Employers

Think about this. According to PeopleKeep.com, it is estimated that the cost to replace an employee is anywhere from 20% of an employee’s salary for low paying jobs to over 200% for higher level positions. What’s more, we are living and working in a candidate’s market.

So just what is your company doing to keep your employees and keep them productive, successful and happy? It all starts from the moment you onboard your newest superstar and the companies I see most successful in their employee retention strategies share two common qualities.

Build and Live a Strong Culture: As soon as you walk through an office door, you know if a company gets it or not. The office environment not only needs to reflect the company, brand and culture but it must express gratitude for the employees that work there and ultimately make the company what it is. This recognition can be shown in a variety of different ways and can be something as simple as signage and something more strategic such as making sure every employee plays a direct role in the company’s success and can see their impact. Knowing that their company cares about them and appropriately rewards them goes a long way in strengthening employee retention. These companies identify what makes them different than other employers, especially the competitors, and show employees how important they are too.

Companies with higher retention rates tend to even go so far as to allow what they stand for to exist outside of their office walls. Corporate social responsibility and opportunities to give-back to the community go a long way to strengthening a company’s culture, which in turn strengthens retention. Consider giving employees time off to run a race supporting cancer research or coordinate a team building activity around helping out at your local food bank. You will be amazed at how demonstrating how a company’s culture functions in the greater community fosters employee tenure.

Active Employee Engagement: The number one reason that I hear from candidates as to why they are looking for another job is for growth opportunities. This can be addressed through transparent conversations around employee skill set and overall company direction Clear goal setting, cross-training, mentorship opportunities, and encouraging external formal education play a huge factor in employee retention and motivation. Employees stick around for a company that invests in them.

The companies who listen to their employees and actively encourage open communication get the best kind of feedback there is. I always remind colleagues and clients that the exit interview is just as important as the hiring interview for learning what is keeping employees at your company and what might be driving them away. Whether it’s through one on ones, weekly team meetings or simply a routine walk to grab a coffee, the conversations shared during these moments inform companies on just how the teams really are doing and also nip potential issues in the bud. And we all know how they can escalate and cause employee morale and productivity to drop. For example, especially if a particular position has become a revolving door of employees, what you might discover in these conversations is that the manager of that group may require some training or reminders regarding conflict-resolution, work styles, or motivational tactics. As hard as it may seem to broach sensitive topics in the workplace, it is essential to build teams with staying power.

Revisit Part I and Part II of the blog series for more insight on who is out there to hire and reinventing your hiring process.

Finding the right candidate for the job is not an easy process. And for the best results, you ultimately want to ensure an all-around candidate fit. And by all-around fit, I mean a candidate’s fit with the role and pace of work, the company culture, the team and the hiring manager’s leadership style. Here are some things to think about to help make your hiring strategy more effective.

360 Company Review Believe it or not, not every company does this. Before you post the job and start the interviews, round up your own team and ask them what their expectations are for the new hire, in conjunction with their business goals and team needs. And at the same time, it never hurts to revisit your company’s overall business plan to think strategically about what employee additions are needed to align with and support company objectives to lead to success. New hires should not just be hired to complete tasks, but to further the growth of the entire organization and live the organization’s culture.

Define Success Goals You only want qualified candidates to apply for the job, so take your time when writing the job description. Instead of writing a standard job description focused on job responsibilities, consider writing a job description focused on goals and metrics that this person will hit if they are successful. Get your team’s input. And during the interview process, explain the job description clearly to every candidate so they know what they can expect and what will be expected of them. The number one reason I get from candidates as to why they are looking to leave their current job is because of lack of career growth. They have not been given any defined goals and ways to track their success.

Assessments

Using personality assessments as part of the hiring process has become common practice. Some of the more popular ones are Personality Index and DISC. Personality Index works well when compared to historical data or data about the team’s make up whereas something like DISC can be used as more of a standalone tool.

While more companies are hiring for personality and then training for skills, I always suggest using a skill set assessment (such as an excel or a writing assessment) along with the personality assessment to help get a more holistic understanding of the job candidate and their all-around fit. Also, I typically recommend conducting the assessments within a particular time frame (timed) and administering them later in the hiring process unless it is being used as part of an initial application screening.

