When you are considering the type of people you want to join your business, and how to attract them, you would do well to look at your working practices, especially if you are competing for a small pool of good people.
How to Get them on Board
Naturally you demonstrate your own passion for what you are doing and hope to motivate the same in them. Alongside this, and the attractive pay package, sits the way you operate and will expect them to perform.
Recent research by Regus, the major international player in business services, indicates the need to offer flexible working conditions to attract and retain the best personnel. Of their survey of 3,000 professionals, 90% said that if everything else about two positions was equal, they would go for the one that had the most flexible working options.
Richard Morris, Chief Executive of Regus UK, said that these days flexibility is not looked on as a perk – it is seen as more of a right. It has become ‘a key differentiator for talented individuals’.
The Retention Factor
Almost a third of respondents in the survey also said they would not have left their previous position when they did if working hours and conditions had been more flexible. Clearly, if you value your people, it would pay to make their workplace setup and hours as flexible as possible. Entrepreneurs need to have hard working people they can trust to remain in place or progress through the business. You don’t need the expense and hassle of the recruitment process every year.
According to Richard Morris, ‘A flexible role is one where the individual has more control over where and when they are productive. Managers must get better at measuring on results rather than on time spent at a specified desk. There is also the current business climate to consider. The economic uncertainty requires business to be more agile and nimble so operating with a fluid and flexible workforce, using available workspace, makes real commercial sense.’
If you think it’s time to make changes to accommodate all this, you could discuss it with your local bookmakers. They will most likely have experienced a variety of ways in which companies have made flexible conditions work for them, so they can warn you of pitfalls and advise on how to avoid or negotiate them.
