How to Recruit and Retain Top Talent with BerniePortal

Whether you are a professional searching for a new opportunity or a hiring manager looking to fill a role on your team, no one is safe from the scrutiny of this competitive job market. From businesses shutting down and opening back up to vaccine mandates and work from home shaking up the office environment, there have been a lot of unavoidable factors contributing to the current labor shortage. Not to mention, turnover is at an all-time high with an estimated 1 in every 4 workers quitting their jobs this year. 

In this sea of chaos, BerniePortal is here to provide stability. Here are some ways BerniePortal can help you attract and retain top talent, when it is more important than ever.

At BerniePortal, we believe the trick to attracting and retaining top talent starts by putting your best foot forward in the hiring process. And we built our software around the way we think, starting with a robust Applicant Tracking System. BerniePortal’s Applicant Tracking feature is a one-stop shop. Here’s how to maximize your hiring process with this tool:

• Under “Settings,” you are able to customize BerniePortal to your hiring process. You are able to set up what each hiring step will look like and assign hiring admins to overlook the process. The best part? You can save templates of messages you send to candidates, saving you time in the long haul.
  
  
• BerniePortal is here to save you from getting lost in email chains with one designated spot to respond to candidate messages, coordinate interviews, and move candidates through each step of your hiring process. Not hearing back from one of your candidates mid-hiring process? We have all experienced that as “employee ghosting” is on the up and up. Using an ATS system helps keep constant communication and send follow-ups when you find yourself in a similar situation. Read more about this emerging but unfortunate, trend.

• If you’re not receiving as many applications as you’d hoped or maybe the candidates don’t quite fit what you are looking for—widen your applicant pool using our Indeed integration. Job postings created within BerniePortal’s Applicant Tracking feature can automatically be posted to Indeed’s job boards. Indeed will funnel applicants to the same centralized place in BerniePortal, keeping organization a priority. 

The reality of the job market today is that your “perfect” candidate may have multiple offers on the table. Using an Applicant Tracking System can ensure your hiring efforts stay organized and leave a lasting impression on every promising candidate that comes through your system.

Onboarding:

It’s a rewarding feeling when your hiring efforts pay off and you find the perfect candidate to fill the open position on your team. BerniePortal makes it simple to transition from Applicant Tracking to Onboarding, in just a few clicks. Once you mark the candidate as “hired,” you will see an option to move them into your company’s onboarding process. Here’s why using on onboarding feature helps with short- and long-term retention:

• An onboarding system is extremely efficient in getting new hires to fill out crucial paperwork in a timely manner. They will have a personal login to BerniePortal, allowing them to fill out the paperwork at any time, from anywhere. Knocking out the tedious, routine responsibilities before their first day? Sign us up.
  
  
• Getting all the important paperwork out of the way before their first day allows for more time to get to know their new team. Wasting no time creating a professional connection with the new hire on day one will make them feel welcomed and excited about a future at your company.

• BerniePortal’s Onboarding feature is intuitive, saving future headaches long after the new hire is onboarded. Future paperwork will auto-populate with their personal information that is saved in the system, and they are able to refer back to filled out paperwork as needed. The ease of use will impress new hires, and make a time full of transition that much easier.

How an employee feels when they start your company is often predictive of how they will feel over the long haul. Creating a good onboarding experience will kick start a successful, long career with your company.

Performance Management:

You have successfully welcomed a new hire to your team and impressed them with your onboarding experience, but how can you hold true to that great impression long after their first week? Using a Performance Management feature to frequently check in with your employees— new hires and veterans—will increase employee satisfaction and overall retention. Here’s how BerniePortal’s Performance Management tool can help:

• Having frequent 1:1 meetings with employees encourages open communication and allows managers to nurture relationships with each employee on their team. BerniePortal’s Performance Management features allows employees and managers to send 1:1 agendas, creating a digital “paper trail” of everything that was discussed for accountability. Employees who feel valued are more likely to stick around for the long haul and produce quality work.

• It’s no surprise that sending out company and individual surveys can help you gather data on employee satisfaction across the board. When sending out a survey, it is important to be intentional and specific about the information you want to gather. Instead of asking employees “Are you happy at work?” with a yes/no answer box, be sure to include a text box that encourages them to elaborate on their answers. Giving employees a platform to speak up about company culture will lead to higher satisfaction.
  
  
• Whether an employee is at the very beginning, middle, or nearing the end of their career—everyone is looking for ways to improve their work and advance into promotions. A Performance Management feature is a great way to give feedback on the work they are producing for your company. If there are some hiccups in their performance, it’s a great opportunity to steer them back in the right direction, and if they are outperforming, it’s a great time to praise them for the hard work. 

Implementing 1:1 meetings with each employee and sending out performance surveys are a great first step to managing employee satisfaction, but that doesn’t mean your work is over. Upon receiving feedback from employees, it’s crucial that HR teams dig into it to find the root of the problem. In an increasingly competitive job market, employee’s are expecting companies to provide a great work environment more than ever. From your hiring process to employee retention, now is the time to put your best foot forward with an HRIS system. Schedule a demo today with BerniePortal!