Hiring Department Research has shown that hiring managers aren’t successful the majority of the time. I believe this has more to do with teams not having the proper tools and resources to search, find and hire the right people or the interest and drive to allocate the proper amount of time to this task. If this is the case in your company, think about providing your hiring team with training, reorganizing responsibilities, or looking to external resources. And when it comes time to interview a candidate, have multiple interviewers and decision-makers and give each one different areas to focus on during the interview.

Outreach Efforts Don’t wait for qualified candidates to come to you. With the job description and goals in hand, get the word out everywhere you can. This could be through targeted searching and outreach through your network or through proven hiring resources.

Missed Part I? Catch up here: Who is out there to hire?

It looks good for companies wanting to hire new employees and fill open positions in commercial real estate this Fall. There appears to be a variety of qualified, ambitious and optimistic job candidates looking for jobs in and around the SoCal market, particularly in five key industry areas.

Of course our goal at Building Careers is always to match the right professional with the right company, but we thought we would share a little of what we have been seeing lately as you finalize budgets, gear up for the end of the year push, and possibly look to effectively add to or strengthen your team.

Property Management

Property managers coming our way lately tend to possess more senior-level expertise in asset strategy and operations management. They have solid financial experience overseeing a range of portfolio sizes as well as hands-on management of third party and service provider relationships to ensure compliance with property management policies and procedures, codes, regulations and government agency directives. Yardi and MRI are on the resumes, too!

Analysts

Many college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in accounting and finance are in search of analyst positions. They are looking to gain experience supporting acquisitions and development teams while bringing their education (and enthusiasm) to the table to develop and maintain financial models and perform industry data research. Not to be overlooked are the analysts coming from the lending side. They have proven their underwriting and analytical abilities and many are looking to apply those skills to the principal side.

Acquisitions

We are working with acquisition candidates at all levels, and especially those with Director level knowledge. They understand that it’s currently a tight market and can offer their connections to off-market opportunities and aptitude for creative value-add plays. If you have capital to deploy and are actively investing, I’d encourage you to keep an open mind for opportunistic hires on the acquisitions side.

Business Development

If you are looking to add to your business development and sales team, we are seeing a number of senior-level business development professionals who are entrepreneurial in nature (of course) and interested in making a job move. They have the expertise to contribute in the areas of business growth, capital sourcing, marketing and industry relations. Many have backgrounds in real estate, operations and finance and have solid experience identifying beneficial business and investment opportunities.

Career Transition

Let’s face it, our industry is an exciting and prosperous one! So who wouldn’t want to join us? We have been assisting many newcomers to the industry who have transferable backgrounds and are looking to move into commercial real estate. This is a terrific opportunity for organizations to consider hiring an out-of-industry professional with many relevant skills and the potential to offer fresh, new strategic thinking and perspective.

Have high expectations of your recruiter. Sit down with him or her and articulate what your company’s short- and long-term needs are and have an open dialogue about how you can effectively work together to find the best employees and job candidates for your team. Ultimately, you share the same goal but it’s important to ensure you’re on the same page when it comes to achieving it. And these three criteria are key to finding the right recruiter for your organization.

Effective recruiters are good communicators.

From start to finish, a recruiter should be in regular contact with you and be accessible when you have questions or simply need an update. After the recruiting firm provides you with a thorough overview of their capabilities and how they specialize in your industry, ask them what their strategic approach and process is to finding you job candidates. When can they deliver. Some recruiting firms, Building Careers included, go so far as to commit to timely responsiveness in order to provide you with the highest level of service. Talking regularly inevitably leads to more success faster. The recruiter is there for you and will be able to provide their honest and direct thoughts regarding their experiences with certain candidates and who they believe could be a great fit for your team.

Experienced recruiters know the world of recruiting for your industry.

