Retaining employees has always been more important than recruiting employees. Although for years, because it was so easy to recruit employees, many organizations lost sight of the importance of having a great culture and strong leaders; they just relied on their ability to fill jobs quickly and easily when necessary. Well, those days are clearly over!
Now, the hard part…what should we do? First, take a deep breath, step back, and figure out the culture you aspire to. Then spend the time to define the competencies and behaviors you need to make that culture a reality. From there, focus your interviews by asking meaningful questions about those competencies.
Once you are interviewing for the culture you want, then make sure that all of your other critical decisions are aligned. Focus your feedback on it, create development plans on it, base promotions on it, and if necessary, fire for it!
If all that sounds daunting, check out this simple, powerful, and ridiculously affordable tool that has a great competency model to help you define the core attributes you need and create custom interview guides to improve your selection process. Better questions, better fit, better hires.
Some organizations have made an already difficult recruiting situation even harder. Employment brands in those companies that took their eye off retention have taken a big hit. Now, not only are you losing the good people you had, but you also can’t fill the vacated jobs; the word on the street is that you are just not a great place to work. And because those that remain are stretched way too thin and completely exhausted, they will begin to look for something better. Ouch!
When employees fit, and you lead them well, they stay. Culture wins! Every. Single. Time.