Lauren Milam

Regional Vice President – West Coast

Hire Up Staffing & Healthcare Services

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June 30, 2022

There is no doubt about it, organizations everywhere are feeling the pressures associated with the current candidate job market. This is a vulnerable time for businesses without a plan in place to hire and retain top talent. Are you curious if you are doing all you can to ensure you have your bases covered? Read on for more recruiter-proven best practices that will allow you to place yourself and your organization in the best position possible.

While reviewing this list below, you may want to reflect on your current practices and how they are measuring up. You may find areas where you are on the right track, and others that could use immediate attention. This list is not meant to overwhelm, simply to outline proven practices for stronger recruitment and retention strategies.

• Do it right the first time and make the right hire.
  1. Ensure the employee you are hiring shares similar values as your company.
  2. Consider if this is simply a pit stop for them or if their interest in this position demonstrates a goal-oriented career decision. Is your company offering them a job with which they have a passion and within an industry they are genuinely interested?
• Make sure your recruiting resources are in order.
  1. Ensure your titles and job descriptions are clear and accurately describe the responsibilities of the position.
  2. Review your organization’s online image and consider ways to improve it from the inside out. (See further down the list for ways to improve and celebrate company culture.)
  3. Do your homework and stay competitive with your compensation. With the number of job opportunities available, do what you can to ensure you have the right salaries, benefits, bonus packages, etc. to attract the right people to your business.
• Check-in with your team. Create both formal and informal ways of checking in with them.
  1. Develop a cadence that works for you and stick to it.
  2. Create weekly or monthly one on ones. Let them know you see their contributions by providing meaningful and specific feedback. Thank them for their efforts.
  3. Hold frequent team meetings as well to celebrate success and share new goals.
• Get to know them.
  1. Through your discussions, learn what their goals are and help them get there by creating a roadmap for development.
  2. These goals can be personal, not just the goals of the business. Personal goals help to drive company goals because as the members of your team find satisfaction in achieving their own goals, they can “show up” with a better sense of purpose and often find a stronger connection to the goals of the business.
  3. “Personal purpose and goals, when aligned to a company vision, appear to impact motivation and engagement in different ways. When alignment is felt through the sense of a greater purpose, there is a deep, almost spiritual, commitment to making the world a better place and helping the organization contribute to that.” (Berg, JL)
  4. Encourage your teams input and suggestions for improving operational efficiencies and then put some to use, if even on a trial basis.
  5. Show you LISTEN and are open to those who are closer to the job guide some of the company’s job-specific process improvements.
• Truly LISTEN to your team. Beyond simply stating you have an “Open-Door Policy,” like so many leaders claim, do you create a safe space for your team to ask questions, share ideas, and voice concerns? Without a sense of psychological safety, your team will keep things from you to keep the peace.
  1. Create an environment of tolerance and be open to feedback and BE PREPARED to CHANGE. If you listen without ever considering and taking real action to the concerns being shared, your open-door policy is useless and honestly, damaging.
• TRUST them. When you hire a team you trust, let them do their jobs. Do not micro-manage or “remind them who is boss.” If you trust your team, trust them to do what you hired them to do.
  1. Guide when necessary but do not stifle their growth by spoon-feeding them solutions that are only your ideas. They will have some too. Encourage that and show through your actions that you trust them.
• Make it positive. Actively strive to create a consistent and positive work environment.
  1. Create a culture where your team wants to come to work every day. A happy team that feels empowered to do their job will always be more productive than one that feels uncertainty, mistrust, or is managed with negativity and inconsistency. Remember: Unclear is unkind.
  2. Get your management team on the same page and expect more of them to actively work to improve the culture, too, while you lead by example.
• Provide growth and promotion opportunities.
  1. Through your one on ones and creating development roadmaps, build opportunities around their individual goals whenever possible. (This could mean being flexible with scheduling to allow for personal needs. It could mean getting the company to sponsor a marathon for which some of your employees are training.)
  2. Be creative with the growth opportunities; they can include things like external or internal training, attending industry-specific seminars, representing the company at an industry conference or expo, job shadowing, and participating in special projects, the options are endless.
• Value and practice work/life balance. Burnout is a main cause of turnover. Show you value your personal commitments and encourage your team to do the same. Need to leave early on Thursdays for a Hot Yoga Class? Do it. Encourage your team to create opportunities to get what they need so that they can show up to work feeling healthy and at ease knowing they have some freedom to care for both their professional and personal lives.
• Find reasons to CELEBRATE! And then do it. Often.
  1. Recognize your team for extraordinary efforts. Offer specific praise when you see or hear of someone going above what is expected.
  2. These shout-outs can be done in a formal way, such as within a company newsletter or informally in a team meeting, or in a deliberate walk to their office. Know your team and how they prefer to be recognized and cater your actions to those preferences.
  3. Find ways to reward and recognize exceptional performance. Create company programs, such as Employee of the Month. Small gestures can mean a lot to the members of your team. They will remember these small gestures, and they will be watching to see if these programs are sustained, or just another flavor of the month.

This list encompasses many important aspects of recruiting and employee engagement. However, as with anything important, it takes effort to remain consistent and see positive longer-term results. If this list seems involved and time-consuming, it certainly can be. A lot goes into cultivating a top-notch team. The good news is you are NOT alone in this… WE CAN HELP!

Our team of professionals have years of experience in recruiting, hiring, training, career planning, and building a positive and healthy team culture. Allow us the opportunity to chat with you to see how we can put our collective years of experience to best support you in creating and maintaining the team of your dreams!

Contact us today!

We have offices around the country and the absolute best team ready to help.

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Berg JL. The role of personal purpose and personal goals in symbiotic visions. Front Psychol. 2015; 6:443. Published 2015 Apr 14. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00443

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Lauren Milam, Regional Vice President – West Coast | June 30, 2022

As the Regional Vice President of the West Coast operations, Lauren focuses on the development of each Hire Up team member and office to ensure they have the tools and ability to meet the needs of all the clients and candidates. Lauren’s vast experience in the staffing industry and her passion for people, results, and success is what drives her daily. This experience includes leadership, management, employee development, sales, marketing, recruitment, client retention, and candidate retention.  Her goal is to ensure every client and candidate receives excellent service through every aspect of the process. Lauren would love to speak with you so she can help your business reach new heights.