What’s one of the most frightening things for an HR team to hear — whether or not it’s Halloween? They’re scaring off top talent and losing out on best-fit employees and candidates!
The good news? If you are scaring off your best employees and applicants, there’s a way to fix it. Keep reading for eight mistakes you could be making with your talent management strategy, along with tips on how to retain talent instead of frightening them off.
🧛♂️ Is your HR strategy scaring off top talent? Find out these eight mistakes you could be making and tricks for turning them around:1. Inaccurate Job Descriptions
This is one of the scariest mistakes you may be making. Inaccurate job descriptions not only drive away great candidates — they attract the wrong ones, leading to expensive hiring mistakes and high employee turnover. 20% of job seekers say they’d quit within a month if the job wasn’t what they expected, and 41% said they’d quit in two to six months.
Your job descriptions may also be alienating candidates if they list too many qualifications or use gendered language or lots of jargon. Research shows that women tend to apply only if they meet all the qualifications listed in a job description, while men apply even if they only meet some requirements.
Talent Trick #1
Vet your job descriptions to ensure you’re not listing too many requirements or skills you’re willing to train. You can also use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help talent acquisition teams write consistent, compelling, accurate, and unbiased job descriptions in a fraction of the time. Many applicant tracking systems (ATS) offer AI enhancements that speed up content creation and help recruiters write better job descriptions that attract a diverse pool of qualified candidates.
2. Lack of Pay Transparency
Pay transparency is gaining traction as a top priority for employees and job seekers. 55% of job seekers — more, if you’re hiring frontline workers — say they want to know the salary upfront. Some cities and states now legally require businesses to include a salary range in job descriptions.
Pay transparency is also part of a complete diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) strategy. It’s essential if your business prioritizes pay equity and wants to offer competitive compensation to attract and retain top talent.
Talent Trick #2
There’s no point beating around the bush about discussing salary. 54% of applicants have refused job offers after they learn the salary, so it’s more efficient to discuss it as early as possible. Even if it’s not a legal requirement for your business, list a salary or salary range in job posts and see how it impacts the number of applicants and candidate quality.
3. Slow Hiring Process
This mistake is so scary it can lead to candidate ghosting: 29% have ghosted a potential employer because another company hired them faster. You could retain more than 70% of candidates who ghost just by simplifying your process.
Talent Trick #3
Average hiring time has reached an all-time high of 44 days across industries. An easy way to stand out as a top employer is to beat that average and hire as fast as possible. Evaluate the number of interviews for each role and the length of the decision-making process.
If you use a talent management system, you can cut down time-to-hire with interview scorecards and guides. Interview guides help you give unbiased, standardized interviews —no need for recruiters and hiring managers to come up with questions on their own. Interview scorecards allow participants to submit ratings for every candidate, facilitating conversations based on the same criteria and enabling faster hiring decisions.
👻 Are your candidates ghosting because hiring takes too long? Find out eight ways you might be scaring off great employees:4. No Onboarding Plan
88% of employees say their company does not have an effective onboarding program. That could be costing you valuable employees —69% of those who say they had a good onboarding experience will stay in their role for three years or more. Bad onboarding can also have a terrifying impact on your budget, costing anywhere from several thousand dollars to 40% of the employee’s salary.
Talent Trick #4
There’s no trick when it comes to onboarding employees. The research undeniably shows that the onboarding process is a critical part of the employee lifecycle. It increases productivity and long-term job satisfaction and leads to higher retention of talented team members.
If you don’t already have an onboarding process in place, make it a priority. You can even re-onboard employees who didn’t go through onboarding so that everyone benefits.
5. Lack of Flexibility
Post-pandemic, work-life balance is a priority for many workers. Flexible work environments or work hours can make or break job offer acceptance. Flexibility also doubles as an effective employee retention strategy — 47% of workers say they’d quit if they had to return to the office full-time.
Talent Trick #5
Remote work options and flexible work environments are popular, but not every job can be done from home. Explore different types of flexible work options depending on employees’ roles, like flexible schedules or work hours.
6. Never Giving Performance Reviews
If you rarely or never evaluate employee performance, it’s hard to foster a company culture of learning and growth. If you’re not enabling growth, you’re losing top talent: retention is 34% higher when employees have access to professional development.
But how can you recognize great work and offer professional development opportunities if you don’t know how your people are doing?
Talent Trick #6
Use a complete talent management system to manage employee performance. An excellent system provides everything your team needs for fair and frequent reviews:
- Support regular review cycles with automatic reminders and notifications
- Choose from review templates or create your own
- Analyze performance data by manager, department, over time, and more
7. Infrequent Check-Ins
If employees and managers aren’t checking in regularly, your workforce is at greater risk of disengagement, which leads to lower productivity, quiet quitting, and high turnover. You’re also missing out on the chance to ensure employees feel supported, build trust, and strengthen relationships.
Talent Trick #7
If you’re wondering how to retain your employees and keep them engaged, start with regular check-ins. Employees are four times more likely to be engaged if their manager gave them meaningful feedback in the past week.
Ask managers to start hosting one-on-one meetings with their direct reports once a week to check in on their projects, ask and answer questions, and just chat. Managers make or break employee engagement, and just one quick meeting per week can turn it around.
Why Are 1:1s Important?
Read our three-part series on the importance of employee-manager one-on-one meetings. Start here with Part 1.
8. Disconnected Talent Management Systems
If you look at each of your HR processes in a vacuum, you’re missing out on valuable insight — and probably creating chaos for your team and the rest of your employees. If you’re using too many pieces of HR software, you’re likely dealing with issues including:
- Redundant or inaccurate data
- Time wasted on inefficient manual tasks
- Lack of insight into the effectiveness of HR processes
Talent Trick #8
Unify your HR technology to optimize your processes and develop better people strategies. Find a software solution built to manage talent at every stage of the employee lifecycle. Look for a talent management system with:
- Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
- Onboarding Features
- AI-Enhanced Tools
- Employee Performance, Engagement, and Goals Management
- People Analytics and Reporting
- Integrations with HR software
From Scary to Stellar With a Unified Talent Management System
There’s no secret formula for keeping your employees on board long-term — the secret lies in an effective talent management strategy. Embrace a unified talent management system to go from uncertainty to excellence in human resources.
With a comprehensive system in place, you can put a stop to the nightmare of disjointed processes, data confusion, and ineffective strategies. Instead, develop HR strategies that attract, nurture, and retain top talent. Help your organization thrive thanks to its powerful workforce.
Get our guide to optimizing your HR tech stack so your team doesn’t make these frightening mistakes. Stop scaring off top talent —get a unified talent management platform to take your strategies from frightening to fantastic. Download our guide today to unlock the power of a comprehensive talent management system.
