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Why and How Can Internal Video Help You Lift Employee Morale?

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For most office-based employees, “work” no longer represents a physical location. In fact, 84% of people who worked remotely during the pandemic said they intended to mix home and office-based work when the lockdown ended. Now, with hybrid and remote work models defining so much of modern work life, employers are rightfully concerned that employees are feeling increasingly disconnected and disengaged. This is why many are turning to technology like internal video to help improve employee communications.

For some time now, savvy HR and marketing professionals have recognized the importance of video communication. And they’re onto something. For example, research says employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than read an email. People have discovered the convenience and effectiveness of video. And they’re not going back.

How Can Internal Video Improve Employee Experience?

This post-pandemic era promises greater scheduling flexibility, improved work/life balance, and happier employees. But it is also introducing a variety of challenges for employers to address.

For example, it’s harder to reach and engage people who work on a remote or hybrid schedule. When left unchecked over time, this distance can erode connections with managers, colleagues, and company culture. Without access to clear, consistent communication and recognition from managers, employees are at risk of feeling increasingly undervalued, disillusioned, and unmotivated to work.

If the pandemic taught us anything about the future of work, it’s that organizations must evolve so people stay connected, even when they’re not at the office. Over the past three years, video has played an important role in filling that gap, connecting leaders and teams through video conferencing, webinars, online learning, and study resources.

Every great company wants to create a positive employee experience and a strong company culture. And one of the most effective ways to achieve this is through enhanced communication. So, in today’s digital world, what better way to ensure that team members stay connected and informed than through internal video?

Benefits of Internal Video

There are multiple reasons why it makes sense to leverage internal video to boost staff morale. For example:

1. Video is highly effective

Whether it’s a company update or new sales strategy, internal video is the best communication format available. But it can be even more effective when combined with the power of email. Email is a great tool — and it’s clearly the most dominant business communication tool. But you can achieve much more by incorporating video.

For instance, instead of writing a hefty block of static text to communicate an important employee update via email, try writing a brief introductory one-liner and embedding a video into the message.

Video is much more engaging than written copy. That’s because people absorb video content more quickly and effectively. You can also convey much more with video than a text-based message. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then as Dr. James McQuivey puts it, a single minute of video is worth about 1.8 million words.

2. Video can illustrate complex information in a simple way

The success of a business is measured by more than just revenue and profit. It’s also about communication. Without effective internal communication, important information can get lost in translation and employees can become frustrated. This is where videos can help to transmit information in a simple, clear, and digestible way.

Studies show that videos can improve a person’s ability to remember concepts and details. In fact, when people watch a video message, they retain 95% of the message, compared with only 10% if they read the same message in written form.

3. Video helps employers connect with employees

Communication is a two-way street. It’s not enough to simply pass information along to team members. Particularly when working remotely, it’s important that staff actively develop trusted working relationships, and feel they are working together toward the same goals.

By sending regular video updates, you can bridge the gap between your onsite team and those who work remotely at least part of the time. When employees feel more connected with each other and your organization, they’ll be in a frame of mind to collaborate and perform well.

When Internal Video Can Help You Improve Company Culture

For internal corporate videos that will improve your company culture and boost morale, you’ll want to build a library of video templates. This can help you jumpstart new content production, and simplify updates whenever they’re required. Here are some recommended types of internal video to help you improve employee morale:

1. Make onboarding easier for new employees

A proper new-hire orientation is a highly effective way to help people feel welcomed and valued. In fact, thoughtful onboarding is proven to help people become more excited about their role, which in turn reduces turnover.

But onboarding can be overwhelming. New hires are typically required to absorb huge amounts of information from Day One. Traditionally, this process involves serious paperwork and in-person training.

This is one reason why induction through video training is gaining popularity. Pre-recorded videos are an efficient, effective way to present orientation information in a reusable format that significantly reduces the need for one-on-one training. By watching and learning at their own pace, employees can quickly get a sense of your company’s culture and what’s expected of them. 

2. CEO messages

In larger companies, employees — particularly newer or more junior staff — have minimal contact with the CEO. This limits opportunities to develop workforce trust and loyalty. However, by broadcasting internal video messages, a CEO can communicate about the organization’s ongoing objectives and challenges in a personal and convincing way.

It can be difficult to achieve this same direct connection with text-based email. That’s because a memo or letter can be written by anybody. Also, many people are better at in-person communication than in writing. A video demonstrates executive leadership qualities in real time, and shows how much your leaders value the opportunity to speak directly with employees about issues that matter to them.

3. Company updates

One thing is for certain — everything changes. But this doesn’t mean people are always comfortable with change. If employees are left in the dark about organizational change, it can damage staff morale as well as productivity. Timely, clear, transparent communication can minimize anxiety about business change. This is why well-crafted internal video content can help.

Internal video can be used not only to discuss the details of any organizational change, but also help employees understand the beneficial impact expected from these changes. Video gives organizations more control over the type of messages you’re sharing, as well as the pace and timing. This can minimize rumors, cut down on speculation, and give employees a forum where they can address common concerns.

4. Training and education

Training employees can be time-intensive. It can take days or weeks to address all the  requirements of a role, and how to perform effectively in that context. But new learning tools make it easy to develop and deliver internal video content for job training, how-to tutorials, skills development, compliance, and more.

Video media is particularly valuable for continuous learning, because it lets people learn at their own pace, without disrupting day-to-day responsibilities. Whenever an employee has a break in their work schedule, they can simply click on a relevant training video and resume watching from wherever they left off in their previous session. It’s a highly convenient option.

What’s more, video can help employers standardize training content and learning experiences in ways that one-on-one or even group training cannot.

5. Team and morale building

Video is a highly personal form of communication. After watching a video, people are more likely to feel a connection with the speaker. By creating this type of personal relationship with employees, they’re likely to feel part of the same team.

To rejuvenate employee connections, create some fun and exciting video updates about what’s happening day-to-day across your company. Did you recently bring on a new client? Did you just close a huge deal? Are sales up from last quarter? Has a team just completed an ambitious new project?

These are things employees want to hear about. Everyone wants to feel they contribute to their company’s success. Seeing these accomplishments highlighted in video honors the moment and reminds employees how important they are to your organization’s achievements.

Final Notes on the Power of Internal Video

Communication is the backbone of any company’s culture. And video media is a highly personal way to reach out to employees, build connections, and strengthen cultural bonds.

Employee-focused videos keep everyone in the know. They offer understanding about rules and standards, shared values, accomplishments and business progress. Now that video communication has become a highly accessible medium for all of us, it’s worth investing time and energy to embed video messaging into every aspect of the employee experience.

Nontraditional Career Paths Could Be Your Next Talent Goldmine. Here’s Why

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For decades, higher education has been considered the best way to gain the knowledge and experience employees need for a successful career. (At least, that’s what many people assumed.) For hiring managers, a college degree has long been a baseline for candidate qualifications. But what about people who pursue nontraditional career paths? If you overlook these candidates, are you missing out on a talent goldmine?

The Truth About Nontraditional Qualifications

All too often, resumes from people without a traditional education are immediately dismissed. This practice is so prevalent that applicants with any bachelor’s degree are more likely to get an interview, even if they didn’t study relevant subjects. In other words, you may have related skills and experience, but if you don’t have some kind of college education, you probably won’t be considered.

These hiring habits are antiquated and harmful. Exclusionary practices limit the candidate pool to a select group of people who can afford the financial burden of higher education. And those who can’t afford a degree but pursue one anyway will accrue a massive debt burden just to be competitive.

Frankly, focusing solely on people with a college education is not only bad for candidates — it’s also bad for business. Here’s why. When you reject nontraditional applicants up front, you’re arbitrarily excluding qualified candidates from interviews. As a result, you’re likely to miss perfectly qualified, eager candidates with the right skills and experience. It also means your recruiting process may be longer and more costly. What’s more, it can lead to weaker hiring decisions.

Fortunately, employers are starting to soften their stance on higher education. Large companies such as Google, Bank of America, and General Motors have been removing college degree requirements from certain jobs. Not surprisingly, younger workers are welcoming these changes. For example, 75% of Gen Z workers already believe college isn’t the only way to get a good education. And as more younger workers enter the workforce, their influence on hiring practices will increase, as well.

Bur hiring managers who want to hire the best candidates don’t need to wait for prevailing trends to change. There are concrete steps that can open your organization to more qualified applicants, regardless of their educational background. So, what exactly can you do to destigmatize nontraditional education in hiring decisions, and strengthen your businesses in the process?

4 Ways to Support Nontraditional Career Paths

1. Make Sure Change Starts at the Top

To transform a hiring culture that’s deeply ingrained in your organization, everyone needs to get involved. Start by ensuring that leaders accept new hiring standards and consistently champion these changes.

Get senior executives and middle managers to buy-off on talent acquisition methods that attract candidates from alternative sources. This is especially true for leaders in charge of hiring decisions. Broadly communicate your commitment by advertising new methods internally and externally. And prepare to prove the impact of this approach by ensuring that nontraditional hires have sufficient resources and support to succeed in their role.

2. Follow Other Employers’ Lead

An increasing number of companies across a broad spectrum of industries are already letting go of four-year degree requirements. When this occurs, skills and experience requirements also tend to expand. One useful tip is to research businesses with similar talent needs so you can learn from them.

