Warren Buffett is offering a million dollars a year for life to one of his employees who guesses the first two rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament correctly. Assuming a 50/50 chance of choosing the winner of each game, the odds of a new millionaire are about 1 in 281.5 trillion. Those odds seem steep but what about guessing the entire tournament? Those odds, assuming a 50/50 chance with each game, are around 1 in 9.2 quintillion.

That is 9.2 followed by 17 zeros.

Your odds of winning the lottery are significantly higher, sitting at a reasonable 1 in 13.9 million. You are over 661 million times more likely to win the lottery than to choose a perfect bracket. Luckily your odds are better than a 50/50 chance for each game. By making assumptions based on historic trends in the tournament, your odds of winning skyrocket up to 1 in 128 billion. Easy.
Good thing your odds of picking the best employee are not as extreme.

Choosing the Wrong Winner

Everyone that picks a winner in sports thinks they have chosen correctly. This is the same for you when you recruit new talent. It costs time and money to give a job offer to a potential employee and it can be tough to see them turn you down. Many companies felt this pain as 47% of declined offers in the second half of 2015 were due to candidates accepting other jobs. Picking a winner is hard but it can be even harder when they don’t pick you back.

When they do pick you back, the hard part becomes getting them to stay. For new hires, one-third quit after about 6 months. Even when you think you’ve picked a winner, sometimes it turns out they didn’t feel the same way. So how does one get the right potential new employee to come to their company and to get them to stay?

Choosing the Winner that Stays

There are many ways to find potential new employees. There are job boards, career fairs, headhunters, etc. What about using your own employees and their connections? Referred employees have a 45% retention rate after two years. What a great way to cultivate company culture and help your current employees feel more valued!

Try these other tips to find your next great employee:

• Invest in modern solutions to save time for your HR department and select the right candidates
• Be accessible to candidates on mobile platforms for recruiting
• Cultivate a blended workforce and be transparent in the recruiting process

Now that you’ve found the right employee, how do you get them to stay? There are many ways to get employees to be loyal for years including what kind of benefits you provide. Remote workers are 50% less likely to quit and report higher job satisfaction. Giving flexibility in work hours for employees gives them a feeling of freedom in their workplace.

What else can you do to get your new employees to stay?

• Offer your employees engagement, coaching and training
• Be approachable, give feedback and have a strong sense of communication
• Show your employees some love through recognition and development

More Work, Less Searching

“At most companies, people spend 2% of their time recruiting and 75% managing their recruiting mistakes.” – Richard Fairbank, CEO of Capital One

Spend less time trying to fix your hiring blunders and more time building the employees you currently have. Lower your turnover by implementing real-time feedback and improve your management. Try our employee performance software today!