Business Management Skills

Recruiting new staff is an expensive outlay for any organisation, and the costs of actually advertising for the positions is just a small part, so it is critical that a business does this in the most effectual way possible.

Of course one of the key reasons for recruiting, apart from expansion, is that a member of your workforce has handed in their notice. Evidently one of the best ways to shun recruitment costs altogether is to keep staff turnover down to a minimum. Wages is not the best way to attain this, despite popular opinion, it is much better to invest in a healthy and effective continuous professional development strategy for staff, allow progression wherever possible and make sure that employees feel valued. Team building events and investing in staff development will really make an impact here in a way that pay increases rarely do. Another way to keep hold of staff is to be flexible in your requests. Allowing part time working, flexi time and unpaid leave can all help to hold on to a important staff member who is stressed with other commitments. It may also be possible to let some staff Work From Home depending on their role and this is becoming easier with the development of technology.

Of course you will never be able to eliminate the need for recruitment altogether, in particular if your business is growing and developing in new areas. So keeping the costs of that recruitment down is important. Plan your recruitment strategy well, make sure that all areas of the business are contacted to establish the whole businesses recruitment requests and address them all in one go. Having one push is far more cost effective than many smaller campaigns. You will get a better quote from a recruitment consultant if they are working with you on one big campaign and select one who has a strong Internet Business as they are likely to be more cost effective than a smaller, high street business.

There is also the option to promote your vacancies yourself. You can do this on the internet on one of the many Online Jobs sites and you can of course select the more conventional approach of a newspaper advert. Often a direct campaign online works very well if it is viewed by people looking for work as they are glad to see the actual employer visible. So many jobs these days are listed on recruitment consultants sites and the job seeker has trouble evaluating the role without spending a lot of time with the recruitment consultant. It sometimes seems that there are “generic” jobs on these sites just there to make sure the job seeker makes contact with the recruitment consultant. So as long as you can ensure that your online ad is observable by people searching for a new role it can often be a very effective way of recruiting.

The final point is to make sure the best choice in personnel is made. An individual who is over qualified for a role, or who has ambitions that cannot be fulfilled within your business will be an expensive choice. While they may do a great job in the first instance they will probably move on to another organization as soon as it suits them, leaving you with the whole process to face again.