John Pierce is Head of Business Development at Cetera Financial Group, driving Cetera’s financial professional recruiting strategy.
Getty
If you believe the movies, it’s easy to be a superhero. The superhero gets all the credit at the end of the movie when they save the day. In the corporate world, "superheroes" are not that effective, especially when they are all alone. As we contemplate recruiting for any role, organizations that recruit effectively and at scale acknowledge that recruiting is a team sport, not a superhero activity. We acknowledge that there is an innate human desire for recognition from your organization for your efforts.
Conversely, consider how much better off you and your organization would be if you leveraged the entire enterprise so that instead of only you rowing the boat in one direction, you had nine more people also rowing in that same direction. That is one way you can supercharge your results—recognizing the team sport aspect of recruiting that you can leverage for superhero-like results.
Here are five proven concepts to lever your organization and recruit at scale while creating raving fans that bolster retention:
1. Wow Them With The Visit
In today’s hiring environment it has been difficult to hire optimal candidates consistently. We suggest you create and implement a home office visit highlighting your company’s unique culture while solving for the wants, needs and dreams of your target candidates. How do you do that? Active listening. People tend to talk at about 225 words per minute, but we have the capacity to listen to 500 words a minute.
2. Acknowledge Gaps And Course-Correct
In our “new normal,” we're finally starting to get together face-to-face in some capacity. Besides the joy of seeing everyone and breaking bread together, it is an opportunity to assess what has changed over the past two years and evaluate gaps or friction points your team is dealing with. Reducing friction produces scale. In a recent group gathering, we had multiple idea-sharing sessions where we found friction points that we would not have discovered without these sessions. Consider gathering your team to learn what you don’t know now.
3. Leverage The Enterprise
Now that you have discovered your gaps and friction points, it’s time to gather other enterprise resources and add people to help row the boat. Working together, the enterprise can coalesce resources to solve problems to reduce friction and promote scale. After you identify friction points, how are you going to respond?
In our ideation sessions, we discovered a few friction points. One was a key-person risk to our critical presentation function covering technology and advisory platforms. While we had superior subject matter experts, the bench was thin. The enterprise implemented a training program to deepen the bench. Another area of friction was a review of the candidate’s book of business.
4. Pay Attention To Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
NPS is an indicator of customer loyalty and satisfaction. According to the Corporate Finance Institute, "the metric aims to identify customers who are less satisfied with the customer experience or product and transform them into the company’s promoters." If you don’t know the various NPS scores within your company, how can you get better and become both a premier recruiting organization and a retention hub that is the envy of your industry? As you conduct employee surveys and gauge NPS over time, don’t survey just to say you have done it. Act on it.
One example in our organization was a desire for more information sharing and best practice exchanges across key parts of the organization. This would help leverage our recruiting results. We implemented an education series to help facilitate the flow of information while also surfacing gaps or issues that others may not have been aware of. By paying attention to our NPS, not just forcing a survey, we helped to educate the organization while our team learned new skills to drive recruiting. You also help retention due to employee satisfaction as associates realize you are acting on their needs. Your team becomes more loyal if they know you listen to them.
5. Transition With White-Glove Service
Sometimes the unfortunate reality is that you spend significant time and energy and effort to get the optimal candidate to the finish line only to have them ultimately join your competitor. The candidate is unimpressed with your onboarding, training or other processes versus the competition. After making a significant investment of time and capital, invest in the extra effort to ensure the onboarding experience reflects the culture of excellence you want your organization to represent. Onboarding is the candidate’s first real experience with your organization and taking a white-glove approach could serve you well.
As you implement these five concepts you might wake up one day to realize, you really are a superhero. You have the enterprise backing that empowers you to hire optimal candidates while increasing your retention rates of satisfied colleagues. See you at the movies!
Forbes Human Resources Council is an invitation-only organization for HR executives across all industries. Do I qualify?
