Last month the US unemployment rate fell to 4.3 percent, the lowest it’s been in 16 years. For much of 2016 and 2017, so far, it has continued to decrease, signifying steady job growth. With this comes more competition for candidates and a heightened awareness of recruiting practices. One recruiting practice companies have begun to focus on is employee branding to have the top talent come to them.
In LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2016, it was reported that 59% are placing more of an emphasis on their employer brand in comparison to 2015. Employer branding has become more popular within companies over the past few years, and today it is one of the most important components of a company’s talent strategy.
This trend makes sense given the increase in competition for top talent, but the overemphasis on attraction and hiring is leaving a gap in the employment lifecycle. Companies are no longer focusing on developing and retaining their employees long-term.
What is more alarming, according to LinkedIn’s report, is in 2017 only 32% of talent leaders worldwide have retaining employees as a top priority.
Hiring vs Retaining
This is a balancing act many businesses struggle to achieve. An emphasis on one often leads to neglect of the other. So, top talent comes in, but often doesn’t stay very long.
Companies often have a nearsighted view of the candidate process. By placing the importance of recruiting on a pedestal while neglecting the importance of HR functions, such as developing and retaining the people they hire, they take away from the effort placed on recruiting in the first place.
Attracting and recruiting talent is paramount to any company’s success; but what’s also important is the rest of the candidate lifecycle, from attraction to developing the skills and knowledge of the person. When companies fail to execute the latter half of this process, they fail to retain the candidates they worked so hard to recruit and find themselves endlessly repeating the recruiting process.
Why Retention Will Only Become More Important
As the US economy continues to improve, hiring will continue to grow. This growth will place an even higher emphasis on retention as employees will have more options when considering moving on to a new job.
Part of this change is due to millennials. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ages 18-35 stayed with a job for an average of 1.6 years in January of 2016. In 5 years, millennials and generation-Z will make up fifty percent of the workforce. With this being the case, we will have the majority of our workforce not expecting to stick with a job for more than two years.
The time is now to start focusing on the entire candidate lifecycle. Recruiting is certainly important in the initial stages of an employee’s time at a company, but the recruiting process should be ongoing until the person’s last day on the job.