What is your instinct when faced with more employee turnover than you’d like? Do you ask your HR team to come up with more incentives and benefits? While that’s very nice, it’s simply not enough to have an employee recognition program, offer flexible schedules or implement a variety of other creative tactics to attract and keep talented staff.
Employee turnover is best combated from the beginning — by strengthening your hiring practices. Start with solid interview questions targeting the candidate’s skill set, as well as how they will fit into the company culture and work with the team. Getting along with co-workers and management is paramount to the success of any new hire.
Here are a few of my favorite questions that help assess cultural fit and really get to the core of a person:
• How do you adapt to change?
• What are some of your pet peeves?
• How do you work through your frustrations?
• What are you passionate about?
Don’t end there. Test for the technical skills they will need to perform the job. Then round out the hiring process with a complete background check, including work references, verifying the candidate’s education and social security number, and running criminal court records. It’s well worth any extra time, effort and resources up front to avoid mistakes down the road. For easy online pre-employment inquiries, I recommend SecuriCheck, LLC.
And of course, once you have the right people in place, a little praise and an occasional thank you go a long way in keeping a happy staff.
If you’d like to discuss putting processes in place to stop employee turnover before you hire, contact us.
Leann Proud - PHR Consulting