Are Your Employees At The Risk Of Being Poached?

I sure hope so.  If your answer is no, then I might ask if it’s because your employees are not worth poaching.  If you have top talent, then I can bet you others will and do want them too.

With the advent of LinkedIn, the days of post and pray are truly gone.  LinkedIn has become a recruiter’s dream.  No longer do we need to pay for an outdated resume database, because LinkedIn is a free one.  It’s full of not only active job seekers, but also the really desired passive ones.  Those top performers are now more accessible than ever.

I love recruiting on LinkedIn, because now I can focus in and target the candidates that are actually qualified for my open position.  And I’m not the only one; many employers and agencies are out there looking at your employees.  This concept may sound scary to some employers, especially since my average response rate from a recruitment InMail (LinkedIn message) is just over 30%, but I think this is good for two reasons:

1. It’s a good reminder to make sure you’re an employer of choice.  I know my employees are being solicited.  Not only is LinkedIn sending them job matches weekly but headhunters are also knocking on their doors.  Knowing this consistently challenges me to make sure I’m an employer of choice.  I need to purposely think about the culture I’m creating in the workplace, engaging and challenging my star performers, offering them competitive benefits and paying them well.  If you aren’t thinking like this, if you’re saying, “They’re not going anywhere.  They are lucky to have a job” then I can guarantee it’s your employees that respond to my InMails first.
2. You have an opportunity to turn your rock star employees into the best possible brand ambassadors.  There have been times, and I can think of two companies in particular, where I run into my dream candidates, who have all the qualifications I’m looking for, with the best LinkedIn profiles, and I can’t poach them.  They’re perfectly happy and content…and well paid.  So now what?  This makes me pause and think, “Wow, what are they doing over there?  They must be doing something pretty special.”  Not only do they have the best employees, but those employees are also thoroughly engaged.  Those companies have actually transformed them into the best brand ambassadors.  It’s kind of like the Yelp concept, where consumers are more likely to believe the reviews of their peers over company generated marketing.  This is why brand ambassadors are so invaluable.  I now think of those companies at a whole other level, even think of them as my dream companies.  So, they have successfully turned me into a brand ambassador for them as well.

If you can keep those two points top of mind, then you’ll not only retain your top talent, but you’ll be able to attract more top talent, because high performers want to work with other high performers.  I would argue that the best, most successful companies have the best talent.  And that best talent is going to provide the best results.  Why wouldn’t you want a company full of the best talent?  If you’re people are smarter and better than your competition, then don’t you win?  And if those smarter, better employees are happy and fully engaged, won’t they exponentially deliver you even better results?  The logic seems pretty simple.

So I have to ask, are your employees at the risk of being poached?…I hope so.

More on HR: “Register now for Cameron Herold’s December 2^nd Fridays with Vistage Webinar, “Turn Your Company into a Magnet for Great Employees”

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