Employee Engagement at King’s College Hospital: Saying a Big “Thank You” to Nurses
As one of the busiest NHS trusts in the UK, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust turned to PeopleScout for help with attracting nurses and other clinical professionals. Learn how we helped the Trust say a big “thank you” to their staff with a larger-than-life employee engagement campaign.
300Pieces of Artwork
18Installations Across 3 Sites
50%Increase in Peer Recognition Amongst Staff
13,159Thank-yous Sent to Staff
King’s College National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust is one of the busiest trusts in the UK, providing healthcare services for a population of over 1 million people. It supports numerous clinics and hospitals, including King’s College Hospital, a leading teaching hospital and trauma centre serving several boroughs in southeast London. Their vision is to hire brilliant, diverse staff who provide outstanding care for their patients and continue to educate and innovate for the future of medicine.
The Challenge
King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust came to PeopleScout with a challenge. They were, like many other healthcare organisations, struggling to recruit for clinical roles such as nursing.
To address this, our initial objective was to develop a “Why King’s” message for an employer brand campaign. But after conducting focus groups with employees, it became clear that, to fix the attraction issue, we needed to start with employee engagement.
Retention of staff wasn’t an issue—King’s was overarchingly seen as a place where, with the right motivation, employees could grow in their career. The problem was an overall feeling amongst staff that there was a lack of recognition and appreciation from senior leadership. Whilst there was a great deal of pride and loyalty within teams, there was no strong sense of unity across the five sites within the Trust.
Before we could go out with an authentic employer brand message, we needed to show employees that they are valued, encourage staff recognition and galvanize the organisation.
And we needed to do this on a big, Trust-wide scale.
The Strategy
We designed an employee engagement campaign that would not only recognise employees, but would also be a big, bold, morale-boosting showcase of Kings’ values:
Always aiming higher
Working together
Inspiring confidence in our care
Little did we know just how important this message would become as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world. As the UK began clapping for the NHS in March 2020, we were designing a campaign that would greet the King’s staff on the frontlines and serve as a constant reminder of their incredible work, both before and throughout the pandemic.
This was so much more than an attraction campaign. It was our ‘Big Thank You’ to those who had sacrificed so much to keep us all safe.
Bringing It to Life
Six Days. 166 Participants.
As soon as lockdown restrictions lifted, we safely photographed and filmed people from across a range of clinical and non-clinical roles from all of King’s sites. Staff gave up valuable break time to take part in something that honoured their colleagues as well as recognised their own contributions.
350 Thank-Yous
Using comments made about participating staff members by their colleagues, we created 350 thank-yous—for both individual participants and general messages to all staff.
300 Pieces of Artwork. 18 Installations Across Three Main Sites.
We used the secondary colour palette from the NHS brand to create something that would stand out from the usual NHS blue to celebrate our King’s stars. With 300 pieces of eye-catching collateral in tow, we plastered our larger-than-life installations across three main sites, including a huge projection onto the outside of the hospital at their central location. Images went up on walls; inside and outside of buildings; on fence railings, stairs and windows.
Imagine the feeling: Arriving for another exhausting shift on the COVID frontlines to see a 100-square-meter personalised message of gratitude to you, from your employer, projected on the outside of your workplace for all your colleagues and the local community to see.
That’s recognition on a big scale.
Not only did the installations delight staff, they also expressed the appreciation of King’s leadership and echoed the community’s warmth and gratitude for the Trust and the wider NHS.
Results
In times of unprecedented turmoil, unimaginable pressure and unbelievable sadness, this uplifting campaign created a feeling of belonging, camaraderie and engagement amongst staff. As COVID-19 raged, what had started as an idea to recognise and celebrate those who brought the King’s values to life, evolved to become a wider message for all, “Thank you to all of you, for everything—and whatever comes next, we’re all in this together.”
The campaign has been instrumental in building a sense of pride not just in individual teams, but in the Trust as a whole. We’ve helped create positive advocates who are proud to be Team King’s and who contribute to a culture of recognition and gratitude. As a result of this campaign:
There was a 50% increase in the number of recognitions made by staff to their colleagues following the campaign.
13,159 thank-you letters and badges were sent out to all staff.
Their Chief Nurse is beyond thrilled with the results. Not only with the execution (which has also, on a practical level, brightened up some of the older hospital buildings), but with the impact she directly attributes to this campaign—renewed feelings of inclusion, recognition and engagement across the King’s staff.
“You’ve captured the people and heart of King’s and brought our values to life. The staff response to these images has been extraordinary and has created a real buy-in and the internal buzz that we were after.”
Nicola Ranger, Chief Nurse & Executive Director of Midwifery, King’s College Hospital
In addition to the employee engagement benefits, the Trust is leveraging the content in their on-going talent attraction and recruitment efforts via a bespoke careers portal and targeted recruitment marketing campaigns. We created a video for each person we interviewed to showcase King’s employer value proposition (EVP) and communicate the opportunities they offer.
This feel-good, reputation-healing employee engagement project will have an impact on the King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust workforce for years to come.
AT A GLANCE
COMPANY King’s College NHS Foundation Trust
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Talent Advisory
ABOUT King’s College NHS Foundation Trust provides healthcare services through numerous clinics and hospitals, including King’s College Hospital, a leading teaching hospital and trauma centre serving several boroughs in southeast London.
In this episode of Talking Talent, we’re going deep on an issue that is top of mind for so many employers: diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). We’ve seen a tremendous amount of work done in this area, but there is always more to do. And we know that every organisation is at a different point on its DE&I journey.
This episode specifically focuses on building an employer brand and a recruitment process that is equitable and inclusive of candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. What are the best strategies? How can you build a process that takes things like intersectionality and social mobility into account? And finally, how do you get the buy-in within your organisation to make changes—especially in a challenging hiring environment?
Joining us to talk about these issues is Paula Simmons, our Director of Employer Brand & Communications Strategy. Paula’s background is a combination of PR and corporate communications, recruitment and employer branding. Her role at PeopleScout UK enables Paula to do what she enjoys most: delivering actionable insights and consultancy to clients across a range of industry sectors, nationally and internationally. In essence, helping them to understand, articulate and measure what makes them unique places to work. Alongside this, she also leads our work to help clients better understand and engage audiences from underrepresented groups.
In this conversation, Paula explains the traditional ways that talent acquisition professionals have recruited candidates from underrepresented groups and then explains a new way forward. She explains how intersectionality and social mobility should factor into DE&I programmes and provides a pathway for talent leaders to get buy-in and balance long-term goals with immediate needs.
