Trifecta Software, Inc. of Austin, Texas, is one of the fastest growing software companies in the industry, with current earnings in the $100 million to $200 million range. It prides itself on its unique and unorthodox culture. Many of its approaches to business practice are unusual, but in Trifecta’s fast- changing and highly competitive environment they seem to work. ​There is no dress code and employees make their own hours, often very long. The environment is so lax, that even the highest honcho in the office is wearing jeans and a crew neck shirt. Often times, he would be referred to as the “cool dude” of their organization. Everyone in the office tends to socialize together as the average age in the company is around 25 – 28 years old. Those who are in their 30’s to 40’s are considered as the elder statesmen of Trifecta. Socialization is often seen in the office’s well – stocked kitchen and on company – sponsored events and trips to places like local dance clubs and retreats in Las Vegas and Hawaii. ​An in – house jargon has already developed, and the shared history of the eight – year old firm has taken on the status of legend. Responsibility is heavy and comes early, with a “just do it now” attitude that dispenses with long apprenticeships. New recruits are given a few weeks of intensive training, known as Trifecta University and described by many participants as “more like boot camp than business school”. Everyone in the office is treated equally especially during their initial training, and that is: you don’t know anything, so shut up and listen! ​Information is delivered as if with a fire hose and new employees are expected to commit their expertise and vitality to everything that they do. Daniel Jefferson, director of college recruiting and only 28 himself, admits the intense and unconventional firm is not the employer for everybody. “But it’s definitely an environment where people who are passionate about what they can do thrive”, he explained. “We don’t have any time for people who do not have any sense of commitment to the very demanding job that we have here. That is why training is considered to be a very essential and serious matter.” ​The firm employs about 700 such passionate people and is still in the process of expansion. Trifecta’s managers know that the rapid growth they seek depends on having a staff of the best people they can find, quickly trained and given broad responsibility and freedom as soon as possible. Founder and CEO Kevin Lemant says, “At a software company, people are everything. You can’t build the next great software company, which is what we’re trying to do here unless you’re totally committed to that. Of course, the leaders at every company say, ‘People are everything’, but they really don’t act on it”. For Lemant, Trifecta is able to practice this kind of principle by pampering and giving to their people what they see fit and due to all of them. ​Trifecta makes finding the right people a company mission. Recruiters actively pursue the freshest if least experienced people in the job market, scouring college career fairs and computer science department for talented and achieving individuals who also have an ambition with entrepreneurial skills and instincts. Top managers conduct the first round of interviews, letting prospects know they will be pushed to achieve but will be well rewarded. Employees take top recruits and their significant others out on the town when they fly into Austin for the standard three day preliminary visit. A typical day might begin with grueling interviews but ends with mountain biking, Roller Blading, or playing laser tag. Lemant has been known to fly out to meet and woo hot prospects who couldn’t make the trip. “And that is how we value our internal clients”, he proudly claims. ​In one recent year, Trifecta reviewed 15,000 resumes and conducted 4,000 on-campus interviews, flew 850 prospects for interviews and hired 262 college graduates, who account for over a third of its current employees. The cost per hire was $13,000; Daniel Jefferson believes that it was worth every penny. ​As the years went on, Jennifer Monroe and Mel Cooks, both HR recruitment specialists of Trifecta have detected something of a deviating pattern in their recruitment system. It seemed that over the last two years, a series of negligent hiring incidents have occurred. Statistics show that most of the employees now of Trifecta do not stay in their company for no longer than one and a half years. Their previous employees have either set up their own businesses or went to the competitors. It seemed pretty obvious that their former employees got the best out of them. If you were to ask Monroe and Cooks, the main problem in running their operations would be quick and short: hiring good people…consistently. They were simply much astonished at how hard it was now to attract, hire and most importantly RETAIN good employees. ​After much debate, they decided to post openings for seven different positions: two client support staff, a junior web designer, two content management people, an office administration manager and a level 2 web surfer. Their first approach was to design and place a large display ad in two local newspapers. The display ad listed all the positions available; Jennifer and Mel assumed that by placing a large ad with the name of the company prominently displayed and a bold border around the ad, it would draw attention and therefore generate applicants. Well, at least that was how they planned it to be. ​For two consecutive weekends, the ad cost Trifecta close to $1,000. It produced a handful applicants. After speaking with them by phone, Jennifer and Mel rejected three outright; two said they weren’t interested; two were scheduled but didn’t come; and the last one they