Many managers fail to appreciate the importance of the activities managed by the HR department, but it often turns out to be below their expectations. Others understand its importance but fail to achieve the desired results.

Why does this happen? We address these issues by making a list of the critical mistakes made by companies' HR departments when trying to attract and retain talent. Listed below:

1. Not having an attractive corporate benefits portfolio

What benefits does your company offer its employees? Are they considered interesting? What were the criteria considered by the company to establish the benefits? Are they enough to promote talent interest and retention?

If these questions have never been considered, your company's HR department is not efficiently crafting talent attraction and retention strategies. Understanding what incentives are best for your employees is the most efficient way to choose the right benefits.

Therefore, performing thorough research, analyzing the company's investment power, disclosing the benefits to the team and verifying in detail their satisfaction is important in making the necessary changes.

2. Unstructured career plans

People who intend to invest in their professional life are always looking for   appropriate guidance to help them develop a plan for their career. A poorly structured career plan not only endangers the reputation of the HR department, it also discourages employees and causes negative effects on talent attraction and retention.

An interview should be conducted with each employee to understand what each employee's prospects are. After understanding each employee's proposals, the next step is to find a balance between their expectations and business goals.

In most cases, the error is caused by a lack of professional progress tracking. Feedback, planning and training are essential to achieve the expected results.

3. Define unattainable goals

Many of the team managers understand the importance of setting goals to motivate employees. Giving them useful goals to make their role increasingly interesting and motivating, with the aim of increasing the level of retention. Failure depends on the degree of difficulty present in achieving each goal.

Not achieving the desired results is as bad as expecting results that do not correspond to any challenge or are truly impossible to achieve. Talented workers feel motivated when they are stimulated and when given the opportunity to show their potential.

The SMART method could be used in these cases. This technique consists in giving specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and limited objectives to a certain time frame in order to be efficient.

4. A negative work environment impacts attraction and retention

No worker can feel comfortable and at the same time carry out their work in an environment where the climate among employees is not good. Mishandled conflicts lead to discontent, poor performance, absenteeism and a high level of turnover.

This negative factor ends up being reflected on the market since the company's image is compromised every time the employee complains about stress at work, the difficulty of interacting and the lack of commitment to solve this problem.

The best way to approach this opportunity from a preventive point of view is to create a survey on the company climate to evaluate the work environment through the data provided by the employees themselves.

This investigation must be done periodically. The results must be passed on to the team and any improvements made must be recognized by them. As every opportunity must be evaluated, managers must be available to create and strengthen the corporate culture, develop initiatives with particular attention to the attraction and retention of talents.

5. Poorly defined processes

The absence of a “Job Description” as well as the inability of the human resources department to manage overloaded employees, decreases the productivity of the group. The lack of an organization chart and a system of delegation of activities shows a lack of preparation in managing the team.

When opening a position, the company must propose an interesting job offer to attract the best talent . Without an adequate description of the job description, there is a high possibility of attracting professionals who are not suitable for the profile sought.

Many people are discouraged on their first day at work when they realize they have been hired to perform certain tasks, but they realize that the jobs they will perform will be completely different.

Finally, poorly defined processes affect all other retention actions. A career plan cannot be structured if the manager himself does not know which position the employee has sought and this prevents the achievement of the goal.

To resolve this failure, HR managers should work with industry leaders to define the responsibilities of each position.

6. Poor communication

How does the leader create efficient communication with the team he manages? The manager's lack of empathy and clarity when communicating with an employee affects the team's results.

It is quite common to find managers who complain of an employee's poor productivity, in this way the manager is forced to perform tasks that are not his or her own, overloading his activities due to the presence of unprepared professionals in the team he manages.

What is really happening is that every employee receives information differently, and consequently, the communication must vary according to their different profiles. Another big mistake is to delegate tasks to those who are not adequate to do that job.

Furthermore, not using tools to report important issues, such as changes in procedures, growth opportunities, recurring results, promotions and other messages, creates speculation and conflicts that could have been avoided.

Therefore, do not hesitate to use e-mails, cell phones, meetings, company newsletters, message boards or any other communication vehicle to disseminate anything that may be important to employees. The transparency is highly appreciated. Invest in it!

7. Inconsistent training program

The lack of criteria when developing employee training programs shows the team that they don't have proper leadership. What happens is that leaders define training to motivate employees, without really understanding the need for it.

Identify the difficulties of the group, define the difference between the various training courses, and understand after training such objectives must reach an employee not easy to manage for the manager.

Employees need the training to improve their performance and also to facilitate their daily routines. Employees do not feel motivated when the topics covered during the training are not relevant to their personal or professional life.