For example, analyze how organizations like yours have adjusted their job requirements and evaluate the impact of these changes. For example, if you’re in the tech industry, Dell is an excellent example. Dell actually abandoned its university recruiting program. Now, the company offers apprenticeships and certificate programs to help develop talent with a wide range of desired qualifications.

3. Build Your Own Nontraditional Education Opportunities

One of the best ways to find top job candidates is to train them in-house. There are many ways to foster nontraditional talent from within, including career development opportunities, apprenticeships, upskilling, and reskilling programs. In fact, upskilling alone can improve a company’s culture and boost CEO confidence in measurable business results.

Many companies are already using these strategies to move their hiring practices away from a traditional focus on college degrees. For instance, Accenture launched an apprenticeship program in 2016. This program has helped the company hire hundreds of productive, qualified candidates from nontraditional education paths.

4. Get Involved in Your Local Community — And Stay Involved

Have you tapped into your local community as a sourcing channel? Many organizations have discovered that hiring locally removes relocation obstacles and makes it easier to verify candidate references. By sourcing local candidates, you can also increase the likelihood that new talent will fit well into your company culture.

For the best results when hiring locally, it’s important to conduct ongoing community outreach. By building your local networks and expanding awareness and knowledge of local sources, you can more easily build a more reliable, qualified talent pool.

Final Notes on Elevating Nontraditional Career Paths

The days of hiring managers demanding degrees are numbered. Candidates don’t always have equal access to higher education — or the money and time to complete a college education. Degrees still have their place in the talent acquisition process. But increasingly, employers are seeing better results by adjusting their sourcing and hiring methods — starting with degree requirements. By leading the charge, HR and business managers can reduce skills shortages, overcome talent obstacles, and improve organizational performance.

Generative AI in Recruiting: Peril, Promise, or Both?

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Sponsored by Radancy

Generative AI has risen to the forefront of work technology at a staggeringly rapid rate — bringing opportunities for employers to achieve powerful productivity gains. But, as with other disruptive technologies, it is also raising some serious concerns. For example, what are the implications of generative AI in recruiting?

AI-based content creation tools may be relatively new, but they’re clearly here to stay. That’s why it’s important for employers to understand how this technology is changing HR ecosystems, and prepare for its impact on recruitment and hiring processes.

Meet Our Guest: Todd Maycunich

Please join me in welcoming Todd Maycunich, a driving force behind Radancy, a leading talent acquisition platform. During his 17 years at Radancy, Todd has held multiple strategic roles, including VP of Product Innovation and Director of Platform Development.

Currently, Todd serves as SVP of Radancy Labs, where he leads a global insights team that leverages primary and secondary data to understand and address key trends that are shaping the future of talent acquisition. Join us as Todd and I dig deeper into the promise and pitfalls of generative AI in recruiting…

Behind the Rise of Generative AI

Todd, welcome to #WorkTrends! Why such a massive interest in generative AI now?

ChatGPT was released to the public on November 30, 2022. It wasn’t the first conversational user experience that demonstrated the ability to reason — but it was the most popular by far. In fact, it reached 100 million users faster than any other application.

These tools are capturing the imagination. People are suddenly having experiences they haven’t had with conversational bots. And they’re wondering if we are at the precipice of the next paradigm shift in computing. So I understand the hype.

The Downside of Generative AI in Recruiting
What are some of the risks of using these tools in HR – particularly in the recruitment process?

When new technology emerges, so do new problems. That’s particularly true when the pace of technology moves as quickly as AI is today.

But after six months of studying and using this technology in the context of hiring, here’s one of my concerns:

We’re using AI now in many ways to generate content. And that content is training the AI that will ultimately generate content in the future.

I think this poses more risks than opportunities. It creates a homogenization effect, so it’s harder to stand out. This can have a negative impact on brands, among other things.

Avoiding AI-Induced “Sameness”

That’s so scary. I think this tech is wonderful, but the risk isn’t just to recruiting and hiring. It will touch everything, yes?

There’s a lot of energy focused now on making sure some guardrails are put in place. Most companies are already thinking about how to protect their brand and their voice when AI helps generate content.

So the good news is that this is top-of-mind now. And companies like ours are integrating it safely into the talent acquisition process, as opposed to being a little bit fast and loose.

Implications for the Hiring Process

Can this technology make candidates seem indistinguishable by obscuring certain characteristics or attributes?

Yes, this is fascinating. Will it make a hiring manager’s job easier, or harder? I’m torn.

For example, what happens when a candidate uses AI-based writing suggestion tools to communicate with an employer, instead of directly researching the company, the job, or even the hiring manager? Will it make suboptimal candidates seem optimal?

This is a good example of how these tools can make it difficult to see people as individuals…

For more insights from Todd about how your HR team can make the most of generative AI in recruiting, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

Also, to continue this conversation on social media anytime, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

After Layoffs, How Can Employers Handle Survivor Guilt?

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We may or may not be heading for an economic downturn this year, but we certainly are seeing a slew of layoffs. The technology industry has been most heavily affected, with more than 224,000 jobs eliminated since the start of 2022. Although many small companies are affected, we’re also seeing announcements from big names like Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Meta.

Now, layoffs are spilling into other sectors as well. For instance, Disney, Goldman Sachs, and FedEx recently announced job cuts. Even McDonald’s is downsizing.

But no matter where and when layoffs happen, we can’t help wondering about the people who’ve lost their jobs. How will they cope financially? How will their mental health be affected?

It’s natural to be concerned about their wellbeing. But what about employees who remain onboard? We shouldn’t forget about them.

Many of these layoff “survivors” are likely to be suffering as well. They may be expected to put in extra effort or take on additional tasks to cover for those who are gone. All the while, they’re worrying about whether their own job will vanish next. Survivor guilt only compounds their problems.

Recognizing the Trauma of Layoffs

When lives are lost in a traumatic event, survivors sometimes feel guilty because they didn’t die. Or they may obsess about what they could have done (but didn’t) to help save others. This survivor guilt phenomenon also emerges in the aftermath of work layoffs. Although the situation is less dire, employers should take it seriously.

Remaining employees may feel guilty because they still have a job when others lost theirs. They may believe they’re less worthy or less skilled than those who were laid off, which further compounds feelings of guilt. This is one reason why layoff survivors typically don’t perform as well as predicted, which can ultimately harm business performance.

Learning From Covid Layoffs

The last big wave of layoffs happened during the Covid pandemic. At that time, my organization conducted research to understand the impact on employees. Specifically, we asked people how much they agreed or disagreed with these questions:

  • I am annoyed or angry that I am still working, when others have been laid off or furloughed.
  • I feel guilty about having a job, when others have been laid off or furloughed.

We found that remaining employees were much more likely to feel guilty than annoyed. In fact, only 5% agreed or strongly agreed that they felt annoyed or angry. In contrast, 33% agreed or strongly agreed that they felt guilty. This means a third of respondents were experiencing survivor guilt.

Upon closer inspection, we found that the extent of this guilt varied considerably from person to person. In part, it was due to differences in personality preferences for either Thinking or Feeling, a dimension included in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) framework.

People with a Thinking personality preference prefer to make decisions based on objective logic. In contrast, those with a Feeling preference favor decisions based on values and how those decisions affect people.

Our research found that individuals with a Feeling orientation were significantly more likely to experience guilt than those who lean toward Thinking. Specifically, 44% of people with a Feeling preference agreed or strongly agreed that they felt guilty, compared to only 21% people with a Thinking preference.

How Guilt Affects Remaining Employees

Given today’s economic pressures, organizations could see a repeat of the 2020 survivor response. It’s important for line managers to pay close attention to this, because survivor guilt can erode job performance.

But here’s a potential problem: Managers and executives are far more likely to have a Thinking personality preference. This means they’re less prone to survivor guilt, themselves. They’re also less likely to notice survivor guilt in others, or take it seriously.

How can organizations bridge this gap? The MBTI assessment and similar tools can help managers understand if their staff members see the world the same way they do. When an assessment reveals misalignment, it can help managers recognize that, even if they aren’t experiencing survivor guilt themselves, they should be open to others who are struggling.

Steps to Minimize Survivor Guilt

Managers and HR specialists can take several steps to mitigate the worst effects of survivor guilt. For example:

1. Let remaining employees know that you addressed all those who were laid off as individuals and you treated them as well as possible. But don’t communicate this message if it isn’t true. People with a Feeling preference have a knack for sensing inauthenticity. So lying will make matters worse than saying nothing at all.

2. Offer to help employees who lose their jobs. For example, you may want to offer outplacement counseling to everyone who is laid off. Providing this kind of support is a moral thing to do. Plus, it can improve morale and engagement among those who remain. So, even though it increases the upfront cost of layoffs, this investment can lead to tangible business benefits.

3. Reassure employees that, even if they had been prepared to make sacrifices themselves, the outcome wouldn’t have changed. Again, don’t communicate this message unless it is true.

4. Clearly explain the rationale for layoffs to those who are leaving as well as those who remain. This helps avoid the appearance of arbitrary decision making.

5. Do not congratulate survivors because they still have a job. This may only increase any guilty feelings they’re experiencing.

6. Establish multiple channels to share information on an ongoing basis. People have different communication preferences, depending upon their personality. That’s why it’s important to offer a variety of methods, especially if your organization includes remote and hybrid workers. Here are several ideas:

Provide opportunities for people to ask questions and submit suggestions. Some people prefer live face-to-face discussions, group meetings, online forums, or instant messaging. Others need to think about questions and submit them in writing. These people may feel more comfortable with on-demand online events, online feedback forms, email messages, or anonymous surveys.

