It takes thoughtful leadership and effective communication to take a firm to the next level. It takes a vision and a solid plan to meet that vision. Many firms do a great job planning the budgets and expected revenue for growth. They do a great job of building a targeted business development pipeline. Often time what is not part of this plan is talent. Here are a few tactics to implement at you firm to help in retaining talent that is crucial to growth.
Planning
Planning to hire great talent is crucial to growth. Creating a sustainable hiring system should be the cornerstone of your long-term growth strategy. To do this, focus on recruiting long-lasting and productive employees to attain maximum benefits. Sustainable recruiting takes a combination of making compatible hires who share your company values, along with creating an environment that nurtures employees. Hiring great talent is about great assessment skill as well as the environment you create at your firm.
Promote Transparency
Share your firm’s objectives with both new and tenured employees to ensure that they understand the mission of your company. Strong leaders aren’t afraid to be transparent. New employees will always be leery if you hide things from them like revenue and expense data, financial performance, strategic planning, etc., making them less likely to seek long term careers with your organization. Keep your top performers informed of potential growth within the firm so they can visualize better opportunities and prevent them from being lured away.
Offer a Flexible Work Environment
The best designers are looking for opportunities with firms that offer an exceptional work-life balance. It’s important to stay flexible regarding when and where your employees work. A growing number of firms are enabling their employees to work from home to improve morale and reduce burnout. Many of my clients say “That is not our culture” or “Uur teams work best in the office” and I understand that. However, times are changing and finding ways to keep culture and teamwork thriving with a dispersed work force is becoming critical to keeping top talent.
Utilize Performance Plans
It takes a combination of performance plans and comprehensive training to improve the success of your employees. The plans should include career development action agendas with clear and reasonable goal and should be updated on a regular basis.
Provide Continuous Feedback
Ongoing, frequent coaching in lieu of annual performance reviews is essential for retaining top employees. Concentrate on providing constructive feedback with specific examples to nurture your team members. Whether it’s positive reinforcement, or you need to reprimand an employee, it should always be done soon after you’ve observed the behavior.
Recognize Individuality
Learn what your employees value at an individual level and shape their rewards accordingly. There are several perks that you can consider offering that are known to boost employee satisfaction including: pension plans, health insurance, paid time off, volunteer time off, maternity or paternity leave, and (again) flexible work schedules.
It takes courage and the right vision to expand. But hiring great talent is crucial to your expansion strategy. Partnering with an experienced design recruiter is a highly effective way to build a sustainable hiring strategy.
Are you looking for top talent in architecture or interior design?
Contact us to discuss how we can bring top leadership talent to your firm. David Brown International is s a global leader in executive recruiting and placement of top tier talent in Architecture, Design, and Technology. Our mission is to create a lasting legacy of success, growth, and profitability for our clients, candidates, and employees.
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