Tip 2
Realise the potential of your existing workforce
"You may find that working at retaining existing staff is cheaper than recruiting. Thinking about continuous development and succession planning can help you to skill your staff now ready for future business needs." - Kim Challis, Head of Educational Services, Securicor Information Systems Ltd
Companies are starting to tackle their recruitment issue by focusing on staff retention rather than on methods of recruitment. They are finding that this kind of forward planning enables them to avoid future staffing problems.
Even those organisations that are continuing to expand, are benefiting from in-house development of staff, rather than always recruiting new staff from outside. It can cost up to 25% of an employee's annual salary to fill a position using recruitment agencies, yet in-house development of a member of staff can cost just a fraction of that. In particular, benefiting from the Local Skills Council support funds for programmes, such as Modern Apprenticeships, can be a useful way to help in the development of much needed skills.
The development of generic skills, such as project management and customer service, could provide the mainstay for future needs. Looking at the skill sets that the company needs now and the skill sets needed in the future can help you to establish how you can help people to get from one set to the next. It will be a best guess, and may not be completely accurate, but it will help to develop a culture of change and development that will help people adapt to whatever is round the corner.
One effective method is to succession plan. Companies that have established this have managed to reduce some of 'fire-fighting' that occurs when a key member of staff leaves. For example, often staff will think that how much they are missed is a measure of their success when, in fact it is the opposite that should be the case. Instead of this, making it part of their staff's job description, and a measure of their success to show how they have passed knowledge on to other members of the team, helps to minimise the lack of continuity that normally occurs when someone moves on.
Having people with the right skill sets is essential, but what can be more difficult is developing a workforce that does actually want to stay with one company for a long period of time. Many staff perceive moving onto new companies part and parcel of career progression. A new company provides them with a new challenge and staying in one place for too long can be seen as a lack of ambition. Creating a culture where it is easier to stay than to leave is the aim of the game, but can be difficult to achieve. Those companies that have moved towards it have found that recruitment has become easier, as staff feel more comfortable about highlighting opportunities to colleagues outside of the organisation. Many companies are providing incentives to help this process along and have found that providing a bonus scheme to existing staff for recommending new recruits saves them on recruitment costs.
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