Periodically, we’ll share a real-life recruiting problem and tell you how one HR practitioner solved it. Today’s issue: competing with the big buys for talent:
We’re not a big company, but we still targeted top-notch talent. Getting them to join us was tough. So we asked ourselves: What are the everyday issues employees at other companies gripe about that we’ve already handled?
To help, we asked our employees to list things that bothered them about their previous jobs. The consensus: Top management at their previous companies didn’t value them and didn’t keep them in the loop on company news that affected them.
That’s something we definitely did. So we began stressing to job applicants that we:
- had a town meeting program that everyone — including the CEO — attended, and
- had an open-door policy — in fact, our CEO didn’t have a door at all.
Result: We’re getting top hires and our retention rate is up.
(Lisa Velte, HR manager, Analytical Graphics, Inc., Exton, PA)
