Have You Prepared Your 2024 Recruitment Strategy?

If you're anything like me, you are probably wondering where the year has flown – it seems like yesterday we were recovering from the pandemic and 2023 just started.

But we are towards the end of October and wait until you realise that until the end of this year, we only have 50 business days left.

Sorry to ruin your day – I'll make up to you with a coffee – let me know when you want us to have that, it's on me.

Let me ask you a simple question: What type of business are you when it comes to recruitment?

Are you:

1. Planning in advance, based on your business plan, staff performance, etc.?
2. Reacting based on immediate need?
3. A bit of both

Hey, there's nothing wrong with C. But there is something wrong with B only.

Why?

When you are reacting based on immediate need, it means, to some extent, some of these things:

• The business failed to anticipate turnover (subpar performance, apathy, neglecting training & onboarding, etc. ) : this seriously hurts your ability to address issues before they become critical, which usually ends up costing you more
• You are firefighting instead of strategizing / planning: don't get me wrong. I love a good challenge, but when you are constantly firefighting, you are depleting your energy and resources.
• Your budget is affected as you failed to account for it

Whilst is not always possible to foresee the future and always be prepared, it is possible to give yourself a higher degree of assurance and mitigate the risks.

I will share some tips with you to start your planning:

1. Assess current staff performance: you have probably done this already, in the context of annual reviews. An important and critical step in the process. If you don't, start today – the easiest way to start: How have the employees performed against KPI's?
2. Where there is a gap between performance and KPI, identify the reason behind it: Is it a training issue? Is it a poor onboarding issue? Is it a skills issue? Whatever it may be, seek to understand the reason the gap exists – this presumes that you are involving the person in the discussion to also understand their struggles.

These two points will help you evaluate the status quo and catch any areas that are problematic, giving you and the employee ample opportunity to bridge the gap and improve the experience of both.

3. Identify your staff turnover rate: Workable has formulas to help you determine this and you can see them here.
4. Evaluate the reasons behind the turnover rate and revisit your interviewing process: both for selection and exit interviews. Identify and gaps and improve

Points 3 and 4 will help you see if you missed anything throughout the recruitment cycle . Hindsight is a powerful tool when future planning.

5. Evaluate the current workforce against your business plan – Do you have sufficient people and skills to achieve your targets? Do you have sufficient productivity to account for your output? Do you have sufficiently skilled employees to proactively implement regulatory requirements?
6. Wherever a deficiency is found, find a solution: re-training, upskilling, new recruitment, etc.

Business planning not only helps you understand employee deficiencies but also sets up the framework towards succession planning.

There is a lot more to say, but will stop here, for the time being, and reserve a more ample discussion and brainstorming for our coffee.

To talk about your 2024 recruitment plans, reach out to FM Search by visiting www.fmsearch.eu or emailing Fran Moisa on fran@fmsearch.eu

This is an informative article only.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.