The success of any business can often depend on its ability to retain good employees. Whether it’s a small company with just a few staff or a large organisation with multiple offices, businesses function best when they have a team of talented people focused on performing not only individually, but combining to help the company reach its goals.
In the modern job market, skilled professionals are in high demand. Gone are the days of employees staying in one job, with one company, for most of their working life. Instead, talented people are willing to trade long-term stability for personal development, career advancement, better work-life balance, or to find a more compatible company culture. That means that businesses that fail to look after their employees, and meet their expectations, risk losing them to another that will.
Companies shouldn’t wait until they have a problem with high staff turnover before they implement employee retention strategies. Every company that seeks to thrive should build into its basic operation a range of measures designed to keep employees happy and motivated, so they stay with the business for as long as possible. This white paper looks at the leading reasons employees decide to leave a company, why losing people is bad for business, and the best strategies for retaining good people.
It may come as a relief to dismiss an employee who wasn’t performing, was disruptive, or had a bad attitude, but it hurts to lose a star performer who chooses to go.
After the time and investment in finding the right person for the role and developing their on-the-job skills, it’s back to drafting the job vacancy ad, while their expertise and institutional knowledge heads elsewhere. It may not reflect badly on the company if the person’s reason for leaving was personal, such as to raise children or move to another part of the country, or they decided to change careers or further their education. It does very little for the business’ long-term prospects, however, if it is losing people because of factors it can control, such as the relationship between workers and management, the company culture, or staff feeling overworked and unappreciated. Talented people want to apply their skills, and expect to be recognised and rewarded for it. They want opportunities to develop their expertise and experience by doing challenging, meaningful work that helps the company achieve its goals. If they are given reason to feel the company doesn’t care about them or their career, they will have little reason to care about the company. If employees become unmotivated and disengaged, who could blame them for finding another position somewhere else?
You’ve probably heard the saying that people leave managers, not companies. It gets used so often because it’s true. A 2017 survey by Hays recruitment company showed more than half of skilled professional workers left a job wholly or partly to get away from a direct manager. The boss is an integral part of any employee’s working life, providing direction and feedback, and connecting them to the wider business. Great people are quick to spot poor leadership and may put up with it for a time, but not forever. If their manager isn’t encouraging, tolerates poor performance, is a nit-picker, or takes all the credit, then you can be assured they will be looking around at their options.
Everyone likes to feel part of something bigger. If your talented people are not motivated by the company culture, they won’t want to be part of the team. A company’s culture is made up of lots of small things, and they need to work in synergy and align with your employee’s personal views. If your key staff feel you have a culture that doesn’t appreciate employees, fosters inequality or discrimination, puts profits over people, or has excessive hierarchy, they may well look for somewhere else to work. Take the time to understand your employees’ points of view, what they care about and just as importantly, what they won’t stand for. Then actively work to create a culture that respects those views.
Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends survey found a lack of employee engagement was the top issue faced by 87 percent of HR and business leaders. Your star performers want to achieve; that’s one of the reasons they are stars. They want their work to be meaningful, both personally and for the good of the company. Keeping them engaged means working closely with them to ensure they are excited, challenged, and given every chance to contribute and perform. Link their individual goals to business ones and give them a chance to shine by getting them to tackle the company’s big jobs. If you let them get disengaged or worse, you’re not even checking, they will take their talent elsewhere and the employee turnover stats will start mounting up!
Top employees tend to be competitive and compare what they are getting with what others are getting, both within the business and outside it. They know what they are worth and what they expect to get in return for the work they do. That means not only competitive pay, but other rewards and benefits, training, flexible work arrangements, and personal recognition from management. You need to know what your top employee’s expect and make sure you meet those expectations. If you make a promise, keep it. Highly-skilled professionals are in hot demand, so if you aren’t offering it to them, another company will.