PeopleScout is proud to sponsor this latest installment of HRO Today Flash Reports.
Recruiting in EMEA in 2021 looks radically different than it did at the start of 2020. Download this report, HR’s 2021 Response Defines Employer Brand in EMEA, to learn how candidate experience measurement and employer brand practices have been impacted by COVID-19.
In this report, you’ll learn:
Where EMEA employers are dropping the ball on measuring the candidate experience
Why investment in employer branding is way up
How the role of DE&I in employer branding has changed over the last 12 months
Talent attraction means grabbing a candidate’s attention and in this day and age that is not an easy task. Every day, we’re bombarded with between 4,000 and 10,000 ads. Naturally, we don’t give every one of them our full attention; our brains screen out the majority that they consider irrelevant, so we don’t get overwhelmed. Recruitment messages—designed to grow awareness and excitement around job opportunities—are just one subset of ads fighting for our attention in this intense daily contest.
In such a ruthless environment, talent attraction techniques have evolved and adapted. Modern recruitment marketing now draws heavily on consumer marketing practices and technology to ensure that recruiting organisations create clear space between themselves and their competitors. This optimises the likelihood that their messages will receive the attention of the right candidates and fuel growth in healthy pipelines for future vacancies.
This article will walk you through four strategic pillars to succeed in this hugely competitive space for top talent.
Talent Attraction Pillar One: Establishing Your Brand Narrative as a North Star
To attract top talent, you need to tell a vivid story about your unique employer value proposition, or EVP. This proposition should clearly communicate the compelling elements of your employment offer, as well as the behaviors and values you expect of candidates in return.
This narrative allows candidates to make an informed decision about whether your organisation is somewhere they aspire to work and somewhere they can have an influence. But, it also ensures that the people who do go on to apply are in tune with your company values; are motivated to be a part of your team’s mission; and are ready to take on the particular challenges associated with their role.
Recruitment marketing is the task of telling that story—why talent should want to work for you. Specifically, it’s about telling it:
To the right people, at the right time
Consistently, with targeted content and experiences that develop a candidate’s understanding of—and trust in—your company
In exciting and unexpected ways to stand out from the competition
Changing jobs is a significant life event fueled by a complex and highly emotional decision-making process. More than ever, candidates are searching for an employer that exhibits a shared set of values and work that they find meaningful. This is even more apparent in the Millennial and Gen Z members of the workforce. As such, a well-articulated employee value proposition can provoke an emotive response from candidates; give them a first glimpse into your company culture; and differentiate you from your competitors for talent. Without a clearly defined employer brand story, the guiding North Star of your strategy is missing.
Talent Attraction Pillar Two: Build Authenticity & Trust with Your Employees’ Voice
When considering whether to apply for a role, candidates will evaluate the authenticity of your brand claims and develop perceptions of what it’s really like to work for you. Therefore, when it comes to the credibility of your messages, the sources that deliver them are all important. Appetite for glossy corporate advertising is low; candidates are looking for trusted spokespeople to reveal the real story.
According to Edelman’s brand trust report, nearly seven in 10 people globally use one or more advertising avoidance strategy.
Personal experience, earned media, and peer-to-peer conversations are far more influential than owned media and paid advertising in the battle for brand trust.
Industry experts and regular employees are seen as significantly more credible spokespeople for a brand than the company’s CEO.
Similarly, candidates are savvy to corporate clichés and empty promises. Alternatively, they will use resources like Glassdoor and Indeed to seek out the opinions of existing employees who have previously road-tested an employee experience.
Of course, you can’t control everything that’s written about your brand online, but you can empower your most engaged employees to be the voice of your brand by sharing their own experiences. Plus, personal stories will provide you with credible evidence to support your employer value proposition and build credibility amongst your external brand audiences. It can be easy to overcomplicate advocacy; the key is to make it a fun and celebratory process. For instance:
Make sharing simple. There are many content amplification tools that will allow employees to access your employer brand content and repost it to their own social channels in seconds.
Introduce a little competition. Award points to employees for sharing their own stories and reposting those of their colleagues.
Make advocacy rewarding. What do your advocates get in return for being active brand ambassadors? Social media training? Networking opportunities?
But, don’t just expect employees to go off and create great content; you’ll need to offer support. So, consider setting content creation challenges with detailed guidelines to keep them energised and engaged.
Talent Attraction Pillar Three: Connect to Talent with Data-Driven Insights
Top talent doesn’t need to actively look for new opportunities because, like in the consumer world, offers have already started coming to them. Nowadays, passive and active candidate status is no longer clear cut. Whilst some people are actively looking for jobs, it would be incorrect to label everyone else passive and disinterested in new opportunities.
In fact, candidates expect to be approached with new opportunities. A whopping 70% of candidates are passive—open to new opportunities but not actively seeking them out. In such a competitive market, you need to engage your future workforce before the demand to hire them exists.
So, instead of playing the numbers game and hoping that the right person is out there somewhere, wouldn’t it be better to have an existing relationship with the people we think would be perfect for the job? And, better still, to know exactly their level of interest in new opportunities so that, when we do approach them, we know it’s a welcome advance? Fortunately, this is all made possible if we build high-quality, data-driven talent pipelines that provide recruiters with live insights into candidate interest levels and improve their efficiency. Below are three steps you can take to start building talent pipelines.
Pillar Four: Differentiate Your Brand Through Human Experiences
Let’s reimagine the marketing funnel as the journey of a single candidate. Armed with your compelling employer value proposition, the task throughout this journey is to bring the promises of that proposition to life for candidates and reinforce your brand messages so that they build a preference for your organisation.
In other words, rather than just telling candidates why you should be their preferred choice of employer, show them at every touchpoint.
Remember when we referred to your employer brand as your North Star? This is exactly what we meant by that: Use your employer brand and value proposition as a guiding force when crafting all of your recruitment communications and experiences. The more consistently and distinctively your value proposition is expressed throughout the candidate journey (and beyond into the employee lifecycle), the more your brand reputation will align to the identity that you want to portray.
As an example, if you claim to be an employer that cares about employee wellbeing, show candidates from the start by supporting them through the recruitment process with deep empathy. Likewise, if you claim to be an employer that fosters innovation, ensure that your communications are fresh and different.
