How to be an amazing workplace for recruitment and retention

by | What We're Talking About

A great workplace is a high performing workplace that attracts, retains and motivates the very best talent – which is also vital when there are candidate shortages such as now. 

Here are the top 7 characteristics of amazing workplaces:

Exceptional leadership – walk the talk

Amazing workplaces are led by  inspirational leaders, who lead by example. They magnify people’s strengths, and foster engagement, performance and wellbeing within their team. Relationships are characterised by mutual respect, trust, honesty and support.

Offer challenging and meaningful work

Great leaders understand the importance of keeping their team’s work interesting, challenging and meaningful, because consistently, top performing teams say that these are the attributes they seek in a job.

Provide competitive remuneration

Amazing workplaces offer competitive and fair remuneration, and opportunities to earn more or other rewards based on performance. 

Communicate and meet regularly with your team

Great leaders recognise the need to regularly communicate and meet formally and informally. Share information about performance, the vision, direction and other critical information and updates. Leaders should regularly interact and communicate with team members one-on-one, in small groups and as an entire group. Additionally, great leaders help everyone understand the purpose and how their work connects to the big picture.  They also provide their team with a voice, and the opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback.

Value and reward contributions

Effective leaders show they appreciate and value the team and their contributions. They celebrate success often, and praise, recognize, and reward their team in a variety of formal and informal ways. They never miss an opportunity to say ‘thanks’ for the teams’ hard work.

Plan for recruitment success

The best workplaces hire and retain the best people. They recognise that a great workplace and culture results from great people. They define the talent they need, strategically recruit, and put into place selection practices that identify top performers, as well as on-boarding practices that engage top performers and set them up for success from the start.

They also plan for recruitment success, especially when there is a shortage of potential candidates.

Promote your practice

High performing workplaces often promote events, initiatives and achievements on their website and through their social media channels. Not only is this a way of recognising your team, it also demonstrates your great culture to a potential new team member – who will be viewing these channels before an interview.