felt had a very serious attitude problem as revealed in his psychological exam. All of these were reported to the office of recruitment director, Daniel Jefferson. ​Human Resources manager Francis Salter had to make the bleeding stop ASAP. He took time – out to check on their process of inviting potential candidates and decided to change their approach. They never stopped on advertising the potential training, fun and other perks that await them. For each position in the office, different methods of recruitment were utilized. In the paper, they placed ads for the client support staff under “Client Management”, the office manager under “Administrative”. ​The results however, were very disappointing. Over a typical weekend, literally dozens of want ads for experienced telemarketers, salespeople and client management query handlers would be filling in their office. The same goes for the other positions. It was as if that no matter how lucrative their packaging was, they were at the losing end. The ad for their client support team generated only three calls one of whom Jennifer and Mel felt might have a great potential, although the person wanted to have a much higher salary because of his work experience. One possible candidate emerged for the administrative position, and that was it. ​They decided to replace the sales ad, but this time to change its positioning in the newspaper. The ad had previously run under “Client Management Services Wanted”. This time (since the job involved entirely inside phone calls) they decided to place the ad under “Query Services”. They were hoping that this could help catch the attention of people. They were surprised to find, however, that while the newspaper would extend them credit and bill them for all their previous help wanted ads, the ads for the “Query Services” had to be paid outright. While they thought that this was rather strange, they went ahead and placed the ad, but no sooner did they find out what the problem was. A number of firms that place these ads are nomadic sales operations. Many of these calls they got (not all of them, but many) were from salespeople who were used to working in what some people called “boiler – room” operations. In other words, they sit at the phone all day making cold calls from lists provided by their employers, selling anything from burglar alarms to investments and all of these were under very high – pressure conditions. They weren’t interested in having an interview with Trifecta, they just wanted to get a hold of a possible list of employees and their contact details just to have more prospects. ​Still, they fared better with the web designer which produced four possible applicants. They got no phone calls from the local college job postings; when they called to ask the placement offices why, they were told that their posted salary was way too low compared to some of the top competitors. They went back and replaced their ads with a higher salary as reviewed by the HR manager. ​No matter what they did with their job postings, the results were still dismal. They either got bad candidates or they were just simply ignored. Clearly, this was not how Trifecta used to be. With competition getting stronger by the day, Trifecta was now starting to have problems on their bread and butter: their human resources. A meeting later on ensued as they tried to see what the problem was and possibly come up with a solution on their recruitment process. ​HR manager Francis Salter was with Monroe, Cooks and recruitment director Daniel Jefferson. Together, they will need to brainstorm and gather as much ideas as they can to immediately solve their growing concern. ​“Sir, statistics show that most of the newly hired employees have been leaving the company after staying with us for only a year at least”, lamented Francis Salter. ​“I’m perfectly aware of that, that’s why we started to lessen the perks that we’ve been giving away to our new employees. We all know how much it costs us per head just to train them.” He later on turned his attention to the two recruitment specialists. “Tell me something about the CV’s that you’re getting.” ​Jennifer was quick to respond. “They’re not the way we used to get them. Usually our ratio is 7:10. Now, we’re lucky to get a ratio of 2:10.” ​Mel interjected with: “Sir, as I have noticed, they are always asking about the training we provide to our employees in our UK office, the usual vacation trips to Las Vegas, Hawaii and Florida. And we are honest enough to tell them that we have started to shy away with this kind of training policy as it is very costly, that is why we now resort to distant learning. Honestly, I think that the greatest attention getter we have are the perks we’re giving out. Without them, we’re in a very deep hole.” ​“But we still tell them that we are having many other activities that they can enjoy. Maybe they just want to have the same blessing as most of our employees did enjoy before”, recalled Jennifer. ​“Just to add, we’re getting several feedbacks from our department managers regarding our attrition rates. It went a little higher than the usual”, added Jefferson. “The concern that I have right now is no laughing matter too. The usual reason why people resign is because of the culture.” ​“I never had complaints of new employees being isolated, rejected or ostracized”, said Salter who appeared surprised. ​“Who said that it was the new applicants who were complaining about the culture?”, retorted Jefferson. ​Salter sunk into his chair, covered his face and let out a sigh. He shrugged…as for now that’s all that he could do. “When it rains…it pours!”, he said with a grin. What can be one strategy that HR should employ in making sure that the recruits they get stay in the company just a bit longer? Explain in detail.