In most endeavours, recruitment and retention are centre stage. Business is no exception. In business, you need to be able to recruit. More importantly, you need to be able to retain. This applies to customers and also applies to employees. The number of customers who have since stopped using your brand, product(s), or service(s) constitutes your churn rate. If it is too high it means you are failing to retain customers. The same applies to employees; employee turnover should be limited to zero. In order to effectively recruit and retain here are 2 competencies you need:
Hard Skills
What Are They?
A hard skill is a technical skill, not one that is interpersonal. Examples of hard skills are project management, copywriting, engineering, and infinite others. If you undergo some training, be it in college, university, and the like, the skills you attain are hard skills. As John Wooden once said, “ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there”. This perfectly aligns with how important (but limited) hard skills are.
The Place Of Hard Skills And Hard Needs
There is a place for hard skills; they are indispensably important. It is important to appreciate that hard skills are not enough. That is why you find that there are skilled or educated people who are not that successful. You also might have noticed that most such people are often labelled as anti-social or pompous, amongst other things. These are just examples to show you that hard skills can never be enough.
There is also what is called hard needs. This can apply to customers and employees as well. For instance, when a customer wants to purchase a smartphone that is a hard need. For an employee, a hard need can be things like their salaries. You must also appreciate that catering to the hard needs alone is not enough. There is more to all of this.
Bottom Line
You must see to it that you cater to the hard skills that are needed. Acquire the necessary hard skills if need be. If necessary you can actually hire people who have those hard skills. In some cases, you may have to outsource those hard skills. As much as they are not everything, they are quite important. You cannot be a restaurant business that cannot serve proper food. If the hard skills are in order it becomes easier to meet the customers’ hard needs.
For the hard skills to really come out you need to cater to the human resources’ hard needs. Recruiters often focus most on hard skills; that is a mistake. Everything has to be balanced. When all those elements are symbiotically tied together, recruiting and retaining customers and staff becomes natural.
Soft Skills
What Are They?
A soft skill is a personal skill that is usually interpersonal, non-specialized, and often difficult to quantify e.g. leadership or responsibility. Other examples of soft skills are communication, emotional intelligence, time management, critical thinking, active listening, empathy, and many others. Let us look at John Wooden’s quote again, “ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there”. Soft skills are way more important than hard skills.
The Place Of Soft Skills And Soft Needs
The core thing about these two stems from interpersonal interactions that are inevitable in life. As a business, you deal with customers. You also deal with a wide range of stakeholders and even shareholders. You also have staff that you work with. There could be business partners in the mix as well. Within any of these groupings, there are also interpersonal interactions. It is more than just about the tangible elements.
These interpersonal interactions have to be managed well. Both employees and staff want to feel a certain way. If not, you will not be able to recruit employees and customers. It will even be much harder to retain employees and customers. You must ensure that the handlers have well-cultivated soft skills. Then they must ensure that the handled’s soft needs are met.
Bottom Line
Ability (hard skills) make it super easy to reach the top. However, character (soft skills) keeps you there. This implies that in many ways soft skills are more important than hard skills. This also means that catering to soft skills and needs is most important. Sadly, many people neglect that and focus most on hard skills and needs. That is why you see such people struggling with their recruitment and retention efforts.
Traditionally people in business have mainly focused on hard skills. That has been changing over the years. More emphasis needs to be placed on soft skills. Even most recruiters nowadays look more for soft skills when looking to hire. Even in handling customers, you realize more focus is being placed on customer experiences. This is all meant to cater to the soft needs of the customers. At the end of the day, you must keep the hard and soft aspects balanced. They are symbiotic so cater to both of them in the right proportions. When you do so, your recruitment and retention efforts will pay off.