The way that candidates experience your organisation throughout the candidate journey will show them everything they need to know about how your company treats customers and colleagues. That perception, once created, is hard to shift. If you treat candidates with dignity and show them how their time is valued, most will walk away from the recruitment process feeling positive about the brand you represent—whether they were successful or not. This means that you’re more likely to be the beneficiary of positive word-of-mouth advertising from that individual, as well as ensure that they’re more likely to reengage with you in the future should another, more appropriate, opportunity arise. That could be next week, next month or next year. The long game matters. A human-centric approach is different and will certainly stand out amongst the numerous companies that still facilitate an impersonal hiring process.
Making The Right Match
When these four strategic pillars work cohesively together, they allow you to seek out top talent and start conversations with potential employees wherever they prefer to consume content. Then, you can convert candidates to the next stage of the recruitment process by delivering content that responds to behavioural triggers and underlying candidate motivations. Finally, you can differentiate your organisation from your competitors with human experiences that bring your employer brand to life in unexpected and exciting ways.
When people of different backgrounds with different experiences come together, they drive innovation—both in the workplace and in the world at large. In fact, there’s substantial research that DE&I initiatives bring many advantages to the workplace, including increased profitability and creativity; greater productivity; and better problem-solving, amongst others.
Employees with diverse backgrounds also bring their own perspectives, ideas and experiences, which help to create organisations that are resilient and effective and that outperform organisations that do not invest in diversity.
Yet, despite the obvious benefits of increased diversity and inclusion in the workplace, the reality still leaves much to be desired. Research from Glassdoor shows that whilst 75% of UK employees say their company employs a diverse workforce, over half (54%) believe their company should do more to improve diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), including more than two-thirds (62%) of Millennial and Gen Z (ages 18 – 34) employees.
Clearly, employers must do more, and the responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) belongs to the entire organisation—including talent acquisition and HR leaders. So, in this article, we’ll cover the different areas of the business that contribute to DE&I; how you can determine your DE&I programme maturity; and areas where talent acquisition leaders can have the greatest influence.
So, Who’s Responsible for DE&I Initiatives?
For years, talent acquisition teams have led diversity efforts within organisations. In some cases, employers hire a chief diversity officer (CDO) and provide a budget for DE&I initiatives. However, the responsibility for DE&I initiatives is much broader, and everyone from senior leaders to entry-level employees in everything from marketing to IT has a role in creating an inclusive workplace. Here, we outline the roles that different areas of the business play in DE&I efforts.
The number of senior leaders as executive sponsors promoting DE&I has increased from 33% in 2018 to 44% in 2021. But, leadership must play a role in the DE&I initiatives at all organisations. In fact, having a C-suite member as the diversity and inclusion programme leader is one of the biggest differentiators between organisations in which diversity is not considered a barrier to progression versus ones where it is, according to PwC’s data.
However, to be successful champions of diversity, leadership needs to be fully engaged—because an inclusive and equitable culture must be present from the top down. Notably, if time and other responsibilities that accompany their jobs make it difficult for executives to be fully engaged, organisations may want to reconsider having their C-suite remain heavily involved in their diversity efforts. In this case, you might consider appointing another individual (or individuals) who is more able to focus on the work and, as a result, bring about more change.
Diversity Committees
Not every organisation has the resources to support a full-time diversity role. In fact, the larger the employer, the more likely it is to have dedicated diversity staff. However, as SHRM found, smaller organisations may be able to aid diversity and inclusion programmes by taking a cue from the 17% of employers that have an advisory group/committee comprised of volunteer staff members. This can actually be quite an effective approach, as employee sponsorship corresponds with lower levels of reported bias within an organisation.
Identifying Gaps in the Maturity of Your DE&I Initiatives and Programmes
When it comes to really progressing your organisation’s DE&I programme, the best place to start is by asking yourself where your organisation stands today. That way, you can best identify where to place your initial efforts in order to create the greatest influence. Below, we outline the different stages of DE&I programme maturity. Note that your organisation may be at different levels in different areas.
Beginner: Generally, employers at the beginner level of maturity tend to be more reactive rather than proactive; they may narrowly define workplace diversity, and leaders usually have limited involvement in driving DE&I forward within the organisation.
Intermediate: Employers at the intermediate level typically focus on more purpose-driven DE&I initiatives, with leadership assuming a greater role in progressing DE&I in the workplace. At this level, the definition of diversity expands to include less-visible characteristics, like disability, religion, class, age, regionalism, sexual orientation and more. Additionally, at this stage, an employer may employ a dedicated staff and provide a budget for DE&I.
Advanced: Employers at the advanced stage focus on multi-dimensionality and intersectionality when thinking about diversity. In this situation, leaders practice inclusive leadership skills and are held accountable for creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. They also often have DE&I resources and budgets distributed throughout the organisation to ensure organisation-wide diversity.
Leading: Employers at this level take a sustainable approach to DE&I, in which leaders are expected to lead holistically and inclusively; be key DE&I initiatives change agents; and hold the organisation accountable. In addition to their internal resources, they often have external DE&I advisory boards that guide them on leading practices.
Identifying your organisation’s DE&I maturity level allows you to better measure your progress on key areas of workforce diversity, including communication, employee education, company culture, resource investment and the involvement of leadership. This will help guide your next steps toward creating a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce, as well as allow your organisation to focus on interventions that are targeted and specific. Plus, in organisational environments facing a multiplicity of DE&I issues at once, the ability to pinpoint current state, plot out the desired state and craft the roadmap to get there is critical.
The Role of Talent Acquisition
While the responsibility for DE&I is spread across an organisation, talent acquisition still plays a major role. Recruiters, sourcers, hiring managers and HR leaders are powerhouse roles that must work together to find the right candidate for the job, while also demonstrating an organisation’s commitment to DE&I from the company’s first interactions with employees.
As talent acquisition leaders, you also play a key role in bringing to life diversity and inclusion as values that are deeply embedded in an organisation. More precisely, your team plays a particularly critical role by sourcing, engaging and eventually hiring candidates from underrepresented groups.
Does your organisation have a talent pool of diverse candidates? Do your interviewing practices reduce unconscious bias? Do you have a strong reputation for being a diverse workplace? These are some of the critical questions that you and your teams should attempt to answer to deliver on the organisation’s diversity agenda.
By understanding your role and performing it effectively, talent acquisition teams can work with leaders in other areas of the business to build a truly holistic DE&I programme. Here, we discuss some of the tactics that talent acquisition can adopt to overcome diversity sourcing, selection and hiring challenges.
