Employee retention is a critical component of any successful organization. Retaining talented and dedicated employees can lead to increased productivity, improved job satisfaction, and ultimately, better business outcomes. However, many companies struggle with high turnover rates, which can be costly and disruptive; Several organizations have estimated that the cost of employee turnover is 1.5 to 2 times the amount of the departing employee’s salary. That doesn’t include the time it takes to find, hire, and train a new employee to replace them.
The key to minimizing turnover and boosting employee retention starts with effective recruitment. By hiring the right people from the start, companies can create a positive workplace culture and foster long-term employee loyalty. Below, our partners at Fetcher cover how a solid recruiting strategy leads to higher retention and six tactics that will elevate your recruitment process for candidates.
Your job posting, career page, or recruitment email are most likely the first thing someone interacts with if they are a potential employee. Candidates that move further along in the process actually meet your team and some of the people they could work with in the future.
Each of these touch points is an opportunity to build trust, set expectations, and demonstrate to candidates that you want to set them up for success. A negative, stressful, or confusing hiring process will signal to them that working at your company will be a similar experience. For instance, unclear job descriptions, long interview stages, and unnecessary assessments are all red flags, from a candidate’s perspective.
In contrast, a straightforward, candidate-centric recruiting strategy leads to:
Retention is ultimately dependent on how happy and fulfilled your employees are at work. If a new employee just went through a stressful, confusing hiring journey, they’re likely starting off in their new role stressed out and questioning their decision. In contrast, if they had a positive candidate experience, it’s likely they’ll come in already feeling connected to the company and energized in their new role.
An effective recruitment process sets clear expectations for the candidate in their role and how their performance fits into the bigger picture. That means they can be productive in their roles and contribute to larger goals in a meaningful way, sooner. Ensuring team members feel valued and have a sense of purpose is key for them sticking around in the long run.
When your hiring processes align with your company values and attitudes, the candidates you attract and ultimately hire are more likely to align with those values and attitudes. By pulling back the curtain on what it’s like to work at your company, you’ll help prospects visualize what their routines will be like and imagine how they’ll interact with co-workers. Ideally, you’re bringing in talent that adds and evolves your company culture, as opposed to being a “fit” for it.
Employees that are overworked and taking on more responsibilities while a role is vacant won’t perform their best. They may also leave due to burnout, causing an even greater ripple effect for remaining team members. A better recruiting process ultimately leads to a faster time-to-hire, which benefits candidates and current team members. In addition, employees who thrive in their roles can, in the long term, help to onboard and train new team members.
Now that you understand how recruiting impacts worker retention, it's time to get into the tactics you can use to improve this process. Here are six recruiting tactics that boost retention and help you create an engaged workforce.
Sourcing passive candidates is the practice of seeking out candidates that aren’t currently looking for work. It may sound like an uphill battle, but actually, a large percentage of people are already considering leaving their jobs for one reason or another.
With strategic sourcing, you can identify talent who have similar values – perhaps they worked on similarly structured teams or include their passions and goals in their online profiles. Passive candidates, by nature, are more likely to be highly selective in their job search. However, talent teams can look at it as an opportunity for your company to highlight what you offer beyond compensation – professional development opportunities, the greater impact they’ll have on a community, or greater work-life balance, for instance.
Everyone is busy, and important pieces of the recruiting journey (like assessments and interviews) take up precious time. There’s a tendency to want to put the burden of working with candidates solely on HR, but candidates want to get a feel for the leadership and communication styles to ensure they feel comfortable.
Include a video panel of peers during the interview process, or invite prospects to relevant virtual events your company is a part of. With tools like Fetcher, you can even have your recruiting emails sent out on behalf of anyone in your organization. The goal is to give them a sense of the personalities and team dynamics they’ll be working with most closely. Especially for companies who are making diversity hiring a priority, having underrepresented talent meet with employees of similar backgrounds will showcase your commitment to inclusivity.
Enthusiasm is contagious. Companies that exude excitement for its product, their clients, and most importantly, their team members get noticed by top talent. Fetcher has collected several powerful examples of how companies showcase their employer brand on social media, but your employer brand exists anywhere candidates interact with you: your website and career page, emails, employer review sites, and events.
Investing in your employer brand pays off: LinkedIn found that companies with a successful employer brand hire more qualified candidates, and reduce the time and cost to hire.
Referred employees are those that came through a personal connection with a current employee. From a recruiter’s perspective, referrals save time because they are already aware of your company and may be familiar with the opportunities and challenges of the role. Since the person who gives the referral is also familiar with your culture and values, chances are also high that referrals will integrate quickly with your team.
Employee referral programs are a valuable part of any successful recruiting strategy. Candidates that come through referrals are not only 85% more likely to be hired; research also indicates that referred candidates produce higher profits than non-referred workers, and are less likely to quit.
Especially if you’re emailing passive candidates, they don’t want sales pitches. They want to know what you’re offering them and why they’re a good fit. This requires precision and personalization, like the specifics of the role and what experience they have that makes them a top candidate.
Personalization is manageable when emailing a few candidates but can be tedious and time-consuming if you’re trying to reach hundreds. Fetcher can help you curate your outreach emails efficiently by automatically plugging in the names, desired roles, past positions, etc. of candidates. Fetcher data also shows that consistency is key; roughly half of the candidates contacted will be interested after one email. And although interest does decrease with each follow-up email, interest rates are still as high as 30% at the third touchpoint. That means that, even when following up a second and third time, one in three of those candidates is interested!
Much like sales, you can view your recruitment process as a funnel. The best way to know what isn’t working is to look at where the leaks are in that funnel, i.e. where candidates are dropping off in significant numbers.
At the very top of the funnel, you can track:
Fetcher helps you understand who your warmest prospects are by automatically tracking your email performance and interested responses.
Further down the funnel, look at how many candidates make it through each step in the process. You can consider each step a “conversion” – so for instance, how many screening interviews converted into conversations with the hiring manager?
Gathering feedback from candidates directly (even if they weren’t hired) will provide valuable insights into what’s working and what’s not. Revisit your recruiting metrics regularly, so you can improve your candidate experience accordingly.
Recruitment is the first step in building a strong team. Companies need to attract and identify the right candidates who have the necessary skills and experience, and align with your company’s goals and values. Once a company has found the right candidate, it's important to provide them with a positive onboarding experience that sets the tone for their entire employment experience. Tools like Nectar can even make incorporating rewards into the onboarding process easy, so new employees stay energized about their new company!
This post was written by Amanda Bailey, Content Marketing Manager at Fetcher. Fetcher helps companies simplify sourcing, optimize outreach, and hire top talent through its recruiting automation platform.
