing feedback, and alignment with company goals and methods to ensure your talent gets the support and resources they need to grow and meet today's and tomorrow's challenges. Most Managers and Supervisors get limited training and support to be effective in this role. While many companies invest significantly in strategic planning, the process of aligning company goals with the role each person on your teams plays in accomplishing those goals is far less defined or even discussed.

Accountability, what every owner and CEO wants to see in their team members starts with having a clear understanding of how they should be accountable, what actions and goals they should have to align with the company goals. While most "Professional Development" is focused on learning new things often, that growth needs to come from a better understanding of oneself. The way we communicate (the heart of all growth) and how we engage and interact with our team members, leadership, clients, and outside resources.

Tools to facilitate world-class Recruiting and Retention

• Behavioral Assessment - that provide actionable feedback to both team members and leadership. Plus a commitment to leveraging these tools as a core part of professional development
• Employer Culture, Branding, and Marketing - that is viewed as an investment and equal, maybe a great value, to sales and marketing for new customers….after all – who’s going to serve all those new customers you get.
• Recruiting processes - that help identify the most qualified – a combination to qualifiable measures, subjective measures, an openness to potential not just
• Selection process that picks the best fit among several factors
• Professional Development Plans - Stop using Performance Improvement Plans as a tool, which is often too late and instead implement Professional Development Plans for the entire team. Easy to understand, one-page tools (easy to create and that get used) that align company goals with individual goals with professional development goals that are reviewed more than once a year (at best).
• Execution Plans - Strategic Planning that is driven by a focus on execution. Plans that are driven by clear goals and action, design thinking, agile to meet new challenges, feedback loops from CEO to all team members, and back.
• Accountability and Profits – These business goals need to be demystified, clearly communicated, and measured by all.

At the core of these Business Strategies, is the belief that employees deserve advocates. When they are good at self-advocating, they are better able to help align with company goals, self-improvement, and long-term career success and self-worth.  The world is changing. Business and Organizations need to change too. This is not a generational challenge, but a people challenge.

 Is this part of your 2020 Strategic Planning focus?