How To Acquire & Retain Top Talent As A Small Business
Small businesses don’t have the same resources that larger companies do. Your budgets are smaller. Your ability to match the benefits of other employers is restricted. This, along with other factors, causes you to feel like you’re missing out on top talent.
How can small businesses acquire and retain top talent?
In this article, we’ll talk about talent acquisition, retaining talent, and then provide a few tips for small businesses looking to improve their personnel.
Small Business Talent Acquisition
It’s not always easy to hire new employees when you’re a small business. You can’t pay the best. A wrong hire can have a larger impact your business than if you were a large company. None of that means you can’t attract top talent to your business.
The first step is cultivating a culture that attracts top talent. Don’t just be a company where recent college grads come to build their resume for a couple of years. Instead, become a company that recent college grads want to stay at for a decade or more.
How can you do this?
Take chances. No candidate checks all the boxes. Choose candidates that show potential, but also fit with your culture.
Show your interest. Ghosting a candidate after two interviews, or taking two months to reach out are two ways to hurt your reputation. If you like a candidate on paper, reach out as soon as you can. The hiring process isn’t the time to play cat and mouse.
Let them interview you. If you’re proud of your company culture, which you should be, let them shadow a current employee for a day. Show them what your company is all about.
Find other ways to entice them. We’ll talk about this later on, but there are other ways besides salary and standard benefits to entice candidates.
No matter what, realize that you have to fight a little harder for top candidates. They’re not out of reach, though.
Small Business Talent Retention
The worst part for small businesses is watching a highly-regarded employee leave for more money. Don’t worry though, there are ways for you to buck that trend.
Pay competitive wages. We all know that profit is important, and no company can realistically operate in the red. That doesn’t mean you have to cheap out on raises or benefits. Show your employees you want them to stay with bonuses or market-competitive raises.
Show employees respect. Let your employees have a say in decisions. The fact is, they might know better than you. Later on, we discuss several ways to build an open and respectful relationship with employees.
Don’t worry about sunk costs. If an employee is hurting company culture, don’t be afraid to take action. Letting an employee damage office morale is the fastest way to force other well-respected employees to jump ship.
While difficult, it’s not impossible to retain talent as a small business owner. Read on for a few tips on how a small business can acquire and retain top talent.
How Can Small Businesses Acquire And Retain Top Talent?
With limited resources, small businesses feel like they’re in a tight spot regarding hiring. At the same time, their top talent gets poached by competitors who can pay more. This makes small business owners feel helpless.
Don’t worry, there are ways to improve your capability of hiring and acquiring top talent.
Hire based on referrals. The benefit here is two-fold. Job seekers will go into the hiring process already knowing your culture. They’re also more likely to take a job that already employs someone they know. For the referring employee, you’ll give them your vote of confidence in their judgment. Respect in the workplace doesn’t go unnoticed by employees.
Create a healthy work environment. As the old saying goes, employees quit managers, not jobs. Your job as a small business owner is cultivating an environment where employees feel respected. Maybe, you can’t offer the same benefits as Microsoft, but you can be lenient with your PTO policy. Give bonuses when able. Don’t be afraid of getting rid of an employee whose attitude is poor.
Be open and honest. Don’t give empty promises to job seekers or current employees. Don’t lure them in with the promise of a raise in six months if you know that you can’t afford it. Employees don’t enjoy being toyed with. It’s your responsibility to build trust with your employees by standing behind your promises.
Promote from within. One of the hardest parts of being a small business owner is justifying paying someone more than your budget allows for an entry-level position. The best way to circumvent that is to promote from within. Show your employees that their growth and hard work can pay off. Employees leave because they’re either under-appreciated or they don’t see room for advancement.
Invest in your talent. If you find yourself struggling to match the salary offered by your competitors, think of outside-the-box ways to compensate your employees.
Unlimited PTO
Monthly stipend for health insurance
Paying for additional training
Monthly stipend for office supplies
Flex WFH days
Hybrid scheduling options
More importantly, be consistent with your investments. If you offer flex WFH days, don’t make it a hassle for employees to use those days. This helps you build trust.
All of these actions show that you care for your employees. In turn, when interviewing prospective candidates, you can discuss how important employee retention is to you. You can even describe the different policies or programs you’ve implemented to make your workplace the best possible.
Final Thoughts On How To Acquire And Retain Top Talent
Small business owners have a lot of worries on their minds, but acquiring and retaining top talent doesn’t have to be one of them.
If you want to become a destination for employees, mold your company culture into one that is attractive and lucrative. Money is only one part of the equation.
Employees like to see you in action rather than taking your word. Show them that you believe in them with your actions.
Before you know it, your small business will become a model for other small businesses to follow when it comes to acquiring and retaining top talent.
