PRESS RELEASE

Stephen Fairley
President
Today's Leadership Coaching
Dearborn Station
47 West Polk Street—121
Chicago, IL 60605
P 480-659-9700
F 480-907-2029
E Stephen@TodaysLeadership.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

What Do Experienced HR Directors Know That Less Experienced HR Directors Don’t: Finding Qualified Employees

Wheaton, IL, (May 16, 2001). What do experienced HR Directors know that less experienced HR Directors don’t about finding qualified employees? At a recent meeting of HR Directors of small, Chicago-based companies, attendees were asked to list their best source for finding qualified employees. More than 50% of them said their most qualified candidates come from employee referrals. However, an interesting distinction was found between Directors with more HR experience and those with less experience. HR Directors with less than five years of experience more often relied on internet job boards to find candidates while Directors with more than five years of HR experience were twice as likely to use employee referrals to find their candidates. Those Directors with more than 10 years of HR experience used employee referrals almost exclusively to find their best candidates.

Stephen Fairley, an Executive Coach with Today's Leadership Coaching, believes “more experienced HR Directors realize the many benefits of using current employees to find qualified candidates. For example, most employees will not refer a person with a poor work record because they realize their reputation is on the line.” In order to take full advantage of your current employees as a resource, examine your hiring process and ask yourself these four vital questions:

1. What do we do to encourage and reward current employees for referring others? If your company has a employee reward system that is not regularly used, then increase the in-house promotion of the system and also look to see if there is something else in the company that is keeping them from wanting to refer others.

2. What percentage of your current employees come from employee referrals? In companies with effective referral systems, a large percentage of their current employees come from referrals. In fact, studies have shown that employees who were referred stay longer and are more productive than employees found by other means.

3. What are the top three concerns current employees have about your company and what are you doing to address these concerns? Survey your employees to find out their concerns and their ideas for potential solutions. Listening to them and implement a plan to decrease their concerns will result in improved employee morale and increased productivity. It will also make them more excited about referring others to your company.

4. What are three specific things you could do this next month to increase employee referrals? Develop a plan to increase your network of contacts, but remember that the more experienced HR Directors know their best candidates come from current employees.
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For more information on creating a culture of excellence and high performance that your employees will love to refer others to, please contact Stephen Fairley, Executive Coach, at 888-588-5891 or via email: Stephen@TodaysLeadership.com. Stephen specializes in developing and improving employees & managers to help them reach peak performance and further develop their leadership skills. He is president of Today's Leadership Coaching and the author of three books.