Category: Employee Engagement

Recruitment for Retention

Posted on by skatz

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” It is perhaps the most time-worn question in a job interview. But if the candidate answers that if they are hired, they will be happily working in your organisation, the odds are against this ever happening. Why? The average time workers in the U.S. remain in one job is just 4.2 years. And in other leading economies, the average single job tenure can be similarly brief. In the UK, workers change jobs every five years, while in Australia, the national average job tenure is just three years and four months. In Canada, the average length is 8.5 years, but the averages vary widely depending on the industry.

For those hoping to attract and retain top talent, these figures can be familiar – and a cause for concern. When human resource professionals look inside their organisations and identify employees who have defied the statistical average, staying with the company far longer than five years and contributing significantly to its success, they wonder “how do I get more of them?” With low unemployment making many job markets the most challenging in recent memory, there is genuine urgency not only to retain the best talent but to find a way to attract talent that will stay with an organisation for the long-term. In other words, there is a need to recruit to retain, but how?

Know Your Talent: Why They Leave and Why They Stay and Thrive

Like many organisations, your company may already have an employee retention programme in place. Enterprises are making considerable efforts to retain talent, and the processes they deploy to improve employee retention can also be incorporated into your recruitment process.

For example, it is relatively common to have exit interviews with departing workers to better understand why they are leaving the organisation. When a sufficient number of exit interview results are available and evaluated, trends can emerge that can lead to actionable items to improve employee retention. Certain common traits or characteristics may also appear among those who voluntarily leave their jobs.

Less common, but potentially just as valuable, is the “stay interview.” These interviews with current employees allow them to express their concerns before they are in a position to leave, which can help leaders address issues and take steps to retain top talent.

And just as exit interviews can bring into focus the characteristics of those who quit, the stay interview can help identify the traits of those who remain and thrive. Once a group of long-term successful employees is identified, a stay interview can be designed for this group with the goal of identifying why they have remained with the company, what factors have contributed to their success and what characteristics many or most of them have in common. Identifying these characteristics in your candidate pool during the recruiting process could be an indicator of future success.

In today’s tight job market, if you are not working to identify candidates with the characteristics that have been proven to lead to long-term achievement in your company, your competitors probably are. SHRMreports that “Many organisations are seeking more of a ‘whole person’ gauge of candidates, experts say, assessing not just skills or intellectual horsepower but also personality traits, cultural fit and motivational drivers that can prove the difference between candidates who thrive over the long run and those who quickly derail.”

Predictive Analytics: Unlocking the Key to Recruitment for Retention

Predictive analytics is a type of data analytics that uses data to find patterns and then uses those models to attempt to predict the future. Consider the most basic data you likely have about a single employee who worked for your organisation and left after five years. A sample of data points could include:

  • How they were sourced
  • Their addresses over their tenure at the company
  • Their education and certifications
  • Previous employers

These data points alone may not provide insight into why this employee joined your organisation and why they left. But, if just these pieces of information were aggregated for all your employees, both past and present, here are a few insights which could be determined:

  • Is there a correlation between how an employee is sourced and their tenure at the organisation?
  • Do employees who live far from the workplace quit sooner than those who do not?
  • Do employees from certain schools or that have particular certifications stay longer with the company than others?
  • Are there previous employers which produce more long-term employees than others?

The information found in even one of these examples could be built into your recruitment strategy and have a meaningful impact in recruiting talent that will remain with your organisation.

The right technology using predictive analytics can provide effective recruiting insight, as PeopleScout’s Allison Brigden explains:

“In this tightening talent market with unemployment rates at record lows, predictive analytics is emerging as an essential AI tool for employers looking to stay ahead of the competition. Predictive analytics allows employers to use the power of data to make predictions about candidates and drive efficiencies throughout the entire talent acquisition process…

Predictive analytics can’t tell you what will happen, but it shows what is likely to happen based on past trends. It’s as close as employers can get to predicting the future.”

Solving for Retention

The dilemma faced by a major auto retailer was challenging but not surprising. The annual turnover rate in the retail sector is much higher than the national average in the U.S. With a 50% turnover rate and a need for 10,000 annual hires, there was an immediate need for drastic improvement

PeopleScout partnered with this automotive retailer and was able to rapidly address their turnover challenges by implementing the following solutions:

A Standard Hiring Model

An uneven hiring process was replaced, and a standard hiring model was put in place that included consistent OFCCP compliance and standardisation across the company.

An Efficient Process

PeopleScout deployed a time-efficient screening process which focused on the quality of the candidate, with a guaranteed response from recruiting teams within 48 hours of application. To quickly present candidates to hiring managers, PeopleScout implemented block interview scheduling with great success.

Hiring Diversity

To help source and engage more diverse candidates, PeopleScout developed a comprehensive network of community organisations for partnered recruitment.

In-Region Recruiters

Collaborative relationships between recruiters and the client’s area managers were fostered by in-region placement of PeopleScout recruiters.

Transparent Reporting

Continuous improvement was driven through transparent reporting and analysis for the client’s executive and field leadership.

The Results:
  • PeopleScout hired 10,000 employees in the first year of the engagement.
  • The technician turnover rate improved by 5% and retail turnover by 6%.
  • Hiring diversity improved by 40%, including an increase of 2% for veterans and 6% for female hires.

Rethinking Work: Providing Flexibility in the Workplace

Posted on by epadmin


Checking the status of an important project while waiting to catch a flight. Replying to a coworker’s email from the comfort of your favorite café. Shifting your hours to make time to take an aging parent to a doctor’s visit. Each of these scenarios has one thing in common – they are made possible through flexibility in the workplace.


Flexible work arrangements are surging in popularity. In the U.S., 94 percent of employers provide some form of flexible work arrangement according to a survey conducted by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. A survey conducted by Regus revealed that some 54 percent of global respondents now report that they work remotely 2.5 days a week or more.


You may be wondering: What’s behind the surge in popularity for flexible workplaces? Well, the data speaks for itself. Global Workplace Analytics found the following:

  • AT&T found that its remote workers worked five more hours than its office workers.
  • Compaq’s flexible workforce increased productivity between 15 and 45 percent.
  • American Express’ flexible workforce had a 43 percent higher productivity level than their traditional counterparts.

In this article, we’ll cover what workplace flexibility means, why you should consider bringing more flexibility to your workplace and how you can best manage the challenges and opportunities presented by a flexible workforce

So, What Does Workplace Flexibility Mean and Why Should I Care?

Workplace flexibility is an alternative to traditional workplace models that dictate when and where workers perform their work. Workplace flexibility permits employees to choose when, where and how they work.


Flexibility in the workplace shouldn’t be seen as just a perk you offer to employees; it should be viewed as a critical part of your organisation’s talent acquisition strategy – and as a fundamental way to increase productivity.

How Employers Benefit With More Flexibility in the Workplace

A Broader Talent Pool


When your workplace culture allows talent to work from anywhere, your talent pool instantly becomes global. Your organisation can source and recruit talent across the country or across the globe. With the rise of communication tools such as Skype and Slack, secure intranets and video conferencing, distance is becoming less of a hurdle to collaborating with talent globally.


Improved Employer Branding


According to LinkedIn’s 2017 Global Recruiting Trends, 80 percent of talent leaders agree that employer brand has a significant impact on their ability to hire great talent. Offering flexible workplace policies communicates to potential employees that your organisation is committed to helping its employees achieve a better work-life balance, which in turn can help improve jobseekers’ perception of you as an employer.


Cost-Savings


The most prosaic benefit to flexibility in the workplace is cost savings. Costs on business necessities such as office supplies, real estate and utilities are reduced when your organisation provides employees the ability to work off-site.

How Employees Benefit With More Flexibility in the Workplace

Meet Personal Obligations


Employees have a variety of personal obligations and family responsibilities. If you provide them with a flexible workplace, they can make that important parent-teacher conference during the day, go back to school or simply be home when the engineer comes to fix the dishwasher all without having to neglect work in favor of personal responsibilities. If you trust people to get their work done in a way that works for them, that trust is usually rewarded.


