Attracting future employees in a tight labour market

While business and consumer confidence remains optimistic, there are storm clouds on the horizon for many employers including Adecco: attracting future employees in a tight labour market, and more importantly retaining existing high performing, experienced team members.

Money doesn’t always mean happiness and loyalty. Now many reading this would argue it goes a long way to retaining employees and who wouldn’t want extra dollars in our accounts each pay day? However, I believe sometimes it just wallpapers over the cracks and over time you may still lose those same employees due to culture, not understanding their personal motivators and there’s always the perception that the grass is greener.

If not more money, then what?

Well at Adecco we looked at the bigger picture and looked at what our teams were telling us. They were telling us that their professional development was important and they saw it as area we could improve. For the them, this development was a pathway to increased day to day success, recognition or future advancement. For us as a business it was an opportunity to show our teams that we heard them and we were willing to act. We knew we were always going to reap the benefits because what business doesn’t want highly skilled, highly motivated team members. However, this wasn’t our priority, our people were and so we needed to get this right. 

So what did we do?

Firstly, we looked at what we were doing well and what we could improve because let’s be honest no business is perfect.  From this we developed a three-year Recruitment Excellence Development Program.  Where we could align our team’s development to career pathways offering a unique learning platform. For us this wasn’t enough and as we wanted to make our offering unique and market leading we also looked at how we could align this to formal New Zealand Qualifications.

This of course took both an investment in time and money but both were well worth it. We recognised qualifications that would align to our business and at the same time qualifications that would stretch and develop with our team.  

The first pilot group of 23 were recently awarded a New Zealand Qualification in Sales and the feedback has been both a humbling and positive experience. With our team supporting and sharing their experiences.  

“It was great knowing that just by smashing your day job, your company was supporting you and giving you the resources to excel in your professional development. Studying to gain more knowledge can be very demanding on your personal time, but this course made it very easy to upskill without the study taking over your life!"
Recruitment Consultant Adecco 

The things we did well?

• Aligned with an experienced forward-thinking ITO
• Aligned to our existing training platform model and programs
• Invited colleagues to participate
• Kept the requirements of our team to a minimum
• and most importantly kept it fun

The things we could have improved?

• We should have done it sooner

What have we seen?

We have seen genuine engagement from our teams and a desire to participate in our qualification program. The teams completed some of the learning together and used this opportunity to bond and promote their personal brand. A result we did not expect was the recognition from those outside our industry, our clients and increased interest from job seekers considering recruitment as an option.   

What this has taught us?  

We did all this just by listening to our people, thinking outside the box and offering something tangible that wasn’t just a few dollars in their bank account each week. I would challenge any business or business leader to ask themselves the question ‘ Do I know what motivates my team and am I willing to do something about it?” 

Jamie Rosemergy - Learning and Development Manager