Championing Diversity
Once your talent acquisition team establishes awareness and accountability, members should become champions of diversity hiring; you have a tremendous opportunity to drive the diversity agenda by reinforcing the case for diversity hiring. For instance, engaged recruiters can champion diversity and make it an everyday dialogue with hiring managers. That’s because recruiters are responsible for ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly and equally in a process that removes bias. They’re also the first step in demonstrating how the organisation appreciates and celebrates its diverse employees.
Diversity Sourcing
To ensure that your talent pool is representative of diverse candidates, source your candidates from a variety of talent channels. Clearly, you can’t rely on the same sources repeatedly when seeking out new candidates; focusing only on the sources that you know best can result in a talent pool of similar candidates and a lack of diversity.
Instead, seek out opportunities to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds. For example, there are many online and offline groups dedicated to women in technology. This could be a great opportunity to meet and connect with high-calibre, female candidates directly—instead of waiting for them to find you through platforms like Indeed. And, the more initiative you take to find these channels, the more likely it is that your talent pools will be diverse.
What’s more, if you’re struggling to find diverse talent, reach out to employees from diverse backgrounds and encourage them to share your job ads with their networks; then, give them the tools they need to promote open roles within your organisation. As a result, your employees and candidates will both feel that your company values their opinions and contributions, which is fantastic for team morale and engagement.
DE&I Initiatives: Building Inclusivity
Building an inclusive workplace is central to creating a workplace environment in which every employee feels valued. Granted, every organisation is different, so the content and structure of an inclusion programme needs to meet the conditions of your organisation. To get you started, SHRM offers an inclusivity checklist for HR that provides a good place to start:
Make sure that company leaders understand that inclusion is about ensuring that everyone’s voice is heard, opinions are considered, and value to the team is evident.
Train managers to show that inclusivity is a core competency—and hold them accountable.
Form an inclusion council with genuine influence and power.
Value differences and create an environment in which people can feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work.
Identify the needs of underrepresented groups, and give them the necessary support and resources.
Provide workers with a safe space to voice their concerns.
Benchmark key aspects of your organisation’s culture and understand the employee experience before making changes to promote inclusivity.
Remember that daily interactions are the most telling sign of whether your company has an inclusive culture.
Unconscious Bias & Candidate Selection
One of the key reasons companies lose out on diverse talent is unconscious bias, which can have detrimental effects on the diversity hiring process. The concept of unconscious bias or implicit bias was first introduced in 2006 as “the new science of unconscious mental processes that has a substantial bearing on discrimination law”. This challenged the longstanding idea that people are guided only by explicit beliefs and conscious intentions.
One example of unconscious bias is that a candidate’s surname—which implies their ethnic background—can adversely affect their chances of landing a job. Unfortunately, studies by Ghent University show that the surname appearing on a candidate’s résumé or CV can reduce the possibility of receiving a call back by 25% in Germany; 29% in Sweden and the UK; and 50% in the U.S. Accordingly, to address unconscious biases, some companies mask candidate demographics while presenting them to the hiring team in order to shift the focus from ethnicity to experience and skills.
Diversity at Work: Converting Candidates From Underrepresented Groups Into Employees
However, winning over diverse candidates goes beyond just locating them and ensuring that they’re treated fairly during the hiring process. Rather, to win diverse talent, organisations should demonstrate the authenticity of their commitment to DE&I by leveraging their employer brand through career sites and social media channels, as well as by showing how diverse and inclusive they are through their employees and leadership.
Furthermore, talent acquisition can also play a role in reinforcing these messages by:
Adding a link to diversity and inclusion policies and practices in job advertisements and recruiters’ email signatures.
Minimising adverse effects of recruitment discrimination by complementing recruiters with talent acquisition technologies like PeopleScout’s AffinixTM.
Ensuring job-related information is accessible to all groups. (For example, ensure your career site is accessible to those with visual impairments through design, alt text and screen readers; and ensure presentations and videos include subtitles or sign language.)
Scheduling interviews in locations that are accessible and convenient for all candidates, such as parking for people with disabilities; Braille script on elevators and signage; and female, male and gender-neutral restrooms.
Sharing relevant stories about a diverse set of employees in the organisation and involving diverse employees and senior leaders in the interviewing process.
Respecting candidates’ gender identity. Because gender identity is internal, a person’s gender identity is not necessarily visible to others, so asking candidates what pronoun(s) they prefer to use in interviews and other communications can make a difference.
DE&I Initiatives: Talent Technology
The right talent acquisition technology can be a powerful tool for reaching your DE&I initiatives and goals. And, as you begin to recognise and fix disparities in hiring processes and work environments, data can be an important tool in determining the effectiveness of those efforts. No DE&I initiative can be successful unless it can be measured.
To that end, diversity dashboards—like those available in PeopleScout’s Affinix Analytics—can break down your hires by gender and ethnicity. Then, with that information, you can identify where the most diverse hires have been found. From there, you can focus on which recruitment strategies are most effective in bringing in candidates form underrepresented groups. And, once those initiatives are in place, you can track your success over time.
The goal of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace should be a central pillar in any organisation’s journey. Embracing a multitude of viewpoints and cultures drives innovation; improves decision-making; increases employee productivity and retention; and leads to better-served employees—and, by extension, customers. While responsibility for diversity, equity and inclusion is shared across an organisation, talent acquisition leaders have a significant influence.
It’s no secret that the pandemic greatly impacted the labour market. Now, employers face a new challenge: Too many job openings and too few workers.
Amid the dual challenges of COVID-19 and Brexit, job openings are at an all-time high—the result of millions of prime-age workers leaving the UK labour market or transitioning to part-time employment. Employers in industries like leisure and hospitality, healthcare, manufacturing and more are struggling to fill open positions with qualified talent.
So, with all these vacancies, how can employers stand out above the competition to attract the next generation of top talent? It starts with focusing on key candidate touch points—from your employer value proposition (EVP) and employer brand to your recruitment marketing strategy, careers site and application process.
In this article, we’ll take you along the candidate journey and touch on each aspect you should address to make your open roles stand out in a sea of job openings.
Create an EVP and Employer Brand that Speaks to Your Ideal Candidate
Your EVP and employer brand carry a lot of weight for the next generation of top talent, because they serve as differentiators between your brand and competitors and allow you to align your organisation’s purpose with your candidates’ passions. It is important to do your research and be aware of what candidates hold in high regard, such as the opportunity for growth personally and professionally or the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Learn what drives your ideal candidate, identify what drives your organisation’s mission and values, and establish an EVP and employer brand that speaks to both.