Employee Empowerment


Flexible workplaces can give employees an increased feeling of personal control over their schedule and work environment. By allowing employees to set their own style for delivery, you appeal to the entrepreneurial spirit—which can be good for your employees’ sense of self-determination.


Reduced Commuting Time and Costs


For some employees, commutes of more than an hour each way are not uncommon. If employees are allowed to work from home that can potentially save them fourteen hours of time, untold money in fuel costs and wear and tear on the road – not to mention the effect on well-being.

Types of Flexibility in the Workplace

Job Sharing


Job sharing is when two employees share the same role. Job sharing can be very appealing for your employees who may not want to work full-time, for example after having a child or with elderly relatives in need of care.


In a job share arrangement, one role gains two brains – two people with passion and creativity who are committed to success.
There are a number of ways employees in a job-sharing arrangement can manage their responsibilities. Some employees sharing a role may segment the work by each taking responsibility for specific deliverables and tasks charged to them.


Others may split the same workload, with one employee working on projects and passing along their work to their job share partner while they are off the clock. The model you and your employees choose will depend on the nature of the work performed and what preferences and skills each employee possess.


At PeopleScout UK, we have the luxury of employing two wonderfully talented women in our Head of Assessment role. This role wasn’t initially designed to be a job share. However, after our incumbent in the role wanted to reduce their time in-office after becoming a mom, another talented colleague stepped up to support the team.


As both women began building their families and took on the challenges of motherhood, their ability to provide 100 percent to the role was never compromised, as when one needed to take a step back the other is always there to pick up where they left off.


By providing the flexibility our employees needed to share this role, we retained two of our brightest minds. And more importantly, we let our employees know that you should never have to choose between being a parent and being a professional, you can do both equally well with the right support.


Remote Work


Remote work is when an employee works primarily from home or an off-site location. A well-planned remote work programme can help your organization increase overall productivity and promote greater job satisfaction among your teams and may even help you in improving your employee retention efforts.


For PeopleScout UK, we did not always see remote work as an employee perk, rather we viewed it as a practical financial decision to reduce office expenses at our London location. We began our intrepid adventure into remote work by hot-desking—the practice of multiple workers using a single work station—our client services team.


What began as an exclusively financial-based decision borne of necessity quickly paid unexpected dividends. When our client service team members didn’t feel the need to stay affixed to their desks, something marvelous happened, they became more engaged with clients which in turn brought in more business for PeopleScout UK.


We were not entirely sure what to expect when we initially opened up our organisation to become more flexible. However, after witnessing the success of our remote work programme one thing was clear: flexibility was a business asset, not a hindrance to productivity.


Flexible Scheduling 


Flexible scheduling allows an employee to work hours that differ from the traditional company start and stop time.


According to data compiled by The Economist, working fewer hours correlates with higher levels of productivity. Nations like Greece average 2,000 work hours a year, while nations like Germany average around 1,400, but yield 70 percent more productivity at work. This suggests that fixed schedules and mandatory hours may not be the key to getting the most out of your employees.


Typically, a flexible schedule involves either a compressed work week or flexible starting and stopping times. In a compressed work week, the most common schedule is a four-day work week where employees work four ten-hour days—variations on this schedule could include three twelve-hour work days, etc. This scheduling flexibility allows employees to have an additional day or two to relax, spend with family and friends or pursue activities and causes that interest them.


At PeopleScout UK, we encourage our colleagues to take full advantage of our flexible scheduling options. For example, we had a colleague who wanted to leave work a half hour early once a week to attend choir practice. We not only supported them by allowing them to flex the hours, but we also couldn’t help wondering if they’d like to invite their co-workers to their performance. As it turns out they were happy to have some new people for the audience, and many members of their team showed up to cheer them on.


By promoting and supporting our colleagues interests and encouraging others to do the same, we are communicating that we see our workers as whole persons and that their personal achievements are just as important to everyone at PeopleScout UK as their professional ones.


When your employees feel you appreciate them for more than what they can contribute to your bottom line, that you appreciate what they contribute to their community as a whole, you help engender a familial office atmosphere where employees feel both empowered and respected.

Managing Flexibility in the Workplace

Stay in Compliance


Before your organisation begins offering your employees flexible work opportunities, you need to make sure your programme won’t become a legal headache. Issues to consider include workers’ compensation and state/national overtime regulations, as well as matters of individual responsibility for company property used off-site. Your organisation’s legal counsel should review any flexible work programme proposals to make sure you stay in compliance with your country’s employment laws and the regions your organisation operates in to ensure you can provide the flexibility in the workplace you to your employees.


Stay Connected


It is extremely important to stay connected with employees in flexible work arrangements. Make sure that your managers and in-office employees remember to include remote employees and support them to feel like they’re part of the team. While conference calls and email chains are effective means of communicating with remote workers, nothing substitutes being in the same room. Leverage videoconferencing technology such as Skype or FaceTime to bring more of a face-to-face feel for remote employees in important meetings.


Be Fair


A major key to managing a successful flexible workplace is ensuring that employees who opt for more traditional work arrangements are treated as equitably as their non-traditional co-workers. When you treat your all employees fairly, they feel respected, cared for and may develop a stronger sense of trust in your organisation. Make sure to monitor your flexible workplace policy and periodically tweak it to address new or unforeseen inconsistencies in the treatment of workers both in traditional and non-traditional work arrangements.

The Gist

To reap the benefits of flexibility in the workplace, you need to continuously evaluate your flexible work programme and monitor which employees use it, how the programme is being used and take note of any challenges participants and managers are experiencing.


You should routinely speak with both participating employees and managers regarding if your programme is working as intended, how it can be improved and what their individual experiences are while using the programme. Assess their satisfaction with the programme and tweak it as necessary.


Remember, as employers, we hire whole people. We need to take them as a package: both the things that directly benefit our organisations and the things we may need to accommodate for them.
 

Through The Grapevine: How to Create and Manage an Employee Referral Programme

Posted on by epadmin

A well-managed employee referral programme may be the single most powerful weapon in an organisation’s recruitment arsenal. In fact, according to Silkroad’s Sources of Hire Report, employee referrals continue to be a top source for hires.

By encouraging employees to refer contacts in their professional networks for open positions you can reduce recruiting costs, improve candidate quality and increase employee engagement.

In this article, we explore the case for employee referral programmes, some of the top considerations organisations should be mindful of and how to properly manage a referral programme.

The Case for Developing an Employee Referral Programme

Intuitively, developing a formal employee referral programme makes sense. After all, who better to refer great candidates and sell those candidates on why they should join your organisation than your own employees?

Employee referral programmes make good business sense. Some of the benefits your organisation may reap from an employee referral programme include:

  • Faster time-to-hire: A LinkedIn study uncovered that it takes an average of 29 days to hire a referred candidate compared to 39 days to hire a candidate through a job board.
  • Less impact on your talent acquisition budget: An employee referral programme is an inexpensive sourcing strategy that relies primarily on word-of-mouth and internal communication. You don’t have to pay to advertise job posts. Due to the faster time-to-hire, organisations can cut internal costs as well, since recruiters won’t be spending as much time sourcing and interviewing candidates for open positions.
  • Top talent begets top talent: Another LinkedIn survey revealed that star employees tend to refer other star employees. Tapping into your top talent can help organisations source and hire high performers more effectively.
  • Better employee retention: Not only are candidates hired via an employee referral typically of higher quality, they also tend to stay at their jobs longer, with 46 percent remaining in their position for at least three years.

Employee Referral Programmes as an Extension of Employee Engagement

With employee referral programmes, saving time and money is just the beginning. Employee referrals also add value through improved employee engagement. Using employee referrals to hire candidates builds a more robust corporate culture by intersecting performance and engagement to drive business success through tapping current employees for qualified candidate referrals, thus simplifying the sourcing process.

