Recruiting and retaining charity staff
The quest for top talent is unrelenting. With an ever growing population and with more and more options out there in the job market, charities face a constant struggle to attract and retain the right talent. Despite facing stiff competition when it comes to recruitment, there are a number of HR software solutions which can give charities the best advantage, not only to find the right talent, but also hold onto it.
The UK charity sector employs over one million people, with upwards of 14 million people offering their time as volunteers each year, but getting the talent in the door is only half the battle. Charities need to realise the importance of the employee experience and realise that there are opportunities for engagement of staff from before their first day.
On average, new starters take 28 weeks to reach optimum productivity, with an attached cost of approximately £25,000 per employee. When you factor in the costs, charities can’t afford to make the wrong decision when investing in a new starter otherwise they are left repeating the cycle over and over again, and wasting money.
Preparation is essential for finding the right person for the right job. Firstly, charities need to establish clear requirements for potential candidates. Fully knowing the kind of person and skills you are looking for from the outset will make the investment worthwhile.
Critical qualities
It is important to keep critical qualities at the front of your mind. Also doing your own research can greatly affect the type of candidate you look for and help you locate the ideal candidate.
When looking for the best talent it is about quality not quantity, so use industry specific job boards and utilise your existing network. Ask current employees to post job openings on their social media pages and encourage them to recruit friends and former colleagues. Many HR and talent solutions now have active integrations with social media, enabling you to access their networks to help reach the largest pool of people.
In order to create a workforce fit for the future, charities must embrace a more strategic approach to hiring. When on the search for new recruits, there to be made use of, the HR software market is saturated with tools to give you valuable insights into your charity.
HR solutions now go a lot further than just removing the HR administration burden and freeing up critical time that can be used to focus on the strategic future of your organisation.
The latest systems enable users to carry out a match and gap skills analysis across the workforce - enabling you to locate talent internally, and ensure that you’re not only finding the best people for the job but that employees aren’t left without promotion.
Software can aid in the creation and maintenance of development plans. With millennials now job hopping every two to three years, mapping out the career progression for each role could prove a great incentive and help attract the best talent for the long term.
Once you have through the door, the challenge is to keep them there, and continually invest in their development to enhance their skillset and ultimately see your charity grow and flourish.
Secure feeling
Workforce engagement can come in all shapes and sizes, and is unique to each employee. However, engagement is built upon how happy and secure one feels in their work. There are a number of ways in which charities specifically can address this.
Charities already have an advantage in that applicants are committed to what they see as the sector’s social values and ethos, and to the specific charity, so employees automatically get a high level of job satisfaction knowing that they are behind the beliefs of the charity. But it shouldn’t stop there.
HR software really lends itself to engaging with your workforce and providing insights, with areas like learning management and performance management particularly benefiting.
Succession tools allow you to identify your star performers, keep track of their progress and highlight employees who might need extra support or those who are at risk of leaving. Leading you to want to engage more with your staff, and focus on providing constant feedback, engaged employees appear more focused, work more efficiently and communicate openly.
Charities do not have the same freedom of pay rises as their commercial counterparts, therefore focusing on talent development through greater motivation and engagement will help you gain the competitive edge you need.
Thinking creatively
Many charities are thinking creatively about the benefits they can provide. Some are benefits with cash value, pension schemes, childcare vouchers, cycle to work schemes, but there are also benefits you can offer to help employees do their jobs better and feel more engaged.
Regular meetings and check-ins are a great way to discover what really motivates your employees, without the monetary incentive. It is important that employees receive constant 360 feedback and feel that they have the support network in place. HR and talent solutions can formalise the process around these meetings to outline goals, targets and actions so that each employee has constant reassurance and visibility of how they fit into the overall mission of the organisation.
Charities are branching out to offer various other incentives to employees, training being a huge component. Learning management software enables you to create learning plans, record qualifications and host e-learning courses.
Offering training to each employee, allows them to visibly see that you are investing and developing them both professionally and personally. Some charities go as far as to offer extra financial support and study leave to those who are working towards accreditation certificates. If you invest in your people, it will pay off.
Adopting flexible working patterns to enable workers to strike a better work/life balance and allowing employees to work from home are simple yet powerful ways to address the needs of your workforce and avoid the risk of losing valuable skilled staff. Research suggests that employees value flexible arrangements with their working hours far more than any other benefit, including a pay rise.
Managing this through software can make the transition from standard contracted hours smoother.
Defining element
Charities today are currently managing a workforce comprised of at least five generations. Offering flexible working could be the defining element which sets you apart from the competition (whether other charities, public bodies or other organisations) and which helps you to attract and retain workers from opposite ends of the age spectrum.
In terms of other benefits to employees, although often restricted in their approach to salary increases and reviews, depending on the nature of the charity, many charities are in a great position to offer benefits that many employers in the commercial sector wouldn’t be able to do. Like utilising your corporate fundraising team to obtain partnerships with corporate supporters, and to see if any employee benefits can be obtained.
In terms of benefits - cash value and engagement benefits - HR solutions now enable you to manage these benefits efficiently to monitor the success and uptake. This solution can also be utilised when considering offering holiday buy and sell schemes.
The culture within a charity can be a big deciding factor when someone is selecting a new employer or considering whether to stay in their current organisation.. Having some home comforts in the office is becoming more and more frequent and can give your employees the experiences that keep them with you.
I recently attended an off-site training course, at a training centre in London, and in each of the bathrooms was a little basket containing: deodorant, body spray, a tooth brush and toothpaste, dry shampoo, hair grips and even a safety pin. This small touch by the training company showed that it cared, and that a gesture so small had such an impact.
Having regular coffee mornings or cake Mondays or bringing in treats during the week, because sometimes we all need a little pick-me-up, can take a workplace, from somewhere you have to be, to somewhere you want to be. Something particularly appropriate for the charity sector.
Favoured place
Finding the right packages that work for your charity and then finding the right tools to support its vision is critical. There are plenty of options in the market to suit all budgets and requirements, with many offering free trials, enabling the benefits to be seen first-hand and the potential return on investment measured.
