If you’re ready to grow your business, one of the first steps you’ll need to take is adding quality people to your team. But finding quality people is an expensive, challenging feat — and it has a large impact on your bottom line. On one hand, it’s important to invest the appropriate amount of time and money in hiring your perfect employee; but on the other, you don’t want to risk the expensive fallout in the event your new hire doesn’t work out as you’d hoped.
Did you know, that 61% of employees say they’d accept a lower salary if a company had a great benefits package?
We rounded up some of the most frequent problems busy leaders run into, and some steps you can take to successfully (and efficiently) grow your team.
problem:
my new hires don't stick around for long
Making new hires can be a long and costly process — and it gets even worse when those new hires don’t stick around for long. Few things are more frustrating than investing all of your time and effort into making the perfect hire, only for them to leave after a few months on the job — especially if it happens during your busy season. But with unemployment rates as low as they are, candidates have plenty of options when it comes to finding their next great job. It’s up to you to beat out the competition.
Before you focus your attention on finding even more new employees, make sure you’ve done enough work to retain the talent that’s already on your team, otherwise you may find yourself caught in a never-ending cycle of hiring.
solution:
focus on retention before prioritizing hiring
Between changing what you pay to adding new amenities to your workplace, there are a lot of tactics you can employ to improve your retention levels. The more you’re able to implement from the list below, the better your results will be. But even adopting one or two of these strategies can start taking your firm in the right direction and help you keep your people longer so you won’t have to hire as often.
offer better pay and benefits
First thing’s first: are you paying your employees what they’re worth? If you notice unusually high turnover with your new hires, low salary and weak benefits may be the culprits.
Once you’ve made some improvements to your pay rates, it’s time to focus on benefits. Benefits can be just as — if not more than — effective at retaining top talent. In fact, in a past study we found, 61 percent of employees say they’d accept a lower salary if a company had a great benefits package.
align offerings with current worker expectations
As you look to revamp your benefits package, make sure it aligns with the expectations of today’s workers. Employees are now looking for benefits that enhance their quality of life, so offering onsite amenities (like gyms and dry cleaning) will allow them to maximize their time in the office while preventing home priorities from interfering with work.
On top of that, today’s workers are also interested in training and development opportunities that can help them advance their careers — so making an investment in upskilling can be good for both their satisfaction and your bottom line.
target your top performers
Putting in this investment up front to retain your top performers may help you avoid the cost of backfilling vacant roles and enable you to keep your best workers around. It may seem like a lot of attention to pay to a small portion of your workforce, but when you consider that the the top five percent of your team produces 26 percent of your organization's total output, it’s a smart way to allocate your resources.
problem:
i'm ready to hire, but struggling to find great candidates on my own
With retention under control, you should start noticing that you won’t have to worry about the hassle of engaging the hiring market as often. However, when you do, your original problem still remains: finding great candidates is a challenge.
While job boards can be a spectacular resource for finding and hiring new employees, they take time to search through, as you’re required to vet each individual applicant to see if they’re worth interviewing. From start to finish, this process can take months.
solution:
let a staffing firm be your guide
If you’re having trouble finding skilled talent on your own, it could be for a number of reasons. Maybe you don’t have access to the right network of talent, or maybe you do, but your hiring process always seems to drag on for months, during which time your target candidates end up accepting offers elsewhere.
Or maybe you know all the right things to do, but you just don’t have enough time to dedicate to the task of hiring full time. Whatever the particular reason may be for your firm, a staffing firm has the knowledge and resources to help.
A staffing firm’s main objective is to match you with the skilled employees you need, when you need them. They can help you overcome your hiring challenges by:
Finding talent that better fits your workplace: Staffing firms have specialized recruiters who will partner with you to understand not only the skills and qualifications you’re looking for in your next new hire, but also elements like culture and fit.
Delivering talent with the right skills: Staffing firms have access to their own vast networks of experienced accounting and finance professionals. That means when they send you a curated list of candidates to choose from, you know they’ve already gone through — and passed — prior rounds of evaluation.
Providing workforce management strategies: In addition to finding you great candidates, staffing firms can also provide you with tailored strategies to help you engage and retain your new employees as well as improve your own staffing strategy for the future.
problem:
i'm in a crunch — i need to hire fast
By keeping your best employees around and partnering with a staffing firm, you should already be beginning to see better hires and more stability in your workforce. However, when busy season rolls around, or unplanned vacancies arise on your team, all that work you did to improve your staffing strategy could easily go out the window.
When that happens, there’s no time to waste — you need new talent now — but rushing and ending up with a bad hire on your hands isn’t the answer either. In a situation like this, widening your search to include temporary talent can help you get the people you need in a pinch without the risks associated with committing to a full-time hire.
solution:
try out temporary talent
A trusted staffing firm can help you to not only find reliable long-term talent — they can match you with skilled temporary workers who can get to work fast. And hiring temporary employees has a number of perks: You get trusted, vetted accounting and finance talent added to your team quickly (which is especially advantageous during your busy season) and you can keep them on for as long (or as short!) as you need.
Plus, if a temporary employee ends up being a great fit, you can easily convert them to a permanent member of your team. Temporary talent is a great low-risk approach to growing your team as you can add, remove and swap employees based on your needs — without paying the hefty price that comes with commitment.
There is no secret sauce when it comes to finding the best employees: It’s all about taking a step back and reassessing the big picture. Is your company somewhere people want to work? Do you offer the benefits employees want? Do they feel valued? If you can confidently answer yes to all of these questions, you should have no trouble attracting — and retaining — today’s top talent.
Interested in taking a peek at some of these candidates? Visit our Find Employees tool now to see who’s available!