Employees who recommend a new hire have a vested interest in onboarding and retaining that person, as many referral programmes include a requirement that the referred employee must be with the organisation for a specific period of time before the referring employee can get a referral bonus. What’s more, employees who refer candidates will feel a sense of commitment to ensure their referral’s success because they recommended the position.

Moreover, employees who are involved in the recruitment process may feel a greater sense of purpose towards the future of your company. By encouraging employees to submit referrals, you are letting them know you value their input and contribution.

What to Consider Before Implementing an Employee Referral Programme

Set Programme Objectives

Before implementing an employee referral programme, organisations should outline objectives in order to set a clear goal. Defining objectives early on in the process helps ensure your team is on the same page and knows exactly what is expected and when.

Setting objectives can be achieved by holding planning sessions with key stakeholders where you share the vision for the programme, develop strategies to achieve success and find solutions that are mutually agreed upon.

Objectives for an employee referral programme might include:

  • Improving quality-of-hire
  • Increasing new hire retention
  • Boosting employee morale and recognition
  • Lowering overall recruiting costs
  • Increasing diversity within the organisation
  • Sourcing candidates with a specific skill set
  • Reducing the time-to-hire for external candidates
  • Better targeting and sourcing of passive job seekers
  • Deepening the pipeline of potential applicants

Leverage Technology

Technology can help make the employee referral process better for both employers, employees and referrals. Using your technology tools can streamline processes and minimise inefficiencies and missed opportunities in the referral programme.

In an article with SHRM, Jennifer Newbill, Director of Global Employment Brand, Dell explains that Dell uses a combination of “white glove” and automated communications to manage its more than 40,000 annual employee referrals, making the process more manageable for the organisation’s talent acquisition teams.

Social Media Referrals

Recruitment marketing technology can allow you to post jobs on your organisation’s social channels in seconds. You can also leverage your existing employees’ social media networks – if your employees are willing to post on your behalf – to expand your reach.

Auto-Posting Open Roles

In order to get your employees more engaged in your employee referral programme, you should consider sharing job openings on a regular basis. Instead of sending out emails manually every time a position opens, you can automate this process through your recruitment email marketing tools.

For example, gig-economy start-up Fiverr leverages employee referral software that gamifies the referral process by adding a competitive element to referring candidates. The software assigns points to employees and credit for all the actions they take. The software also keeps employees up-to-date on the status of their referrals.

Make Jobs Shareable Through Employee Portals

Make it easier for employees to share job opportunities through their social media accounts and email. Adding social links on job posts will allow employees to automatically share job openings with just a few clicks. The quicker and easier jobs are to share, the more likely your employees will participate.

Referral Tracking

Tracking and appropriately attributing a referral is crucial to the programme’s success. To make tracking easier, a referral field should be added to applications. The referral field on the job application can be filled in with information about the referring employee, making referral tracking easier.

Managing an Employee Referral Programme

When it comes to managing a successful employee referral programme, there are a few elements to keep in mind. Ideally, every programme includes the following:

  • Incentives
  • A simple process
  • Feedback

Below, we explain how your organisation can manage each of these three elements within your employee referral programme.

Employee Referral Incentives

According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 40 percent of respondents were motivated to refer candidates for a monetary reward. What’s more, 68 percent stated they submitted a referral because they wanted to help their organisation. If you want to get the most impact out of your organisation’s employee referral programme, you should offer a combination of monetary and creative, non-monetary incentives for referrals.

  • Experiment with monetary reward amounts because there is no magic number that will motivate all employees. Periodically testing different amounts can allow you to optimise your financial incentives.
  • Employees who are more altruistic in nature may prefer the option of donating their referral bonus to a charity or cause close to their hearts.
  • An alternative to offering individual monetary incentives is to hold a quarterly prise drawing where every employee who has made a successful referral during the period is eligible to win.
  • While prises and cash incentives can be great motivators, other perks can be just as effective. Non-monetary rewards can include reserved parking spots, extra time off or first choice of shifts and schedules.

For a PeopleScout client and multinational auto parts and accessories manufacturer, we encourage their store managers, area managers and team members to refer quality candidates, including friends and family, to current job openings.

Once the employee’s referral applies to a position, our client lets a member of our recruiting team know that a referral has applied. In the system the candidate selects referral and the client lets us know.  This ensures we do not miss a referral and/or they selected the wrong source code when applying.  Our team then schedules an interview with the referral and if qualified, proceeds to extend a verbal offer.  If the referral is qualified, they will be scheduled with the store/hiring manager for an in-person interview, unless the referral was a quality candidate from the store manager and they already met them in person.

To assist our client in tracking the referrals coming in, our recruiters maintain a digital log of the number of referrals that were phone screened and referrals that were hired. Our client values this referral programme because it yields quality candidates and results in a faster time-to-hire for critical positions.   When a referral is screened the recruiter ensure the source code is correct in the ATS so we provide stats and results of referrals.

Programme highlights include:

  • When we onboard and train our client’s new managers, PeopleScout emphasises the employee referral programme and its importance to the recruiting process
  • PeopleScout’s team has specific SLAs to ensure referrals are expedited
  • PeopleScout tracks time in status and conversion rates specifically for referrals
  • More than 25 percent of hires for our client come from referrals
  • More than 50 percent of referrals submitted are ultimately hired
  • PeopleScout hires between 9,000 and 11,000 people for this client annually

Simplify the Employee Referral Process

According to a survey conducted by RolePoint, 95 percent of HR professionals believe their employees fully understand how to submit referrals. However, 63 percent say they “very often or frequently” receive feedback that employees find it too complicated to refer someone.

When evaluating your programme, ask yourself these questions:

  • Do employees know about your referral programme?
  • Is it clear with whom or where an employee should submit a referral?
  • Is the technology used to submit referrals user-friendly?
  • Is it easy to track if the referring employee was given credit?
  • Is it easy to track the incentives that were earned?

If the programme makes your employees jump through hoops to place a referral, you can be sure that it won’t attract many participants.

To simplify your programme, start with the following steps:

Explain your employee referral programme: Employees need to understand exactly how your referral programme works to make it successful. How you teach employees about the programme depends on your size and how the workforce is dispersed geographically. You might gather your employees together and give a brief presentation or create an online training course. Or, you might do something as simple as sending an informational email or flyer for employees to review.

Set your requirements up front: If you want your employees to refer quality candidates, they need to know what traits and skills you are looking for. Share the open positions you are hiring for and provide employees with the job descriptions, so they get a feel for the types of candidates that would be a good fit.

Provide regular reminders: You should periodically remind employees about the referral programme. If you don’t, they may quickly forget about it.

InMobi, an Indian-based mobile technology company, offered a motorbike—a very popular vehicle in India—to any employee who referred a successful engineering manager candidate. To keep the referral programme top of mind, InMobi parked a motorbike right in front of their corporate headquarters so employees were reminded of the referral incentive every day while entering the building.

When you have an influx of open positions, send a reminder to your employees that explains how they can refer candidates and what the reward is for hired candidates.

You can also promote the referral programme when you aren’t actively hiring. An employee might refer a candidate you do not want to miss out on. You should add those candidates to your talent pool.

Collect and Provide Feedback  

Measure Programme Results: Measuring results is critical to evaluating the success of the programme and to finding improvement opportunities. While metrics can vary depending on the goals you’ve set for the programme, here are some good metrics to track:

  • On-the-job performance of referral hires
  • Retention/turnover rate of referral hires
  • Programme ROI or the cost/benefit ratio
  • Employee satisfaction with the overall process

Provide notifications after an employee referral is made: Referring employees may be nervous about whether their referrals were any good. The best practice is to notify employees immediately when their referral is accepted/rejected, if the candidate is invited for an interview and when the candidate is finally hired or not.

