As the office starts to wind down for Christmas, now is the perfect time to reflect on the highs and lows of your recruitment agency activity and focus your energy on deciding how to end the year on a high.

We’ve shared some tips on how to get this process rolling below:

 

Reflect on the year that is about to end

Make sure you get the team together before the end of the year to discuss peaks and troughs:

  • Explore what worked, and what didn’t
  • Share individual highlights and personal bests
  • Talk about any learning curves you have experienced
  • Look at what targets were hit, and how this was accomplished
  • Look at the targets that weren’t reached, and explore why this might be
  • Analyse your clients: what are they planning to achieve in the new year and how can you help them
  • Analyse your candidates: who will be reaching the end of their contract soon and will need a new role in the new year

Take all the information you pull together in this meeting to form a plan of action for the new year. Engaging your team during this process will make them feel involved in the strategy for the new year, and they’ll end the year know the next will be full of opportunities.

 

Present aims and objectives along with Q1 targets

Set the scene for next year with your team, with the aim of getting their input and engaging them with new year business activities. Here are three key points to share with them:

  • What are the business targets
  • What role does each department place in reaching them
  • What the business will look like if you hit these targets
  • What this will mean for your employees

Ensure all the points you share are quantitative, so it’s clear what is need to be done to reach the targets. And ensure all your objectives are SMART:

 

And, as you share the business targets, you should also outline the following:

  • Where there’s opportunity for growth, e.g. sectors, markets, etc.
  • What scope there will be for promotion
  • Any team incentives that will be put in place

 

Review your current to do list

There’s nothing worse than having to carry your workload over to the next week, let alone the next year. So, before the year is up, review what you have left to accomplish and create a plan of how you will complete your to do list.

Prioritise the tasks so that, should you not manage to get them all done, at least you know you’ll end the year with everything essential out of the way.

Estimate how long you think each remaining job will take to complete, and allocate time to get each of them done. If additional workload is added, or a request for your input is made, assess your available time and give a realistic timeline of when you’ll be able to complete this work. Be strict with yourself and stick to your schedule.

 

Analyse how you’ve spent your time this year, and identify what’s drained your energy

To go into the new year on the front foot, analyse your time management this year and see where you could improve.

  • How much time did you spend on each element of your role?
  • What was the ROI for each of these?
  • How much time did you spent doing paperwork and admin?

If you find that you’re spending too much time on the tasks that bring little in return, see how you can improve upon this.

There’s a lot of admin to get done in recruitment, so finding ways to alleviate this responsibility from your role will be beneficial to your workload in the new year. Our Ultimate Online Toolkit has a lot of suggestions for ways in which you can achieve this.

Get the ball rolling on this before you end the year so that, when you return, you work with a fresh attitude and approach.

 

Thanks to those who have helped make the year a success

One consideration to account for before you end the year is how you’ll maintain (and improve) your retention statistics in the new year. This is equally as important for both your clients and your candidates.

One way to do this is to send festive greetings and thanks to the clients and candidates you have worked with this year. In the digital era we find ourselves in, an e-card may seem like the quickest option to go for, however, it’s clear to your recipients that this isn’t a personal greeting and your ‘thanks’ won’t feel authentic.

Instead, get each of your team to send out cards to all of their clients and candidates, with a personal message about the work you have done with them. It doesn’t need to be an essay, just a quick reference to what you have accomplished together.

This will go a long way with your clients and candidates, and will keep you in their minds for work in the new year.

You can go further to this and invite them out for celebratory drinks. It’s a great way to continue building up a positive relationship with them. And, as a bonus, it’s a good excuse to find out what support they will need from you in the new year. However, it’s important to remember that you’ll need to book this in advance, as the Christmas period gets busy quickly.

 

Share your successes and end the year on a high together

If you want to attract the best talent to your business, it’s important to showcase how your business celebrates success and engages with its employees. This is always a great way to maintain the attention and commitment of your top billers.

There are so many incentives to use to share and celebrate your agency’s successes with your team, which will ensure you end the year on a high.

Externally, you can share the positive news in the following ways:

  • Through your social media channels
  • On your blog
  • Via PR (press releases, editorial content)
  • Video content

Pushing out the successes your agency has had online is a great way to highlight your credibility as a business. Your current audience will like the content, which will automatically show your achievements to their online followers. And any press coverage you get may attract new business.

 

Follow these steps and you’ll be sure to not only end the year on a high, but kickstart the new year on a high note as well.