A sure fire way to lose good employees is to let them get bored. Boredom leads to unhappiness and resentment, which as well as affecting their own performance, can sap the entire team’s morale. Top performers need to be challenged by the work they do and be passionate about it. Again, it’s all about knowing what motivates your best people. Do they find the work repetitive? Are there things they want to do that they aren’t? Work together find ways to make jobs exciting and give your employees every opportunity to be creative. If your talented employees are inspired to do great work, they won’t want to walk away.
Keeping your star performers engaged and challenged means they will get to use all of their skills and abilities. More often than not, talented employees are fully aware of their talent, so getting the opportunity use it (and be recognised for it) gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment. This will also make them want to stretch and develop their skills even further, which in turn will further boost their morale and engagement. If you let them waste their talent, they’ll be looking for somewhere else to use it.
Few of us like being babied or micromanaged, and talented employees are typically confident enough to want to have a serious say about their role and responsibilities. If they feel like they are doing the job because they are obligated to rather than choosing to, you risk losing them. As an employer, you need to create a work environment that empowers them to make their own decisions and gives them the flexibility to manage their own workload. You have to balance the need to manage them with their need to get on with the job. Trust their judgement.
Workers no longer see employment as a static, long-term thing. They want personalised career opportunities that grow with them and give them something to aspire to. If you give top performers a clear path for growth and development within the business, it will help keep them motivated and engaged. Talk to them about their aspirations and work with them to create ways to achieve them. It could be promotions or other benefits, such as training or education. If all you are offering your talented employees is a ceiling, then they will soon start looking for the door.
Everyone wants to feel valued. A key part to your employee retention strategy should be to understand this and do your best to make sure you recognise it. Any employee who doesn’t feel valued is more likely to leave. Star employees are often far more productive than their co-workers and they want that productivity to be recognised. A lack of recognition can affect morale and engagement, which as we’ve seen, will quickly sap your top performers desire to stick around. Your business culture should celebrate success by providing genuine appreciation and recognition whenever possible.
The human body is not designed to perform under conditions of prolonged stress. While it’s inevitable that there will be times of stress in any job, you risk burning out your employees if it goes on too long or happens too often. This is especially true of your top performers, as they are often the ones who shoulder the largest share of the workload. To avoid burnout, make sure you provide a decent work-life balance, and look at initiatives that allow your employees to recharge, such as mental health days. If instead you load them up more and more, it will only lead to exhaustion, unhappiness, and ultimately, detachment. They won’t be sticking around long.
Reducing employee turnover makes good business sense. Losing a worker costs, both in financial terms and the time and effort it takes to recruit a replacement, bring them onboard, and train them to do the job.
After all that, there is no guarantee the replacement will be as adept as the person who left, and in the meantime, there can be a drop in productivity and morale as other workers take up the slack. According to the Australian Bureau of Statics Australia’s average turnover rate in 2019 was 8.2% although for industries such as Hospitality and Admin Services this could be up to 18% (https://www.hrmonline.com.au/employee-engagement/turnover-rates-career-transitions-cost-business/) Skilled workers can be in short supply and research into employee turnover has highlighted the need for companies to make concerted, creative efforts to keep their top employees for as long as possible. Taking a strategic approach to retention gives you the best chance of developing a stable, loyal workforce, so the company can focus on hitting its targets, while also being more attractive to other highly-skilled workers.
Losing staff costs your business, pure and simple. Business Victoria has developed a handy calculator to help you understand the cost of staff turnover. (https://www.business. vic.gov.au/hiring-and-managing-staff/staffmanagement/calculator-staff-turnover) You will spend time and resources advertising for new people, going through the whole recruitment process, then you will have to bring them onboard and train them. Not only that, there’s a loss of productivity as the new employee gets up to speed. She or he won’t have any of the organisational knowledge that the person they replace had, which can lead to lost business opportunities or damage to your brand and reputation. Meanwhile, another business could be benefitting from the talent and intellectual property the person who left took with them. These indirect costs can be especially damaging for small to medium-sized companies.