The Gist

Employee referral programmes remain one of the top sources for candidates because they are a cost-effective, engaging talent acquisition strategy. To get the most out of your referral programme, understand what motivates your employees to refer candidates, make the process as easy as possible and maintain good communication with both the referrer and referee.

Employee Retention: Combating Turnover

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Employee retention is a major concern for many organisations. More than 50 percent of organisations worldwide have expressed difficulty in retaining some of their most valued employee groups according to a Willis Towers Watson study.

Although hiring has increased in recent years, turnover and attrition rates have also increased globally across all industries by more than 3 percent since 2013.

Turnover is not just an inconvenience for organisations, it can be expensive. Research from the Work Institute’s 2017 Retention Report uncovered that it currently costs 33 percent of a worker’s annual salary to replace them, with the major costs being recruiting a replacement, reduced productivity, cost of onboarding a new hire and training expenses.

This means for mid- to enterprise-sized employers, turnover can cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year. With turnover costs this high, it is important for organisations to improve employee retention.

Employee Retention: Employee Turnover and What To Do About It

The strong economy and historically low unemployment rates have made workers more confident, and as a result, they are more comfortable exploring the job market.

In the U.S., the unemployment rate reached 3.7 percent in October. Low unemployment is not confined to the U.S. The unemployment rate has also dropped to 4 percent in the UK and 5.3 percent in Australia.

In LinkedIn’s Why and How People Change Jobs study, the top three reasons employees leave a position are to advance their careers, dissatifaction with their workplace culture and dissatisfaction with management.

Moreover, the study found that once employees resigned, 42 percent said they might have stayed if their employer had done something to show they valued the employee.

Below, we address some of the main causes of employee turnover and provide insights into how to improve employee retention.

Create a Positive Workplace Culture  

Stressful, negative and inhospitable workplaces are a recipe for high employee turnover. Research bears this out, as the American Institute of Stress reports that workplace stress can lead to an increase of nearly 50 percent in voluntary employee turnover.

How we feel about our work often depends on the relationships we have with coworkers, managers and the overall company culture. According to a study conducted by the University of Michigan, there are six essential qualities of a positive workplace culture:

  1. Caring for, being interested in and maintaining responsibility for colleagues as friends.
  2. Providing support for one another, including offering kindness and compassion when others are struggling.
  3. Avoiding blame and forgiving mistakes.
  4. Inspiring one another at work.
  5. Emphasising the meaningfulness of the work.
  6. Treating one another with respect, gratitude, trust and integrity.

As an organisation, you should work to foster these qualities in your workplace. The University of Michigan research points to two key strategies:

Encourage Trusting Safe Relationships

Employees who trust that their coworkers and managers have their best interests at heart feel safe, as research by Amy Edmondson of Harvard demonstrates. Workplace cultures where leaders are inclusive, humble and encourage their staff to communicate and ask for help lead to better learning and performance outcomes for all employees.

Be Empathic

A brain-imaging study found that when employees recollected instances when a manager had been harsh or lacked empathy, they showed increased activation in areas of the brain associated with avoidance and negative emotion, while the opposite was true when they recalled an empathic manager.

Moreover, Jane Dutton and her team at the CompassionLab suggest that leaders who demonstrate compassion toward employees foster individual and collective resilience in challenging times. Thus, creating a workplace environment more conducive for overcoming challenges and obstacles.

Key Action:

Develop a workplace environment that meets employee needs whenever possible to drive positive organisational outcomes and increase employee retention.

Professional Development

In an article published by HR Dive, Laurie Bienstock of Willis Tower Watson states that “We know from our research and consulting that career management continues to be a top driver of attraction, retention and sustainable engagement for most employees…Effective career management at many organisations remains elusive. That’s one of the main reasons so many of today’s employees feel they need to leave to advance their careers.”

Well-thought-out professional development programmes can provide your employees with opportunities and clear direction on how to increase their skills and advance their careers within your organisation.

With an expanded skill set, not only will employees feel more empowered, they will also have more tools to help your organisation. A win-win for your organisation and staff.

When starting a professional development programme, you can leverage the expertise you have within your organisation. Senior employees, for example, can serve as mentors and help mentees sharpen both their soft skills and technical skills, gain practical knowledge, institutional insights and hands-on guidance, and can help mentees become more valuable and versatile employees.

At PeopleScout, for example, we sponsor a programme where employees are paired with mentors at different levels within the organisation to provide mentorship and career guidance. During the first three cycles of our programme, 10 percent of participants received promotions after completing the programme.

Key Action:

Invest in your employees’ career development and tie their career success to the success of your organisation.

Management and Leadership

It’s often stated that “employees don’t leave organisations, they leave managers.” This is not a mere business platitude, there is evidence to back it up.

In a study conducted by Gallup, 50 percent of employees said they left a job “to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career.”

What’s more, according to an article by SHRM, “Employees who trust their managers appear to have more pride in the organisation and are more likely to feel they are applying their individual talents for their own success and that of the organisation.”

To curb employee turnover that stems from mismanagement, organisations should train managers on how to constructively engage, develop and motivate their teams to improve employee retention.

One challenge managers may face lies in the fact that what motivates employees is often unique to the individual. To uncover the diverse factors that drive their team members, emotional intelligence is required.

Training support for managers should involve teaching them how to build better relationships, communicate more effectively, notice the early signs of employee burnout, delegate work and shift their mindset from being “the boss” to becoming a leader who empowers their team for success.

Moreover, managers should not have to wait for HR to step in with retention initiatives. Instead, managers should feel empowered to provide incentives and rewards, as well as the ability to develop their staff and offer meaningful opportunities to their team.

Managers should also be aware that meaningful recognition and praise can be powerful. Employee awards, recognition programmes and praise might be the single most cost-effective way to maintain a happy, productive workforce.

Managers can send positive emails at the completion of a project or monthly memos outlining the achievements of their team, and organisations can develop peer-recognition programmes to provide positive feedback to individuals as well as their teams as a whole.

What’s more, organisations can create formal employee recognition programmes. These programmes let employees know that their work is valued and provides employees with a sense of ownership and belonging within their organisation.

Creating a culture of recognition is something any organisation can do to improve their employee retention. The key to success is identifying how your employees like to be recognised and then finding ways to show recognition in their preferred method consistently over time.

While recognition programmes can help improve employee retention, you still need to make sure managers are provided with coaching and training programmes as well as supplied with the resources they need to become more empowered.

Key Action:

Enable employees to have positive social interactions with leadership and a rewarding work environment to increase satisfaction with their role in the organisation.

Using Predictive Analytics to Track Turnover

Today, organisations are more data-driven, using AI and predictive analytics to better analyse data and drive business decisions. Predictive analytics can be leveraged by organisations to monitor and manage employee turnover by identifying which employees are at risk of leaving the organisation.

Organisations should build their predictive models based on employee data tracked and stored in their HRIS or ATS. This historical data contains a wealth of information relevant to predicting employee turnover. Successfully leveraging predictive analytics to improve employee retention begins with the validity and quality of data fed into a predictive model.

Some of the most commonly used employee information for turnover-focused predictive modeling includes:

  • Tenure or duration of employment
  • Compensation level or ratio
  • Date of, or time since, last promotion
  • Percent of most recent pay raise
  • Job performance score
  • Commute distance
  • Job satisfaction score
  • Number of previous positions held
  • Years with current manager
  • Engagement score

These points of data can be analysed to predict the likelihood and rate of turnover across roles within an organisation.

For example, a PeopleScout client uses data and predictive models to assess turnover trends. The client uses employee demographic information such as age, tenure and their previous employer to predict when an employee might resign based on historical trends and patterns of similar employees.

Equipped with this data, the client is better positioned to prevent valuable employees from resigning by taking preemptive actions during periods or junctures where the employee is most likely to resign.

