Talent acquisition and retention - Important challenges I am facing and all businesses face
I went to the field today in the morning to check the progress of my okra plantation. The field is quite small, however good enough to experiment before leasing a decent area of land. Besides okra, I was also experimenting with zucchini, bitter gourd, and ridged gourd.
Last year I was monitoring the field by flying into the closest airport every week and then driving to the field. It was a complete management nightmare, and my knowledge was falling short. The best content online was not specific to the particular region and land parcel. Therefore this year, I hired a manager to do part of my work. He was to stay at the field and keep a lookout for diseases, pests, and quality of growth. Besides this, I had tried to hire someone who possessed some knowledge to take care of crops. It was easy to find someone. No one wanted to stay on the farms and do the tiresome work of monitoring crops in hot weather. However, it was necessary to put someone in place, so that I could free up some of my time, and more importantly, there was someone to watch the crops all day long. The guy I hired wasn't cheap, as he came at a 40% premium compared to the average wage in the area.
During the last few months, I found that this guy wasn't as good as he promised during the interview. He does know anything about diseases and pest control. Moreover, his knowledge is way too basic. The problem now is that finding a replacement for him is an equally gargantuan task.
Before I can fire him, I need to find someone who is better than him and stays. Last week I got 2 more people in place, who could work together and also do a bit more than needed. However, both have quit today. Finding the two wasn't easy and was extremely time-consuming. The search goes on. As far as my business is concerned, there have been enough failures during the last year, and this should probably be the last failed crop. Anyway, the story brings me to 2 important challenges faced by every new business. I feel young businesses face this problem more than established ones. Established businesses are a brand and people want to work for them for brand equity.
Finding talent is so critical for a company. After all, human capital is the oil that runs the engine of the business. Hours of interviews, the money paid to recruitment agencies, and then more training-related costs. After this companies get good employees. New companies cannot afford to train people. They need to pay a premium to acquire someone talented, especially if they are just establishing themselves. It's not just that, retaining good talent becomes equally important.
Managing the people in your company takes time. But dealing with a ‘poor performance’ employee can take up to 70 percent more time than a ‘good performance’ member of your workforce. Source
Good employees will help you grow your company. However, retaining good talent is important because replacing them is again a time-consuming and costly affair.
Just finding a replacement for my manager has been a costly affair. Not only did the replacements not do anything, I have to pay them for the number of days they came but also visit every time a new employee has to be hired. If my existing manager could have done his job well, I could have maybe recovered some of my investment and started planning about the next expansion stage. While every business is not the same, but the analogy is apt for any company. Loyal and trustworthy employees can help in better strategic planning and execution and long-term plans can be implemented with ease.
Whether a business owner, a CEO or anyone from senior management, having trustworthy and dependable staff can help them focus on big picture strategy, else like me, they will spend their time on normal tasks - in my case, arranging labor, farm equipment, etc.
I had told my farm manager that if all goes well, his roles and responsibility will grow with the business, and thus is remuneration. That is what good employees can do. They are capable of taking on more work, handling more responsibilities, and thus help in business growth.
It is so important for any company to have the right set of people. I am running a very small business but the importance of talent acquisition is evident to me right at the start. I hope my struggle ends soon and some budding entrepreneur can learn from my experience.
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