Employment: recruitment and retention

Workshop notes

We've gathered together the flipchart notes that you created in the 'employment: recruitment and retention' workshop, at our Charity Law and Governance Conference last week. We hope this helps supplement the information you received on the day.

Employee recruitment for charities

For a lot of charities, the entire workforce strategy is currently threatened by the increasing challenges of recruitment.

As mentioned during the workshop session last week, a HR director of a large national charity has recently told us that she believes employers have become “lazy recruiters” usually simply advertising jobs on their own websites, online employment portals or, where funds permit, by using recruitment agencies. Her view was that creative employers, who are prepared to think outside of the box when recruiting, are the most likely to overcome the recruitment crisis.

Here are some different recruitment ideas suggested by the workshop's attendees:

• Using social media (demographic);
• Using specific market publications;
• Advertising the job in a way that sells it to the type of person you wish to attract;
• Advertising jobs in creative ways, e.g. lonely hearts ad;
• Taking a different approach for different age groups, segmenting the market;
• Dealing with candidates quickly and in a professional manner;
• Using interactive methods and process for interviews;
• Using volunteers and beneficiaries as candidates;
• Using experience-led recruitment, e.g. ‘have a go day’, ‘show around’;
• Using the right contractual arrangements, e.g. permanent staff rather than temporary staff (where appropriate);
• Providing clarity of roles upfront;
• Better selling of employee benefits and terms, it's about more than just a salary; and
• Emphasising impact, e.g. what values and community/societal change the role contributes to.

Employee retention for charities

Hiring good employees is vital, but it is just a start…you then have to keep those employees within your organisation.

As mentioned during the session, the only way you will keep your staff is if you have a well-developed retention strategy where employees feel their efforts and contributions are valued and appreciated, their hard work is recognised, and where they feel they are being developed and upskilled. Therefore, putting some thought into employee recognition is well worth the effort.

Here are some retention ideas suggested by the workshop's attendees: