If the attrition rate at your company is climbing, you should start looking at five aspects of your hiring strategy that could resolve the problem. If they don’t work, it might be time to call in some outside help. It can be hard to get a clear vision from within, and it’s typically not the type of work you want your company to focus on when you want to move your business forward. In any event, here are the five big no-nos you want to avoid.

1. You’re moving too fast.

This happens a lot. You have positions you need to fill so you’re lowering your standards and not performing due diligence. The time you think you’re saving will come back to bite you.

2. You don’t know how to measure success.

Picking someone then hoping it all works out or that no one complains is not a smart strategy. You need to apply a consistent success metric across your company so you can tell what’s working.

3. No follow-through.

Your strategy shouldn’t stop once the seat is filled. Most employees who quit within the first year do so because they felt the job didn’t really align with what they thought the job would be. Maybe you didn’t define the job properly from the beginning or maybe things evolved poorly. The only way to avoid this is by continually checking in with the employee and adjusting the situation whenever possible.

4. Culture mismatch.

Sometimes it’s just the wrong environment. This can be tricky for a lot of hiring managers who are focused on matching skills and forget the role context plays in success.

5.Conflicting agendas.

All levels of management need to be aligned when it comes to a hiring decision. You have to ensure all layers of management are working from the same understanding. If communication between tiers of management is strained, you need to find a way to fix it.

It’s not always just one of these aspects that goes wrong, sometimes it’s a bunch or all of them. Focusing on these five will bring your competency up significantly. Happy, engaged employees are the key to success. It doesn’t happen magically.

About NextGen

NextGen is the brainchild of longtime telecom professionals with nearly 50 years of experience and millions of dollars in Telecom Recruiting Services. We focus on establishing long term relationships with our clients and candidates so we can recruit the best and the brightest in the telecom industry. This ‘quality over quantity’ approach is at the heart of everything we do and has resulted in successful job placements at Fortune 1000 firms worldwide.