Boost attraction and retention by connecting with staff

People want to feel valued at work. In fact, personal value is a key consideration for employees, and it can help to get the most out of them.

Director at nrol, Jesse Shah, discussed how crucial it is to find common ground with employees and how connecting with them on a personal level can help to promote attraction and retention of skilled workers.

HR Leader: “Does being more personal with employees draw more candidates in?”

Mr Shah: “If you actually have appreciation of someone’s situation and actually take into account their personal situation and be supportive and support them through their career … they’re going to appreciate you a lot more than you throwing a free coffee or a social activity.”

“These things are great, nice to have, but support is more important in terms of through the thick and thin of what’s happening outside, and people are going to stay loyal to you because you were there for them when it mattered.”

HR Leader: “How should employers engage with staff to promote this?”

Mr Shah: “Being interactive with your employees is so important. Sitting with them, catching up with them, HR teams playing their part in this more than anyone, actually understanding what they’re going through in and out of the office, not just being reactive when someone comes in to resign.”

“If you’re there throughout the process and you’re always talking to your people and supporting them, the conversation of a resignation never comes about, unless it’s a real push factor in a genuine career jump.”

HR Leader: “How can larger organisations manage this when their headcount is so much bigger?”

Mr Shah: “Surveys help, but also, in bigger companies, there’s a lot more hierarchy. You have managers of managers. So, it’s about training your managers well. Every manager if trained well when taking a position of management and they’re managing their small teams, those small teams manage well, then the bigger teams are managed even better and so on and so forth.”

“So, it’s about educating your managers well so that HR are not just the ones responsible for retaining and helping people. If your managers are good managers, people managers, it’s one thing being a manager, getting people to hit KPIs, but if you don’t have the people skills and can’t sort of look at every person in a different way and don’t generalise your whole team, if you don’t do that and you actually know how to be a great manager, then it’s easy to manage bigger firms.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Jesse Shah, click below: