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Articles
Best Practices in Retention
Recruiting for Retention: Shared Values Staffing at
TJX
By Douglas Y. Systrom, The TJX Companies, Inc.
and
Jennifer Cayer, Stebbins Consulting Group
Low unemployment, new technologies and "new economy" hires have
strained company salary budgets and ability to retain valued
employees . . . but does it have to be that way?
In addition to ongoing conventional retention efforts, we at TJX
have begun experimenting with the Steven Covey notion of "begin with
the end in mind." Our ultimate goal was long-term employee retention
- so, how could we begin building the foundation of such a
connection right from the beginning?
In retail, we attract customers via advertising, attractive
display and value pricing. But what creates repeat customers is
merchandise - the fact that our stores carry the type of merchandise
that our customers value. We match our product to our target
customer population. It would be somewhat difficult (or at minimum
hugely time consuming) to mold our company culture in its entirety
to our target candidate population - but what about the opposite
approach? Our objective has become to identify and hire candidates
that not only possess the appropriate skill and knowledge sets, but
also inherently have a set of values that match the organizational
values.
A Shift from Recruiting to Staffing - More than
Semantics
In the staffing process, the staffing professional
uses his/her interpersonal talents to uncover not only skills and
knowledge (as is the case with "recruiting"), but also the inherent
talents, attitudes and values of a candidate. Visual clues, word
choices, answers to targeted questions and indirect candidate
responses are analyzed and probed to uncover primary motivators and
specific current life considerations that may be disguised under the
"interview veneer." The staffing professional then compares the
candidate's longer-term requirements to the company's offerings to
determine if there is a foundation for an ongoing, sustained
employment relationship.
The Staffing Professional as Retention Agent
To be
competent and successful within this expanded role, staffing
professionals must refine current skills and embrace new
perspectives. Bottom line, employment is all about people.
Facilitating employment requires staffing professionals to truly
understand others. By periodically revisiting hired individuals, the
staffing professional engages in conversation that leverages the
initial investment made during the interview process. In this way
the staffing professional can recruit and actually re-connect
employees using the core reasons they chose to join the organization
in the first place. The staffing professional sits at the center of
successful, long-term employment relationships, and is critical to
TJX's business success.
Pragmatic Implementation
TJX has partnered with
Stebbins Consulting Group in creating and implementing a
comprehensive training program for our staffing professionals. The
Shared Values Staffing program teaches, coaches and reinforces
several interpersonal skills that assist in decoding what people
want (values); how people go about getting what they want
(behavior); and how people talk about what they want
(communication). Our staffing team first learns to understand their
own styles, and then practices specific techniques to decode both
candidates and hiring managers.
These techniques are only truly successful when combined with
trust-building skills, also included in the training program. We
have found it imperative that our staffing professionals view the
hiring situation from the company, candidate and hiring manager's
viewpoints. From this rather idealistic "omnipotent" position, a
staffing professional is able to effectively select and influence
the appropriate candidate, pouring the foundation of a long-term
employment relationship.
Lessons in Progress
Pilot implementation of these
techniques has proven successful within various corporate
departments, and we are launching the comprehensive program now. We
certainly view ongoing standard retention practices as critical, but
we are excited about laying the solid foundations upon which to
build long-term employment relationships.
This section highlights best HR practices in a specific area.
NEHRA members have submitted the previous articles, which we hope
you found informative and interesting. Please check the Winter 2001
issue for more HR best practices.
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