Leveraging Interviews to Improve Employee Retention

A key to improving employee retention is uncovering the unique issues your employees face day-to-day. Exit and stay interviews can give you a wide variety of perspectives from which to tackle issues that are driving employees away.

Exit Interviews

Exit interviews are designed to gather feedback from departing employees, and can provide an organisation with insights that can be used to make current and future employees less likely to resign.

For example, if your exit interviews uncover that employees feel their duties didn’t match their original job expectations, consider changing your job descriptions and your onboarding sessions to better reflect the duties within a specific role.

What’s more, recruiters and talent acquisition stakeholders should be educated on the competencies and skills that are needed to be successful in a specific role and be able to communicate them effectively to candidates.

Tips for conducting effective exit interviews:

  • Choose the Right Interviewer: When conducting an exit interview, the interviewer should be someone with little connection to the interviewee or someone they feel comfortable sharing their true feedback and concerns with.
  • Ask the Right Questions: To get the most out of an exit interview, it is important to ask the right questions – e.g. what is the attraction of the new position?; how were relationships with colleagues?; was there an issue with benefits or compensation?; what could be done to make this company a better place to work?
  • Analyse the Interviews: Make sure you analyse the results of each exit interview and aim to find any common issues that are causing your employees to leave.

Exit interviews shouldn’t be the only time you solicit feedback from employees. Rather, you should foster a culture of constructive feedback. Employee engagement surveys are a good way to take the pulse of employees throughout their tenure with your organisation. That way, you’re more likely to get honest, constructive feedback from current employees, as well as when employees leave.

Key Action:

During an exit interview, ask about things like the quality of leadership, teamwork across and within departments, opportunities for advancement and internal policies.

Stay Interviews

In some ways stay interviews are similar to exit interviews. They are both used to identify reasons employees like or dislike their job and can uncover concerns or issues an employer may be unaware of.

However, stay interviews can be more valuable than exit interviews because they provide insights managers can leverage to motivate and retain employees before they make the decision to leave.

Questions to ask during a stay interview:

  • What keeps you working here?
  • What do you enjoy about your job?
  • What would cause you to leave the company?
  • What would you like to change about your job, team or department?
  • If you could change one thing about the company what would it be?
  • Have you ever thought about leaving the organisation?
  • What motivates you at work?
  • Do you feel appreciated in your role?
  • Where do you see yourself in five years?

After conducting a stay interview, be as transparent as possible with the interviewee about what you can or can’t do to remedy a particular issue.

Key Action:

Aim to conduct your stay interviews at least once per year to augment the more general information about team satisfaction obtained through engagement surveys. Schedule them separately from performance reviews so the goals of each meeting remain distinct.

The Gist:

Unmanaged employee turnover is costly and disruptive to organisations. Approaches to retaining top talent need go beyond compensation and benefits to include improving employee job satisfaction with meaningful engagement, organisational commitment to managing employees’ relationships with their managers and clearly communicating opportunities for growth and advancement with the organisation.

Ghosting in the Workplace

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Employers are concerned about the growing trend of candidates who don’t show up to scheduled interviews, don’t arrive on the first day of work or even quit without giving notice. This trend is also known as “ghosting” in the workplace.

“As labor markets tighten, recruiters and hiring managers say they’re experiencing a surge of workers no-showing at interviews or accepting a job only to never appear for the first day of work without explanation. Some employees are even quitting by walking out and saying nothing,” wrote LinkedIn’s Chip Cutter in an article on workplace ghosting.

What’s more, an article published by USA Today reports that 20 to 50 percent of job applicants and workers are pulling no-shows or ghosting in some form or fashion.

The ghosting phenomenon is global. “I thought it could only be in pockets of a country like the U.S., where the unemployment rate has sunk to an 18-year low,” wrote Pilita Clark in an article in the Financial Times. “When I asked around in the UK, where unemployment is at its lowest in over 40 years, I found a surprising number of victims of what is known in the online dating world as ‘ghosting.’”

To further explain what ghosting is, why it’s occurring and what your organisation can do to minimise its effects on your talent acquisition programme, we explore the phenomenon and its effects on employers.

So, What is Ghosting in the Workplace?

In the dating world, “ghosting” is the practice of ending a relationship by stopping all contact and communication with a partner without apparent warning or explanation.

The discourteous act of ghosting is no longer confined to romance; it has now entered the world of work.

Ghosting in the workplace is similar to ghosting in dating. Essentially, candidates or employees avoid having potentially unpleasant conversations with recruiters or their employers by going radio silent instead.

Instead of telling employers, “I am quitting” or “I have accepted another job offer,” some workers are thinking: “If I ignore you long enough, eventually you will take the hint and leave me alone.”

Simply put, many job seekers do not want to have an uncomfortable conversation with a recruiter or manager, so they take the easy way out by ghosting them. Ghosting in the workplace comes in many forms including:

  • No-Showing for an Interview. This occurs when candidates do not show up to scheduled interviews. This can happen for initial interviews, or interviews further along in the hiring process.
  • No-Showing on the First Day. This occurs when candidates accept a job offer but don’t show up on their start date.
  • Quitting Without Notice. This occurs when an employee leaves for the day and is never heard from again.

While job candidates and employees have ghosted in the past, what’s unique now is the practice has now become more prevalent. According to a survey conducted by Washington-based research firm Clutch, 71 percent of workers admitted to ghosting at some point in the application process. What’s more, 55 percent of the respondents said they abandon one to five applications during a job search.

Why are Workers Ghosting in the Workplace?

Some experts believe it is due to changing candidate attitudes and others believe it is a result of the booming job market and historically low unemployment. Whatever the cause, ghosting in the workplace is becoming one of the top issues talent acquisition professionals face in today’s talent market.

Change in Candidate Attitudes

In an interview with the New York Post, Rob Bralow, owner of BLVD Wine Bar in Long Island says he schedules interviews back to back because the majority of applicants simply ghost the interview.

“If I have 10 people who have confirmed interviews in a day, and three people show up, I’m happy,” Bralow says. “And we’re talking about all pay grades and positions. It doesn’t matter what the pay scale is. I’ve had ghosts [no-shows] for $50,000 to $70,000 jobs, and I’ve had ghosts for minimum wage jobs.”

Clutch’s survey found 41 percent of workers found it acceptable to ghost employers, while 35 percent found it unreasonable for an organisation to ghost an applicant. Clutch also found that of the workers that found ghosting acceptable, the most common reasons include accepting another job offer (30 percent) or deciding the role was not a good match (19 percent).

Improved Economy and Opportunities

Ghosting is not just a symptom of shifting attitudes in the workforce. It can also be the result of low unemployment.

At the height of the Great Recession, the unemployment rate reached 10 percent in the U.S. During this time, many organisations were inundated by the deluge of applications from job seekers and could not respond to every applicant.

What’s more, the global economy is expected to grow by 3.7 percent in 2018, further driving demand for talent.

As the economy and job market surge, the tables have turned. Employees are at an advantage because it’s a candidate’s job market and they have more employment options than they have in recent years.

In May of 2018, the unemployment rate reached an 18-year low of 3.8 percent. There were more job openings than unemployed workers for just the second month in two decades, according to the United States Department of Labor.

Low unemployment is not confined to the U.S., the unemployment rate in the EU has dropped to 7.1 and in the APAC region at 4.2 percent.

This means that employees have more options for employment and can move quickly from one job to the next, ignore employment offers they choose not to accept or accept multiple offers at once with little perceived negative consequences.

How to Survive Ghosting in the Workplace

Ghosting is not only frustrating for employers and recruiters, it’s also expensive. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports the average cost-per-hire for companies is $4,129 and the average time to fill a position is 42 days. Ghosting also causes lost productivity, as hard-to-fill jobs stay open longer than anticipated.

To combat ghosting, employers can implement the following strategies:

Develop a Talent Community 

With ghosting becoming the new normal, it’s essential to be more strategic and build long-term relationships with candidates. One method of building long-term relationships is with talent communities.

