Roxanne Calder’s top tips on retaining the best team

Roxanne Calder is the founder of Est10, a recruitment agency redefining the way businesses find their perfect team of staff. With over two decades of experience working in the HR and recruitment space, Roxanne knows what it really takes to be considered employable.

Joining Cec Busby, editor of Flying Solo, the recruitment guru shares her advice on why Aussie business owners need to be looking at their existing workers’ potential, reskilling and upskilling, and keeping an eye out for headhunters.

Yes, salary does matter, but purpose-led work and values are coming up trumps in attracting and retaining talent.

Are we really in a talent shortage?

It’s no secret that businesses big and small are finding it a challenge to attract the perfect talent at the moment. However, according to Roxanne, the current wave of employee resignations and talent shortages experienced across so many industries is not solely due to the pandemic.

The last few decades have seen the growing ageing population exiting the workforce which, coupled with decreasing birth rates, has created an uncertain environment for employees and employers alike. In addition to a dwindling pool of candidates, many industries are faced with a serious skills shortage amongst the jobseekers available.

“We’ve got this discrepancy of replacement levels as people are exiting the workforce,” Roxanne says. “The Australian unemployment rate, which is sitting at 3.5 per cent, is also termed as ‘close to full employment’, meaning that we don’t have enough jobseekers to fill all the vacancies that we have.”

While the pandemic might not have sprouted these deep-rooted issues, it has had an ongoing impact on businesses.

“The whole financial piece is scary because the cost of living has gone up, but the cost for business has gone up as well,” says Roxanne.

How a shift in priorities has changed the game

A trend Roxanne has noticed amongst potential jobseekers is a newfound confidence to express their personal and professional boundaries.

“What has been great about the pandemic is it’s forced us into the situation of change and we’ve shown that we can work remotely,” says Roxanne. “We can work flexibly.”

With this newfound shift in what employees expect from their workplace, the role of transparency and authenticity has become increasingly important. In turn, employers and those in positions of leadership expect the same authenticity from their workforce.

Roxanne attributes the longevity of employee-employer relationships to a solid foundation of trust and mutual respect.

“We attach a lot to job mobility as a way to justify why it’s okay for people to be there for one or two years,” Roxanne says. “But I actually think job longevity and tenure is far more beneficial for both parties.”

Sharing her wealth of knowledge on how businesses foster longevity with their employees, Roxanne insists it’s crucial for employers to understand what it is their team wants, desires, and can be engaged with.

Listen to Roxanne Calder on the Flying Solo podcast:

Looking internally to solve your skills shortage

Often, the solution for skills-related problems faced by many businesses lies in the transferable skills of their existing team. As she has for her own clients, Roxanne recommends implementing an informal mentoring program, or buddy-ship, to strengthen relationships across a spectrum of employees.

“The concept of the buddy-ship is that it’s the person who’s entering the workforce who’s also teaching the person who’s super experienced,” Roxanne explains. “We’re breaking down those barriers so that it doesn’t have to be that the inexperienced someone feels intimidated by the person who’s in their fifties, because the person in their fifties is going to say, ‘Can you show me how to do this on Instagram or LinkedIn?’”

To effectively and successfully find solutions to your skills shortages within your existing team, Roxanne recommends implementing three steps.

Firstly, it is important to do a thorough audit of your team’s capacity and potential, to better understand what skills could be utilised without causing strain on existing responsibilities. Secondly, a distinction must be made between transferable and non-transferable skills. Lastly, Roxanne emphasises the necessity to remove all bias and expectation regarding how we believe a role should be fulfilled.

So, what should businesses be doing to attract and retain their best talent?

Everyone has their off days, but engagement levels dropping off over a number of weeks is a warning sign all employers need to be aware of, according to Roxanne. With the expectations amongst jobseekers forever reformed by the impact of the last few years, the desire to feel a sense of purpose and value through a role has skyrocketed. Candidates now value company culture just as highly as their salary when considering a position. Roxanne advocates the importance of leading by example to employers seeking to fill their teams.

She also advocates the significance of maintaining boundaries as an employer or leader. As crucial as empathy and authenticity are to maintain productive relationships with your team, putting on the ‘boss hat’ must not be overlooked.

“Boundaries help you to manage difficult situations and conversations when you need to,” she says.

Finally, Roxanne shares the benefits of redefining exit interviews. Within her own business, she has replaced the standard parting practice, opting instead to conduct a ‘happiness interview’ with her departing employees.

She attributes a major shift in Est10’s culture to these happiness interviews, using the conversations to unearth potential areas of improvement and identify ways to boost morale within the team.

“There’s still a lot of baggage that is being carried around from the last couple of years,” Roxanne says. “People are talking about recessions and economic downturns, so we’ve got to get people thinking positively and with optimism and faith.”

A positive attitude is always stitched into the foundation of Roxanne’s leadership, and is something she looks for in all jobseekers.

“Attitude is the bit that will say to me, that person will try harder, work harder, be more pleasant to work with, and will get better results from the team,” Roxanne says.

Roxanne shares more insights in her recently published book, Employable – 7 Attributes To Assure Your Working Future, available now.

Roxanne Calder shared more advice for business owners in this Flying Solo ep- listen now.

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