You can’t build a successful business if your people are coming and going at a rate of knots. Aside from the financial costs, your business needs talented, creative, hardworking employees who form a trusted part of a team. Relationships between staff develop over time, just as each member develops the knowledge and skills necessary to do a great job. This matters. Sixty seven percent of Australian employers surveyed in 2019 by recruitment company Hays believed skills shortages would negatively impact the operation of their business or department (this was up from the previous year’s 74%). Any steps you take to reduce turnover and inspire good people to build their careers with the company will mean your business will function more efficiently and effectively.
Keeping your current staff happy and motivated in their roles will ensure you maintain performance and productivity. When an employee departs, he or she takes their knowledge and talent with them, and leaves behind a set of responsibilities your remaining staff will have to take over until you can find and train a replacement. This extra workload can mean your existing employees are less effective at performing their own roles, while the stress on the whole team increases. Aside from poor service delivery, this may mean that you have to postpone important assignments or projects because you don’t have enough skilled people to do them, or management is spending so much time finding and training new staff. Conversely, if your employees are satisfied with the way the company treats them and rewards them for their work, they will want to stay and put in extra effort to help the business succeed.
High staff turnover isn’t the most ringing endorsement of your company and its culture. Our co-workers are often one of the most important aspects of job satisfaction, so if people are constantly leaving it can have a negative effect on the engagement and morale of the remaining team members. Any problem with morale will create a problem with loyalty, as unhappy employees are typically less interested in doing what is best for the company or its customers. It will also mean you risk losing even more staff. By focusing on creating a positive work environment and demonstrating you care enough about your employees to invest in their success and inspire them to stay, you will strengthen staff commitment, improve employee relations, and increase company morale. Having loyal workers will mean you have dependable workers. They will also be your advocates when they talk about the business to other people or on social media.
Not only do effective staff strategies help you keep your best people, they also help you attract quality employees. If you create a work environment where employees are valued, job and benefit expectations are met, and advancement opportunities are provided, you will be a desirable place to work. Not only will your existing employees want to stay, talented people will want to come to work for you. However, if you regularly lose staff, the company’s name and reputation can be harmed, not only by word of mouth but by reviews on employment websites and in social media. This sort of damage to your reputation can put job seekers off before they even apply, and can go on affecting your recruitment efforts for years to come.
No two people are exactly alike. Employee retention strategies work best when they offer a variety of initiatives and benefits, so individuals can choose the ones that work best for them.
Planning should start before anyone is hired, so you know what the business needs, what you are looking for in a candidate, and how that person will fit into the existing team. Once a person is selected, they should clearly understand the business’ expectations and the company should understand theirs. Open communication is key. Work with employees to figure out their career goals, then develop a plan that will help realise them. Some people will be more driven by rewards such as better pay and benefits, or promotion opportunities. Others may be more motivated by developing and learning new skills, or having more flexible working arrangements and a better work-life balance. Understanding the needs of your employees and having a range of measures to meet them strengthens commitment, morale, and loyalty, and shows people they are valued. This helps create a positive work environment where people will want to extend themselves and focus their talents on helping the business succeed.
The 2019 Global Salary Survey by specialist recruitment agency Robert Walters showed that 38% of Australian professionals would look at moving jobs during the year. No one wants to be turning over staff at that rate, but many companies overlook the need to have a long-term strategy for retaining skilled people. Design a employee retention program to give your top people reasons to stick with you. Don’t wait until you feel an employee is going to leave – or worse, you’re sitting in the exit interview – and try to convince them to stay or match another job offer. Ensure you understand and can meet their needs, whether it be better pay, career development, more benefits, or improved work-life balance. Not only will your skilled workers be around to help the company succeed, they’ll be able to pass on their knowledge and abilities so you’ll be better covered if you ever need to replace them.
