Wed, 2006-12-13 23:55
Finding Good Staff
Finding good staff poses a challenge for all organizations. It does not matter whether
a company is large or small, there are always challenges to finding staff that are
qualified, prepared and of a positive mindset. In many ways, you could say that
finding staff in itself is not a problem - that is quite easy.
Finding good staff is a different matter.
Whenever you are looking for manpower, you have the choice of
hiring new staff or outsourcing the work. Looking
into
the
future of staff recruitment more challenges are projected.
Now, depending
on whether you are operating
a small company or you work in the human resources department of a large corporation,
your
staff recruitment strategies may vary a little. The three
best ways to recruit staff is in-house through
cross training existing staff, through
specialized recruitment agencies, directly from colleges and
universities and by word of mouth.
Look for Specialized Recruitment Agencies
Recruitment agencies are a great way to get exposure to the cream of the
crop in your industry. Even if you are not
looking for staff right now, you
should familiarize yourself with local agencies so that you can contact them quickly
when the need arises. Recruitment agencies work one hundred percent of the time
on filling their rolodexes with the contact details of
highly qualified professionals.
Now, if you decide to use a recruitment agency, work with an agency that specializes
exclusively in your particular industry. The fact that they cater exclusively to
your industry will serve to draw professionals in your field directly to them and
their agency. Therefore you, in turn, will naturally expose your company to some
of the best workers in your industry by using a specialized agency.
The Cost of Using Recruitment Agencies
Recruitment agencies do charge fees and commissions for the work that they do. Fees
can be quite high but most employers see this as worth the time and money that they
save by not having to spend time looking for
new talent themselves. There
is usually a set placement fee or a commission that is charged based on a percentage
of the new recruit’s salary for an agreed period of time. In most instances, fees
are usually only paid when an
individual has been placed successfully and
has stayed with the job for an agreed minimum period of time.
Find Budding Professionals
In addition to using
recruitment agencies to
find professional, qualified
people, you should also make it a practice to regularly hire college interns
during the summer months and close to graduation time. Hiring interns gives you
an excellent opportunity to consider someone for permanent employment in an extremely
low-commitment way. During the period of their internship, you will be able to see
how they work, see how they interact with others and monitor their working habits.
By the time that they leave, you will have a good idea as to whether or not they
are suitable for a permanent position in your company.
The Advantages of Interns
College interns are usually contracted to a company for a specific period
of time. They are often contracted on a
volunteer basis and therefore cost
your company next to nothing in expenses. In addition to this, interns are generally
well educated and thus have the potential to move to highest positions in your company.
Interns that are preparing to graduate will often be looking for permanent work
and therefore working with them is often a win-win situation for everyone involved.
If you are consistent in hiring interns regularly, you will soon be one of the first
companies that schools will contact to introduce their latest crop of budding, future
businessmen.
Find the Skills Required
It is great to find people with great potential as I have described above. You also
need to find skilled workers. More importantly, people that have the skills that your
company needs. By
understanding your projects, you will understand what skill sets
people need to come to your company with as well as how many people with those skills
that you need on your staff team. Staff can be required to attend
in-house training sessions however these will often not
be specialized enough to provide high level training. The more skills that a potential employee presents
the better for your company.
Word of Mouth Recruitment
Lastly, as throughout history there is nothing quite like word of mouth. Look around
your current staff team. Who in your current team is a hard worker, punctual and
committed to their position? The chances are, they have an extensive, social network
full of people just like themselves. When you have a
position open in your company,
talk to the people that work for you and ask them if they know of anyone that qualifies
for the opening. Although
referrals are a great source of talent be wise
about how you hire referrals. Although cliques in the work place happen almost by
nature, be careful about grouping people that are life long friends together in
the same department. This can easily get out of hand producing negative issues of
control.