Talent communities are ideal for establishing long-term professional relationships with passive talent for future opportunities. This means getting to know the talent landscape and candidates regardless of whether or not they are looking to make a career change immediately.

Developing a talent community requires organisations to shift from reactive recruiting to a more proactive approach. Your organisation’s mindset should switch from recruiting to fill an open position to thinking about who your organisation should hire in the future.

By sourcing candidates earlier in the hiring process, you have ample time to engage them and develop closer and more personal relationships, reducing their likelihood of ghosting.

Tips for building a talent community include:

  • Determine what roles you want to target for your talent community (usually roles with high turnover or roles that are hard-to-fill.)
  • Look to past candidates, former employees and interns to build your talent community.
  • Source passive candidates by combining various sourcing techniques (e.g. social media, networking events, etc.)
  • Engage candidates through recruitment marketing until you have an open role for them.

Building a talent community isn’t a short-term strategy and takes time to develop and nurture, but in the long term the benefits are worth the investment and can help offset ghosting in the workplace.

Evaluate Your Onboarding Process

While candidates ghosting job interviews can be a challenge, candidates who ghost on the first day or who resign their position without notice can wreak havoc on an organisation.

To curb and deter this behaviour, organisations should start the onboarding process early to build an emotional connection with new hires.

In fact, according to research conducted by Inavero, 77 percent of candidates are willing to accept an offer that is 5 percent lower than their expected offer if the employer created a great impression through the hiring process.

That is important because new hires decide to stay or leave a job within the first three weeks, according to a study by the Wyndhurst Group.

Despite the fact that it can take a year or longer for a new employee to reach full productivity, only 15 percent of organisations extend their onboarding past six months, according to SHRM. If employers want to keep their new hires from ghosting, they should consider extending their onboarding processes through the first year of employment. Here are some ideas for successful onboarding techniques at different key points throughout an employee’s first year.

  • Before start date: Prior to a candidate’s first day, reach out with friendly messages welcoming the new employee or sharing an introduction to some of the benefits your organisation has to offer.
  • On the first day: When the new hire arrives for their first day, be sure they are personally introduced to their coworkers and designate a point of contact who will be readily available to answer questions.
  • The first six months: Now that the new hire has learned the ropes, continuous feedback is what is going to help them hone their skills, catch mistakes and take corrective action when needed. This is also a great way to establish rapport and trust with the rest of the team.
  • After the first year: After the first year, managers should start having conversations about a new hire’s future within the organisation and their career development as a way to show the employee that the organisation is invested in their continued success.

Conclusion

No one can say for certain if ghosting in the workplace is a trend that is here to stay or if the emergence of an employer-friendly job market will curb it. But one thing is certain; candidate’s attitudes have changed, so organisations need to take steps to adjust.

By building strong talent communities and engaging new hires early and often, you can better position yourself to reduce the likelihood of candidates and employees ghosting you.

Improving Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Workplace

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In the modern workplace, companies are placing greater emphasis on diversity and inclusion initiatives to strengthen organizational adaptability, gain competitive advantage and reduce legal risks. Despite this trend, many companies still struggle with racial and ethnic discrimination and policymaking.

In fact, According to data collected by the EEOC, $112.7 million is collected from employers for racial discrimination violations on average each year. In this post, we outline what constitutes racial and ethnic diversity, its benefits to companies and best practices when it comes to implementing and monitoring a racial and ethnic diversity policy in the workplace.

The Benefits of Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Workplace

ethnic diversity

Companies increasingly understand the value of recruiting and retaining diverse employees, as these workers play a critical role in a company’s ability to adapt, grow and sustain a competitive advantage in the modern business landscape.

However, some companies fail to recognize the benefits of having a racially and ethnically diverse workforce. Factors such as prejudice and stereotypes towards certain racial or ethnic groups, whether conscious or unconscious, can lead to discriminatory practices in hiring.

What’s more, to combat prejudice and internal resistance, companies need to create a business case for diversity by outlining the benefits of a racial and ethnically diverse workplace such as:

  • Gains in worker welfare and efficiency
  • Reduced turnover costs
  • Fewer internal disputes and grievances
  • Improved accessibility to new and diverse customer markets
  • Higher productivity and increased revenue
  • Increased innovation
  • Development of new products and services
  • Improved company reputation management
  • Greater flexibility and adaptability in a globalized world
  • More efficient risk management (e.g. legal risks due to non-compliance)
  • Prevention of marginalization and exclusion of categories of workers
  • Improved social cohesion

Companies are more likely to reap these benefits when they go beyond meeting the minimum requirements for legal compliance. Companies should strive to understand both the social and cultural complexities inherent in embracing diversity and strive to be diversity leaders in their industry.

Research Report

Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes

read the report

Key Racial and Ethnic Diversity Definitions

diversity statistics in the workplace

To effectively improve racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace, companies need to understand some of the key terms and definitions including:

Racial Discrimination: Racial discrimination in the workplace can be defined as any exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose of impairing an employee’s ability to exercise their rights to equal standing in the workplace.

Ethnic Group: The term “ethnic group” refers to a group of persons whose members identify with each other through such factors as common heritage, culture, ancestry, language, dialect, history, identity and geographic origin.

Ethnic Minority: Ethnic minority does not only refer to ethnic groups that are a numerical minority. Instead, it refers to any ethnic group that is not dominant socially, economically or politically.

Implicit Bias: Also known as unconscious or hidden bias, implicit biases are negative associations that people unknowingly hold. They are expressed automatically, without conscious awareness.

Inclusion: Authentically incorporating traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities and decision/policy making in a way that shares power.

For more diversity definitions and terms, visit Racial Equality Tools.

Employer and Employee Responsibilities

Both employers and employees have responsibilities when it comes to promoting and monitoring racial and ethnic diversity policy in the workplace. Both stakeholders have to work together to ensure the success of a company’s diversity initiatives.

Employer Responsibilities

Employers should act as facilitators and purveyors of knowledge to improve relations among their diverse workforce. Employers should also continuously work on the development of diversity policy and implementation. Management should also be trained to ensure the improvement of awareness on racial discrimination and ethnic diversity in the workplace. Furthermore, employers can help build the capacity of managers to ensure that the ethnic diversity policy is effectively applied within the company.

Employee Responsibilities

Employees and organizations tasked with protecting workers rights should lobby companies for strong ethnic diversity policies, ensuring that all workers enjoy equal opportunities at all stages of the employment cycle, including access to employment, training, promotion and retirement. Employees also have an important role in raising awareness amongst themselves on the right to a workplace free from racial discrimination and in supporting their coworkers when they issue complaints.

Introducing Racial and Ethnic Diversity Initiatives in the Workplace

lack of diversity in the workplace

Improving racial and ethnic diversity in the workplace often challenges the values and worldview of current employees. For this reason, introducing diversity initiatives is both challenging and necessary for companies looking to create a more inclusive corporate culture.

How companies introduce racial and ethnic diversity initiatives matters. To successfully introduce diversity initiatives, companies need to take a structured approach that involves assuaging feelings of uncertainty about the future of the company and effectively communicating new policies aimed at protecting workers belonging to certain racial and ethnic groups.

At the same time, companies should communicate realistic expectations to members of minority groups regarding the new policies to ensure they understand the goal and scope of the initiative.

Companies can communicate new racial and ethnic diversity policies by creating a consistent message delivered and sent to all hierarchical levels through email, internal media networks (including social media) and placing posters in high traffic areas. Messaging should also be designed to accommodate the different languages and literacy levels of employees to ensure everyone understands the new policies.