Staff retention starts right at the beginning of the employment process. It sounds obvious, but there are many things to think about before you even schedule an interview. Identify the sorts of skills, backgrounds, or personality traits your top employees have in common. Understand your company culture and pinpoint the aspects of it that are particularly relevant to the job. When you start screening candidates, look at how candidates fit with the company and the existing team, and whether they have the skills to assist your business with its goals. Look for those with longevity at previous jobs, especially if the company went through difficult times, or a person who plays team sports or volunteers. People who show commitment, are selfmotivated and interested in developing their skills and careers will be more loyal than those motivated by money and power. Then, when you are ready to make a job offer, establish clear expectations so you can avoid misunderstandings or disappointments down the track.
Plan for the long-term. While top talent may naturally exceed in their roles, there’s no guarantee they will want to stay there forever. You need to understand how these key staff see their career progressing. Identify their career goals, then work with them on a plan to attain them and grow with the company. Promote from within as often as possible and provide equal opportunities. This sends a clear message that you are committed to developing future leaders based on merit, and you want your employees to drive the company’s success and share in it. Learning should be another core focus. Employees will feel valued and more invested in the business if you offer paths for training and the acquisition of new skills, processes, and technologies. This doesn’t only mean attending formal training courses and gaining qualifications; encourage employees to learn by doing, on each project and every task. Give them the freedom to not get it right the first time, and then share those learnings with the wider team. Your high achievers will end up being your best workplace trainers.
We all have different motivations, so tailor your staff retention strategies to individual employees. Find out what fires your skilled staff up. Financial incentives might not be as high on the list as you think. Instead, your top performers may care more about being challenged by their work, learning and growing, or having more workplace flexibility. Understanding the needs of your employees and customising each person’s benefits package and working conditions will definitely take some work on management’s part. But the time and effort will help your people feel truly valued, boosting employee satisfaction and, ultimately, loyalty.
More than ever, employees want a company culture of openness and transparency. They want to know how the company is doing, what it values, where it is going, and how their efforts fit into that plan. If your workplace has an open environment where management shares information and employees feel free to speak their minds, you will foster a sense of shared purpose, and you can expect it to be easier to retain skilled staff. Make communication regular and ongoing, both formally and informally. Give performance feedback, hold meetings so people can offer ideas and ask questions, and encourage individuals and teams to share information. Occasionally, it may help to bring in an impartial third party for staff to talk to so you can get a gauge of how they really feel. Make sure everyone in the business is committed to open communication. Invest in training and development for management to cultivate their interpersonal skills. Listening to your employees and acting on what they say will help them feel valued.
Another important part of employee retention is offering attractive benefits and perks as part of an employment package. Benefits demonstrate to employees that the company and management cares about them.
While pay raises and performance bonuses are the most traditional way to retain and attract skilled people, other tools such as increased leave options, opportunities to enhance work-life balance, travel subsidies, and a range of discounts or free offers can go a long way to making their working lives more comfortable and enjoyable. Offering a mix of recognition, development, and wellbeing programmes gives employees the chance to choose the benefits that suit them best. In return, the business can expect increased commitment and productivity, higher job satisfaction, and less absenteeism. But be aware that many employees view perks and benefits as nice-to-haves rather than must-haves. If people have reason to feel disinterested, mistreated, or dispensable, it’s unlikely they will want to perform well enough to merit any extra rewards. Then either the business will look to move them on, or they will do so themselves. Others may soon follow.
A study by workforce management company, Kelly Services, of the benefits offered by Australia’s large businesses found that salary increases and performance bonuses were considered the most effective benefits for attracting and retaining employees. While there is no legal requirement to give pay increases (unless your employee is paid below the minimum wage), scheduling in regular evaluations that are tied to raises and bonuses will give your employees incentive to perform, and enable you to keep your most skilled people longer. Incentive plans that pay in shares in the company are a great way to offer your people a stake in the business. This not only provides a way for them to share in the company’s success, it also gives them a lasting reason to help create it.