Building an Employer Brand for the Lawyer of the Future
The Situation: Linklaters approached us with a talent problem for the ages. They needed an entirely new type of lawyer. The profile Linklaters recruited for in the past would no longer bring them the ideal candidates necessary to secure and expand on their position as a heavyweight global law firm.
The Research: We conducted one-on-one interviews and focus groups with hundreds of professionals in 20 Linklaters offices across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. The output of these interviews gave us everything we needed to create the EVP and the framework of the brand on which to build our global advertising campaign.
The Solution: We created an employer value proposition that was a combination of big picture philosophical and a Linklaters-specific selling point.
GREAT CHANGE IS HERE
Message: Change is healthy and exciting, as well as unavoidable. Join this modern, international, hugely diverse cohort and you’ll have a truly influential voice that redefines the legal sector and sets you up for an ever-evolving career.
The Results: Glassdoor scores for Linklaters have risen by 8% in the last two years and, importantly, applications from female lawyers—which was a key objective—have increased since the EVP launch.
How to Communicate Your Employer Brand through Recruitment Marketing
After evaluating your organisation’s EVP and employer brand, it’s time to showcase both in your recruitment marketing strategies. Digital recruitment marketing is a way for employers to source and attract potential candidates. It can include social media, email marketing, display advertising and more. Consider these three stages when building your recruitment marketing strategy:
Stage One: Increase Awareness
When it comes to increasing awareness with recruitment marketing, you want to reach ideal candidates and promote your organisation. To ensure you are marketing yourself properly, it can help to create content that drives a potential candidate to come back to your site, even if they aren’t actively looking for a job.
For example, acknowledging company accolades and awards can spark interest in your organisation for both active and passive candidates, like this Instagram post from HubSpot. However, content at this stage does not need to be directly correlated to your organisation to be effective. Content regarding professional development and motivation can also lead ideal candidates to inquire further on your website, such as these resume tips from Nestle.
Stage Two: Generate Interest
Now that you have increased awareness, the next step is to generate interest. You have succeeded in showcasing your organisation’s knowledge and place in the industry, now it’s time to show what it is like to work at your company. This is where you stress your employer brand—especially via social media—to give potential candidates an inside look as to what it’s like to work for your company.
Social media is a powerful tool that not only generates interest but can also increase applicants for vital roles. For example, PeopleScout helped a manufacturing client increase the number of female applicants and hires in a male-dominated industry through the use of employee spotlights, videos and stories on their social media channels. These posts showcased how women are integrated into the company culture and integral to the organisation’s success, and the client was able to increase female hiring by 3% annually from 2018 to 2021.
Stage Three: Nurture the Decision
After increasing awareness and generating interest in your company, it is now time to promote open positions and the benefits, perks and compensation that will come with these roles. The promotion of open roles within your organisation will lead the candidate to your careers site, which plays a pivotal role in the candidate’s journey toward employment with your organisation. Here, it is important to do research on your competitors to see what they are offering for similar open roles. If a competitor is offering better pay, benefits or perks, that can be a deciding factor for an ideal candidate to choose them over your organisation, despite your strong recruitment marketing strategy.
Build a Careers Site that Stands Out
At this point in the candidate journey, the potential applicant has made their way to your organisation’s careers site. It’s important to remember that this is not only an area for job postings, but it is also home to many opportunities to stand out above competitors. For example, your careers site is a great place to reiterate the employer value proposition to ensure that the message is carried through every step of the candidate journey. Your careers site should include everything a potential candidate would like to know about working for your organisation. Consider these key areas of opportunity when refreshing your careers site:
Ensure Accessibility
In the digital age, it is important to make sure your careers site is user-friendly for those on a computer or a smart phone. This is especially important because 89% of candidates think mobile devices play a critical role in the job hunting process. Unfortunately, if a candidate struggles to navigate your careers site, chances are they won’t be staying on that site for long.
It is also important to make sure your careers site is accessible for those with disabilities. Here are some suggestions from SHRM on how to make your careers site accessible for all:
Screen reader compatibility
Alternative text for images
Color contrast
Keyboard accessibility
Controls for moving content
Captions
Controls for timed content
Labeled forms
Accessible downloadable files
Plain language
Search Engine Optimisation
It is important to utilise search engine optimisation on your careers site. This can play a pivotal role in the likelihood of your careers site showing up first over a competitor on major search engines. The usage of keywords and traditional, highly-searched titles will play an important part in helping your roles stand out above your competition. Plus, researching popular keywords can boost your place amongst major search engines, leading potential candidates to your careers site first. Google Analytics and UTM tracking codes are important tools to utilise in your SEO journey to track and report where your clicks are coming from.
Provide a Personal Touch
On your career site, adding a personal touch, such as a welcome video, can go a long way. It can help the candidate see the human side of your business; offer an inside look of the facility; and showcase where applicants may fit in within the structure of the organisation.
This is a great chance to sell the applicant on working for your company and really showcase your company culture. Offer insights, quotes or firsthand experiences from senior leaders to newly brought on employees. Highlight opportunities for growth—both personally and professionally—and provide examples of success stories from your existing employees.
Let Applicants Know What to Expect
If the process to apply and interview is not well explained or discussed at all, many applicants may believe their application will get lost amongst others. Be upfront and transparent about what the application and interview process is like and then offer timelines for the applicants.
Streamline the Application and Interview Process
Although the candidate has made it this far, you’re not done yet. After all, 80% of the time, candidates don’t finish filling out job applications, according to Glassdoor. To ensure candidates complete your application and interview process, focus on these key aspects to help you stand out:
Mobile-friendly application
Quick response time
Virtual interviews
Automated chat and scheduling
Consider how technology can help streamline your process in each of the categories listed above. A mobile-friendly application, easy interview scheduling and quick response times can all be enhanced by AI and automation and provide a superior candidate experience.
Standing Out Beyond the Application
Despite having a well-built EVP and employer brand, recruitment marketing strategy, careers site and application, the deciding factor for an ideal candidate to choose your organisation will often come down to a strong employment offer. It’s important to keep in mind that if your compensation, perks and benefits (like flexible work options) don’t match up to competitors, ideal candidates in today’s market have the ability to choose to work elsewhere.
That said, by creating ways to stand out and showcase your EVP and employer brand at each stage of the candidate journey as outlined above, you will be one step closer to securing the top talent your organisation needs.
At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers across all industries faced difficult personnel decisions as organisations were forced to reduce their workforces. Now, as a sense of normalcy and stability returns, employers find themselves facing a new challenge: The Great Resignation.
