In today’s labor market, it is critical to retain your top-performing employees. Sometimes, budgets don’t allow for pay increases, so we have three ways to help you maintain your top talent that you may not have thought of.
There are many factors that come into play and it takes a lot of calculating to determine what it costs to hire an employee, on average, for a specific company. However, most organizations have to go through similar processes to hire new talent.
The average cost to attract, recruit and hire a new employee is right around $4,000 and takes an average of 52 days to fill an open position. This is a huge time and financial commitment for your company so retaining top talent is an essential portion of things to consider before the hiring process.
Here at EG Workforce Solutions, we know the importance of retaining good employees. Here are 4 tips we’ve picked up in our over 60 years in the employment industry. If you want to retain your top performers, you need to onboard and train them the right way, show them they’re valued, offer “outside the box” perks, and invest in their growth.
Onboarding and Training – Doing it Right
Congratulations! You’ve just spent a hefty fee and probably around 52 days to find, and now hired your new employee. Now your company has to onboard them correctly to protect that investment made in hiring them. This is where spending time and money on onboarding and training is a major key in retaining your employees.
On average, it takes a new employee about 8 – 26 weeks, depending on the industry and job, to feel fully acclimated to their new role. Before this time runs out, you are essentially losing money – the new employee costs more than they are earning for the company. If not oboarded properly, you are also at risk of losing your new hire. Meaning all the time, money and effort spent to get to this point will have been wasted and will have to be done all over again.
To protect your hiring investment you’ll have to go beyond even providing stellar onboarding and training to retain your top talent. You’ll have to keep your employees happy and engaged in the work their doing and the work the company is doing.
Show Them They’re Valued
It doesn’t seem like much but, taking the time to show your employees you value them goes a long way. Write “thank-you” notes to them, recognize them for a job well done or a completed project, cater lunch in, really, the options are endless. Employees want to know the work they do matters and is being noticed. As an employer, you should be taking the time to make sure your employees’ sense they’re valued and their work matters.
Outside the Box Perks
Offer your employees some non-traditional perks. These include profit-sharing, flex schedules, remote working, childcare reimbursements, or even reward incentive programs like Bonusly. These perks not only help attract new top talent, but they also help you retain your current employees. Offering perks like these examples help your employees feel valued and motivate them to succeed in their roles because they feel like their work matters.
Drawing a blank on perks you can offer that won’t break the bank? We’ve got you covered!
– Company branded clothing items or SWAG items
– Office plants – According to US News & World Report, British and Dutch researchers have “found that having office plants -created a better work environment.”
– Book of the month club
– Charitable gift matching
– Paid volunteer types
– Designated “fun” budget
– Resource library – allow your employees to learn and improve their self-development
– Sponsor applicable memberships for your employees
– Offer “Lunch & Learn” opportunities
– Allow for remote work opportunities if applicable
– Company holiday party
– Catered lunch
Invest in Their Growth
Another great way to retain your best employees is by encouraging, and investing in their professional development. Depending on your industry, this could include things like education reimbursement, tuition funding, paying for training or certifications, paying for conferences, or even utilizing free and low-cost tools like webinars or books. Your top talent is the best for a reason; it’s because they’re usually striving for growth, help them achieve their professional goals but helping them develop their skills and knowledge.
About EG Workforce
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
Are you in need of top candidates? EG Workforce has over 60 years of experience in the employment industry in providing skilled workers with the positions you need filled. Learn more here.
Congrats! You’ve just landed that new job you’ve been wanting. You’ve put in the time interviewing, and now you’ve accepted the job offer! While a new job is an exciting time, you might also be a little nervous about your first day. We have a few simple tips to ease that first-day stress and anxiety to help make you successful in your new position.
Ask Questions
Asking questions shows you’re engaged in the processes you’ll be responsible for and shows your manager you’re eager to learn and succeed. It often helps to bring a notepad and paper so you can write down the answers to your questions, this way, you’ll be able to refer back to them later. Don’t be afraid to ask any questions you have; there are no silly questions when you’re trying to learn. By asking a lot of questions, not only will you impress your new manager, you’ll be well on your way to succeeding in your new role!
Don’t be Afraid to Introduce Yourself
Depending on your position, your manager may take you around to meet your new co-workers. We’d recommend going beyond that initial meet and greet and take the time to really introduce yourself and start getting to know the people you’ll be working with. It’s always nice to have friends at work so take some time on your break or lunch to get to know your co-workers.
Look for Ways to Help
If you finish the work you’ve initially been assigned, don’t hesitate to look for other ways you can help out. First days often lack solid structure so instead of sitting and waiting for what’s next, ask your new co-workers what you can do to assist. This shows them you’ve got their back and shows your manager you’re a hard worker. Finding ways to help will also keep your time occupied and prevent boredom.
About EG Workforce
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
RPO, or Recruitment Process Outsourcing is a system where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external service provider. An RPO provider can provide its own or may assume the company’s staff, technology, methodologies, and reporting. When managed well with a quality provider, RPO can reduce time to hire by 40 percent and deliver cost savings of more than 50 percent.
When it comes to hiring beyond one-off positions, the task can seem daunting to employers. Where do you find the best talent? How do you attract that talent? How much is it going to cost to recruit on a mass scale? This is where an RPO service makes sense.
EG Workforce has established an RPO service to better service our clients, clients like one of the leading food retailers in the Midwest. Implementing EG’s RPO service, greatly impacted their bottom line and have used us to expand the service as they continue growing in other areas of the midwest.