More than ever, people want to maintain a balance between their working life and the other activities that matter to them, such as family and leisure time, community activities, and personal development. Research by Hays of Australian employees found that 78 percent of professionals rate work-life balance, including flexible working, as their top priority when seeking a new role. Exactly what work-life balance means to each of your people will be as different as they are, and certain measures will work better for some roles more than others, so it pays to provide a range of options to choose from. It may be flexibility in working hours and location, part-time contracts, or the ability for workers to scale their hours up or down when they become parents, get older, or want to further their studies. It does take some faith (and flexibility) as an employer. But offering options that improve your employee’s work-life balance shows you trust them and in return you can expect increased commitment and productivity, higher job satisfaction, and reduced absenteeism.
People value the ability to develop their career and increasingly expect the company they work for to provide an environment that encourages learning and progression. For the most part, Australian businesses are good at this. While companies surveyed by Kelly Services rated paid training and development as the 3rd most effective benefit for attracting and keeping employees, it was the benefit they most commonly offered their people. By working with your team members on development plans, you will provide a clear path for them to grow with the company. Again, offering various options will enable your employees to select the things that work best for them. For some it may be gaining formal qualifications. For others it may be attending workshops or hearing from inspirational speakers.
Beyond the paid leave that all permanent workers are legally entitled to, many companies now give their staff more than the minimum and also provide other leave options. Giving extra days of paid leave for staying with the company for a predetermined period improves employee retention. Offering longer periods of paid or unpaid parental leave encourages parents to return to the company. Giving people time off to pursue charitable or volunteer work shows you support their values and the wider community. It’s about demonstrating to your employees that they matter. By showing them you are willing to go above and beyond, they will be much more likely to reciprocate.
This is is a broad category and could cover anything from discounted health insurance, travel, or gym memberships to providing free food and espresso coffee. Travel expenses — especially if your business is in a city — can be a major cost for your people, so providing lease vehicles (not just cars), parking, or public transport subsidies can be a big plus. Many companies offer their own products at little or no cost. It may not cost much to the business, but it may mean a lot to your workers. It will also give them first-hand knowledge of the products or services the company provides to its customers.
Health and wellness programmes, including personal health checks, flu shots, and nutrition and work-life balance seminars.
Retirement and savings planning.
Confidential counselling.
Social perks, such as organised events and outings, regular lunches, and Friday drinks.
Your workplace doesn’t need to have slides for getting between office levels like Trade Me does, but you should ensure the benefits and perks you offer are of value to your people. Understanding your workforce and providing a menu of benefits that people can customise will enable you to better enhance their working lives. The popularity of different benefits changes over time too, so keep checking with employees to see if you are offering what they expect. But make sure you can afford any benefits and perks in the long-run. Failure to follow through will leave employees feeling they have been short-changed.
If you are proud of the way you treat your people, let others know of the benefits of working for your company. It will help attract potential employees. But remember: all the perks and benefits in the world won’t count for much if your workers don’t feel you value them, treat them well, or they don’t have any direction in the job.
Remuneration reviews are one of the most time-consuming and costly HR processes businesses regularly go through. They are also one of the most important – everyone wants to be paid well for the work they do. We’re frequently asked to prepare remuneration reviews and provide guidance for companies conducting reviews. So we’ve distilled our advice into high-level criteria that you can use to decide whether a pay increase is appropriate or not.
The first thing to check is to make sure that similar or identical roles within your business are being paid fairly in comparison to each other. This is not to say that you can’t have one person being paid more than another in the same or similar role, as there will be varying skill and experience levels in your team. What you want to make sure of, however, is that there aren’t any major discrepancies – e.g. one Sales Representative on $40/hr and one on $20/hr – and that you can justify any discrepancies that do exist (being able to justify any differences between your male and female employees is especially important in light of recent pay-equity claims!). If you do have a Sales Rep on $40/hr coming to ask for more money, knowing the pay rates for similar or identical roles in the business will also give you reasonable grounds to decline their request, given that all the other Reps are on $20/hr.