Creating an Effective Response to Complaints

race vs ethnicity

Making it easy for workers to raise complaints helps demonstrate a fair and concerted effort to understand their concerns and issues surrounding diversity. If it can be shown that the complaints procedure is confidential, backed by prompt and effective action to investigate and settle them transparently and seriously, there will be not only greater acceptance of the policy but also greater commitment to practice the policy throughout the company. There are two processes to resolve complaints:

Formal Process

A formal complaint process is one that provides a written summary of the full investigation to the complainant and the alleged offender. Both parties should be given the opportunity to provide comments on the content of this summary before the full report is finalized. The final report should include who was interviewed, what questions were asked, the investigator’s conclusions, and what possible remedies, sanctions or other action may be appropriate.

Informal Processes

An informal process involves conciliation, mediation, counseling or discussions in order to resolve complaints. Peer mediators should be used instead of HR staff to facilitate dialogue between the parties but not making any recommendations, sanctions or hand down rulings.

In addition to the two processes of resolving complaints, companies should also look to the following persons, departments and organizations for help in resolving diversity-related issues:

Focal Point: Regardless of the size of a company, it is important to have one or more officials dedicated to overseeing that diversity policy is upheld. These “focal points” should be reliable, approachable and respected by staff and management, such as members of the executive board, department heads or employee relations staff. The size of the company will determine the number of focal points and how many workers are covered by each one.

Human Resources: If a company is large enough to support a human resources, transformation or diversity department; then consideration should be given to appointing the main focal point from within these departments.

Unions: If the employee base for a company is comprised of members of a union, they will need assurance that they have union support to raise issues regarding racial discrimination. Some workers, therefore, prefer to call their union representative when dealing with discrimination issues. Companies need to make sure that they have open and clear channels of communication with unions representing their employees and an established protocol when it comes to dealing with ethnic diversity policy.

Call Center: For large companies, it may be cost-effective to establish a call center for employees who are not yet ready to lodge a formal complaint with focal points, human resources or their union. These employees can anonymously contact the call center if they wish to voice concerns and seek further advice about an incident. Call centers can also be an effective means of monitoring incidents to ensure they are being tracked and followed up by managers who are responsible for the work or by the department where racial discrimination is alleged to have occurred.

Conclusion

To thrive in the current diverse times, companies need to lead the way in inclusion by creating workplaces that promote and celebrate racial and ethnic diversity. By creating diversity-friendly environments, companies gain an advantage in the competitive search for skilled talent.

Benefits of Workplace Diversity: The Value of LGBTQ+ Employees

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While there are legal protections in place to protect LGBTQ+ employers from discrimination in the workplace in many countries, in over half of the world, LGBTQ+ people are not protected from discrimination under workplace law. In a survey by the Center for American Progress (Cap) in 2022, half of LGBTQ+ and “sexual and gender diverse” people reported experiencing some form of workplace discrimination or harassment due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. This rocketed to 70% for transgender respondents. In the UK, 40% of LGBTQ+ workers and 55% of trans workers have experienced harassment, compared with 29% of heterosexual, cisgender employees.

These issues are not only troublesome for LGBTQ+ individuals in the workplace, but they are also bad for businesses. In this post, we outline the value of hiring and fostering a positive workplace environment for LGBTQ+ employees.

The Importance of Workplace Diversity

Today’s workforce has become increasingly diverse. Companies are more aware of the benefits of hiring talent from various backgrounds and the incredible contributions these employees bring to the workplace.

A well-managed diverse workforce will both reduce costs and generate greater profit, with companies that employ a diverse workforce having 35 percent higher financial returns than national averages according to a McKinsey report on workplace diversity. This clearly illustrates the importance of diversity in the workplace not only for a company’s culture but also for its bottom line.

Diversity does not just mean including women and persons from diverse racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds; it also means that businesses can benefit from hiring LGBTQ+ employees and creating a supportive atmosphere for them to thrive.

Research report

Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes

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Workplace Diversity: Benefits for LGBTQ+ Individuals

For starters, LGBTQ-supportive policies will have an instant effect on individual employees, consequentially creating less workplace discrimination and improved comfort about being openly LGBTQ+ at work.

According to a survey conducted by the Williams Institute, The Business Impact of LGBT-Supportive Workplace Policies, LGBTQ+ employees who feel the need to hide their identity in the workplace often feel greater levels of stress and anxiety causing health issues and work-related complaints.

By creating an LGBTQ-friendly workplace, companies can reduce stress and improve the health of LGBTQ+ employees, increase job satisfaction and create more positive relationships with co-workers and supervisors.

Workplace Diversity: Benefits for Businesses

Following the individual benefits, organisational outcomes will also improve. Employers with LGBTQ-friendly workplaces will benefit from lower legal costs related to discrimination lawsuits as well as lower health insurance cost, through improved health of employees.

In fact, a study by Out Now Consulting, LGBT 2030 – LGBT Diversity Show Me the Business Case, states that the U.S. economy could save $9 billion annually if organisations were more effective at implementing diversity and inclusion policies for LGBTQ+ staff.

By recruiting LGBTQ+ candidates, companies will open up the talent pool to more potential hires, making finding the right talent for a company easier than if they ignored a large and talent-rich demographic.

How to Successfully Recruit LGBTQ+ Individuals

Learning how to recruit LGBTQ+ individuals is the first step in creating a more LGBTQ-friendly workplace. To recruit LGBTQ+ talent, businesses need to tailor their recruitment approach to meet the unique expectations LGBTQ+ individuals have when in a job search. Below are three ways to better recruit top LGBTQ+ talent.

Do Market Research

To better understand the unique concerns and needs of LGBTQ+ individuals, businesses need to identify positive factors that appeal to LGBTQ+ candidates along with the negative factors that repel them. A good way to identify positive and negative factors is by surveying current LGBTQ+ employees. If a company lacks a large enough sample size, they can acquire survey data from third parties or diversity consultants. Companies should take the data and insights gleaned from surveys and polls to craft LGBTQ-friendly messaging in job postings and recruiter communications, so the target audience feels comfortable considering employment with the organisation.

Create an LGBTQ-Friendly Recruitment Process

To successfully recruit the best LGBTQ+ talent, companies need a comprehensive approach that includes tailored LGBTQ-friendly employer branding and diversity-oriented talent acquisition professionals experienced in assessing diverse candidates. Companies can also focus efforts on recruiting LGBTQ+ interns and offer them the opportunity to join the organisation full-time after the internship is completed. By creating a more LGBTQ-friendly recruitment process, companies will ensure that LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to accept offers of employment.

Ask for Employee Referrals

Employee referrals can be a strong LGBTQ+ recruitment source. Companies with employee referral programmes should adopt a diversity-focused approach that includes LGBTQ+ candidates. Companies should publicise this focus to employees, letting them know that the company is actively searching for and encouraging the recruitment of LGBTQ+ candidates to fill positions.

Workplace Inclusion Programmes for LGBTQ+ Individuals

Creating a diversity inclusion programme is one way of helping LGBTQ+ employees and other diverse members of a company feel welcome and comfortable at work. A well-run inclusion programme should support LGBTQ+ individuals in the workplace by offering workshops, training and support from both management and HR. The overall goal of inclusion is to make LGBTQ+ employees feel safe and like an integral part of a company.

Companies can also collaborate with outside LGBTQ+ organisations and charities and encourage both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ employees to participate in events sponsored by these organisations. By aligning company values with those of LGBTQ+ organisations, companies can show their commitment not only to LGBTQ+ employees but also to supporting equality in the community as well.

Diversity and inclusion policies and programmes can also save a significant amount of money spent on new talent recruitment and training by helping retain great talent. Furthermore, a more diverse and open workplace will increase creativity, which will lead to innovation and new ideas.

Conclusion

As the world becomes more accepting and understanding of the LGBTQ+ community, people expect businesses to do the same. Companies who work towards change to create a more acceptable and tolerant environment will gain the respect and loyalty of employees and the public-at-large. While there is still a lot of work ahead, there are a rising number of companies that understand that equality is good for business.

Only 5% of organisations say they’re succeeding with their DE&I initiatives. Download our free research report, Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes, for insights into how to improve diversity recruitment outcomes.

