March 2024 - Bay of Plenty Business News

8 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS March 2024
THE COST OF RECRUITMENT
Advantages of engaging recruitment specialists to support your hiring strategy
Recruiting new employees
can be costly and takes
both time and energy, so
it’s understandable if your heart
sinks a little when the need to hire
a new employee for your business
arises yet again.
Employers are recognising the
value of top talent, particularly
those individuals who can drive
their business forward and boost
the bottom line. HR teams are facing
a tricky task when it comes to
ensuring a flow of continual talent
into their business, and making
sure they hire staff who are suited
to the job and the culture of their
organisation.
In a labour market, where
employers are competing with for
the most skilled and experienced
staff, this challenge becomes even
more difficult.
In many cases, employers
seek assistance from recruitment
companies to support their hiring
strategies. Using a specialist
recruitment agent to identify and
attract talent, and negotiate terms,
can relieve a huge amount of pressure
and stress, and most of all,
this approach is not as expensive
as you may think.
What is the price of
recruitment?
Every business needs to recruit
employees at some stage. After
all, staff are a business’s biggest
asset. But bringing the best talent
to your business comes at a price.
Recruitment costs are the
fees associated with finding talent,
hiring, and onboarding new
employees. This includes the cost
of advertising the vacant position
on Seek, Trade Me and LinkedIn
for example, screening and interviewing
candidates, conducting
pre-employment testing, background
checks and training new
employees.
It is also important to consider
the added expense of salaries
associated with in-house
recruitment/HR teams, internal
commissions, or employee referral
bonuses if applicable to your
business, and the investment in
software and systems that are
used to hire employees and manage
the recruitment process from
end-to-end.
It is also important to consider
those non-monetary expenses
that are hidden as well, such as
the time invested by hiring managers
during the recruitment
process. In business, time is valuable.
While you may have already
allocated a certain financial cost
to recruitment, including the
expenses noted above, it’s easy to
underestimate the time it takes to
hire a new recruit.
Writing a job description and
advert and posting it online also
takes time out of your hiring managers
busy day. Not to mention filtering
applicants which may take
considerable time. Then, when
you finally reach the decision to
hire someone, the negotiation
stage can draw out the process
further. Although these elements
of the recruitment process don’t
come with a defined price tag,
they still contribute to the cost of
recruitment.
Benefits of outsourcing
The recruitment process can be
time-consuming and resource
intensive. Outsourcing recruitment
allows your internal HR
team to focus on strategic initiatives
and other core business
functions. Specialist recruitment
companies take care of candidate
sourcing, screening, and initial
interviews, saving you time and
effort.
Partnering with a recruitment
agency can help you fill vacant
positions faster, reducing the timeto-hire
timeframe and minimise
any negative impact an unfilled
position may have on your operation.
We often don’t consider the
cost of an ‘empty chair’, whereby
recruiting managers overlook
costs that pile up as vacant positions
remain unfilled. According
to a recent study by Career
Builder, employers are losing
between $14,000 and $30,000 for
every job that remains unfilled for
a period of three months or longer
(role dependant).
These costs are caused by lost
productivity, stress and increased
workloads for team members, a
decrease in employee morale and
engagement, poor customer interaction
from slow response times
and most of all, managers spending
time doing tactical work rather
than focusing on their higher-level
strategic initiatives.
Recruitment agencies are dedicated
to finding and attracting
talent. They have extensive experience
and expertise in sourcing,
screening, and assessing candidates.
By outsourcing recruitment,
you can leverage their specialised
knowledge and experience in the
talent sourcing field.
You can also benefit from their
access to a wider talent pool than
what might be available to an individual
organisation. They have
established networks, connections,
and a database full of candidates
to tap into, enabling them
to reach both passive candidates
who may not be actively seeking
new opportunities and those who
are searching for their next career
move. This increases your chances
of finding top talent for your
organisation more quickly.
Outsourcing recruitment provides
flexibility in managing
fluctuating recruitment needs.
Whether you require assistance
with a single position or need
to handle high-volumes of new
staff, agencies can adjust their
resources accordingly to ensure
your variable recruitment needs
are met. They can quickly ramp
up or down their efforts based
on your requirements, ensuring a
scalable recruitment solution.
Recruitment agencies are
well-versed in efficient hiring
processes. They can quickly identify
suitable candidates, screen
them effectively, and move them
through the selection process
promptly using modern recruitment
technology. From applicant
tracking systems (ATS) to candidate
sourcing and onboarding
software, most recruitment companies
use technology to streamline
and automate the recruitment
process.