Comparing different roles in the business extends the scope of your review, so you can assess and align your pay rates against the value that each person or team delivers. You want to make sure, for example, that paying your Financial Controller as much as your General Manager reflects the value they add and/or the technical skill they bring to the role. (This is common in niche environments, where a Software Developer may be earning as much or more than their manager because of the highly-skilled and valuable nature of their work). This might also give you an opportunity to highlight a sideways career move for someone in the business. For example, in a manufacturing environment, if a Packer who is fairly remunerated on $20/ hr asks for more money, you can discuss how employees in the Dispatch department are paid more than Packers, and invite the person to complete their forklift licence and H&S qualification so they can move into a role with a higher pay rate.
This is where employers typically go first – they want to make sure that they’re remunerating competitively and fairly against other employers, striking that happy medium between keeping your costs manageable but not losing employees to competitors who will pay more.
Getting market data is an inexact science, and for highly specific, technical or unusual roles, it can be hard to get anything more than anecdotal information. This is where salary surveys come in handy – popular ones include:
Kelly Services (https://www.persolkelly.com.au/insight/salary-guide/)
You can also keep an eye on SEEK alerts to see what other business posting jobs are offering (though this will give you a salary range rather than a specific value). If you’re paying significantly above market rates, you’re spending unnecessary money on your people as well as discouraging them from leaving. This might be a good thing, but some amount of turnover or churn in your team is typically considered beneficial so your team doesn’t go stale and you don’t retain people you would prefer to leave. If you’re paying significantly below market rates, then it’s an early warning sign that you’re at risk of losing people to other companies.
Beyond someone’s base pay, there are other tools available to help reward your team and/ or drive the behaviours you want to see.
These include:
Bonuses linked to the performance of the business or team, to drive collaborative behaviour
Bonuses linked to individual performance, to drive individual behaviour
Commission schemes linked to sales and/ or retention of clients
Non-cash bonuses e.g. a trip to Fiji for smashing your sales targets!
Recognition in other ways e.g. Employee of the month award
If you’re considering giving an employee an increase or changing their remuneration package, these are the questions you should be asking:
Is this person paid fairly internally?
Is this person paid fairly externally?
Do they add extra value above and beyond their colleagues, e.g. with highly technical skills or excellent networks that you’re mining for clients?
Have they met performance expectations in the last 6-12 months?
Have they gone above and beyond expectations in the last 6-12 months?
Are they at risk of leaving, and if so, do you want to encourage them to stay?
Are there other ways to reward them (perhaps more meaningfully) than with a pay increase, e.g. an extra week of annual leave each year?
Why are you interested in this position and what was your motivation for applying?
Tell me what you know about our company, our industry and this position.
What accomplishments in your current (or most recent position) are you most proud of? Explain why.
Outline the duties that take up most of your time in your current (or most recent) position. What are the top 3 things that you are measured on?
Tell me what you like best and least about your current position and why.
Why did you (or why are you planning to) leave?
Who has been your favourite manager in your career so far?
Why did you like working for them?
What is your ultimate career aspiration?
How do you hope this position will contribute to your aspirations?
Give me an example of when you exceeded a sales target. What was the target? How much did you beat it by? What do you attribute to this success?
Tell me about a time when you converted a particularly difficult client. What did you do to turn them around? How long did it take? Would you do anything differently next time?
Explain how you would go about identifying potential clients for our company and connecting with them in order to make a sale.
Describe what you would consider to be the unique selling points of our product / services. How would you emphasise these to help grow our sales?
If you were successful in securing this position when would you be able to start? What is your current notice period?
Do you have any pre-arranged leave we would need to factor in if you were offered this position?
Are you constrained by any restraint of trade clauses in your current employment contract that may affect this position?
Safety is very important to us. Do you have any medical conditions or injuries we should be aware of and which may affect your ability to perform this job adequately and safely? If so what are they and what can we do to help keep you safe?
What base salary and benefits package are you seeking?
Do you have any questions for me?
Plenty of companies are happy handling recruitment themselves and approach it in quite a traditional way: advertise the role, shortlist candidates, then interview and reference check before selecting the new hire.
