Five Golden Rules of Recruitment

Former investment banker and entrepreneur, Connie Nam, discusses five ways in which basing your recruitment process around understanding a candidate’s personal passions, motivations and personality can improve staff retention and strengthen your workforce.

Ex-investment banker Connie Nam saw a niche in the UK jewellery market and built a £10m business from her kitchen table in just eight years. Today, as CEO and founder of cult jewellery brand Astrid & Miyu, she is continuing to grow her business as well as her team despite the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic.

As founder and CEO of a rapidly growing business, Nam’s role is ultimately to create a clear vision, run the business, continue its growth and – most importantly – lead and support her team in their work and in their progression within the business. Nam started her business on her own and, as the brand grew exponentially, she had to become quickly accustomed to managing people and continually refining her recruitment process to attract and retain the best talent to grow with the business.

Now, with a team of more than 80 across the business, Nam and her senior management team have built a rigorous recruitment process, driven by strong cultural values, to identify the perfect candidates and ensure there are world class managers heading up each department as her team continually expands.

The key to recruitment and retention according to Nam, is that the people and culture element is part of the wider company strategy, not just part of a HR strategy in silo. Nam believes that people should be at the heart of any business and that taking the time and asking the right questions to understand a candidate’s personal passions, motivations, goals and personality during the recruitment process is vital to building and retaining a unified team. Here are five key benefits of taking this approach, according to Nam:

1. Bring any missing qualities into a business

We’re always reviewing our business and team which allows us to identify gaps and bring in missing qualities into the business. One thing I do – which I’d recommend any business leader does – is hold strategy meetings with my leadership team every quarter where we review the brand, business, and above all team strategy. These meetings allow us to find out what we’re missing in a team – in terms of communication, skillsets, values and personalities – and look to bring people in to fill those gaps.

1. Craft a cohesive team

When crafting a cohesive team, it’s important to recruit based on values and ensure that a candidate’s own values align with those of the business. Values are such an important part of our business and this is true to everyone’s heart in the business; it’s not just coming from me – or from the top – it’s not corporate spiel rather it is instilled in everything we do.

We recently redefined our values which are: grow together, celebrate each other and break all boundaries (or throwing out the rulebook!). We take these values very seriously and build the team on these foundations. Whenever we recruit, we look for these three signals and if people don’t fit into these three values then they won’t be hired – values are not just a company buzzword, they are important and just underpin everything you do as a business and as a team.

We are also planning to put these three values formally into our appraisal system so when we do our biannual reviews with colleagues – aside from the business KPIs – these values will be a very important factor in their progression and development within the business. I would advise any business leader to make sure you take the values seriously and live and breathe them so everyone in your team feels equally passionate – that is the secret to crafting a truly cohesive team.

1. Enable empowerment of individuals

Empowering individuals in your team is so important, not only for their own personal development, but for the benefit of the wider team and even the business as a whole. It’s important to allow people to play to their own strengths and give them a sense of ownership if you want them to fulfil their role with as much passion as though it was their own business.

As we have grown so rapidly, it has put a lot of challenges and pressure on the team, but at the same time they have been able to grow as individuals and step up very quickly to becoming industry leaders in their fields. Our last value is to break all boundaries and we give a lot of freedom to individuals and allow them to take risks (within the means of their roles). Everyone at Astrid & Miyu owns some segment of the business; they have clear boundaries and budgets but –if they act within that and meet business targets and KPIs – they’re free to do their job however they like. They can take risks and if they fail, we don’t have a blame culture. If they fail within the means, we actually celebrate it as it allows people to reflect on the key learnings which I think is quite powerful in terms if empowering individuals.

1. Enhance job satisfaction

Job satisfaction seems like an obvious one, but it really is one of the most important elements of maintaining a loyal and motivated workforce. As I’ve already mentioned, we ensure everyone has a very specific role with strong sense of ownership, and we let people run with their work within very clear boundaries with clear expectations. Aside from business KPI reviews we also carry out regular personal development reviews where every individual comes up with what they want to learn for the full year or for the quarter and how they want to develop and their manager will guide them – even if it’s not related to their immediate job – so they have something to look forward to which keeps them satisfied in their role and motivated. That learning and sense of ownership, development and progression really enhances employee satisfaction.

1. Improve staff retention

Clearly, staff retention goes hand in hand with job satisfaction – if people are satisfied, they will stay in their role. As well as having a sense of ownership, having clear goals and enough progression opportunities form a big part of staff retention; teams and individuals need room to grow. We have always made sure there are progression opportunities for our people, though we have been lucky to experience continual growth that allows us to have even more progression opportunities for those who are able to keep up.

We have a very transparent progression scale, which includes total transparency when it comes to pay – something that isn’t common in the fashion industry or a start-up environment but is vital for ensuring teams are motivated and trusting of the company. Everyone at Astrid & Miyu knows what their salaries would be if they get promoted to certain levels and what their band is – if they’re on the same level, everyone is on the same pay, so I think that’s highly motivating. This is something we implemented at the end of last year to make things very transparent and open and I think people are definitely more motivated because they’re not left in the dark, which can be the feeling when remuneration is done on a case by case basis. Now we have a very clear process and salaries attached to job titles so there’s no room for complaints and the team all know exactly what they need to do to progress.

The fact it’s very clear and transparent makes people trust the business and trust the leadership. Our transparency when it comes to pay is reminiscent of the structured progression routes you see in the corporate arena of banking and accountancy which is where I started my career – I know it can become political and chaotic if you don’t have this, which is not going to aid staff retention, it will do the opposite.

Though these are the five building blocks of a successful recruitment and retention strategy, I would add that businesses should not be afraid of making hard decisions. Although it’s important to foster a supportive workplace culture and help your people with their career progression, the onus needs to be on the individual – if they are not working hard and to the business’ values, their role within the company should be reviewed – don’t let people slip at the detriment to the wider team. This can be avoided if you find the right people at recruitment stage which is why recruitment is so important because, if it doesn’t work out, companies should not be shy of letting people go if they are not committed and the right cultural fit. I think that is motivating for the people who do work hard – it can be very disheartening for employees who are working hard to see one of the team is not pulling their weight. It is important that businesses are constantly reviewing their recruitment strategy and that there is a strong set of values and a clear onboarding process to ensure a strong and united workforce.