Recruiting Title Employees from Unexpected Places

By Donna Martin

One April afternoon, I was on a three-hour conference call while driving from one title office to another delivering fresh lilies to each member of the staff. With my chin holding my cell phone, I was setting  potted plants on their desks and mouthing the words “Thank you.” This may have seemed odd in most companies, but not ours.  As the owner and chief cheerleader, it was my job to regularly deliver expressions of appreciation. It’s one of the ways we retained great staff members in a pressure filled industry with roller-coaster volume.

The appreciation gifts ranged from lilies, to silly wind-up toys you buy at the drug store check out, to the traditional ham, turkey or gift card. Making it a point of telling the staff that the company was them, not the owner, was another way of driving home the message that they were essential to our success. Of course, they were. Along the way, something unexpected resulted from cultivating a grateful company culture. The affects didn’t stop at the door. They slowly leaked out.

If we can use appreciation, compassionate management and flexibility to retain staff, can we use it for recruitment?  Does what happen inside our businesses impact who and how we recruit? Who’s going to care about those things? Can we create a steady stream of great candidates without stealing from our competitors?

During this ALTA ONE Engagement Lab, we will discuss:

• How to use company culture to attract new employees
• How to recruit without doing it yourself
• The best ways to advertise without advertising
• Using Facebook to tell your recruitment story

Donna Martin is the former owner of a title agency in northwest Ohio that had five offices and 65 employees. She sold her company, trained to become a business coach and now owns Change Engine. Donna will lead a session titled “Recruiting Title Employees From Unexpected Places” at ALTA ONE in Austin, Texas. Click here to register.