Attracting and retaining suitable talent—
With global labour shortages presenting huge challenges for employers, many of our clients have reported significant difficulties during the past 6-12 months in attracting and retaining suitable employees.
Our team at Allan Hall HR has seen a large increase in requests for support in recruitment during this time and has put together some tips to help you recruit in the current market.
The employment situation in Australia
Whilst the extent of the labour shortage differs across regions and industries, with healthcare, manufacturing and supply chain industries experiencing the greatest impact, it is undeniably currently one of the biggest challenges employers are facing globally.
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in the following factors affecting the labour market:
- migrants returning to their home countries,
- a reduction in available international graduates, and
- border closures resulting in fewer working-holiday visas.
Australia is currently experiencing a record low unemployment rate of 3.5% (ABS, July 2022). Due to the labour and skill shortage, wage costs in some sectors, such as IT, are rising between 20% to 50%, with employers having to boost salaries to attract and retain staff.
As a result, the number of jobs advertised has significantly increased. ANZ job ads data for April 2022 revealed that the number of job ads was up 26.3% from a year earlier at 242,536. They were 57.3% higher than the pre-pandemic level in February 2020 and SEEK data shows they remain significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Five things employers can do to attract great candidates
To help you stand out from the crowd and attract and retain quality staff in this current market, our HR team offer the following tips:
1 Focus on your Employee Value Proposition
Distinguish yourself from your competitors and be clear on your selling points to attract new talent. How do you differ from other organisations and what benefits do you offer? What are your points of difference and why would a prospective employee want to work for you? For example, do you offer a hybrid working model / flexibility to work from home? Do you pay over the market rate for the position? Do you have an outstanding culture that current employees value? Does the company provide clear, defined opportunities for career progression?
Ensure you retain a strong focus on your current employees and offer and communicate these aspects to your existing employees to remind them of the key benefits of continuing to work within your organisation.
2 Deploy targeted search strategies
For many roles in the current market, it is now rare to simply advertise and have people apply. It is important to identify where the top talent is currently working and proactively reach out to prospective employees from these organisations with the key selling points from your Employee Value Proposition.
Utilise your network and professional networking tools, such as LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Encourage existing employees to help you with your search for top talent and consider devising an employee referral program to incentivise this.
3 Understand salary expectations in the current market
Salary benchmarking and reviewing current remuneration ensures your offering is competitive to the current market. Salary benchmarking is a useful tool in attracting new talent and reducing staff turnover.
4 Grow your own talent
Employing graduates or school leavers is a great way to grow talent specific to your business needs. Recent graduates can bring an exciting and fresh perspective to your workplace.
5 Consider engaging recruitment specialists with access to a broad database of potential candidates and targeted sourcing tools
Our Allan Hall HR team have a team of highly skilled recruitment, search and marketing specialists who are supported by our HR consultants, to apply a holistic approach to your HR and recruitment needs. We can assist with recruitment activities across Australia including:
- creating an employee value proposition
- salary benchmarking
- premium and targeted candidate search
- employee referral schemes
- psychometric testing of potential candidates to help in your hiring decisions and ongoing development of employees
- staff retention strategies
- structured onboarding support
As per your tax and accounting support at Allan Hall, you only pay for the time spent, together with any direct advertising costs.
Our recruitment team at Allan Hall HR would love to discuss your needs, and how we can best assist your organisation. We are equipped with a range of resources and strategies suited to the current labour market; including a solely dedicated headhunting team, premium-level access to targeted recruitment and social media platforms including LinkedIn, and a targeted graduate recruitment team.
For more information, please get in touch with our friendly team at Allan Hall HR at [email protected] or call 02 8978 3743.