Landing Your All-Star
Over the last few years, the steady growth of the medical products industry has ignited a mounting need for companies to find the best and the brightest of medical personnel.
The competition between companies to land talented personnel has become so fierce that it has escalated to the point where it’s now common to see companies courting the same job applicant. A high ranked executive recently reported that hiring good people is now one of the company’s biggest challenges. If they can’t find enough top-notch workers, the company’s rapid growth could be hamstrung.
Sadly, even when an employer does manage to land their all-star, they typically have no real understanding why the worker joined the company, or more importantly, why the worker chooses to leave, an obstacle that greatly increases the challenge of finding and keeping good people. Efforts by companies to limit turnover appear to be hampered by an incomplete understanding of employee priorities. For example, workers report that stress and feeling disconnected to their bosses as being the top reasons they leave their company. Conversely, employers have reported that their employees left due to insufficient pay and lack of career development.
So what’s the truth? What are those talented professionals looking for? How do you find them, and just as importantly, how do you keep them? Based on a series of interviews with job applicants from different parts of the country, here are some things we think would be important for companies to consider:
• Create an exciting company profile: Craft a company profile within the job ad to demonstrate that this is a company that leading candidates will be proud to work for. Describe the company’s culture and history. Emphasize key features, such as management training, growth opportunities, healthcare and other employment benefits.
• Be a company with a conscience: Everyone’s heard the horror stories about the cold and heartless way colleagues are terminated, or were treated as employees. While employers tout the importance of values to their customers. Employers must also exercise values to their own employees. Employees need to feel cared about.
• Testimonials from company employees telling why he or she loves working for your company.
• Perks. While most companies can’t begin to compete with a company like Google where perks include free meals, child care, free annual one-night ski trips, dog-friendly offices and on-site doctor and dental care, there are plenty of other perks that increase a job seeker’s desire to work for your company including:
• Fair pay or pay that exceeds the industry standard for your specific position
• On-the-job training-list the skills the employee will learn
• Pay raises when new skills are mastered
• Tuition reimbursement
• A company car or car allowance
• Free or low cost (to the employee) medical and dental insurance
• A flexible work schedule
• Better-than-average vacation incentives
• Performance bonuses (more vacation, money, prizes, etc.)
• Scheduled pay raises-list the time frame to the first raise
• Opportunities for promotion
• Free Gym membership
• Opportunities to telecommute
• 401(K) plan
In the end, companies need to be realistic about turnover. Good people won’t stay forever. Loyalty means doing the best job possible each day. To get the best value, hire people who want your job, then train them to do it! Managers need to understand that the littlest rewards can reap big dividends. Any kind of reward for a job well done, above and beyond a paycheck will get the most from an employee while they are with you.
Brava Medical encourages clients to post a company logo on their homepage. The logo links to a firm’s profile and allows candidates to see for themselves, the excellence of the company. This separates your company from the pack. Brava Medical even goes one more step and encourages its clients to post its most recent Press Releases.
B. Jackson, Brava Medical Staff Writer
Disclaimer
Brava Medical is aware that law and practice are always in a process of development and change. If you have evidence that this article is inaccurate or out of date feel free to contact us. If you know of any impending changes that affect its content we would also be pleased to hear from you.
It should be noted that this article offers broad guidance, which sets out industrial good practice, but it should not be substituted for legal and for other professional advice applicable to your particular circumstances.
