During SFA’s recent webinar, Top People Practices for Tomorrow’s Specialty Food Companies, Josh Wand, Founder of ForceBrands and PINATA, shared tips for hiring at a time when attracting and retaining talent has never been more difficult. He shared the following:
• Candidates want to know more information about the business, salaries are competitive, and benefits are big (monetary and non-monetary).
• Rethinking remote onboarding is critical and can be achieved through mentors, strong employer branding (pre-hire), and benefits such as stipends for technology.
• You must work twice as hard to showcase your employer brand (team and culture) on social media and your career page. Wand recommended tapping into video, storytelling, and creative job descriptions to be effective.
• Losing people after training costs much more than keeping them. Make sure you are doing the right things to keep your team engaged and pay fair market, urged Wand. If you value people and pay them a little more when they deserve it, they will stick around and do great work.
Having these practices in place with freedom, compensation, and flexibility will allow your business to thrive, Wand emphasized. Just like with friendships and family, if you do the right thing for your team, they will do the right thing for your organization. For more on this topic, including a Q&A, insights on attracting and retaining talent, and compensation, view the webinar recording here. You can ask questions and continue the conversation in the specialtyfood.com Community Hub.
Related: Want to Attract Top Talent? Here are 5 Things to Know; Spill & Dish Podcast: Living Purely With Elizabeth Stein, Purely Elizabeth.