advertisements and how bland they are! If
you're wondering why you're not getting the
best response, try making your ads more
punchy and fun. Also remember to have an
attitude of gratitude and thank people for
their time in preparing their application. If
you fi nd it tricky to spruce up your job ads,
hire a copywriter who can prepare a tem-
plate for you.
should you choose to accept it is to retain
them. By far the best resource I've ever read
on retention is Marcus Buckingham and
Curt Coffman's First Break All the Rules.
In it, the authors outline twelve questions
that employees ask themselves to evaluate
whether they love their work and where
they're working. I think the fi ndings are so
profound that I've listed them here for you.
1. Do I know what is expected of me at
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company
11. In the last six months, has someone at
your business so all new hires have a mentor
to turn to. Write development plans, and in-
clude the new hire in on these set goals for
what they'd like to learn and how they'd like
to learn it. Ask them their preferred leader-
ship style (best way to do this is to ask them
who's the best leader they've ever worked
with, and then list the characteristics of
what made them so strong. You can then
just emulate that style with that particular
employee.) Try and limit frustrations by en-
suring you have the best equipment/resourc-
es available for your team. Take a personal
interest in your people if touch football is
important to them, encourage them to leave
they pioneer a team within your company to
play in a corporate competition.
the right people in the right seats on your
bus. This is a metaphor relating to question
3. It's possible to have people working with
you that are exceptionally talented, and a
good fi t for your company, yet they remain
unhappy invest the time in working out
if they are using their best skills in the role
you've assigned to them. Often some minor
tweaking can result in a major shift in em-
ployee satisfaction.
most affordable and simple retention tool
you have, yet it's often the most underuti-
lised. Find different ways of praising your
people do it one on one; announce peo-
ple's achievements to the whole company;
implement company wide awards; write
cards or notes expressing how proud you
are of them fi nd ways to notice the little
things your people do and make the effort to
continually praise them in numerous ways.
and 10 in particular. If people feel that they're
surrounded by quality people who take pride
in their output, their level of job satisfaction
increases. When you bring someone into the
team that doesn't have the same type of care
or interest in their work, morale and produc-
tivity drops. I make it a rule to always try and
lift the talent average in my companies. I ask
myself of all new hires "Will they lift the aver-
age here or will the average be lowered?" Nev-
er be scared to bring on people who are better
or brighter than you in fact, that should be
the goal every time!
Too many managers do their best to hold on
to people when they need to be set free to
fi nd somewhere else that suits them better.
Be true to yourself, and to the person who's
not of the right calibre or fi t, and make the
tough decisions. You'll often fi nd that they
are as relieved as you are to move on to
somewhere else.
recruiting brings there's a chance to create a
fresh start and learn new things. Besides, no one
wants an unhappy person working with them.
People come and they go, and we can't change
that - we've just got to do our best to get it right
in the fi rst place and look after them the best
we can whilst they're with us.
get to work on nurturing and
communicating regularly with them.
your next hire. Advertise it in your email
signature, put it on your website and
any other communications you have
access to.
fi rm is a good one to join.
time you hire your team members
want to be surrounded by bright,
engaged people.