Whatever communication mix you implement, be sure to set expectations for how quickly you’ll respond to questions, ideas and comments. And once those guidelines are in place, be sure to follow through.

Final Thoughts

Whenever employers initiate layoffs, it’s vital to consider the organization’s psychological contract with employees. Unlike a tangible work contract based on things like salary and working conditions, the psychological contract is intangible. It focuses on values and “the way we do things around here.” This contract is an implied agreement between employer and employee.

Organizations must consider if and how layoffs violate this contract. When this is the case, leaders must explain their actions. Otherwise, employees with a Feeling personality preference may walk away from their jobs without any explanation or warning. They’re likely to feel justified because their values have been compromised.

To avoid these unintended consequences, think ahead about the implications of layoffs — not only for those who will lose their jobs, but also for those who will remain. Then act accordingly. If you want your organization to prosper in the long-run, ignoring survivor guilt is not an option.

How to Use ChatGPT as the Ultimate Recruitment Tool

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What is ChatGPT?

It’s no secret — recruiting professionals are still struggling to find strong candidates for job openings. Competition for top talent remains fierce, and skilled workers are in short supply. No wonder many recruiters are turning to innovative tools to identify the right candidates more quickly and efficiently.

One of these tools is ChatGPT. This AI-powered chatbot uses advanced natural language processing techniques to communicate with users in a conversational way. It is trained on a massive dataset of internet text, which makes it proficient at discussing a vast spectrum of topics.

Why Recruiters Like ChatGPT

Why is this tool becoming so popular so quickly? Recruiters recognize it is a groundbreaking solution that can transform the speed and quality of talent acquisition. For example, if you ask ChatGPT about a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and skills, you’ll receive rapid responses that can help you make better-informed decisions.

ChatGPT is particularly useful at addressing the challenges posed by remote and hybrid work. During the pandemic, virtual hiring naturally accelerated. Now, as this trend continues, recruiters are finding that ChatGPT is a convenient solution for communicating with candidates from a distance.

Below, we’ll look closer at several ways employers are leveraging ChatGPT to improve recruitment. Specifically, we’ll cover how to use this powerful tool for:

  • Sourcing
  • Screening
  • Interviewing
  • Candidate Experience

4 Ways to Elevate Recruitment Results with ChatGPT

1) Increasing Sourcing Efficiency

Today’s hiring landscape is particularly complex and competitive. This makes it difficult to find the right candidates at the right time. However, tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing this process.

One of ChatGPT’s most notable advantages is its ability to create personalized messages. In other words, automation in ChatGPT can help develop communications tailored to each candidate’s unique interests and characteristics. This means recruiters can differentiate themselves in sourcing outreach and increase their response rate.

How it works:

Enter specific information about the position and candidate qualifications. For instance, if you’re looking for a software engineer with experience in Java and Python, enter the job description and a descriptive profile of your ideal candidate. ChatGPT can generate messages that highlight the skills and experience you find most valuable.

Similarly, you can rely on ChatGPT to generate messages for marketing managers, data scientists, front-end developers, or others with specific qualifications. Your messaging can showcase your company’s strengths in these areas and appeal to candidates with relevant experience. Naturally, for best results, you’ll want to provide ChatGPT with the most complete information you’re able to share about your organization, open positions, and candidate qualifications.

ChatGPT isn’t the only AI-powered tool available for recruiters. In fact, you may want to use a tool designed specifically for talent sourcing. For example, Noon AI combines powerful language generation capabilities with data aggregation across LinkedIn, GitHub, and Crunchbase to help employers land the best candidates at a fraction of the typical cost per hire.

2) Improving Candidate Screening

Recruiting talent can be a daunting task, particularly when recruiters must process countless resumes. However, ChatGPT’s natural language processing and machine learning capabilities can dramatically streamline screening tasks. This makes it faster and easier to identify top talent.

One way ChatGPT improves this process is by extracting critical information from resumes. Instead of spending time analyzing each resume for relevant experience and skills, recruiters can input the resume data into ChatGPT. Then they can ask the bot to extract information that is pertinent to specific job requirements.

How it works:

For instance, say you’re looking for people with social media management skills. After you input these requirements into ChatGPT, the AI will highlight relevant experience and skills in a candidate’s resume.

Here are some prompts to help you get started:

  • “Please extract all relevant social media management experience and skills from this resume.”
  • “Can you help me identify any experience or skills related to project management in this candidate’s resume?”
  • “Please extract all relevant experience and skills related to customer service from this resume.”

In addition, ChatGPT can help prioritize candidates by providing AI-generated insights. By analyzing data such as past job performance and social media activity, it can help you quickly determine a candidate’s suitability for a particular role. If a candidate has a successful track record in similar positions, ChatGPT can prioritize them over other candidates with less relevant experience.

Here are some prompts to help you get started:

  • “Based on the candidate’s past job performance, can you provide insight into their potential fit for this role?”
  • “Please prioritize candidates with the most relevant experience for this role, based on your analysis of their resumes and job history.”

3) Enhancing the Interview Process

ChatGPT also significantly improves recruitment by assisting in the initial interview stage. Recruiters can leverage ChatGPT to create customized interview questions that align with each candidate’s experience and skills. This approach guarantees that each interview is more specific and targeted, leading to better-informed hiring decisions.

Here are a few sample prompts to help you get started:

  • “Hi ChatGPT. Can you help me generate interview questions tailored to this candidate’s experience and skills?”
  • “What are some interview questions I can ask to assess this candidate’s proficiency in Python programming?”
  • “Please provide me with interview questions that can help me evaluate a candidate’s communication skills.”

One of the most significant benefits of using ChatGPT for initial interviews is that it automates the evaluation of a candidate’s responses. In other words, it can analyze answer data and provides insights into each person’s strengths and weaknesses. This help you quickly identify which candidates are the best fit for a role.

Here are some example prompts to help you get started:

  • “Can you analyze this candidate’s responses to the interview questions and provide insights into their strengths and weaknesses?”
  • “Please give me an assessment of this candidate’s problem-solving skills, based on their interview responses.”

4) Elevating the Candidate Experience

ChatGPT is a robust tool that not only improves recruitment workflows but also enhances the overall candidate experience. For example, recruiters can automate the process of addressing candidate questions and concerns. This makes responding to inquiries quicker, easier and more reliable. It also helps candidates feel recognized and valued throughout the hiring process.

Here are a few sample prompts to help you get started:

  • “I want to improve candidate satisfaction by offering more transparency throughout the hiring process. ChatGPT, can you generate a message explaining next steps in the hiring process and what candidates can expect?”
  • “ChatGPT, can you help me craft a message to a candidate who wasn’t hired, but might be a good fit for future openings? I want to thank them for their interest and let them know that we’ll keep their resume on file.”
  • “ChatGPT, can you help me create a personalized welcome message for new hires? I want to provide them with information about our company culture, benefits, and onboarding process.”

ChatGPT also makes it possible to provide candidates with a seamless recruitment experience by guiding them through the application process — answering their questions and providing feedback. This reduces the amount of time and effort candidates must put into the application process, which leads to a stronger overall candidate experience.

Here are some sample prompts to help you get started:

  • “Can you help me create an application process that is user-friendly and easy to navigate?”
  • “Please provide candidates with feedback on their application status and next steps in the recruitment process.”
  • “Can you generate a message that expresses gratitude to candidates for their interest and the time they invested in our application process?”

Final Thoughts

In summary, ChatGPT helps bring a new level of efficiency and personalization to recruitment workflows. This kind of AI-driven tool makes it possible to receive and process resumes more rapidly, identify the best candidates with greater confidence, and improve transparency and responsiveness throughout the hiring process.

By making it easier for people to apply for jobs and interact with recruiters, ChatGPT ultimately contributes to stronger hiring decisions, even as it leads to a more engaging and satisfying candidate experience.

8 Ideas for Talent Acquisition Success in 2023

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Every employer’s definition of talent acquisition success is different. But many employers have learned valuable lessons over the years. Recently, we decided to capture some of those lessons so other hiring organizations could benefit. That’s why we asked business and recruiting leaders to share tips for talent acquisition success in the year ahead.

Tips for Talent Acquisition Success

From using predictive analytics to cultivating a sense of community among team members, we received a collection of answers that reads like a practical “how to” playbook. Below, we share the top answers to our question, “What’s your best strategy to gain a competitive advantage in talent acquisition this year?”

  •   Re-Engineer Your Brand as a Recruiting Tool
  •   Share Engaging Video Content
  •   Be Flexible
  •   Use Predictive Analytics
  •   Deepen Your Diversity Initiatives
  •   Assess the Market and Develop Appropriate Goals
  •   Audit Your EVP and Culture from a Prospect’s Perspective
  •   Create a Sense of Community

To learn more about how you can make these ideas work for your organization, read the full responses below…

8 Ways to Achieve Talent Acquisition Success in 2023

1. Re-Engineer Your Brand as a Recruiting Tool

We all know how important employer branding has become in the age of social media. But we sometimes overlook it as a true recruiting channel in the overall talent acquisition strategy.

