1. Build Your Employer Brand
When businesses think about branding, they tend to think about the brand of the business itself, which of course is correct. However, a HR team should also think about their own brand within the main brand, which is the ‘employer brand’.
An employer brand is all about building a story around the business as a place to work, rather than it’s products and / or services. The aim should be to build a strong reputation for the brand as an employer, and how it is such a good place to start or continue your career.
Not only is having a strong employer brand a good thing for attracting new talent, but it is also beneficial for existing employees, as is cements the fact that they already work for a leading employer, and will be less tempted to leave or look elsewhere.
There are many different ways in which a business can start to work on it’s employer brand. One of the most important ways is employee reviews and feedback. Sites like Glassdoor are becoming more popular in recent years, whereby employees (past and present) can leave reviews on their employer focusing on things like working environment, pay, leadership, interviews and much more. This gives perspective employees an idea of what it might be like to work there.
In addition to reviews, some HR teams have their own ‘careers’ websites, separate to the companies main business website. This gives them freedom to really sell the company as a great place to work, and list all of the benefits and reasons to work there. Some businesses take things a step further by allocating marketing budgets for the employer brand, to help reach a wider range of potential candidates, many of which may not even be looking for a new role yet, but may be able to have their heads turned.
2. Make Work Meaningful
Many employers think all they have to do to attract the best talent is to offer a competitive salary, fair working hours, and have an office full of bean bags and coffee stations – but this couldn’t be further from the trust. Although these things are important (yes, even the beanbags), they are not going to drive long term happiness for employees.
A recent study shown in the Harvard Business Review described how a massive 9 out of 10 people would be happy to take a pay cut if it meant they could do more meaningful work. And this stands to reason. People don’t want to be doing manual or meaningless tasks day-to-day – it’s soul destroying and can actually lead to serious mental wellbeing issues.
There are various ways in which a business can allow it’s staff to do more meaningful work, and less of the boring stuff. Even within the HR team itself, HR solutions tools can be implemented to remove a lot of the manual reporting and tracking of typical HR tasks, leaving the team with more time to focus on areas which they’re passionate about, such as hiring, interviews, onboarding or training.
There’s likely a reason why a member of the team has chosen to work in their particular field, which should be encouraged within their every day role. Someone who works within marketing because they have a passion for digital should not be spending their time stuffing envelopes for the quarterly mailshot campaign.
In addition to more meaningful daily tasks, it’s also recommended to help employees see the bigger picture, and that they’re more than a cog in a machine. For example, for sales staff at an insurance comparison site, their focus shouldn’t be simply on getting 1,000 sales a month, instead it could be to save 1,000 customers time and money per month – which is more meaningful.