Market knowledge and access to a qualified network of candidates are the two main reasons you reached out to a recruiting firm in the first place. Recruiting firms know your industry and know where to find and select the right employees for the open positions you have at your company. They can provide insight on where market sentiment is, who else is hiring and at what levels, and what compensation ranges you should consider to attract and retain the best talent for your team. They can also offer you ongoing industry insights and inspiration.

Many recruiters work with organizations as an ongoing human resource extension so that at any given time, they have the inside scoop on your team dynamics and needs and can fill open positions quickly and efficiently. The recruiters operate as an extension of your company. They complement and amplify the current processes you have in place. And this leads me to the final point.

Smart recruiters are in it for the long-term.

The right recruiter isn’t in it for a one and done or to simply be a use and burn resource. So invest your time and energy into finding a recruiter who recognizes your immediate need to fill an important open head count but who also wants to understand your company’s and team’s business objectives and plans for growth. They can tell you what kind of relationship and agreement makes sense – contingent search versus retained search – based on your budget, business needs, team functions and so on. The best kind of recruiter is the one who spends time with the key stakeholders in your company to build the kind of relationships that will lead to mutual success now and in the future.

Not only will a smart recruiter commit to timely responsiveness and transparency, but they will also be your company’s biggest advocate. The recruiter will spend a lot of time building the candidate relationship and rapport where the candidates are able to be transparent with the recruiter in order for the recruiter. This allows the process to run smoothly from all perspectives and allows the recruiter to be in the best position to negotiate on behalf of the client. A sure sign that your recruiter is a keeper is when they dedicate time to front line marketing and evangelizing what your company does. Your company deserves the best talent that aligns with your culture. Make sure that your recruiter is in line with that too.

The infographic below highlights what highly engaged employees experience at work. This may help you determine what it takes to have highly engaged employees. Generally speaking, the highly engaged employees feel recognized, valued and involved.

Your company has an open position that needs to be filled. You need help finding qualified candidates for the job. You’ve decided to work with a recruiter to help expedite the process, access their pre-screened network of qualified job candidates, and find the best candidate out there. Now to decide whether to engage in a contingent search or a retained search. Ultimately, it will come down to what your company’s needs are at the time, but here’s how we explain the options to our clients at Building Careers.

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In Fifteen Words or Less…

• A contingent search is a no risk/obligation search process under a limited-scope agreement
• A retained search is a priority search process under a full-scale hiring resource agreement

The Hiring Process

Contingent:

• Recruiting firm complements a search process your company already has underway
• Search is conducted under a limited scope of work, which means the recruiting firm is only involved in select aspects of the recruiting process
• The process is a volume-based search approach; The recruiting firm works on many job openings for multiple clients concurrently
• Your company takes a more hands-on approach to reviewing and evaluating the candidates
• Does not require that recruiters meet set accountability milestones

Retained:

• Recruiting firm/ retained search firm acts as an extension of your company’s internal hiring team and takes on all of the hiring process responsibilities
• Scope of work starts from defining a tailor-made search strategy and culminates with successful candidate integration into your company
• Search firm prioritizes a limited number of searches at a time to ensure quality candidates are presented; Recruiter has access to the full spectrum of active and passive candidates available and apply targeted search tactics
• Recruiter is more heavily involved in assessing and vetting how candidate attributes will contribute to your company culture and ultimate success
• Accountability milestones are predetermined in the initial scope to require executive search firms to meet and exceed your company’s expectations

Fee Structure

Contingent:

• The fee is due when the executive search firm finds your company a qualified candidate who you ultimately hire
• The fee may cost less than a retained search fee depending on the level of service a recruiter provides

Retained:

• There are multiple types of retained searches, which determine the fee structure. They also allow for more accountability and transparency in managing investment and fee expectations. Retained searches can be;
• Fully-engaged
• Performance-based
• By an engagement fee
• The fee may cost more than a contingent search fee based on accountability hurdles, search practices, and greater scope of service

In the commercial real estate industry, companies tend to go with a retained search process for hiring senior level positions – the larger the role in the company the larger the search investment – and a contingent search for hiring entry-level or non-specialized positions. Contact us if you have any other questions or want to brainstorm on how to make your search for the right candidate a success!