Often it’s used as a marketing tool for selling a company brand. But my best tip is to re-engineer your employer brand so it acts as a recruiting tool. For example:

  • Develop lead magnets that link to employee stories.
  • Conduct career-building webinars for industry newbies and collect emails or resumes from interested registrants.
  • Create quizzes or surveys targeting people who are open to job opportunities, and use these teasers outside your career page to gather more leads.

If you’re an HR or recruiting professional, employer branding challenges you to put on your marketing hat. This year, add a sales hat to that mix so you can attract more qualified candidate leads and close more job offers.

Kelly Loudermilk, Talent Innovator, BuildHR, Inc.

2. Share Engaging Video Content

How many of us would decide to buy a house or a car without knowing vital details? Yet most employers still expect candidates to settle for this kind of hiring experience.

The problem is that smart people don’t have the time or desire to jump through all the traditional job application hoops to find out what’s on the other side. That’s why savvy employers are including more detailed information about jobs on the front end of the recruiting process, so they can attract better talent.

But what about nuanced questions where the answers won’t fit into a tidy bullet point on a job description? Questions like, “What types of challenges does your team solve regularly?” or “What is it like to work with the manager?” This is where video can help.

By recording video answers to these critical questions, recruiters have an indispensable new set of assets that can make candidate outreach more effective. Video also helps employers seem more transparent, which helps them stand out in competitive hiring situations.

Justin Vajko, Principal & Chief Strategy Guy, Dialog

3. Be Flexible

If your company expects to attract and retain talent, you must offer employee experiences that support real flexibility and build your culture around this way of working.

Our new “Work Now” research report found that leaders view the workplace as flexible because of the freedom associated with their role and stature. However, employees don’t experience the same level of flexibility.

Leaders who expect to attract and retain great employees need to listen carefully, move past assumptions based on their personal experience with the organization, and design more connected, flexible experiences for other members of the workforce.

Also, if you’re tempted to rely on pulse surveys for feedback, here’s another tip. While these tools may be helpful, remember you may be viewing results through a biased lens that doesn’t tell a true story.

Instead, move beyond pulse surveys. Engage with employees, listen to their stories, invite them to the table, and co-create the future together. That’s how you can fundamentally improve the way you work.

Douglas Ferguson, President, Voltage Control

4. Use Predictive Analytics

I believe predictive analytics is key to talent acquisition success this year. Predictive analytics is the practice of using data to make predictions about future events. With these tools, you can identify potential candidates for open positions, before jobs are even posted. That means you can get a jump on the competition and hire the most qualified candidates before other organizations can snap them up.

In addition, you can use predictive analytics to assess an individual’s probability of success in a particular role. This means your recruiters can focus on candidates who are most likely to succeed. Ultimately, advanced analytics can help you hire the right people for the right roles, and that can lead to a significant advantage in the war for talent.

Antreas Koutis, Administrative Manager, Financer

5. Deepen Your Diversity Initiatives

The emphasis on workplace diversity has continued to gain momentum. It’s now essential to consider candidates you might otherwise overlook because of their race, gender, or other factors. This isn’t about fulfilling quotas. It’s about expanding recruiting reach by tapping into a more diverse talent pool. Ultimately, this adds depth and dimension to your culture.

Try reaching out proactively to attract candidates from diverse communities. Get out of the office and connect with groups that are underrepresented in the workforce. For example, you can host recruitment events in locations that are convenient for people in these groups.

Partnering with schools in these areas is another way to introduce students to your industry and educate them about related career paths. Internships can also help you connect with young people from diverse backgrounds and help them prepare for future roles in your organization.

Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrasely

6. Assess the Market and Develop Appropriate Goals

Establishing a competitive advantage for talent acquisition success requires a laser focus on both short-term and long-term hiring needs.

Be prepared to investigate the current labor market and integrate leading-edge technologies into your recruitment processes. By investing in data-driven insights, you can develop innovative strategies that differentiate your company from the competition. For example, you can:

  • Evaluate the job market in real-time,
  • Leverage AI and machine learning to source talent more efficiently and proactively,
  • Create proactive employer branding campaigns to showcase your company culture
  • Engage with passive candidates through targeted outreach strategies.

In addition, focus on developing a comprehensive remote hiring strategy, because more companies are moving or expanding their operations away from traditional office locations.

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

7. Audit Your EVP and Culture from a Prospect’s Perspective

In a highly competitive job market, standing out and showcasing your culture is the biggest competitive advantage you have in attracting new talent.

Now is a great time to be sure your EVP shows prospective employees why they should work for you, what you offer, and how they can contribute. An EVP is simply your shop window for people you want to attract, retain, and help you grow your business.

I recommend auditing your EVP to put fresh eyes on all your candidate touch points. Review your culture, identify your strengths, and analyze your exit survey data. What can you improve? Does your “careers” website accurately reflect your desired EVP?

Get your whole team involved in this assessment process – HR, Talent Acquisition, and Marketing should work together to showcase your organization in the right light across multiple channels.

Charlie Southwell, Marketing Director, Let’s Talk Talent

8. Create a Sense of Community for Talent Acquisition Success

If your company offers remote work, you have a substantial competitive advantage.

Research indicates that remote work opportunities influence candidates’ salary requirements. But remote work structure isn’t the whole package. Candidates are also interested in knowing how employers create an environment that fosters connection among team members who may not work onsite. For instance, it’s critical to create a sense of community in a remote-based organization with practices like these:

  • Quarterly strategic team meetings
  • In-person team training
  • Regular video lunch and learns
  • Video town halls
  • Hackathons
  • Employee resource groups (ERGs)

Research indicates that people with at least 7 work friends are 35% more likely to stay with their employer. In recent interviews with employees who’ve been at our company for more than 2 years, most told us that interacting with their team is a key reason they enjoy coming to work.

Remote is a terrific way to attract new employees, but creating a sense of community is what keeps employees engaged.

Pat Mulvey, Director of Talent Acquisition, Saatva

 

EDITOR’S NOTE:  These talent acquisition success ideas were submitted via Terkel, a knowledge platform that shares community-driven content based on expert insights. To see questions and get published, sign up at terkel.io.

IT Recruiting is Still a Struggle. These Strategies Can Help

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Recent headlines are shining a bright light on high-profile layoffs in the technology industry. But for many employers, IT recruiting is still an uphill battle — largely because the IT talent shortage continues to dampen hiring plans.

For years, organizations have posted more job openings than qualified candidates could fill. The opportunity cost is staggering. To put this into perspective, consider that by 2030, at least 85 million jobs could go unfilled. In financial terms, this shortfall could translate into $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues.

Fortunately, the pandemic-era shift to remote work helped expand the global pool of candidates. But it also increased competition for the strongest candidates.

What can you do if your competitors are offering higher salaries or better benefits? It doesn’t mean your organization is out of the running. How can you gain an advantage? In this fierce IT recruiting marketplace, you can attract and retain the best global talent by focusing on three key priorities:

Strategies for Global IT Recruiting Success

1. Define Audiences and Create Candidate Personas

It’s essential to know your target audiences. This includes thinking carefully about the personas of candidates you want to attract, and understanding their career drivers.

First, your talent acquisition team and hiring managers should take time to explore the different cultures related to your target markets and understand what is important to these potential candidates. This insight will help you develop messages and incentives that resonate with the various types of people you want to draw into your organization.

For instance, messaging that a software developer in India considers important and engaging won’t necessarily interest a software developer in Bulgaria or any other country. The same principle applies to nearly every other position and region, across the board. 

Also, a large pool of talent isn’t yet ready to enter the workforce but will become a priority in the future. Don’t wait. Start considering now what it will take to reach those young candidates and appeal to their interests.

For example, an internship program is one way to build a pipeline of candidates who will soon be prepared to enter the workforce. When college students perform effectively and have a positive work experience as interns, you can build a bench of people who are ready to be hired when they graduate.

2. Develop Your Employer Brand and Showcase Your Culture

To attract and retain top global IT talent, it’s especially important to publicly showcase your employer brand and company culture in an authentic way. 

Social media is one of the easiest, most effective tools to accomplish this. Ideally, your social media presence provides visibility into your organization’s culture, mission and values, professional development opportunities, diversity initiatives, corporate social responsibility, and team bonding activities. This helps potential candidates envision what it could actually be like to work there. 

Your social media presence is especially important when attracting younger talent. In fact, The Harris Poll says 58% of Gen Z and Millennial job seekers with work experience rely on social media to research potential employers. And 48% have applied for job opportunities they found on social media.

And other research reveals that most candidates who are seriously considering a job offer will carefully review a potential employer’s social media profiles for red flags before they decide to accept.

BREATHE LIFE INTO YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND

Clearly, Gen Z and Millennials are turning to social media when looking for jobs. They’re also willing to get involved as employees if employers simply ask.

For example, an employee brand ambassador program could significantly amplify your organization’s social presence. By crowdsourcing social media activity internally, you can generate higher-quality content, increase audience reach, and drive much deeper engagement.

Employee brand ambassador programs can also capture behind-the-scenes “magic” that makes your organization a unique place to work. This could include everything from feel-good stories about managers who recognize team members in fun ways and internal team traditions like weekly trivia contests, to candid videos of silly work moments and community volunteering events. Your employees are uniquely positioned to showcase your brand in ways that no one could communicate alone.

From Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to LinkedIn and Glassdoor, the content posted by and about your organization reflects your overall employer brand. So it’s important to work closely with your marketing and social media teams to ensure your efforts support the organization’s brand identity across all platforms and channels.

