Keep the poachers from your doorstep
The Bank of England is predicting the UK is in for a recession that could last two years. Keeping your people engaged is even more pressing in times of economic uncertainty. As Woodreed MD, Jo Moffatt, said in a recent article for the Times:
Employee engagement doesn’t make up for poor business decisions or low levels of investment and it isn’t an alternative to paying people fairly
But she adds;
Firms with a commitment to genuine engagement will be in a better position to navigate difficult times ahead because they’ve established an enduring partnership with their employees
You might think your best people are less likely to move because of fears over their job security in a new position. However, it’s a sellers’ market so your competitors are more likely to try to fill vacancies by poaching the cream from your organisation. The competition to recruit and retain scarce talent and valued skills is as important as ever. For the UK this is critical as it has the lowest average job tenure in all the OECD counties (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) at a jaw dropping 1.6 years [CIPD November 2022].
The value of keeping the cream
The cream of your company is worth its weight in gold (top!). Not just their collective experience and expertise, but the colleagues the cream train and help rise to the top of the organisation. It’s invaluable to your future growth. Engaged employees stay, that’s a fact.
- Turnover rates drop dramatically in companies with high levels of engagement
- The best companies to work for retain talent – 80% of their people agree with the statement “I want to work here for a long time” [Great places to work Recruitment and Retention 2021]
- A company of 1000 employees can save more than £1m a year by prioritising engagement – just on absentee and retention alone
- Average cost per new recruit, which for a salary of £32,000 is approx. £6,420 [Nerdwallet.com November 2021]
Engagement = retained workforce = less spent on recruitment and induction = increased profits
How to attract the crème de la crème while stopping competitors skimming the cream from your company
Prioritising employee experience in your recession planning will help to position your company to move forward while your competitors retreatRaconteur November 2022
And central to delivering a good employee experience is a strong employer brand proposition (EBP).
Your employer brand is the promise you make to your employees and future employees. Its strategic foundations are the same as building a brand, in that it too needs to be built on truths that matter to your audience – your people (current and future). Your employer brand also needs close alignment with your mission and vision, your values and behaviours, and to be delivered in a consistent tone of voice. Getting EBP right is even more important now with the differing expectations of Gens Y and Z. Distinct from generations before them, Millennials and Gen Z coming up behind them care as much, if not more, about company culture, purpose, authentic values and work life balance as they do about compensation.
Making sure your inside and outside EBP match-up is key: what you say on social media and on your website, what your recruitment material looks like, how you brief recruiters, how you interview, what your induction programme is like, your compensation and benefits package, your opportunities for learning and development, how you keep in touch with your alumni. It’s about taking a ’cradle to grave’ approach to recruitment, employment tenure and beyond.
Your people are your best advocates and the most important contributors to your employer brand. They can be used as proud ambassadors for the employer brand through their stories.
The best employer brands attract and retain the best people.
Woodreed’s approach to employer brand creation
We take a holistic approach to EBP. Work with us and we’ll work with you and your team to uncover the truths about your organisation that makes it stand out from your competitors. We’ll talk to your people, analyse your data. Look within and beyond your sector for best practice. We’ll consider Best Companies’ eight factors of engagement as well as the Four Enablers of engagement as identified by Engage for Success. Your values will be central.
Once developed we’ll create a set of key messages to make sure everyone is on message – consistency at all touchpoints.
We’ll bring your proposition to life, inside for your people and outside. A creative campaign will complement the proposition to help you attract the right people into your organisation.
There’s even clever tech you can use to track the employee lifecycle from recruitment to induction and way beyond. We like how leading insights researcher Qualtrics does it with their ‘Employee Lifecycle’ platform. It helps organisations understand the moments that matter, giving real-time insights to identify and close gaps in the on-boarding and training experience. This allows you to understand and address the key drivers of employee attrition.
Take a look at this campaign for a law firm where we used our methodology to develop their EBP and the recruitment drive that stemmed from it. A campaign which gave them the results they needed as well as ‘shaking up’ advertising in the law sector.
