Talent acquisition encompasses several elements such as focusing on hiring the people that will help you to achieve business goals and contribute towards creating a working environment where employees thrive. It’s also about ensuring a positive experience for every candidate who applies for a vacancy with your company. But ultimately, talent acquisition comes down to one simple definition – communication.
The problem is that HR isn’t talking - only 16% of employees discuss their career goals regularly with their employees, according to a survey carried out by Right Management, part of the Manpower Group. Yet nearly three quarters of employees (73%) state they would be more likely to remain with their employer if they could have a conversation with HR about their career.
Career conversations improve engagement, retention and productivity levels. Regular, quality conversations about career aspirations empower your people and help your business to achieve its goals. The first step towards this is an overhaul of your approach to performance management, but there are other strategies HR can adopt to boost employee engagement and create successful talent acquisition processes, including:-
Align pay with performance for all employees
23% of managers who are underperforming or developing in their roles still receive a bonus according to the 2016 National Management Salary Survey. For senior managers, this rose to 43%. Compare this to the latest UK Job Market Report from Adzuna which shows advertised salaries grinding to a halt in March. This coincided with the first rise in unemployment in seven months according to the Office of National Statistics. Lack of transparency or recognition will only exacerbate the potential for a talent exodus, but again this comes back to talking to your people and understanding the level of job satisfaction within your company. The CIPD's Employee Outlook Survey Spring 2016 found that job satisfaction in the UK is at its lowest for two years.
Reduce the cost of hiring
A further concern highlighted by the salary survey is the high cost of recruitment affecting nearly one third of employers (32%). The longer it takes to fill a job, the higher the cost of recruitment. HR software with easy to understand recruitment analytics identifies the roadblocks in your hiring process. Pay attention to key metrics such as time to fill, which is often a barrier to hiring the best talent.
Communicate with candidates too
Unhappy candidates take to social media to vent their frustration with employers who don’t communicate. Set expectations for all job applicants on when to expect feedback and then follow up on your promises. Use your recruitment software to automate messages or updates so no candidate is overlooked or ignored. That way you’re more likely to retain the attention of qualified candidates in your pipeline. The same applies for post-interview feedback. Talk to your job applicants and your employees about what worked and what frustrated them during the hiring process.
Invest in HR software
HR is primarily about people but hiring functions spends on average two days each week on manual tasks, taking up valuable time. The most important asset your business has – your employees – are being neglected. Invest in technology that replaces manual systems, provides recruitment analytics that identify the success of your hiring process and helps your business to achieve its talent acquisition goals (first and foremost that means talking to people).
Free up time to talk to your employees. Advorto’s recruitment software is used by some of the world’s leading organisations to manage their entire talent recruitment systems. Contact us today.
You might also like to read:-