3. Prioritize and Personalize Candidate Experience 

The last (and perhaps most important) piece of the global IT recruiting puzzle is to provide the best possible candidate experience. This is vital because it helps distinguish your organization from other companies that are vying for the same talent.

Your candidate experience is essentially your brand experience. In fact, 78% of job hunters agree that the candidate experience they receive directly indicates how much an employer values its people.

Not surprisingly, a weak candidate experience has caused some job hunters to withdraw from the hiring process. Their top 3 issues:

  • Disrespect during interviews
  • Poor rapport with recruiters
  • The process simply took too long.

Ultimately, a negative candidate experience can harm your brand. For example, 72% of candidates that encounter a negative candidate experience will tell others about it directly or online. That’s not the kind of word-of-mouth any employer wants to spread.

ELEVATE YOUR CANDIDATE JOURNEY

How can you ensure a strong candidate experience? Focus on each stage of the process:

  • First, carefully review and evaluate the entire journey. Start with the moment someone learns about a role at your organization. Then, move through each step until a new employee arrives for the first day on the job.
  • When candidates initially apply, is the process as easy, accessible, and straightforward as possible? Can people apply quickly online, or do you require them to go through multiple steps and submit excessive amounts of information?
  • During the interview cycle, your hiring team has a chance to shine. How do you assure candidates that you’re interested in them and you value their time? Is everyone in the hiring process able to prepare for interviews? Do they develop relevant questions, so candidates can provide useful answers? Does your process give candidates ample opportunity to ask about job expectations, organizational culture, and other key decision criteria?
  • Throughout each stage of the journey, clear, consistent communication is key. Are you keeping candidates in the loop with regular updates and next-step information? And if you choose not to move forward at any point, do you explain why in a timely, thoughtful way?

These steps may seem obvious, but if you want better results, you won’t leave them to chance. Why? According to a U.S. survey, interviews trigger anxiety in as many as 93% of job seekers. A great candidate experience can help relieve stress. This means candidates will be able to focus on discussing their strengths, demonstrating their skills, and determining if the position is a good fit.

Final Notes on Global IT Recruiting

In today’s candidate-driven global IT market, applicants have the power to choose which employer they prefer. That’s why it’s crucial for hiring managers and talent acquisition teams to know their audience, develop their employer brand, and perfect the candidate experience. When these three components work well together, your organization has the best chance of attracting and hiring the right kind of talent for every job.

A Perfect Job Offer is Much More Than Just a Number

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TalentCulture Content Impact Award Winner - 2023

How would you define the perfect job offer? Some people think it’s about finding a magic number that will seal the deal with the right candidate. But smart recruiters know it involves much more than that.

Compensation negotiations have always been complex. But now they’re changing in some fundamental ways. This is largely thanks to new pay transparency laws, which mandate that employers include salary ranges in job postings. As a result, here’s what I see ahead…

How Pay Transparency Changes The Hiring Game

Pay transparency is a boon for job seekers, who will have access to much more useful information about open positions. But this doesn’t need to be a zero-sum game. No doubt, many employers will adjust their tools and processes. And that means recruiters can prosper under these new pay transparency rules. How?

For recruiters, the goal is the same as always — bring the perfect offer to the table. But now, the way to get there is likely to be different than it was in the past.

Making a perfect job offer has always required a balance of three key objectives — fairness, cost-effectiveness, and competitiveness. But these elements are dynamic. The balance is always shifting. So the more you understand how these relationships are changing, the better.

Imagine this: A knowledgeable recruiter leans more heavily on one of these three objectives when making an offer. That strategy might work in today’s hiring climate.

But what about next year? Without the right tools, the same recruiter may not have enough information to make reliable decisions. Instead, compensation will be based on guesswork. And this could jeopardize the balance that holds these offers together.

To build more solid job offers in 2023, take a closer look at the 3 factors I’ve mentioned:

The 3 Pillars of a Perfect Job Offer

1. Fairness

Candidates should be paid fairly. It may sound obvious, but with new pay transparency laws, recruiters have a more important role in making sure this is the case.

Fairness can be tricky to prove because it’s relative. Start by comparing candidates with their own abilities, with employees who do similar work, and with others in your organization.

But keep in mind that it’s not enough for you to think an offer is fair. A candidate must also believe it’s fair. That’s because candidates are much more likely to accept an offer they think is fair than those who think it’s based on guesswork or gamesmanship.

How can you convince candidates that an offer is fair? Don’t assume they’ll take a recruiter’s word for it — they want to see the data. That means your organization will gain a significant advantage if recruiters are able to show their work. This is possible to do with modern data analytics tools, even at scale.

2. Cost-Effectiveness

Your recruiters should be able to attract the best candidates to your organization at the right price. This sounds like a reasonable expectation. But what, exactly, does it mean?

Too often, organizations treat recruiting simply as a cost center. They set a budget and expect recruiters to work within those parameters. That’s important, but there’s so much more your talent acquisition team can accomplish.

Even now, as the economy experiences a downturn, recruiters aren’t just sourcing scouts who fill open positions. They’re also talent strategists who can think holistically about your business needs and goals while also providing the best candidates at the right price.

A compensation strategy involves so many complex elements: workforce planning, budgets, guaranteed vs. at-risk pay, and financial performance. The effects of compensation decisions reach far beyond any individual job applicant. In fact, deciding how many people to hire and determining what to pay them are among the most costly and important decisions any business leader must make. So, as the economy continues to sputter, cost-effective job offers are increasingly important to every organization.

3. Competitiveness

A job offer should balance the chance of a candidate saying yes with the compensation cost to the organization. Understanding what’s at stake is essential in today’s environment. This is why many employers are upgrading their compensation analysis tools. Because in a volatile labor market, good data makes the difference between successfully navigating choppy waters and crashing against the rocks.

In a way, cost-effectiveness and competitiveness are two sides of the same coin. Recruiters want to make offers that help their organization manage costs, even as they attract and retain top talent. But without the right data, finding that balance can be difficult.

This is where recruiters are most likely to make mistakes. In a white-hot talent market, landing qualified candidates can be a struggle. In a down market, it’s a challenge to stay within prescribed budgets. That’s why the perfect offer deserves as much market intelligence as possible, no matter what the hiring climate may be.

Getting Ahead of the Curve

Fair, cost-effective, and competitive. A perfect job offer must balance all three. Recruiters can get ahead of the curve now by taking tangible steps to implement this three-pronged strategy. Specifically, they can focus on using the right information, ensuring that processes are accountable, and communicating about pay throughout each step of the recruiting journey.

At its core, a perfect job offer is based on the best available compensation insights. For successful employers, that means real-time data that indicates what job seekers expect to be paid, what candidates are offered and are willing to accept, as well as what internal data says about existing compensation standards.

The era of pay transparency is here. It may be new, different, and perhaps even a bit intimidating. But it’s also an exciting time to be a recruiting professional. Because, if you’re willing to adapt, a perfect job offer is always within your reach.

 

Transforming Talent Acquisition: One Employer’s Story

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If your organization is like most, you’re constantly looking for ways to strengthen your workforce through smarter talent acquisition tactics. Although recruiting has shifted dramatically during the past few years, some innovative practices from the pre-pandemic era are worth another look.

A Pre-Covid Lesson in Recruiting Innovation

One example is the talent acquisition process at financial services provider, TIAA. Several years ago when the company completed a full-scale recruiting revamp, we spoke with Angie Wesley, then SVP and Head of Talent Acquisition.

TIAA has since promoted Wesley to Head of Workforce Strategies and People Operations. She has also been named one of the top 100 Women in Business by the National Women’s Conference. And looking back now at how she advanced talent acquisition at TIAA, we can see why she is recognized as a visionary. She clearly is ahead of the curve. 

Because TIAA is a well-established organization, Wesley knew she needed to initiate change in ways that would inspire buy-in, particularly from the recruiting team. Her approach is a powerful lesson in how to beef up business processes with technology and avoid friction while getting everyone onboard.

Rethinking Recruiting for Modern Business Needs

There’s no question that next-level recruiting depends on modern technology. But business aspirations are extraordinarily high. And modern recruiting tools, alone, are not enough to drive a cultural sea-change. For example, many employers want to:

All of these depend on a strong tech stack. But as we’ve seen time and again, simply acquiring new tools and bolting them onto existing processes and ecosystems is not sufficient. Integration and adoption are key — and that takes serious organizational insight, training, and adjustment.

Building a Better Tech Stack For Everyone

That’s where Wesley’s role came in. She led the transformation of TIAA’s recruiting functions so team members could better navigate the modern candidate marketplace.

(Brief reminder: Before the pandemic struck, recruitment was already facing serious pressure. From a very tight talent market to shifting candidate expectations about the hiring experience, employers were fielding plenty of recruiting challenges. But none of us could imagine the Covid curve ball coming our way.)

As Wesley told TalentCulture at the time, next-level recruitment was “either going to come to us, or we were going to have to join it.”

The tools she selected and implemented helped TIAA’s recruiting team in numerous ways. In particular, they significantly improved the candidate experience and paved the way for a more streamlined, compliant hiring process.

What’s more, Wesley’s advancements didn’t get mired in resistance. All too often, organizations meet change with pushback at numerous levels, from employees who don’t want to adjust their workflows to senior leaders who aren’t sold on the ROI of a new recruiting tech rollout.

