Bosses, tell jobseekers that you expect results, urges HR expert

Don't just talk about beanbags, free food and on-site gyms, tell job applicants they need to perform, HR expert tells SME owners

Una Clifford, HR director with HR services provider HRLegal.

Employers need to conduct frequent informal appraisals and engage with inclusion, the environment and other ethical issues if they want to retain younger team members, says a respected human resources advisor.

Una Clifford, HR director with HR services provider HRLegal, says SME-level employers have an opportunity to engage with their teams in a more personal, less formulaic manner than the big corporate entities.

SME owner-employers, she says, can gain a distinct advantage in the war for talent by conducting personal appraisals that feel more like an informal chat than the annual or even seasonal models used by bigger companies. Frequency is very important.

“A lot of the bigger computer companies sell their culture so well when bringing in fresh graduates that these young people expect the sun, moon and stars from their job,” said Una.

“These young people come in and think they’ll be sitting around on bean bags dreaming up great ideas. They soon realise, however, that if they don’t meet their sales targets then they’re back out the door just as quickly as they came in.

“We are advising our clients, many of them SME owners, that they shouldn’t feel the need to follow the models of these bigger corporates. The personal approach can work better for them; appraisals can feel more like a chat over a coffee than a formal appraisal.

“What we are seeing is that workers in the 25-30-year-old bracket work much harder when they feel they belong, when their ideas are listened to and when they can see a career path.

“They will talk openly about things like their mental health and their wellbeing in a way that might surprise employers of an older vintage. That requires a different approach from the employer.

“We advise employers to be open in their communication style. The conversation shouldn’t feel overwhelming. Ask young people how they are feeling; they will tell you very openly. Be open with them. Have a short chat and do it at least once a month.” 

Una has worked and led HR functions over the last two decades in both the public and private sector. She has held senior roles in Science Foundation Ireland and Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and has also set up and run HR functions in the financial services and recruitment arenas in more recent years.

She has resolved a myriad of HR issues over the course of her career without necessitating legal redress and is comfortable dealing with any level or aspect of a HR problem.

She also advises employers on issues such as management of staff performance, resolving staff conflict, guiding on “tough” conversations with staff and temporary lay-offs, long term redundancies or “hostile” exits.

In relation to subjects such as the best tools needed to motivate their teams and softer HR issues, she advises to be open and to be themselves. In relation to performance appraisals, she says SME employers often have an advantage in not having a formal model to follow.

“With big corporates, the employee can feel they’re just another number. Younger employees are often highly educated, highly intelligent. If the performance appraisal is too formal, they see through the smoke screen and feel like they’re one in a thousand.

“The SME employer can take the employee out for a coffee. They’ll very quickly find themselves talking about issues like sustainability and diversity in the workplace.

“We find that these chats are better if they’re not structured, if they don’t subsequently lead to structured feedback. You spend as much time in work as you do with people at home, so ideally the work relationship should be as straight and direct as any other relationship.” 

In this context, while informal, Una says that this younger group does appreciate a performance ‘score’, analogous to exams; for example, a 55% score might inspire the young worker to boost their performance in the months ahead.

This straight-talking relationship should start at the interview stage. Una advises SME owners to be frank with job applicants about the performance they expect from them.

She contrasts this with the interview approach of some bigger corporates, where much of the conversation can focus on free food, flexible holidays and on-site gyms.

“At the recruitment stage, these companies rarely make mention of work, performance targets, attendance, delivery,” says Una. “It is all focused on what we give to the employee as opposed to what we expect.

“This has worked well for their talent acquisition staff – not so well for those they hired who were promptly exited if they didn’t meet stringent sales or other targets.

“Combine the onset of this culture with the talent shortage in the last two years and you have the expectation levels of potential hires running awry.”

HRLegal has seen a significant increase in the level of advice required by its clients on managing this early career cohort as their businesses are struggling to recruit and, crucially, to retain people from this cohort.

“At the recruitment stage, interviews have flipped focus completely and it has now really become the employer who is being interviewed,” says Una. “The potential hire asks questions about salary levels, digitalisation progress, hello money, gym subs, pilates classes, ability to work from Spain and flexible working hours.

“One wonders at times when they plan to get the day job done. Employers, particularly in the last two years, have had to pivot to sales mode themselves to get the hire in the door. It is then, once hired, that the real generational change in dynamic is evident.”