Without employees an organisation would not exist and without talented and motivated employees, an organisation has no hope of flourishing and staying competitive.

Even the best laid plans can be scuppered by not having the best people in place to implement them, so it’s important to get this right. But what exactly is it that makes the perfect employee and how can you go about both attracting and retaining these members of staff? Well it all starts at the point of recruitment. Often companies are just too busy to put the right amount of effort into the recruitment process BUT you would not expect a perfect meal to be produced if you used flawed ingredients so why do we think we will get the perfect employee if we do not put the effort in to get the right people in the first place?

Step one is RECRUITMENT– know what you want and know what you need – often when an employee leaves there is a knee jerk reaction to ‘fill the gap’ when this can equally be seen as an opportunity to reorganise the department and perhaps recruit something new? Then you need to get this down on a well written Job Description. From this point then the most appropriate recruitment process for the role has to be deployed – NOT just a quick interview! It is often the case that we employ ourselves and not what is needed! You need to think in tray exercises, tests, thought through questions – perhaps a presentation? However, the missing ingredient is often CULTURE FIT. We do not want a round peg in a square whole – it is a waste of time and you lose them in the end even if they have all the skills – if they just don’t fit in it will just not work.

Step two – MANAGEMENT – have you invested in training to ensure your managers can actually motivate and manage people? Do they manage consistently?

Step three – employee engagement – this is a huge topic that will be covered off in future blogs but the whole point of this is to get your staff to CARE. If they care for the business and for the product and for the client as much as you do – then voila! You are on the way to a perfect employee, now how do we keep them?