In TIAA’s case, what made the difference? Two clear objectives…

Keys to Recruiting Transformation Success


1. Provide Training to Build Familiarity and Confidence

Wesley noted that recruiters voiced more concerns than anyone else. “A lot of these recruiters are seasoned, so they have their own way of moving candidates through the process,” she explained. “We had to show them how technology actually helps them, instead of inhibiting them.”

To encourage adoption, TIAA instituted both in-person and remote (web-based) training. The content included plenty of context and real-world examples from other organizations. This approach helped staff members agree that the new tools could help improve their productivity and performance.

In addition, TIAA started tracking who uses the tools, so they can find and fix individual issues. “If we have folks that aren’t using a certain technology or tool in our recruiting process, we’re able to identify them and work with them to understand and resolve the difficulty,” Wesley explained.

2. Focus on Candidate Experience

Many recruiting technology upgrades are intended to improve the candidate experience, but sometimes they miss the mark. Wesley made sure candidates remained a top priority throughout the planning and implementation process.

These days, some of TIAA’s changes may seem like table stakes. But several years ago, these recruitment essentials weren’t a given. (Technology evolves fast!) For example:

  • Online Applications
    TIAA made sure its employment website and career pages were mobile-friendly and candidates could complete the application process on any device.
  • Digital Assessments
    The company began offering assessments that candidates could complete online at their convenience — another forward-thinking capability that is now considered a best practice.
  • Text-Based Communication
    Recruiters began relying more heavily on text messaging to conduct conversations in real-time. This led to more frequent candidate communication that helped the recruitment process feel more immediate, personalized, and meaningful. Ultimately, this     kind of responsiveness made a big difference that translated into better hiring outcomes.
  • Video Interviewing
    The hiring team also instituted video interviews. Again, this was once a leading-edge strategy that positioned the TIAA employer brand ahead of others. But the organization needed a better way to reach the passive talent market. At that time, the most attractive potential candidates were employed elsewhere. Video interviews offered more convenience and less disruption. Of course, during Covid, video interviewing became the new norm. Now, many organizations still rely on video tools to extend recruiting reach and streamline the hiring process.

Reinforcing the Human Side of Recruiting

Does TIAA’s recruiting game plan suggest that technology should replace human interactions? Not at all. Actually, this is another lesson to remember for the future of talent acquisition. The human element counts, always.

According to Wesley, “What we are finding is candidates still want that human touch in the process somewhere. They don’t want technology to take care of everything.”

Employers must strike a balance in the recruiting journey. Candidates want to experience the human side of your organization, especially when it comes to your company’s history, culture and values. Potential employees appreciate personal conversations with people who can speak on behalf of your brand.

On the other hand, candidates also value employers who quickly process their applications and provide a hiring process that is reasonably simple and painless.

So by all means, deploy the best and most innovative recruiting technology to make the whole journey easier and improve the overall candidate experience. But don’t forget the human touch. After all, those personal moments along the way may just give you an advantage in hiring the best talent.

Are Job Candidates Ghosting You? Try This Recruiter’s Advice

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Spooky season is upon us! People are carving pumpkins, dressing in crazy costumes, and swapping scary stories. So, in the spirit of Halloween, we’re taking on a truly horrifying subject. This is so frightening it can make a hiring manager’s hair stand on end at the very mention. That’s right. We’re talking about candidate ghosting. Beware!

Is Ghosting For Real?

Oxford Languages defines ghosting as “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.”

When somebody ghosts you, they stop replying to your messages, they don’t answer calls, they stop all forms of communication. There’s never any explanation—they simply disappear without a trace.

Originally a dating term, ghosting is becoming increasingly common in business, especially in the context of recruiting. For example, a 2021 survey by Indeed found that 28% of job applicants had an employer—10% more than in 2019. And today’s reality seems much worse. In fact, a U.K. poll earlier this year found that more than 75% of job hunters admit to ghosting in the past year. Scary statistics, to be sure!

Why Do People Act So Creepy?

There’s no single reason why candidates ghost potential employers. But ghosting clearly seems more common when job vacancies are prevalent in a particular sector. 

When more opportunities are available, applicants have less incentive to keep in touch. They will often receive viable offers more quickly, so when they do, they’ll accept the most attractive option and move on.

However, ghosting also happens when vacancies are few and far between. We’ve seen it up close at our own recruiting agency, even in niche roles where very few opportunities exist. 

In a discussion with our team, one brave team member confessed to ghosting a prospective employer in the past. She explained, “I was pretty far into the interview process when a few issues raised concerns for me. These were mainly about time off, travel expenses—things that probably should have been resolved up front.”

The truth is, we can make some educated guesses about a candidate’s motivations, they can ghost us for any reason. Without an explanation from the candidate, you’ll never know for sure what happened—and that’s what makes it so frustrating.

The Business Impact of Ghosting

Probably the worst impact of ghosting is that it wastes time. You could spend months sourcing credible talent and conducting interviews. You may even get to the stage where you’re negotiating a package. And then without warning—poof!—that top candidate goes silent. 

Ghosting is not only time-consuming—it is expensive as well. Consider this:

The average U.S. cost per hire is $4,700 for a non-executive role and $14,936 for an executive, according to Zippia. Most roles are filled within roughly 42 days, but it can take much longer when ghosting comes into play.

And it’s not just about the extra cost of a delayed hiring process. It’s also important to take into account the business cost of an unfilled role, which can cost employers dearly in terms of lower business productivity, quality, and responsiveness.

How Can You Combat Ghosting?

Although it’s impossible to shut down ghosting altogether, we’ve learned some techniques to help employers prevent candidates from vanishing into thin air.

1) Invest in the Relationship

Put yourself in a candidate’s shoes. As one recruitment specialist told the BBC earlier this year, “Candidates are being approached all the time with an abundance of jobs to choose from […] if they have multiple applications on the go, it can be easier to simply ignore one of them.”

If a candidate is in contact with multiple recruiters or hiring managers, it’s easy for several to fall off of the radar. But if you develop a working relationship with candidates, you’ll remain top-of-mind. Just as you would with a friend or colleague, make sure you stay in regular contact with candidates. Show that you care by touching base when you say you will and by keeping them updated throughout the hiring process.

2) Be Transparent From the Start

Before you move forward, strive to clarify what a candidate is seeking in a role, and reflect on whether your offer will meet those expectations.

People may feel uncomfortable telling you they’re unhappy or unsure about an aspect of a role. Instead, they may find it easier to simply move on. So be sure you understand their job requirements from the start of your working relationship.

In particular, don’t keep the details of an offer secret. For example, if a candidate is interested only in working remotely, an in-office location will likely be a dealbreaker. It’s best to be upfront about every aspect of the role before you make an offer. This saves time for both you and the candidate.

3) Establish a Long-Term Connection

Smart hiring managers and recruitment specialists help candidates recognize the value of maintaining a relationship throughout their careers. Rather than just completing an immediate transaction, recruiters can introduce candidates to influential people within their industry and help build their professional network over time.

Ghosting can cause unintended reputational damage. So, if you help candidates see the long game, they’ll be less likely to abruptly end your communication. 

4) Respond Kindly to a Rejection

We’ve seen employers lash out at candidates who decline an offer. This is a surefire way to encourage more ghosting! If a candidate rejects a job application, remember they’re doing you a favor by responding at all.

Keep responses polite and professional. Thank the candidate for their transparency, wish them well, and keep the door open for the future. It’s a surprisingly small and very well-connected world. So think about how much goodwill a gracious response can help your organization, in the long run.

5) Ask People Not to Ghost

Sometimes the best way to encourage candidates not to ghost you is just to…ask! Tell people upfront that if they change their mind about the opportunity at any point, you would really appreciate a heads-up.

This approach has often worked for our team. It lets us be more proactive in filling roles for our clients. Because we have spent time nurturing trust with our candidates, they tend to be candid in sharing their thoughts.

Of course, this may not work every time, but it can’t hurt to try.

6) Recognise When You’re Being Ghosted

…and move on. Don’t assume that a candidate will eventually get back in touch with you to seal the deal. If a candidate is wasting your time, then your energy is better spent on finding a more suitable applicant elsewhere.

Similarly, you should never put all your recruiting eggs in one candidate basket. With ghosting on the rise, it’s crucial to have at least one active candidate at any given time. But ideally, you should keep two or three more high-quality candidates in the running for an open position, as well.

7) Don’t Ghost

You may have been ghosted, but there’s never a reason for an employer to be a ghost. Employers who blow off applicants can quickly develop a bad reputation for ghosting and wasting candidates’ time, too. 

If we expect candidates not to ghost, we must treat them the way we would like to be treated. Recognizing the time and effort unsuccessful candidates have put into their applications is a must.

Employers should keep all candidates informed of the outcome of their application, whether it is positive or negative. Otherwise, that negative candidate experience may come back to haunt your organization in the future.

All this Ghosting Talk Is Kind of Scary!

But don’t worry, you made it to the end. And now you’re much better equipped to avoid those wicked ghosts. Poof!

Why Benefits for Employee Caregivers Are Good Business

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We’ve all seen alarming headlines about “The Great Resignation.” Some observers say it shows no signs of letting up. McKinsey recently called it the “quitting trend that just won’t quit.” And data confirms that the “big quit” is real.

In May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. voluntary quit rate was 25% higher than pre-pandemic levels. It’s hard to ignore numbers like that. And chances are you’ve experienced this recently in your own organization, as more top performers leave for various reasons.