So, how can employers mitigate talent turnover and start building their workforces for the economic recovery? In this article, we’ll explain the Great Resignation, take an in-depth look at what candidates want from employers and provide retention strategies for navigating the current talent landscape.
What is the Great Resignation?
In the wake of the pandemic, workers expect more from their employers. In particular, they want employers to alleviate—or at least acknowledge—their concerns, needs and special circumstances. Notably, organisations that failed to do so have suffered.
Whilst every sector is experiencing an increase in resignations, the healthcare, retail, hospitality and restaurant industries have been hit the hardest. For some workers in these industries, it’s because these jobs have extensive interaction with the public and employees are worried about the risk to their health. Meanwhile, others—especially those in lower-wage jobs—are pivoting to new careers that promise better pay, benefits or rewards.
The Great Resignation is a term coined by researcher Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M University. It refers to the massive, economy-wide increase in job turnover that is expected to accompany the end of COVID-era regulations, business closures and work-from-home mandates. According to Klotz, there is no single factor responsible for the Great Resignation. Rather, numerous motivators are inspiring employees to consider changing jobs.
For instance:
Many employees who would have otherwise already quit their jobs stuck with their positions for the duration of the pandemic. And, now that job security is less important, people in this group are preparing to finally make the change they’ve been postponing.
The stress of the pandemic contributed to higher levels of employee burnout, which is associated with higher turnover rates.
Time away from the workplace has led some people to consider rebalancing their priorities to focus more on their families or hobbies. Others are reevaluating how their careers align with their values and interests.
Millions of employees experienced the flexibility and convenience of remote work for the first time during the pandemic. As a result, many do not want to return to the office.
Research from McKinsey, based on surveys of both employers and employees in Australia, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States, shows that employers don’t understand what’s motivating employees to leave. Whilst employers cited compensation, work-life balance and health issues, employees revealed their reasons for leaving were to do with their relationship with the business. In fact, the top three factors for employees who quit were that they didn’t feel valued by the organisation (54%) or their manager (52%) or that they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work (51%).
Whilst workers have always cared about their work environments, now there’s an increased willingness to leave a role if dissatisfied.
Retaining Talent During the Great Resignation
With so much riding on successfully retaining talent, it’s particularly important for employers to get it right. As such, employers need to better understand what drives and sustains career satisfaction amongst their employees. Below, we outline strategies for gaining insights into your workforce that can help you better retain talent amid the Great Resignation.
Professional Development & Advancement Opportunities
Well-thought-out professional development and internal mobility programs can provide your employees with opportunities and clear direction on how to increase their skills and advance their careers within your organisation.
“Career management continues to be a top driver of attraction, talent retention and sustainable engagement for most employees,” wrote Laurie Bienstock of Willis Towers Watson in an article published by HR Dive. “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.”
Fortunately, investing in expanding your employees’ skill sets will not only help them feel more empowered, but they’ll also have more tools to help your organisation—a win-win scenario.
When starting a professional development programme, leverage the expertise you have within your organisation. For instance, senior employees 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 become more valuable and versatile employees.
Reinforce Your Workplace Culture
As employers transition toward a hybrid work model to address the challenges presented by the pandemic, fostering a workplace culture that is consistent both online and in-person has become more challenging. So, consider what matters most to the employees in your organisation.
If diversity and inclusion is a priority, remote work can provide the opportunity to bring in hires from around the world who otherwise would not be available. Similarly, if professional development and mentorship are most important, think about how online tools can be used to foster these types of relationships.
Employee Benefits & Well-Being
The right employee benefits can be influential when workers are considering resignation. According to research by insurer Drewberry, 51% of workers said they’d like their company to introduce benefits that help them manage their health and well-being.
In the past, benefits have include insurance, equipment allowances or childcare, but now they increasingly cover things like gym memberships or weekly coffee allowances. Benefits focused on employee well-being—such as providing access to counselling, employee assistance programmes or additional annual leave or family leave—can go a long way to engender greater loyalty in your workforce
Conduct Stay Interviews
In some ways, “stay” interviews are similar to exit interviews; they’re both used to identify reasons employees like or dislike their job. They can also uncover concerns or issues that an employer may be unaware of.
However, stay interviews can actually be more valuable than exit interviews because they provide insights that employers can leverage to motivate and retain employees before they decide to leave. Questions to ask during a stay interview include:
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?
Employers can use the information gleaned from stay interviews to guide company policy; make improvements in corporate culture; and keep talent engaged and wanting to stay. COVID-19 has profoundly changed what employees expect from employers, and attributing record-high resignations simply to salary concerns misses the bigger trends in growing the workplace.
The pandemic has changed the way employees work and how they view their employer. Now, many workers are reflecting on what a quality workplace feels like—and many are willing to quit to find a better one. As a result, reversing the tide of resignations in your organisation requires leaders who care; who engage their teams honestly; and who give workers a sense of purpose, inspiration and motivation to perform.
Whether that is achieved through flexible work policies, improving benefits, sharing common values or unique career opportunities, it’s essential that you listen to your employees’ needs, keep checking in on them, and work together to create a workplace that is not only able to serve you both, but one that can also make you both happy, as well.
Expanding your talent pool amid turbulent times can be difficult. As businesses navigate reopening and hiring amid the surge of the Delta variant of COVID-19, many are struggling to fill their open roles with the talent they need. Combined with the shortage of overseas workers due to Brexit, research from accountancy and advisory firm BDO shows that UK businesses are experiencing disruption to productivity.
Notably, an HGV driver shortage resulted in nationwide fuel shortage. Plus, companies in the healthcare, retail and hospitality sectors are suffering from staff absences, with workers isolating due to COVID-19 infections.
At the same time, millions of workers are also planning to change careers: Data released by Aviva showed that 87% of workers surveyed said they were re-evaluating their careers, whilst nearly one in 10 said they intended to start a new career.
In this article, we’ll explain why people are choosing to change careers, share common skills you should look out for in your talent pool expansion, and provide suggestions for how to create a reskilling programme that will work for your organisation.
How the Talent Pool is Evolving: Why Are Workers Changing Careers?
As a result of the pandemic and the tragic losses that came with it, people were faced with a reminder that every day is not guaranteed. This realisation caused many to rethink their life choices and shift to prioritise their health, loved ones, hobbies and the things they truly enjoy. For many, this included rethinking their career path and goals—including exploring job opportunities that align with their passions.
Source: Prudential
As an employer, you can capitalise on this migration by offering competitive employment packages complete with work/life balance and promoting those benefits via recruitment marketing techniques. More precisely, beyond compensation and flexible work arrangements, show candidates how you will challenge them and help them grow in their career.
