Last week’s TeamKC Corporate Recruiter Roundtable focused on one of hottest topics for area employers: recruiting and retaining mid-level employees.
From sourcing and offer negotiations to relocation and retention, below are takeaways and tips from the discussion.
- Challenge: With a national talent shortage, companies have a hard time finding enough candidates to fill highly skilled or hard-to-fill positions.
- Solutions:
- Attend industry events to start building long-term relationships with potential candidates.
- Host events like a “Pink Slip Party” in another market when a company has a big layoff of talent.
- Develop partnerships with higher education and professional associations to serve as ambassadors of your company when talking to transitioning students.
- Tap into new initiatives like Stanford’s MBA reimbursement program to identify talent already interested in the Midwest.
- Make sure all of your TeamKC resources telling the KC story are up-to-date and are incorporated into your day-to-day recruiting strategies.
- Challenge: Candidates have high expectations on paid time off knowing the labor pool is tight.
- Solutions:
- Focus on your company culture perks including: a vacation day on your birthday, free Starbucks on site, Beer Friday, a “day of giving,” and your overall creative workplace environment.
- Develop a model where employees can purchase extra vacation days during an open-enrollment time once a year.
- Take advantage of technology to offer telecommuting options.
- Challenge: The candidate is “sold” on relocation, but they’re having a hard time accepting the job offer.
- Solutions:
- Don’t forget to focus on the individuals potentially making the move with your candidate. The spouse/partner is the ultimate decision maker 75 percent of the time.
- Connect with TeamKC to make sure your candidate and his/her family finds all of the resources they need to be successful by tapping into our strategic lifestyle and business partnerships.
- Challenge: There’s not a defined pathway to growth in the organization for an employee, and now he/she may leave.
- Solutions:
- Go beyond the annual review by keeping communication open throughout the year regarding performance.
- Make the employee a “champion” of a project. For example, a leader of an Employee Resource Group, representing the organization in the community as a member of a committee or task force, etc.
- Provide regular opportunities that relate to both professional and personal employee development.
- Consider tuition assistance or reimbursement for continuing education.
Thank you to Jennifer Parker, TeamKC Advisory Board member and recruitment manager at Burns & McDonnell, and her colleagues Jordan Ott and Susy Urquiza for hosting us. To learn more about TeamKC and its recruiter roundtables, contact Jessica Nelson.