Bagging the Best Line Up for your Venue

Venue landlords and operators must adapt to attract and retain the best talent – this is not new news. What is new, however, is the changing face, behaviour, and motivators of the future workforce, bringing a new challenge of meeting their expectations to ensure they meet yours.

There are numerous questions that need addressing when it comes to employment: how do businesses…

• Attract new talent into the market to mitigate the risk of losing international employees due to political factors?
• Ensure the future workforce are aware of the range of job opportunities available within venues?
• Make your business vacancies more appealing than competitors?
• Improve the interview process to meet the expectations of current talent in the market?
• Facilitate diverse personal growth opportunities and new ways of working?
• Embed new approaches with current managers?

Firstly, it is crucial to understand the future generation of talent and their behaviour.

Millennials have different motivators to baby boomers and previous generations. Security and salary were the biggest motivators, but now, as much as those factors still hold precedence, additional considerations such as opportunity, training, development, culture, CSR, and values hold the same, if not more importance.

Today’s millennials will be tomorrow’s leaders, so venues need to elevate their traditional recruitment process to engage and attract the new generation of talent. Candidates are beginning to expect to see internal ‘talent champions’ and have access to authentic content via social media so they can fully understand and immerse themselves in the culture. They are extremely tech-savvy, have information readily available and a range of motivators and desires that need to be appealed to. When it comes to interviewing, it is essential businesses go through a thorough qualification process or work with a partner who does, to pinpoint motivators to find candidates who will truly thrive in your business.

The first stage is largely about them getting to know you. They applied because they liked the sound of the role, you invited them to interview as you liked the sound of their experience, now is their chance to find out more and ensure you tick the right boxes. Delve into company culture, team dynamics, personalities, business goals, training and development opportunities, employee success stories and client case studies, any information that helps them understand all areas of the business and the opportunities available.

The second and final interviews are about them proving to you they want the opportunity and they are the right candidate with the right skills and culture fit to succeed.

Once hired, retention is key, not only to get the best out of your team but also to save the time and cost of the recruitment process. A happy team is an engaged team, geared up to deliver the absolute best customer service. Get to know your team – what drives them and what motivates them? How can you get the best out of them? Use this information to implement procedures and reward strategies that will drive your employees.

Attracting talent is just the first hurdle, keeping employees engaged and retained is an on-going strategy that can never be over-looked!