Building a Talent Pool: Identifying Transferable Skills in Workers Changing Careers
When searching for talent, you might not consider looking in certain industries or job types because you’re unsure whether the skills developed in those roles will match up with what you need for your business. However, 57% of UK workers are willing to retrain, with mid-career workers (aged 31-40) showing the most willingness at 64%.
Fortunately, you don’t need to start from scratch when hiring people who have chosen to change career paths. Instead, focus on attracting candidates who have strong transferable skills across industries.
Transferable skills, also known as “portable skills,” are those that can carry from one job to another. Transferable skills can be used to position your past experience when applying for a new job—especially if it’s in a different industry. (Source: Indeed)
Because many transferable skills are soft skills, candidates from other industries are often highly collaborative and integrate well into new roles. In particular, they’re well-rounded and more productive from the beginning. As a result, your training time can be focused on knowledge specific to your organisation and the role.
Consider looking for these common transferable skills when expanding your talent pool beyond your industry:
Problem-Solving
Workers who can demonstrate strong problem-solving skills in their previous roles will likely be able to apply that same mentality on the job at your organisation. Specifically, employees with problem-solving skills will be able to identify issues, find out what is causing them and seek out potential solutions—without you having to nudge them.
Teamwork
If the role you’re hiring for requires a lot of collaboration between team members, look for candidates who have experience working toward a common goal with others. Teamwork also encompasses several other skills, such as empathy, active listening and communication.
Communication
Communication is perhaps the most common transferable skill across all industries and job types, because it’s required in almost every role. Workers with effective communication skills are able to clearly share ideas and information both verbally and in writing; know when to ask questions; read body language; and communicate with others in a wide range of settings.
Leadership
Whilst leadership skills are especially vital for management positions and above, they’re important for people to possess at all levels of the organisation. That’s because leadership skills contribute to an employee’s ability to rise to a challenge, get a team on the same page, delegate when needed and see a project through to completion.
Adaptability
Workers who are adaptable and flexible are able to adjust as deadlines, teams or processes change. They can pivot and learn new skills when needed, whilst also maintaining a positive attitude and ensuring goals are still met.
Technology Literacy
If you don’t want to teach your next hire the basics, look for candidates who have experience working with common business tools and technologies that will easily integrate into your business function. Similarly, if your organisation is embracing more digital tools, it’s also important that your candidate is comfortable learning new technology and software to improve efficiency and evolve with your organisation.
Whilst the list above highlights some key transferable skills, there are numerous others that might fit into your organisation and the roles you’re looking to fill. Check out this list from FlexJobs for more.
Building a Reskilling Programme for Workers Changing Careers
Attracting and hiring candidates with transferable skills allows you to skip basic training on soft skills. However, because many of these hires will be coming from different industries, you’ll likely still need to provide an onboarding programme for the first 90 days that includes some reskilling training for non-transferable skills to help them adjust to the new role.
Plus, employees expect training to come from employers. According to McKinsey, skills training is the number-one choice of prospective employees when choosing what makes a great employer. Plus, 94% of employees said they would stay longer with a company that invested in their skills development.
But, what type of training will work for your organisation? Well, that depends on what types of roles you’re looking to fill. According to a report by CompTIA, candidates have different preferences regarding training methods based on the type of job they’re seeking.
Consider these three steps to help you build an effective reskilling programme:
1. Identify Skills Gaps
When hiring candidates from different industries, there’s no doubt that they’ll require some additional training to be able to be successful in the new role. So, identify what those key skills are so you can build your training around them lets you focus on skills unique to the job and your organisation.
2. Develop Specific Skills Trainings
Once you’ve identified the key areas that will need to be covered, develop trainings specific to those needs. These trainings should encompass a variety of reskilling methods to fit the individual needs of your new hires, including:
a. On-the-job training:Employees can take on small projects and learn from real-world experience.
b. Online learning: Virtual courses can be taken at any time and are a great way to speed up the learning process. They provide a lot of content in a digestible form that anyone can complete at their own pace.
c. Blended learning: Combine online courses with in-person training to maximise the benefits of both. Employees can engage with instructors in person and come equipped with knowledge and questions from online training.
d. Peer learning: Employees can learn from one another through collaboration and job shadowing. By observing what someone’s day looks like, employees get a good sense of what will be expected of them day-to-day.
3. Measure Success
Leverage surveys, discussions, post-training assessments and candid feedback from trainees regarding the value they found from the reskilling trainings. Do they feel like they’ve learned something new? Do they have the knowledge to put new skills to use? Are they implementing what they’ve learned on the job? Once you find out, reevaluate and improve your training programme regularly based on the strengths and weaknesses that employees identify.
Marketing Your Reskilling Programme to Your Expanded Talent Pool
Now that you’ve assessed the transferable skills to watch for and developed a reskilling programme for workers who are changing careers, it’s important to make that programme known to potential candidates. Utilise recruitment marketing techniques on social media to promote your roles and share that your organisation is offering reskilling to employees from a variety of industries. In job ads, highlight the fact that hires will be provided with reskilling training to ensure they’re successful in their new role. This—in conjunction with a strong employment offer and benefits—will help your business stand out above others in the competitive search for top talent.
So what does a return to work look like? Right now, the fog of the present obscures what our “new normal” will look like. As work becomes increasingly digitally enabled and uncertainty continues, many employers are wondering when or if they should return to the workplace, as well as how exactly to go about the process.
So, in this article, we’ll cover what employees expect from employers during their return to work, how employers are leveraging the hybrid workforce model, and strategies that organizations should consider implementing while planning a safe return to the workplace.
The Return to Work: Employer Preparations Versus Employee Expectations
The pandemic has tested the employee and employer relationship. Employers have supported their workforce to an unprecedented degree in ways they hadn’t before and under greater scrutiny. Meanwhile, workers have shown incredible resilience and adaptability as they worked to remain productive amidst the challenges of the pandemic.
Then, the development of vaccines raised confidence in returning to the workplace, but uncertainties remain about how to bring employees back safely. As such, employers should develop a return strategy that helps meet their business goals, while also addressing employee expectations and the need for increased flexibility.
According to PwC’s U.S. Pulse Survey, employees reported that their preferred work arrangements were:
Interestingly, according to a report from The Conference Board, returning employees to the workplace is more important for U.S.-based employers. Specifically, the survey found that, among U.S. executives, 22% said returning employees to the workplace was a priority, while only 5% of their global counterparts agreed.
