Recruit and Retain – Part One: Building a Workforce and Benefits Plan That Attracts and Engages Great Talent

Organisations are navigating a fast changing employment landscape. Rising costs, hybrid working, AI disruption, shifting employee expectations, the increasing need for neuroinclusion adaptations and legal change under the Employment Rights Act are all influencing how employers attract, manage and retain their people.

For business leaders and HR teams, this creates an important opportunity: to step back, review the whole employee lifecycle and build a workplace where great people want to join, contribute and stay.

Loch’s most recent Level Up webinar, Recruit and retain: Building a workforce and benefits plan that attracts and engages great talent – available to catch up on demand – explores a practical, joined-up approach where recruitment, culture, wellbeing and benefits work together to reduce risk, improve retention and strengthen your employer proposition, with a clear commercial lens.

The webinar’s speakers include Kate Rigby, HR Director at Loch, Laura Acosta, Senior Training and Wellbeing Consultant at Loch, and Nick Hale, Founding Director of Engage Health Group.

If you would prefer to gain an insight into the key themes covered in the webinar before watching, you can continue reading below.

This article is part one of a two part series. It focuses on the first section of the webinar: how organisations can recruit and attract the right people. Part two explores how to retain and engage great talent.

Start with workforce planning

Before thinking about recruitment or attraction, organisations need to understand what roles they are looking for and what structure will best support their business goals. Kate Rigby explained that this means identifying the skills needed for a role, both now and in the future, and understanding whether those skills already exist in the business.

Workforce planning helps organisations be proactive. It supports having the right people, with the right skills, at the right time. It also helps leaders identify current capability, future needs and any skills gaps that need to be addressed.

This reduces the risk of reactive or “panic” recruitment when someone leaves unexpectedly. It also supports more cost effective resourcing, helping organisations avoid being overstaffed, understaffed or reliant on unnecessary overtime.

Be clear about culture and values

Kate emphasised that recruitment is not only about technical ability. It is also about finding people whose approach aligns with how the organisation works.

Culture was described as the shared values, behaviours and ways of working that shape how people interact and get things done. When organisations understand their culture and values, they can build these into recruitment and look for the behaviours and mindset that will help someone succeed.

This does not mean recruiting people who are all the same. It means being clear about what matters to the business. For example, if collaboration, innovation or customer focus are central to how the organisation works, these should be reflected in the recruitment process.

Kate also noted that cultural alignment can be just as important as skills. Skills can often be trained, provided the minimum requirements are there, but cultural misalignment can create wider challenges for teams.

Create a positive recruitment experience

Attracting the right people also means communicating clearly from the outset. Employers should think about what their website, social media and job adverts say about the organisation, and whether these channels consistently reflect the employer brand they want to create.

The recruitment process itself should be clear and respectful. Candidates should understand how to apply, who to contact with questions, what the selection stages will involve and how they will be informed of the outcome. Long or unclear processes can cause candidates to disengage.

Those involved in interviews should be properly trained. Interviewers need to understand not only what questions to ask, but how to build rapport, avoid bias, support inclusion, make appropriate adjustments and give candidates space to be heard.

Treat onboarding as part of retention

A positive recruitment experience does not end when the offer is accepted. The period before and after someone joins is critical.

In the webinar, the speakers highlighted the importance of keeping communication consistent before a new starter joins, making sure terms are clearly documented, introducing them to the team where appropriate and ensuring practical arrangements, such as systems and equipment, are ready for day one.

Laura also noted that onboarding is often overlooked or under planned. This can leave new employees feeling frustrated, especially if their expectations were high during recruitment. A strong onboarding process should help employees understand their role, the wider organisation, the benefits available to them and the support they can access.

Align benefits with values and needs

Nick explained that benefits often support three key areas – physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing and financial wellbeing – and that they should not be treated as a box ticking exercise, or simply an HR initiative. They should form part of the wider business strategy and reflect the organisation’s values, and a balanced approach can help organisations provide more rounded support for employees.

For organisations focused on health and wellbeing, benefits such as private medical insurance, dental, optical or virtual GP access may be relevant. For those focused on flexibility and work life balance, flexible working, enhanced family leave or holiday trading may be more appropriate. For businesses focused on growth and recognition, share schemes or paid professional qualifications may be valuable.

Nick also encouraged employers to consider their workforce demographics. Different teams may value different benefits depending on age profile, financial pressures, family responsibilities, health needs or the nature of the work they do.

Next steps for your organisation

First of all, read part two of this article series, which covers the second section of the webinar: how to retain and engage your workforce.

Then take a look at our Recruit and Retain Checklist, designed to help you quickly score how well your organisation is set up across the key themes explored in the webinar. This includes workforce planning, culture and values, recruitment, onboarding, communication, manager capability, development, wellbeing and benefits. The checklist gives leaders and people teams a practical starting point to identify strengths, highlight gaps and decide where to focus next.

If you are looking for support in any of the areas covered, please get in touch with our expert team. For more information about Engage Health Group, please visit their website.