Could the ‘Great Resignation’ negatively impact YOUR bottom line? 3 ways recruitment agencies can hold on to their best consultants
Every recruitment agency Finance Director knows that their team of consultants are the firm’s most expensive and most valuable asset. So that means it’s all the more important to ensure that your company is doing everything it can to keep them happy, motivated and productive – and therefore more likely to stay loyal in the long term. But even recruitment firms are not immune to the Great Resignation as recently reported.
The best performing consultants present the highest risk for your agency if they jump ship – not least because their excellent contacts and high productivity rates would be lost overnight. It also takes a while and can be costly to replace your staff, all whilst work is not being done and revenue not generated as a result of their absence.
Clearly there will be some factors that recruitment HR leaders and managers can address. But there are also actions that the recruitment agency Finance Director and senior leadership team can embrace in order to protect the business and its top performers.
Tools to make consultants’ jobs easier and more efficient
The first (and simplest) action to take is to look at ways to make your consultants’ jobs easier. When faced with a mountain of work to do, your top performers will welcome the provision of tools that reduce the volume of admin they have to complete on a daily basis, so they can focus on the core elements of their role and, ultimately earn more commission.
Modern recruitment CRM software delivers intuitive and enhanced functionality which makes day-to-day tasks much more efficient. And don’t forget, less admin and better software tools equals more productivity – and that benefits your business bottom line too.
Extend business trust and responsibility
It’s been proven time and again in all kinds of companies that individual employees respond well when their employer actively recognises their skills and loyalty. One easy way to demonstrate that is by increasing levels of responsibility – not by piling more work on to their shoulders, but by showing that the employee is trusted by the business.
Finance Directors should consider equipping consultants with more information about the stability and payment performance of their customers – giving them more data to use when targeting their activities and ensuring that the most profitable placements are pursued over those where the risk is higher. This can be achieved with solutions such as the Access Business Health Dashboard, powered by Experian – an invaluable source of credit risk information.
Deeper and broader skills development
Finally, one of the often quoted reasons for leaving a business is a lack of development opportunities. Your best consultants have already proved that they have core skills to succeed in the fast-moving and highly competitive recruitment sector – but what they may NOT have is a deep understanding of the business and finance requirements of a recruitment firm.
Giving your consultants greater access and insight into some of the financial data that drives business success, and helping them to understand how their role impacts the bottom line, will deepen and broaden their business skills and perhaps help them to be more invested in the success of your firm.
And as a secondary point, it is common for consultants to plan to set up their own recruitment consultancy at some future point – becoming an employer that develops their business skills will make them better at their jobs today, and be useful knowledge for their future development.
Make sure the Great Resignation doesn’t hit closer to home than expected. The Access Group offers recruitment agencies the latest CRM, Finance and credit health management tools. This combined solution offers enhanced finance and business insight for your core teams and your consultants, which could ensure you hold on to your star performers for much longer than expected.
Contact us or book a demo to find out more.
