Re-recruit your employees: 5 tips to keep your staff engaged in a skills short market

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Five strategies to re-recruit your employees

In today's competitive job market, it's more important than ever to keep your tenured employees engaged and motivated. After all, these are the employees who have the most experience and knowledge, and they're the ones who are most likely to be poached by your competitors.

Indeed, losing skilled talent with company knowledge and having to then go through the replacement process is considered the single most challenging staffing challenge facing Australian business leaders. According to independent research by Robert Half, Australian business leaders consider retaining top talent (43%) to be their biggest staffing challenge over the next 12 months, second only to the challenge of finding talent with the right skills (44%). 

Related: Discover more industry insights in Robert Half’s Salary Guide

One of the main drivers behind employee turnover amongst tenured workers who are not unhappy in their current role is the desire for change and new opportunities in pursuit of variety, challenge, and stimulation. Re-recruiting your employees is the act of anticipating and meeting the desire for change before your staff look to a new opportunity to achieve it. 

The importance of re-recruiting is amplified in a skills short market - there is always a competing offer available to your top talent that counters any feelings of dissatisfaction, or under appreciation, or stagnancy they have in their role, so ensuring your existing staff feel satisfied and engaged is critical to retaining them. 

As the hiring market begins to gradually slow in Australia, and companies look to ‘right- sizing’ their operations in the face of mourning costs and economic pressures, retaining good staff is paramount. Navigating a constant churn of talent presents numerous passive and upfront costs, in particular the time devoted to sourcing staff and training them up.

Re-recruiting your employees involves identifying any pain points or opportunities for improvement and tailoring a solution, whether it be new projects to combat boredom, flexible work arrangements to support work-life balance, or creating a career progression plan to work towards an increase in seniority, remuneration or benefits.

Kevin Jarvis, director of our Brisbane office says, "As a people manager, the single most important part of the ‘re-recruitment’ mindset is clear communication. Some workers would rather change jobs entirely than engage in a ‘negotiation’ about their existing role, which they view as confrontational, so it is important to foster an open dialogue with your employees that includes making it easy for them to be transparent with you about their wants, needs, and challenges."

"Rather than waiting for an annual review, try incorporating a standard question like ‘what’s one thing that could have been better this week’. This creates a regular, low-pressure opportunity to surface any pain points against which you can action a tailored response."

Alongside management techniques, it is important to keep your tenured employees engaged by making sure they feel valued and challenged. This means regularly acknowledging their contributions, providing them with opportunities for growth and development, ensuring employees have the resources they need to do their jobs effectively and keep their skills remain competitive, and offering them competitive salaries and benefits.

Secondly, it’s important to create a work environment that is conducive to ‘loyalty’. This means having a clear and transparent feedback system where staff feel heard, building and living out ‘brand values’ that employees feel motivated by, as well as fostering a culture of collaboration and teamwork so the workplace experience is as much about the team as the job.

“One of the big unknowns when changing roles is the workplace culture, so that is one of the most effective points of differentiation and retention for employers looking to re-recruit their employees: being a part of a respectful, dynamic, collaborative workplace is near irreplaceable,” concludes Kevin.

Related: Why do employees stay with a company?

It's important to have regular conversations with your employees about their salary and their career goals, and building this into a career progression program. Creating measurable goals that employees can work towards, and removing any secrecy around where they stand within the team, are both important to retaining top talent.

If your employees are feeling bored or unchallenged in their current role, they may be more likely to leave. One way to keep them engaged is to offer them the opportunity to do secondments or new projects. This will give them the chance to learn new skills and experience new challenges.

Employees need to feel like they are part of the team and that they have a voice in the company. Ensuring that employees are kept informed about company news and decisions, and that they have a say in how to improve their workplace, can contribute to feelings of loyalty and engagement. Whether through employee network groups, open forums for discussion, or formalised review and feedback systems, a clear and transparent communication strategy will help to foster a sense of ownership.

Employees need to have the resources they need to do their jobs effectively. This includes access to training, technology, and other tools. If employees don't have the resources they need, they're more likely to become frustrated and disengaged. Likewise, if they feel like their skills are not progressing in line with the market because they do not have access to cutting-edge systems, this can be a driver for change in order to remain competitive.

Employees need to feel like they are part of a team and that their contributions are valued. A culture of collaboration and teamwork will help to create a positive and productive work environment, as can opportunities for leadership and contribution. 

If you can do these things, you'll be well on your way to keeping your tenured employees engaged and motivated. And when they're engaged and motivated, they're more likely to stay with your company, which can save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

Our experienced team of talent specialists are here to help. Contact us today. 

The study is developed by Robert Half and was conducted online in November 2022 by an independent research company, surveying 300 hiring managers, including 100 CFOs and 100 CIOs, from companies across Australia. This survey is part of the international workplace survey, a questionnaire about job trends, talent management, and trends in the workplace.

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