What’s behind this surge in turnover? The pandemic forced us all to reevaluate what’s most important in life. Now, many are choosing to be more present for family while also juggling a demanding career. But the choice is especially challenging for those with family members who need special care.

This segment of the workforce is larger than you may think. In fact, according to the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, 1 in 5 American workers also double as an unpaid family caregiver for an aging, ill or disabled loved one. The amount of time they spend on caregiving, in addition to their full-time careers, isn’t trivial. The AARP estimates that these caregivers devote an average of 23.7 hours a week to these tasks.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that employee caregivers are struggling mentally, physically, and financially. Nearly 60% are dealing with clinical depression and anxiety. Experts say they are stretched so thin that the snowball effect of caregiving will cause 1 in 3 to leave the workforce entirely.

New Insights About Employees as Caregivers

A new study entitled “Following The Journey of Family Caregivers” commissioned by Homethrive, Home Instead, and Certification in Long-Term Care (CLTC) sheds more light on how employee caregivers are responding to the pressure.

Nearly 70% of survey respondents who identify as employed said it has been important to rely on paid in-home care because it helps them avoid leaving their job, or because it helps them concentrate better at work.

“I wasn’t surprised to hear (working caregivers) turning more to paid care,” says Eileen J. Tell, a Boston-area researcher who administered the survey. “They cited the importance of doing well at their job and the desire to maintain their job.”

It’s no wonder why working caregivers said they need paid assistance. For example:

  • 35% often provide companionship
  • 33% often provide transportation help
  • 26% often help with daily living activities
  • 23% often help arrange care
  • 26% often help make care decisions
  • 31% always help make home safety changes

Respondents also said if they received help coordinating care, it would take a major load off their already piled-high plates. Specifically:

  • 42% want coordination with doctors or care teams
  • 38% want assistance in finding service providers
  • 34% want help finding benefits eligibility
  • 34% want meal delivery coordination
  • 32% want recommendations for devices and equipment
  • 31% want help assessing home safety

Interestingly, the study found that only 6% of working caregivers receive support from an employer-provided benefit program to help find reliable paid in-home care for loved ones.

What about the other 94% without access to employee caregiving benefits? There is good news. An increasing number of forward-thinking employers are offering these unsung heroes benefits packages that include family caregiving options.

Why is this a wise choice? Employers gain in multiple ways. For example…

Business Benefits of Supporting Employee Caregivers

1. Restore Retention

When employees have an option to access the right kind of assistance, when they need it, they’re less likely to leave. They’re also more focused and productive at work. Offering this benefit can position you as an employer who cares about worker wellbeing on all levels—which in turn fosters a sense of company loyalty.

2. Rev-Up Recruitment

You want to attract the best employees possible. Offering a family caregiving benefit is one way to excel at recruiting because your company will appeal to candidates who value an employer with compassion, a concern for families, and a sense of community.

3. Improve Employee Wellbeing

According to Mercer’s 2022 Global Talent Trends study, employee wellbeing programs are among the top five reasons why people remain at a company. Caregiving can be a time-consuming and emotionally draining responsibility. A family caregiving benefit helps take some of this burden off your employees and improves their wellbeing.

4. Increase Productivity

Time is money. And caregiving can take up a lot of time.

One employee might spend hours on the phone setting up doctor appointments for an aging parent, while another might leave work frequently to take a special needs child to therapy.

It all takes time away from the workday, decreases productivity, and increases employee stress. But with a family caregiving benefit, employees and their loved ones will receive higher quality support when it matters most, so your business productivity will flourish.

5. Revolutionize Work-Life Balance

A family caregiving benefit can drastically improve work-life balance. When employees continually put others’ care ahead of self-care, it can translate into mental and physical health issues such as exhaustion, depression, and anxiety. Those issues inflate your company’s healthcare costs.

When a caregiver’s mindset has shifted to a “life-work tilt,” career advancement, salary increases, and professional praise are important. But quality time with loved ones, the opportunity to explore passions outside of work, and overall mental wellbeing are also critical.

Leaning into this “life-work tilt” can have multiple advantages. By proactively acknowledging the needs and responsibilities of family caregivers and offering tangible support, you can set your organization apart. And when your employees find a better balance between work and life, they can focus better, be more productive, and stay loyal to your company.

6. Protect Your Bottom Line

High turnover is expensive. The cost often extends beyond investing in recruitment to replace lost workers. For example, institutional knowledge and team morale also suffer. In addition, productivity can take a hit, which in turn, can reduce innovation and growth. Ultimately, this negative spiral can prevent your company from reaching its full potential. 

A Solution That Helps Employees and Employers

Family caregiving benefits are a win-win.

They’re a win for employers because they help improve workforce wellbeing, retention, and productivity—all while protecting your bottom line.

They’re also a win for employees because they help support work-life balance, mental health, and job satisfaction. 

As Eileen Tell explains, “I think it’s key that employers understand how important it is to family caregivers to feel like they don’t have to choose between their jobs and their role as a family caregiver. Employees may look like they’re not paying attention to work, but they really don’t want to compromise their job and they don’t want to skimp on their family responsibilities.”

Employer Branding: Illustrate Your Story With Authenticity

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Life lessons roll in at an interesting pace. Sometimes they are slow and steady. Other times, they fly at us with momentum and fervor. Let’s just say that COVID has made a difference in how we’ve been learning and adapting these last few years. Some decision-making was simply made for survival; some decisions gave us an opportunity to shake up the status quo. In the world of HR, I just want you to know: WE SEE YOU. And now, more than ever, there is pressure to retain employees and appeal to future team members in a challenging market. Here’s a tip: Employer Branding Matters! Build an authentic brand by taking visible, measurable action. 

What IS Employer Branding?

According to SHRM: 

“An employer brand is an important part of the employee value proposition and is essentially what the organization communicates as its identity to both potential and current employees. It encompasses an organization’s mission, values, culture and personality. A positive employer brand communicates that the organization is a good employer and a great place to work. Employer brand affects recruitment of new employees, retention and engagement of current employees, and the overall perception of the organization in the market.”

Employer branding isn’t new, but the way we look at it has evolved. People have always wanted to work for companies that treat people well, compensate fairly, and provide something positive to the community or society. And younger generations are quick to point out the importance of the latter. They deeply desire an alignment with an organization that walks the talk. The time is ripe to look critically at employer brands – how they essentially sell themselves to current and potential employees – and ensure there is alignment with the truth. 

Why does Employer Branding Matter?

The company Blu Ivy defines themselves as, “employer branding, talent recruitment and culture architects.” Their website hosts a robust section on employer branding – with broad and specific whys and how.  An article that resonates with me is, “Why Strong Employer Brands Are Ahead of The Competition.” It points out that an employer brand may take some time to construct, so start now. And the top three reasons include:

  1. You can stand out from the crowd. (KEY for today’s recruiting challenges!)
  2. You can walk the walk. (Note: let’s not wait to be “called out” on discrepancies.)
  3. You can share real results and stories. (This is where branding, storytelling and marketing play a role in telling the story of YOUR employee experience.)

The article states, “Winning employer brands…know that the best way to attract candidates to their organization is to show, not tell. For example, rather than having the same-old stock photography showing happy people in cubicles, they’re creating day-in-the-life videos that illustrate what working at their company is actually like.” 

Think Creatively About Employer Branding

Illustrating your employer branding requires creativity and fresh approaches. It isn’t as difficult as it used to be to provide a glimpse into daily life. Consider videos, interviews, true snapshots of your workplace culture… Anyone on social media has grown to expect visuals that give insight into what it’s like to live, vacation, play and even work somewhere. Use visual and storytelling tools across a variety of platforms to offer real insight. 

So what are you doing to illustrate a “day in the life?” Stock photography and some group pictures from the holiday party aren’t enough (or even accurate). While industry may dictate what is more or less appealing on camera (climbing a wind turbine vs. coding), take the time to think about how to depict the positive aspects of your employment. How can it be captured? What is our culture and how do people feel as they accomplish their work?

Employer Branding Should Be Authentic

But the most important point here is to be authentic. If you aren’t all happy hours and foosball and golfing, don’t sell that. Frankly, those arcade-like workplaces have already had their heyday. I would argue that you SHOULD have some enjoyable activities, team bonding, family friendly, pet-loving, character-building activities that you can showcase. But don’t promise anything but the truth. False advertising creates a long and expensive path to unsatisfied employees and turnover. Do employees volunteer? Exercise together? Have reading clubs? What is special about how your leaders and employees interact, grow, learn and succeed?

In a fantastic article on BenefitsPro, “2022: Human resources and recruiting predictions”, “Employer branding will make or break companies in 2022.”

It continues:

“Employer branding has risen to a top, dire priority for companies to attract and retain talent – and it will continue to be top of mind next year. Companies need to effectively communicate their company benefits, perks, values, vision, and most importantly culture, leaning into their unique value proposition and conveying what makes them different. We saw that candidate preferences have changed dramatically this year and companies will need to ensure they adjust their value proposition and policies accordingly to stay competitive.

“HR teams will implement more employer brand-focused initiatives, such as hosting and attending industry and recruiting events, updating their career pages and Glassdoor, applying for company awards, and even hiring a Head of Employer Brand to ensure all communications are aligned and consistent across various channels.”

