Small businesses often struggle with limited HR resources, resulting in less strategic decision making around recruitment.  It can be challenging attracting top talent and retaining them within the business.

Similarly, you can be excused for thinking that exceptional candidates will seek out opportunities at the biggest and brightest organisations, to advance their career. While this is often the case, there are many benefits that a smaller business can offer promising candidates. Here are our top tips for attracting strong candidates with limited HR resources:

• Look for talent everywhere you go

While some roles require prior experience and specialist skills (you can’t recruit an aircraft engineer while being served at McDonalds), but if you are recruiting for service-based roles, pay attention to how you are served by different people and how staff behave when Management are not around. Experiencing excellent customer service is a great starting point for finding strong candidates for your businesses.

• Keep it personal

Quite often, staff value personal acknowledgement in the workplace. This might include awards, bonuses and opportunities for ‘stretch assignments’ or to cross-skill in another area. Even simple gestures like a personal note or email recognising performance can go a long way to help increase employee engagement and satisfaction.

• Focus on building a great culture

If your business can’t offer competitive remuneration packages and promotion opportunities, focusing on developing other facets of your employee value proposition (EVP) such as a strong company culture, mentoring opportunities and other benefits.

• Keep the recruitment process short and sharp

Strong employees don’t wait around. If you have a thorough employment process that could impact the likelihood of securing top talent, consider ways to condense some elements without jeopardizing the integrity of the process.

• Provide (and promote) flexibility

Providing a flexible working environment can be a fantastic benefit for candidates and can include compressed work weeks, flexible working hours and working from home when required. Speak to your teams about how appealing flexible working environments are to them and what arrangements suit their requirements.

Want support with attracting top talent to your business? Speak to the Recruitment team at Flexi Personnel.