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Making a home: creating culture in a cut-throat world

As far as recruitment has come from a caviler, cowboy stereotype, it still can’t shake of the image of a cut-throat, shark-infested world. That’s partly because recruitment is cut-throat. It moves far too fast to be anything else and the pressures and demands are phenomenal and as such, people become snappy and frustrated when their back is against the wall. (If you’re a consultant it always feels like your back is against that damn wall).

Because of that dynamic it’s hard to create the right kind of culture and agencies have previously pushed it to the bottom of the pile. But the business world has changed and you can no longer afford to push culture aside. It’s been moved to the top of the agenda and it’s staring agencies dead in the eye.

Posted 14/08/2019

Culture is not perks

Let’s just establish that straightaway. Having a huge ping pong table and a breakfast bar does not equate to a culture. You can feed people free muffins as much as you like, it won’t make them fall in love with your business, or their colleagues. If your strategy for driving culture includes perks and lunch clubs, it’s time to shift the focus. You can’t buy love, and you certainly can’t buy it in your business.

Say what you mean and do what you say

Leadership is one of the wheels of good culture. People don’t leave companies, they leave bosses. With a great boss it’s remarkable what your employees will forgive within the walls of your organisation. It’s also the leaders that set the tone and make your employee’s working life a safe haven or a living hell. Communicate your culture to the top and make sure they’re responsible for filtering it down. You also have a duty to hire only those people who fit in with your culture, and the culture you’re trying to create. It doesn’t matter what they’re track record is or how much they’ve billed in previous organisations, if everybody hates them and they make life horrible, your consultants will leave and so will their billings. 

This isn’t school

More businesses are realising that micro-managing your employees and breathing down their necks is creating low productivity rates and equally low attrition rates. As a result, organisations are moving towards performance based workplaces. Set goals, give your employees the tools and support to achieve those goals, and then leave them the hell alone to get on with it. Your recruitment technology can help you with this, for example Access Recruitment CRM has customisable dashboards so managers can see exactly what their consultants are billing, in real time. You don’t need to be staring at their call times and chasing up how many CVs they sent out that day. The dark days are over and we no longer operate like that, and it’s not the way to get the best out of your employees. If you feel like you’ve hired someone who really does need micro-managing, then you’ve hired the wrong person.

Be a matchmaker

Meaning, create spaces for people across the organisation to interact and engage with one another. That moment when you’re standing in the kitchen and nod to someone from another department, but you’ve never been introduced (even though you’ve both worked there for three years) because you don’t actually do any work with one another so you don’t have a conversation. It doesn’t matter if they don’t work directly with one another, get your employees talking to each other. It will create new friendships which in turn creates a relaxed environment and friendly culture.

Playtime

Because recruitment is so obsessed with core hours, they often leave all socialising until after hours. By this point, you can’t always be bothered and depending on the day you’ve had at work, you just want to go home. Or at least leave the office so you don’t have to see anyone from work for another twelve hours. Create spaces to relax and socialise within work hours. They’ll appreciate the show of trust, and although it may take your consultants off the phones for a few hours, it will keep them working in your business for years longer.