This may get good results, but it’s time consuming, and there are a lot of tools and support out there to streamline and hone the process. Engaging a recruitment consultant is one obvious option. While small business owners might rule it out on cost, a good recruitment professional will provide value for money, save you time and hassle, as well reaching a wider pool of candidates. Software and other cloud-based technology can bring many benefits by automating administration tasks, and speeding up the screening, interview, and response processes.
Technology can also help with onboarding and managing the ongoing employment relationship and individual performance. But remember, no matter how helpful the technology may be, it’s still not a cure-all. Human interaction is best at authentically connecting with candidates, building relationships, and bringing a new person into the company. Technology needs to work seamlessly with your people processes. You want to bring good candidates in, provide a painless recruitment experience that leaves the successful applicant and unsuccessful candidates with a good impression.
Over the past decade, social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have grown from being systems for private communication and connection into being powerful commercial tools. Many companies are profiting from the sales and marketing opportunities social networks present, but not all of them are using them to amplify and hone their recruitment efforts. Most people across age groups (not just young people) are active on social media and are using it to search for jobs and check out potential employers.
While the more traditional recruitment strategies, e.g. posting on job boards, in newspapers, and at employment offices, are still effective and valuable, social media offers many benefits and efficiencies in helping you find and hire new talent. ‘Social recruiting’ (as it’s known) can be active or passive, and each social platform has strengths and weaknesses and appeals to different groups, ages, and professions. Get familiar with the various networks, their features and products, and tailor your recruitment efforts accordingly.
Cheaper and more responsive than traditional channels.
Attract better talent.
Reach people who aren’t actively looking for a job (passive candidates).
Build a large, high-quality talent pool.
Quickly narrow the candidate pool and find people with certain qualifications or skill-sets.
Learn more about applicants’ backgrounds, personalities, and fit for the business.
Build two-way communication with potential employees.
Increased employer brand and recognition, providing insight into the company, its mission, values, and culture.
Requires ongoing effort to do well.
Need to develop a dedicated strategy on what to post and when.
Learn how to use each network and any advanced features, e.g. LinkedIn Advanced People Search, Facebook’s Graph search.
Tailor your message to the right individuals.
Take candidates profiles with a grain of salt (it’s easy to look good on social media).
Create a smooth application experience with as few steps from the job post to completion as possible.
Think mobile first - most people apply for jobs on mobile, while on the bus etc.
Get your employees involved to help promote job vacancies and the company.
Be up front about any use of social media in the selection process (consider developing a procedure that complies with the Human Rights Act).
Measure and analyse your results and update your strategies accordingly.
Be genuine and creative to stand out for the right reasons.
Many candidates will go and look at your company’s social media pages to get a sense of who you are, what you’re up to, and whether they would be a good fit for the company culture and brand. Having active social media feeds with a range of content and tone will help you attract the right sort of people, especially younger people, who want to feel connected and aligned with their employers. Be mindful though; people are busy, social networks can be unforgiving spaces, and information is easily shared. Your social media presence should be coordinated, purposeful, engaging and honest. Aimless or poorly executed social posts could do your reputation and appeal to potential employees a lot more harm than good.
Based on your criteria, figure out what your actual talent pool looks like and how many people exist within that. This will give you your total addressable talent market.
Once you have your total addressable talent market then you need to understand who your strong leads are and who you need to ‘warm up’. Your strong leads could be people that have applied to your organisation before or who may be following your company page(s). Those that you need to warm up may not have any connection to your organisation and will likely become your longer-term talent pool.
Contact these people. Express interest in their background and explain that you would like to tell them all about your organisation and give them the opportunity to learn. Be sure to keep these conversations high level, inspirational and ideally more about you than them. Be clear about your intentions and be open.
Is the person interested in moving forward to a recruitment process? Are they happy where they are but open to future opportunities? Did you identify a red flag or misalignment therefore they are unlikely to be a fit for your organisation?
If successful in this, you will have opened up top talent that was not actively looking for a job in your organisation. You will also have built a pipeline of future talent — be sure to have regular touch points with these individuals.