In the next section, we’ll discuss how employers and employees can find common ground through a hybrid workplace model.
Returning to the Office: The Workforce of the Future is Hybrid
While both employees and employers have varying expectations on what a return should look like, one thing is clear: everyone expects more flexibility in the workplace, and a hybrid workplace model combines characteristics of remote and on-site work. In a hybrid workplace, some or all employees are free to choose where and when they work; they can also divide their time between working from home, a co-working space or their organization’s office.
Granted, whether an employer can offer a hybrid workplace model depends on multiple considerations, most notably the industry and job type. While there are a variety of careers and roles that require employees to be on-site every day, Gartner estimates that nearly two-thirds of employees—mostly knowledge workers—can work remotely at least some of the time. They can fully focus on tasks without the noises and interruptions of the traditional workplace environment. They can choose to work when they’re feeling most productive, whether that’s in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. When employees are happier, better rested and less stressed, they do better work.
Employee Wellbeing and Returning to the Office
Being free to work when and where they please has a significant positive influence on employee satisfaction. For instance, in a SurveyMonkey study, employees who worked remotely reported feeling happier than their colleagues who remained working in the office. However, for others, working remotely can be isolating and even distracting. Clearly, a hybrid workplace mitigates many of the downsides of pure remote work to create a professional space outside of the home for employees to collaborate and socialize with colleagues.
Lowered Costs
In a hybrid workplace, there’s no need for row after row of assigned desks. Instead, once an organization knows how many employees will be in the office at any given time, employers can plan around new occupancy levels to cut down on the cost of rent and other expenses.
Safety
For extra safety returning to the office, a hybrid workplace also helps keep employees safe during the pandemic by: reducing the number of people in the workplace at any one given time; creating ample personal space; and making it easier to stay distanced. Flexible workers can also commute during off-peak times or work from home if they or their family are at particular risk.
Return to Work: The Hybrid Workforce in Action
For example, at IBM an employee’s office attendance requirement is determined by work deliverables or the need for team collaboration. While at, Ford office workers are required to be on site for specific meetings or projects, otherwise they are permitted to work remotely. At Uber, Citigroup and H&R Block employees are required to be in the office two to three days per week.
Conversely, some employers place workers into tiers. For instance, Salesforce divided their hybrid workforce into three tiers: flex employees in the office one to three days per week, fully remote employees and office-based employees required to be in the office four to five days per week. Similarly, TIAA will group employee roles into four categories: fully remote, mostly remote, mostly on site, and fully on site.
Supporting Your Employees Return to Work
As expected, balancing the physical and emotional wellbeing of employees with the business needs of the employer has been a top challenge for talent and HR leaders throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. As an example, when PwC’s COVID-19 Global CFO Pulse Survey asked, “Which of the following is your company planning to implement once you start to transition back to on-site work?”, CFOs responded:
Mental Health and Workplace Stress
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone’s mental health to some degree, so feelings of anxiety and hesitancy around returning to the workplace should are to be expected. Now more than ever, leaders and managers need to demonstrate compassion and understanding. Employers should invest in new mental health resources for employees in need. This can take the form of an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or a referral to external organizations that can crisis intervention, counseling, or other assistance. Plus, easy access to and promotion of an employer’s EAP can help provide many helpful resources for employee mental health in the workplace.
Flexible Paid Sick Policy
For workers with limited paid sick time, testing positive for COVID-19 comes with potential repercussions to their livelihood. To mitigate the potential loss of income, employer should consider implementing a flexible paid sick policy that offers employees additional paid time off if they do contract COVID-19. This may put employees, who would otherwise worry about the repercussions of getting sick, at ease. Paid sick leave policies should also communicate the importance of staying home when feeling unwell (even if unsure) while making it clear that doing so will not impact that employee negatively. For more information and guidance on sick leave policy and returning to work after
Create Clear and Consistent Communications
An action plan for returning to the workplace is only as effective as an organization’s ability to clearly articulate the details of the plan to employees in a way that everyone understands. Moreover, communicating with employees about plans to reopen can help keep them engaged and provide a sense of normalcy. Employees will want to hear about their employers reopening plans, from social distancing to wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) as well as details about workplace layout and exactly who is required to return and when.
Returning to Work After COVID: Conclusion
COVID-19 has taught us a lot about how we live and how we work. It has laid bare that our usual routines are not set in stone, and that alternative ways of working and building community within in organization are not just viable but can have a lasting impact on our happiness, productivity and wellbeing. The future of work is flexible, and more businesses are turning to the hybrid model as a way to achieve the flexibility their employees need. Going forward, the concept of the workplace in the minds of many employees and organizations will no longer be confined to a physical space, rather a hybrid mix of places and spaces where work can be accomplished.
How do you persuade valued, highly sought-after professionals to move jobs in this market? By providing an opportunity to engage with the employer and understand the work and culture – before applying.
The Chemicals Regulation Division (CRD) of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is regulatory science at its best. Work here is forward-thinking, strategic and connected to decisions made by both Central Government and large-scale business.
SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED AWARENESS OF HSE AND THIS NICHE DIVISION WITHIN IT
55 QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FILLING THE CANDIDATES INFORMATION GAP
70% OF ATTENDEES MORE LIKELY TO APPLY SINCE THE WEBINAR
SCOPE AND SCALE
In undergoing significant change, our client was evolving and working hard to meet the challenges ahead. This required the recruitment of a significant number of Scientists to help ensure the safe and sustainable use of chemicals. This is science with a scale, scope and influence few organisations can match.
SITUATION
The vacancies were based in Bootle and York and market mapping was undertaken into the number of suitable candidates with the relevant skills and qualifications for these roles. This highlighted the scarcity of candidates available. In addition, there was the challenge of how to engage with the target audience and give them the insight and opportunity to better understand the organisation, the vital work they undertake and the opportunities for career development. A recent national study found the number one question from candidates was “What’s it like to work there?”
SOLUTION
With this in mind, we devised and developed a webinar to introduce the work of the CRD. The webinar featured a panel of existing employees, giving the participants an opportunity to hear first-hand what the job would entail. Alongside this we offered a live Q&A so that each person could ask questions. The webinar brought the organisation to life and painted a picture of what it would be like to work there.
RESULTS
The webinar significantly increased awareness of HSE and the niche division within it. The attendees were able to view the webinar remotely and on-demand. During the Q and A, 55 questions were submitted. These filled the candidates information gap and gave them insight as to how they would fit in. 70% of attendees said they are more likely to apply since attending the webinar.
