Benefits Of Changing Hiring Strategies

Old tactics, such as placing an ad in your local newspaper's "help wanted" section or word-of-mouth recruiting, are no longer enough to bring in the numbers or quality of workers needed to clean and manage in the ways the commercial cleaning industry needs. While many human resource managers think the secret to solving their challenges is finding the right website to place their ads, or improving the copy of their advertisements, the reality is that we need to take an entirely different approach to recruiting and hiring.

We need to start focusing more on marketing what we as employers have to offer and less on what we require. This will help drive initial success in attracting the top talent we all desire. Ultimately, the attraction process is where our true success begins.

For example, when doing outreach for prospects, do you focus on the bottom line of almost all applicants — what's in it for me? Make sure to begin your copy with an attention-grabbing phrase or headline that talks about the benefits staff gets when they work at your company versus somewhere else. No, that doesn't mean medical and dental benefits. It means things that are much more sexy like upward mobility, unlimited time off, the chance to be part of something bigger than themselves, doing work that matters and so on.

Remember the old adage "garbage in — garbage out." Rather than hiring from a place of desperation and in a hurry, take the time to develop and implement a true system. This should not only help attract and recruit, but also screen, interview, score and rank applicants in a repeatable process. This system will help measure and improve your input and output over time, bringing on the best fit for each position you need to fill.

Take it one step further by doing the same for on-boarding, training and managing your new hires. The costs of constant turnover are huge and well worth avoiding by being slow to hire and avoiding bad hires to begin with.

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change. That's actually the title of a book by Wayne Dwyer, a thought leader in the area of metaphysics and personal growth. It is extremely applicable to what is essentially a discussion about leadership.

If you approach hiring with the attitude that there are no good workers out there, then you've already contributed a great deal to your outcome. While many recruiters and managers bemoan the fact that "no one wants to work anymore," there are also plenty of companies and institutions successfully growing, scaling and multiplying their workforce, while also improving productivity levels, reducing turnover and increasing both worker and end user satisfaction. The difference often lies in their ability to innovate, respond to a changing environment and a willingness to use unconventional methods.