How Companies can retain talent – lessons from practice
By Małgorzata Sławenta,
Business and Sales Development Manager,
KISIELEWSKI Sp. z o.o
Challenges in today’s job market
All companies, including EASA firms like those in Region 9, benefit from having loyal, keen and cooperative staff willing to innovate and meet various challenges. However, it has always been difficult to find these people and is now arguably even harder than ever before.
In the past, candidates finished their education and already had an idea what type of company they wanted to work for, and how they wanted to progress and continue their development in their career. Nowadays, the current cohorts are very different and require more support in finding their career, placing a greater burden on employers.
In Poland, this has led to employers locally looking for career advisers, courses and publications to assist in providing advice and ideas to support their search for the right staff.
With EASA companies, we often face a lack of specialized people across all areas of the business, who have trained within the industry. We therefore have to be on the lookout for these people and be prepared when the opportunity to recruit comes along. We also need to be prepared to look out for less specialized candidates who are open to changing careers.
Tips from Poland
So, how do we find suitable people? How do we encourage employee loyalty and strengthen the relationship with them so that they stay at the company for years to come? In Poland, we have found the following tips have worked for us:
Pay attention to local events and use the opportunity to demonstrate the work you do as well as Company achievements. These events work for us not only locally but also in Poland as a whole and even abroad.
We take part in business forums and groups where, during discussion panels, we use the opportunity to present our company to other business managers. Another key part of this is that schools and other educational institutions are also invited to these meetings, so we are able to present to them as well.
We are active participants in meetings organized by employment offices, where we can meet face to face with people looking for opportunities, it also gives candidates an opportunity to get more information about engineering roles.
A key point is to be easily seen and recognizable on the local labour market. We take part in a variety of leisure activities as it not only promotes our business, but also shows an interest in employees’ hobbies and physical health. In our business, cycling together in free time breaks down barriers and builds mutual respect.
We try to recognize important moments in team members’ lives, eg when there is a birth in a family or employees’ birthdays.
It is important to show that all workers are given equal respect, in the offices or production.
It is also good to acknowledge when production targets within the manufacturing process are met, even for small parts of the production.
We offer possibilities of giving young people from local universities and high schools experience in the engineering office and production. We try to involve them in real projects and value their fresh perspective and ideas as well as their willingness to gain experience away from their usual study. There is also the possibility of them working for the company after they finish their studies. Getting local colleges to organize courses in practical vocational training can also bring a lot of benefits.
We also bring young people in to work with our staff on their school projects, it helps build staff loyalty as well as showing skill credibility.
The tips above have worked for the Kisielewski Company where we try to prolong as much as possible, the time staff spend with us despite the demand for our people and their desire to take on new challenges. We try to show our loyalty to them by giving respect, continuing their development and creating a good atmosphere to work in. An example of this is where we are able to give production staff the opportunity to work on site in hydro plants and see the components they have manufactured being fitted. They can see the part they have played within the business and also have ideas that prove valuable for our management.
Being open to foreign staff
In addition to this, in this changing world with more frequent migration of people, we are also open to recruiting foreign staff, so much so we have been awarded the category ‘Foreigner Friendly Company’ for the Opole region.
Conclusion
Running a business, completing projects with the right quality, in the right time scale requires many skilled activities and personnel in an organization as well as a good company environment, good HR and intelligent management. I hope these tips can help improve the culture at your company!