To put it simply; EG Workforce helps bridge the gap between businesses and people by offering custom recruitment solutions designed for employers who need help hiring teams of great people, consistently, efficiently and quickly.
RPO Models – Beyond Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
With BPO, an organization outsources the management of an internal business function to a third party expert, such as EG Workforce to drive cost, quality, efficiency, service, and scalability benefits. The third party is responsible for hiring the people and is also responsible for their ongoing performance and output. The main difference between BPO and RPO is responsible for hiring people into the company, but does not directly manage the performance of the employees they place. There are also multiple RPO models an organization can implement based on their needs.
End-to-End. This solution is used for a single market, country, region, or across the globe. It is also the most popular type of RPO service – like what EG Workforce Solutions offers. Likewise, the RPO solution may focus on a specific business division, role family (e.g. retail), or enveloping all hiring across the company.
Project RPO. This solution allows an organization to hire a team of experienced talent acquisition recruiters to quickly fill a specific need within a specific time frame. This includes projects such as recruitment back-logs, launching a new hourly team, meeting an unplanned or unexpected hiring boom, or talent sourcing.
On-demand. This solution is like Project RPO, but instead involves having one or a few outsourced recruiters join your talent acquisition team for a specific project or time period.
Lastly, your company can also leverage an outsourced provider to build your contingent workforce, like EG Workforce Solutions, ensuring you have access to a high-value talent pool whenever needed.
Why RPO Makes Good Business Sense
Reducing turnover is a top priority for most employers, but in the hourly workforce of large retail organizations, the impact of losing talent can have a devastating effect. The Midwest retailer that EG serviced was experiencing a high level of turnover in the ten stores that made up their Kentucky and Ohio market. The Center for American Progress estimates the cost to replace the average hourly employee to be $3,400, factoring in loss of sales, overtime to fill in the gaps in addition to the efforts to recruit, onboard, and train.
RPO services go beyond just filling roles; this makes it different from traditional recruiting. The goal of RPO is about improving how an organization recruits overall. RPO will also look at turnover rates, technology, scalability, and how much time it takes to fill a position. It streamlines hiring processes for bulk positions, so your talent team has more time to focus on finding the best talent for the one-off positions and retaining current employees.
With an employee base of about 3,000 across ten stores, the retailer was facing a very high annual turnover rate, which equated to a loss of almost $14M per year. The company knew that rather than competing for new staff, they needed to better retain the talent that was already under their roof.
Our RPO service drives meaningful conversations with the retailer’s hourly work-force. The outreach was conducted at five critical touch-points throughout the first 90 days of employment with an additional exit interview for recently separated employees.
The use of phone interviewing for understanding employee behavior as opposed to an emailed survey proved key for three important reasons:
-The employees felt more engaged in the conversation and appreciated that their employer was taking the time to gain their personal feedback.
-Proactively calling each employee increased the response rate as compared to a mass email.
-More qualitative feedback was able to be collected through engaged conversation and verbatim comments.
By determining common trends among the departing workforce and gauging the level of employee satisfaction, EG Workforce Solutions empowered the client with actionable items to positively influence employee retention.
In just three months’ time, annualized turnover was reduced by 24%, resulting in an estimated cost-savings of over $3.5M each year.
Benefits of RPO Service
Shorten time to hire. RPO reduces your time-to-hire by over 40 percent, lowering your company’s lost productivity due to open vacancies.
Reduce cost per hire. Save your company money by drastically decreasing your average cost-per-hire.
Talent data for continuous optimization. With EG’s RPO service, your company will have access to talent data with tangible insights to inform your hiring decisions. This data includes talent mapping, turnover trends and workforce planning. Your company will increase efficiencies, more accurately forecast future hiring needs, and identify process improvements.
Gain transparency through reporting. Measure and track performance through consistent reporting on KPIs and service level agreements (SLAs).
Access additional sourcing channels. If you are in a niche sector and need hard to find skill sets, your company will be able to leverage previously untapped sourcing channels to find additional candidates.
Access expertise. Utilizing EG Workforce’s RPO will provide your company access to experienced recruiters as an extension of your team.
About EG Workforce Solutions
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
What is Second Shift?
Traditionally, second shift are the hours after 8 am – 5 pm. Usually, second shift employees clock in between 4 pm – 5 pm and clock out around 1 am. This may seem like a “no man zone” for working, but there are actually a few benefits of working second shift you may not have considered before.
You Have Time for Appointments
Since you have the majority of your daytime free, you’ll have time to go to appointments without having to plan around a work schedule. You’ll be able to plan your scheduled activities much easier than people working more traditional hours. Going to the doctor, grocery shopping, a mechanic, or even running errands will be a breeze! Also, since most second shifts are over around 1 am, you’ll still be able to sleep in before reporting to work the following day.
Avoid the Morning Rush Hour
Since working second shift means you’ll likely clock out around 1 am means you won’t have to deal with any morning rush hour headaches. No traffic jams, gridlock, or crowded buses for you! Another commute related benefit is depending on where you live, public transit fares and tolls might be less money during non-peak travel times, saving you money.
You can Make More Money
Often, second shift pay rates have a premium on them to attract workers. Many companies will add a “shift differential” to your base rate. While it will vary from company to company, you can typically expect to see an increase of about 10% over the base rate. Interested in working second shift yet? Search and apply for our open positions here.
You Have Time to Get a Second Job
Working second shift allows you to also work a first or third shift as well depending on the hours your assigned. To avoid feeling burn-out, if you want to pick up another job while working second shift, we’d recommend finding a part-time job. You’ll be able to increase your overall income without feeling too strained.
About EG Workforce
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.