Recruiting new staff is an expensive outlay for any company, and the costs of actually advertising for the roles is just a small part, so it is important that a business does this in the most effective way possible.

Of course one of the chief reasons for recruiting, apart from growth, is that a member of your workforce has decided to leave. Clearly one of the best ways to avoid recruitment costs altogether is to keep staff turnover down to a minimum. Salary is not the best way to realise this, despite popular beliefs, it is much better to invest in a strong and effective continuous professional development policy for staff, allow progression wherever possible and make sure that staff feel appreciated. Team building events and investing in staff development will really make a difference here in a way that pay increases seldom do. Another way to keep hold of staff is to be flexible in your requests. Allowing part time working, flexi time and unpaid leave can all help to hold on to a valued staff member who is under pressure with other commitments. It may also be possible to let some staff Work From Home depending on their role and this is becoming easier with the enhancement of technology.

Of course you will never be able to get rid of the need for recruitment altogether, in particular if your business is growing and developing in new areas. So keeping the costs of that recruitment down is critical. Plan your recruitment strategy well, make sure that all areas of the business are asked to establish the whole organization’s recruitment requests and address them all in one go. Having one drive is far more cost effective than many smaller campaigns. You will get a better deal from a recruitment consultant if they are assisting you on one large campaign and select one who has a strong Internet Business as they are likely to be more cost effective than a smaller, high street firm.

There is also the option to promote your vacancies yourself. You can do this on the internet on one of the many Online Jobs sites and you can of course select the more old fashioned approach of a newspaper advert. Often a direct campaign online works very well if it is viewed by people looking for jobs as they are pleased to see the actual employer visible. So many jobs these days are listed on recruitment consultants sites and the job seeker has trouble evaluating the role without spending a lot of time with the consultant. It sometimes seems that there are “generic” jobs on these sites just there to make sure the job seeker makes contact with the recruitment consultant. So as long as you can ensure that your online advert is observable by people searching for a new role it can often be a very useful way of recruiting.

The final point is to make sure the correct choice in personnel is made. An individual who is over qualified for a role, or who has ambitions that cannot be satisfied within your business will be an expensive choice. While they may do a great job at first they will probably move on to another business as soon as it suits them, leaving you with the whole expence to face again.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 6:05 am and is filed under Business and Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.