Small Business Recruitment & Training Development

Small businesses, especially in retail, employ small workforces. Retail tends to be a "people" business - which means that employees are providing great customer service, making sales to customers and working closely and in harmony with colleagues. They also need to learn to work with operating procedures and technology.

Business owners are more than aware that their biggest cost of operation is staff wages and on-costs, like workers compensation and superannuation. The biggest challenge facing small business is recruitment and retention of motivated and skilled staff. According to an MYOB small business survey (April 2007) nearly 6 out of 10 small businesses fill their staff vacancies by recruiting friends and family members of their current employees.

In a time where unemployment figures are at their lowest for many years, small business operators are finding more than ever that it is difficult to attract new staff; and once they have been able to attract and recruit new staff, the next challenge is to work at retaining them.

According to the Australian Institute of Management voluntary staff turnover in small companies increased from 10.3 % to 13.6 % in early 2007. And according to Chandler Macleod more than half of employees who quit a small business decide to go within the first month and 8% of those make up their mind to walk on their first day. However, it is well known that once an employee decides to stay, they stay longer than at other workplaces. So how can small business develop a plan to make this happen?

There are two key strategies that small business can adopt to improve their situations with skilled staff recruitment and retention:

1. Develop and conduct structured interviews. Have an aim of finding the appropriate person with the right attitude and desire to work in your industry. The most important skill of an interviewer is using questioning and listening skills that will elicit information on how the prospective staff member thinks and is likely to behave as an employee. There are numerous opportunities for employers to seek out advice from HR organisations or to improve their interview skills through training.

It is important to remember that skills and knowledge can be developed and trained, whereas attitude can only be influenced by the employer. Recruiting someone who has the appropriate attitude in the beginning is half the battle.

2. Develop effective training induction programs and learning pathways for staff. Here is an often heard statement from small business retailers - "I don't spend a lot of time training my new staff - until I'm sure they are going to stay". This is somewhat of a self-defeating strategy. If the new staff member isn't engaged early with learning challenges they feel under pressure, not part of the team and can decide to move on as they aren't receiving any 'real' support. They will also view training, introduced later, less favourably if habits have already been adopted.

All motivated employees seek out opportunities to learn new skills and knowledge. The small business operator needs to recognise this and put training development plans in place. Once again according to the Australian Institute of Management only 45.1% of small businesses had a dedicated training budget.

There are numerous flexible methods of providing this development and learning for staff, from workplace based programs to certificate level traineeships. Small business operators need to assess their people's roles, identify the required skill and knowledge levels, ascertain their existing and new employee's current competencies and offer the appropriate level of learning & development.

When the appropriate time, effort and resources are allocated to the areas of recruitment and employee development and training - small business employees become "real" assets to the business and do indeed stay longer and demonstrate more loyalty.

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