Managing Diversity in the Workplace

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According to a recent demographic analysis conducted by the Pew Research Center, by 2055, the U.S. will no longer have a single racial or ethnic majority. This shift towards a more diverse population will have major impacts on the workforce and how organizations address diversity in the workplace.

In the coming years, organizations that understand how to manage diversity in the workplace effectively will hold a distinct advantage when it comes to recruiting and hiring talent. This post outlines how organizations can best approach and manage diversity in the workplace with actionable tips and advice.

What is Diversity in the Workplace?

For an organization looking to cultivate a more diverse and inclusive workplace, it is important to understand what constitutes workplace diversity.

Workplace diversity refers to the variety of differences between individuals in an organization. Diversity not only includes how individuals identify themselves but also how others perceive them. Diversity within a workplace encompasses race, gender, ethnic groups, age, religion, sexual orientation, citizenship status, military service and mental and physical conditions, as well as other distinct differences between people.

Research Report

Diversity & the Candidate Experience: Identifying Recruitment Pitfalls to Improve DE&I Outcomes

read the report

What are the Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace?

What are the Benefits of Diversity in the Workplace?

What are the benefits of diversity in the workplace? Well, there are many benefits to having a diverse workplace. Organizations that commit to recruiting a diverse workforce have a larger pool of applicants to choose from, which can lead to finding more qualified candidates and reducing the time it takes to fill vacant positions. Businesses that do not recruit from diverse talent pools run the risk of missing out on qualified candidates and may have a more difficult time filling key roles, which increases recruitment costs.

According to a survey conducted by Glassdoor, 67% of job seekers said a diverse workforce is important when considering job offers and 57% of employees think their companies should be more diverse. These numbers are telling. Not only can organizations fill positions with qualified candidates more quickly by recruiting from different talent pools, but a diverse workforce also benefits their employer brand which is crucial when it comes to getting the right talent.

Having a diverse workforce with multi-lingual employees and employees from varying ethnic backgrounds can also be helpful for organizations who want to expand or improve operations in international, national, regional and local markets.

More benefits to having diversity in the workplace:

  • Employees from diverse backgrounds imbue organizations with creative new ideas and perspectives informed by their cultural experiences
  • A diverse workplace will help organizations better understand target demographics and what moves them
  • A diverse workplace can better align an organization’s culture with the demographic make-up of America
  • Increased customer satisfaction by improving how employees interact with a more diverse clientele and public

Diverse Staffing: How to Manage Diversity in the Workplace

Managing Diversity in the workplace

Managing diversity in the workplace presents a set of unique challenges for HR professionals. These challenges can be mitigated if an organization makes a concerted effort to encourage a more heterogeneous environment through promoting a culture of tolerance, open communication and creating conflict management strategies to address issues that may arise.

For leadership to effectively manage diversity in the workplace, they need to understand their backgrounds and how their behavior and beliefs can affect their decision-making within a diverse environment.

Tips for Managing Workplace Diversity

diverse staffing

Prioritize communication

To manage a diverse workplace, organizations need to ensure that they effectively communicate with employees. Policies, procedures, safety rules and other important information should be designed to overcome language and cultural barriers by translating materials and using pictures and symbols whenever applicable.

Treat each employee as an individual

Avoid making assumptions about employees from different backgrounds. Instead, look at each employee as an individual and judge successes and failures on the individual’s merit rather than attributing actions to their background.

Encourage employees to work in diverse groups

Diverse work teams let employees get to know and value one another on an individual basis and can help break down preconceived notions and cultural misunderstandings.

Base standards on objective criteria

Set one standard of rules for all groups of employees regardless of background. Ensure that all employment actions, including discipline, follow this standardized criteria to make sure each employee is treated the same.

Be open-minded

Recognize, and encourage employees to recognize, that one’s own experience, background, and culture are not the only with value to the organization. Look for ways to incorporate a diverse range of perspectives and talents into efforts to achieve organizational goals.

Hiring

To build a diverse workplace, it is crucial to recruit and hire talent from a variety of backgrounds. This requires leadership and others who make hiring decisions to overcome bias in interviewing and assessing talent. If organizations can break through bias and hire the most qualified people, those with the right education, credentials, experience and skill sets, a diverse workplace should be the natural result.

Tips for hiring a diverse workforce:

  • Incorporate a diverse interview panel to ensure candidates are chosen solely based on suitability for the position.
  • Managers should be trained on what can and cannot be asked in an interview. For example, questions about an applicant’s personal life, such as which church they attend, their romantic life and political beliefs, are off-limits.
  • Get creative when recruiting. For example, if an organization would like to hire more women in the engineering department, they could reach out to professional groups that cater to women in engineering and ask to advertise open positions in their newsletter or member communications.

Diversity Management: Policies and Practices

diversity management

Organizations that embrace diversity also need to ensure that there are policies and practices in place to protect employees’ rights and stay compliant with government regulations.

It is essential for an organization to think about the impact that company policies and practices have on a diverse group of employees. Companies should create a way for employees to give feedback with surveys and suggestion boxes to gain a better understanding of how employees feel about diversity policies. Any feedback received, both positive and negative, is valuable. Companies need to be ready to adapt and change policies that may be interpreted as obstructions or not helpful for employees.

In addition to the written policies, it is also essential to ensure that the non-official “rules” of an organization are thoroughly explained to all employees to communicate company values and culture to all workers effectively.

Documentation of Policies and Procedures

Properly documenting diversity policies is an effective means of communicating an organization’s stances on diversity. Once concrete plans are ready to be implemented, documents that outline each policy should be included in the employee handbook. Diversity policies should be reviewed with every new hire, and when updates to policies are made, they should be shared with current employees as well.

Employee handbooks should cover diversity in the following sections:

  • Code of conduct should outline the company’s policy toward diversity
  • Non-discrimination policy lets employees know about diversity
  • Compensation and benefits policy
  • Employment conditions and termination

Zero-Tolerance Policy

Having a diverse workplace means that off-color jokes about ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or religion need to be met with zero-tolerance enforcement. Slurs, name-calling and bullying employees for any reason has no place in today’s workplace. Policies should be put in place to handle misconduct and communicate to employees that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.

Organizations will also need to make sure employees feel safe reporting any instances of inappropriate behavior by co-workers by establishing a formal complaint policy,  so employees know how to report misconduct to the proper authority within an organization.

Sensitivity Training 

Employees need to be aware of how to coexist with a diverse range of people, as well as be cognizant of cultural sensitivity, to achieve harmony within a diverse workplace. Sensitivity training can help an organization manage diversity in the workplace by helping employees become more self-aware, which plays a vital role in helping employees understand their own cultural biases and prejudices.

Benefits of sensitivities training:

  • Helps employees examine and adjust their perspectives about people from different backgrounds
  • Employees can learn to better appreciate the views of others
  • Shows employees what actions are offensive and why they are perceived as such
  • Teaches employees how to calmly communicate that a co-worker has offended them and how to resolve the conflict properly
  • Explains to employees how to apologize to a co-worker if they have indeed offended them unknowingly
  • All employees should be included in sensitivity training; adding specific training for managers makes it even more impactful. Some companies also offer sensitivity training online.

Stay Abreast of Diversity Laws  

Managing diversity in the workplace means that businesses need to keep abreast of changing employer-related laws and trends, especially diversity-related changes. Organizations should regularly review internal policies, especially those around harassment and equal opportunity, and make sure they reflect the most current laws and regulations.

If an organization has an international or multi-state presence, it is necessary to track regional changes to laws and regulations as they vary from country to county and state to state.

Diversity law resources:

The Importance of Diversity in the Workplace

The Importance of Diversity in the Workplace

Encouraging diversity is the way forward for organizations. In a global talent market, businesses that can successfully manage diversity in the workplace will have a definite competitive advantage over others in terms of differentiation, innovation and employer branding.