Additionally, management of
the candidate experience is particularly
important for building
and maintaining your employer
brand. A specialist recruitment
firm will manage each step of the
candidate experience for you, and
partner with you to ensure your
business values, culture and ethos
are upheld.
Employment laws and regulations
change all the time and
keeping on top of compliance
requirements can sometimes be
overwhelming, particularly for
smaller organisations who do
not have in-house HR expertise.
Recruitment agencies ensure your
hiring process remains compliant,
fair, consistent and follows best
practice recruiting methods.
Finally, another bonus is
recruitment agencies often have
a database full of candidates seeking
employment. Partnering with
an agency and following a temp
to hire model allows you to hire
temporary staff with the goal of
determining whether they are
qualified and suited for a permanent
position with your company.
This arrangement benefits both
parties, by giving businesses and
employees a chance to try things
out before committing to a fulltime
position.
HUMAN RESOURCES
BY KELLIE HAMLETT
When to consider
outsourcing
By now, you will be realising how
beneficial a specialist recruitment
company could be to the
success of your business.
If your internal team lacks specialised
knowledge or experience
in recruitment, outsourcing can
be a viable option to bridge that
gap.
If you anticipate a surge in
hiring needs due to expansion,
seasonal demands, or specific
projects, outsourcing recruitment
can help manage the increased
workload more efficiently.
If your internal HR team is
already stretched with multiple
responsibilities, outsourcing
recruitment can alleviate the burden
and allow them to focus on
other critical tasks.
If you require recruitment support,
we challenge you to assess
and compare the costs of hiring
in-house versus outsourcing to a
specialist recruitment agency.
Once you crunch those numbers,
you’ll be surprised how outsourcing
can be such a cost-effective
option for your recruitment
strategy.
Talent ID are Recruitment Specialists
and can support you through your
recruitment process. Please feel
free to talk to us about this by
calling 07 349 1081 or emailing
kellie@talentid.co.nz
Kindness is good business
People will often remember
how you do something
rather than what you do.
For instance, I just bought a new
iPhone and after having used
android for years I felt like a monkey
trying to open a lock with a
banana.
The sales assistant took time to
teach this old technological troglodyte
how to use it and showed me
features that, as an android user, I
might find different to what I was
used to.
He didn’t have to do that – I had
already purchased the phone and
there was a line of people waiting
to buy. But because he took the
time, I look back on the transaction
as a demonstration of respect,
genuine customer care and an
CREDIT CONTROL
BY NICK KERR
altogether pleasant experience.
As far as the phone goes, as long
as I can jab at it and make a call,
I’m pretty happy. If I break it I will
go back and get a new one from
the chap who took a bit of extra
time to ensure a happy customer.
Products don’t make relationships,
people do. In my own business,
IPI Group, and especially in
our asset recovery division, we
have made kindness and respect
our overarching ethos.
In more than 4000 cases, the
result of this ethos is an extraordinarily
high recovery rate (our
clients’ words), very happy clients
and surprisingly (for the repossession
industry), multiple letters of
thanks from debtors for the way
they were treated at a difficult
time.
In an industry that has a reputation
for thuggery and forced
compliance we decided to do it
differently and it has paid off big
time. We have a 100% client retention
rate and a long line of companies
wanting to work with us.
Our marketing spend is lower, our
accounts receivables are current
and our job satisfaction level is
higher. When you have a choice to
harm or help, why not help?
It costs nothing for us to put the
debtor in touch with a budgeting
advisor, explain their rights and
recourse options, spend some time
hearing their story, offering advice
if asked and treating them according
to who they are, not what they
have done, or in this case, not done.
Sometimes in business we
have to toe a hard line, be it with
employees, suppliers, clients, debtors
or other industry participants.
But there are ways to do things
that can improve even the toughest
of situations or conversations.
No situation has ever been made
better by omitting respect and
kindness.
I don’t care how amazing
someone is at what they do, if they
aren’t pleasant to deal with, people
will not recommend them to
the people that matter to them.
This is especially important in a
slower economy or in a frustrated
industry as people will go out of
their way to support people who go
out of ‘their’ way to support people
– it’s a cycle of kindness and that
can only ever be a good thing.
Just a thought.
Nick Kerr is the director of IPI Group.
He can be reached on 021 876 527 and
nick@nzipi.com