The recruitment industry has seen change unlike any other year due to the coronavirus pandemic, leading to global skills and labour shortages. With over one in four workers planning to change jobs in what has been deemed ‘The Great Resignation’, securing the right candidate for a job is proving to be difficult.
While a wealth of relevant skills and experience are necessary for potential candidates, whether they’ll be a good cultural fit is vital to improving productivity and employee retention rates.
What is company culture?
Company culture encompasses the attitudes, behaviours, goals and shared values of a business. Every business has a company culture, whether it’s intentional or not.
There are many different types of company culture across various sectors. From the traditional suit and tie dress code and a numbers-focused approach to those team-first companies who provide frequent team outings, opportunities for feedback and flexibility to accommodate personal lives. There are many ways a business can develop its culture.
Both of these types of company culture serve their purposes. Shoe company Zappos, for example, is known for its fun culture, with a focus on personal growth and team building. In contrast, companies like General Electric are known for their traditional management practices, but even they’re looking to evolve their culture by targeting more millennials.
Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of Zappos, said about company culture: “Our number one priority is company culture. Our whole belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff like delivering great customer service or building a long-term enduring brand will just happen naturally on its own.”
Outsourcing your recruitment
To find the right candidates with the right cultural fit, your recruitment agency has to be part of your team, with insights into the qualities you’re looking for. A good relationship with your recruitment agency means they’ll hire better quality candidates quicker with more robust retention rates.
Recruitment agencies also tend to have more industry knowledge. Using the same agency can better understand your business and ultimately make the hiring process more efficient.
You can aid this process by inviting the agency to meetings, allowing them to observe your culture in action and meet with senior leaders and middle managers. You can also show them how any conflicts are resolved and see employees’ emotions and behaviours to get a feel for the office environment. Simply seeing what’s hanging on your office walls or sitting on your desks can be a hugely impactful component of company culture.
The cost of recruitment
According to Glassdoor, the average cost of recruitment for a new employee in the UK is £3,000. A bad hire could cost you even more. With the combination of recruitment fees, training costs and loss of productivity, Agency Central found that for a typical mid-management role, it could cost you around £312,000.
This is why you should track your recruitment metrics. At Kingdom Recruitment, we’ve learnt that we can provide our clients with the most effective service for the best price by tracking hiring velocity, time to fill positions, cost per hire (CPH) and hire quality.
These metrics are vital to inform and improve future hiring cycles, track employee turnover rates and understand the productivity of a short-term workforce. All of this means you won’t miss the difficulty of hiring for more niche roles and finding the best people to fit into the company culture.
Using a hiring scorecard can also help reduce costs for recruitment. Hiring scorecards list skills, traits and qualifications a candidate needs to succeed in a job role. You then need to measure your net hiring score by surveying the hiring manager and the hire themselves about how they feel the new hire fits.
By outsourcing recruitment, many employers mistakenly believe they’re sacrificing their culture. However, with an agency that will fully immerse itself in your company, you can avoid the pitfalls and cost of bad hires to find candidates who will truly fit into your company’s culture and be productive members of your team.