Go Straight to The Source

In an article on Stories Inc., they underscore this point: you need good content from the right sources. It states:

“The past two years have seen unprecedented challenges, and a heavy burden of proof on your employer brand to show how it supports its people. Candidates are keenly interested in how you’ve cared for your team members in the pandemic and in the demands for increased inclusion, diversity and belonging.

They’re interested in how your culture has held up or changed.

They’re interested in what it looks like to work at your company right now.

And, they’re only going to believe it when they hear it from your employees.”

Ask the Right Questions

So what do you do? Start talking to employees and asking the right questions. Here are some suggestions to get the ball rolling. 

  • Why do you work here? 
  • What makes our team or organization unique?
  • What do you wish you had known when you were learning about us? 
  • How do you describe your workplace environment to your friends and family?
  • What would make your daily job better? 
  • How can we better align our ideals with our actions?

This is a content goldmine, as well as an opportunity to make some changes. Think about how you’re going to ask and capture answers (survey, videos, conversations and notes?) Then, ask yourself: What is worth sharing with the world? What improvements can make us more competitive for future talent? Where are we misaligned with how we present ourselves with the daily experience we provide to employees? 

Employer Branding is Worth the Effort

Employer branding is not a simple undertaking, but almost inevitable. And doing it right requires some hard conversations and auditing about the truth of the brand. Bottom line: In the battle for recruitment and retention, it is critical to KNOW your employer brand, ILLUSTRATE it well, and be AUTHENTIC in how to showcase the business. 

How does your organization ensure that the employer brand matches reality? Email me at ctrivella@talentculture.com to share your tips and successes!

Image by Fizkes

Recruiting Today: How to Humanize a Digital Hiring Experience [Podcast]

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A recent analysis by McKinsey found that the pandemic has transformed how we work for good. Yes, some of us will return to the workplace. Many others, though, will become part of a hybrid team or remain remote contributors. Some of us may never return to a traditional office setting. This rapid change has hit many HR functions just as hard. Recruiting today, after all, is not what it was a year ago. And it isn’t going back to the old normal ever again.

Recruiting — I know from experience — can be slow to change, though. It’s not that hiring wants to be old-fashioned. But the roots of the entire hiring ecosystem have grown strong due to existing personal connections and through the growth of human relationships. So for many recruiters, the questions have become: 

  • How do we extend those connections and relationships into the digital realm?
  • How do we create a great candidate experience without — at least until an employer is ready to extend a job offer — ever meeting in person? 

Let’s discuss… on #WorkTrends Conversations.

Our Guests: PeopleLift’s Tim Visconti (CEO) and Tim David (COO)

On this episode of #WorkTrends, I welcomed two Tims — Tim Visconti, CEO at PeopleLift, and Tim David, PeopleLift’s COO. The goal for our time together: Discussing how the recruiting landscape has changed, forever. Both Tims are uniquely positioned to talk about this timely topic. After all, PeopleLift is a rapidly growing Employee Experience (EX) consulting firm with operations in three countries. They truly have a global perspective on the challenges recruiters face in today’s marketplace.

Of course, I had to start our conversation by asking what about recruiting has changed most since the pandemic began. Tim Visconti’s answer was at first brief but spot-on:

“What hasn’t changed?”

Recruiting Today: Humanizing a Mostly Digital Process

After taking on topics like PeopleLift’s approach to recruiting today, the best recruiting tools available, and diversity and inclusion, I asked the questions on everyone’s mind: How do we humanize a mostly digital process while creating an excellent candidate experience. Tim Visconti helped with an insightful answer:

“It’s about being intentional. During our interview process, our recruiters are very intentional about keeping in touch with candidates. They are really present in those conversations; they’re engaging personally with candidates — every step of the way.”

Tim Davis agreed the human aspect of recruiting is more important than ever now, even when the process is mostly digital:

“Bringing the human aspect back to the recruiting process is key. Tools that started coming out prior to COVID were meant to remove the human interaction. So I’m excited to see the human aspect come back to that recruiting profession now. That is the cornerstone of our company; it is how we operate. We operate because we care. And it’s exciting to see how other companies are employing that methodology as well.”

I love that we’re getting back to human — and back to concepts like caring. After all that we’ve been through in the last fifteen months, could the timing be any better?

I encourage you to check out the fine work PeopleLift is doing in recruiting today, as well as their caring approach to employee experience. And I thank them for sponsoring this episode of #WorkTrends Conversations! And please consider connecting with Tim Visconti on LinkedIn here, and with Tim David here.

Now… go be human.

 

 

Image by Olena Yakobchuk

4 Tips for Conducting Better Online Job Interviews

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In 2020, 82 percent of business leaders surveyed by Gartner pledged to continue remote work arrangements permanently. This translates to millions of people working from their homes and the need to improve how we hire people virtually. So how do we conduct better online job interviews?

Virtual hiring has risen as an enormous concern for organizations going partially and fully remote. Most human resources professionals and recruiters have extensive training in interviewing. However, their experience tends to be limited to an interview process that includes at least one in-person component. And evaluating applicants without the advantage of face-to-face interactions brings unique challenges.

Odds are, your business will grapple with this issue sooner or later, particularly with today’s penchant for remote working. To ensure better outcomes, try adopting the following tactics for your online job interviews.

Leverage Position-specific Tech Platforms

Every job requires specific skill sets. Case in point: An entry-level customer service representative needs different talents than a marketing manager. In your role, you must design interviewing journeys that allow you to clearly evaluate candidates based on the position available. Fortunately, plenty of SaaS providers have created portals to help you meet your placement goals.

For instance, your organization routinely might need more IT professionals. How will you confidently evaluate each candidate? The answer lies in the right tech stack additions. Daniel Borowski, a founder of Coderbyte, says to look at code assessment platforms that contain libraries of pre-programmed coding challenges, as well as virtual interviewing rooms with video and whiteboards. Take the time to investigate cloud-based software for your most common online recruitment needs. You’ll feel more comfortable with your selections.

Expand Your Interviewing Steps

If your company has been around for a while, you probably have a standard in-person interviewing process. For example, maybe you post job descriptions on Indeed, use HR tools to identify top candidates, arrange interviews, and then decide. Yet what works in more traditional recruitment may not provide you with enough information about virtual applicants.

So dust off that old process and map out possible new steps.

Look for specific gaps in your current process:

  • Could you add more online group interviews?
  • Perhaps change the flow of your interviewing process?
  • Conduct phone and Zoom interviews before making offers?

Adding extra steps can fill in the blanks and make you feel better about your choices. Just resist the temptation to lengthen the process timeframe too much – or you could lose talented job seekers to competition ready to move quicker through the hiring process.

Develop and Deploy Pre-hiring Tests

Around eight out of 10 companies already use automated pre-assessment testing software in the earliest stages of their virtual interviewing, according to research from SHRM. Predictive assessments streamline top-of-funnel recruitment strategies, allowing you to concentrate your efforts on high-quality candidates. Yet you should feel free to initiate pre-assessment testing in later-stage segments of the online job interviews, too.

The right testing method allows you to gauge everything from an applicant’s commitment to core ability. Just make sure you test consistently for each role to avoid hiring bias. As an example, you might ask your top sales team candidates to generate online proposals. You would give them parameters, need-to-know information, and a due date. Once you receive all the proposals, you can evaluate them based on fit. As a bonus, you’ll know which applicants can hit the ground running and which would need extensive training.

Revisit Your Employer Brand

Even to a candidate who may never set foot in your headquarters, workplace culture matters.

Every organization maintains cultural norms and expectations—even 100 percent remote businesses. Consequently, spend time refining and defining your cultural standards. If you have trouble putting them into words, ask current remote, in-person, and hybrid employees for feedback. The information you gather can help inform your job descriptions and interviews.

Once you’ve refined your employer brand, ask yourself how you can tell if someone will mesh with that brand and their work team. More specifically, determine how you’ll know if they’re a fit if you only see them on a screen?

Experience shows that asking thoughtful questions about their working preferences is a great place to start when gauging fit within a brand, culture, and team. Next, ask what they want from their job experience. Then, sit back, listen, and take notes.

Remember to factor in the importance of cultural adaptability, too. An analysis evaluated by Harvard Business Review asserts that adaptability plays a huge part in an employee’s overall success. Therefore, even if a top candidate has limited immediate “fit factors,” the candidate may adapt to your culture rapidly.

Even after a year of experimentation, conducting online job interviews may not feel yet intuitive. Give yourself more time to adjust. Simultaneously, put strategies in place to make your online job interviewing process better and your choices easier. You’ll end up putting more of the right people into your open positions.

 

Photo: Constantinos Panagopoulos

#WorkTrends HR + Marketing: Employer Brand Superteam

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Meghan M. Biro brought not one but two guests to the #WorkTrends podcast this week: Diane Adams, Sprinklr’s Chief Culture and Talent Officer, and Grad Conn, Sprinklr’s Chief Experience and Marketing Officer. The topic: what happens when HR and marketing really work together on talent strategies. In this case, the result is nothing short of alchemy. The two will be appearing at the upcoming HR Transform conference, later this year. “Creating a Winning Culture Where People Thrive Personally & Professionally.” The #WorkTrends audience got a taste of things to come.

Diane and Grad Conn talked about the approaches they’re using at Sprinklr to attract engage and retain top talent — which openly draws on the best of marketing and HR in order to build a workplace culture that people can be proud of — and are. They shared marketing strategies that cross over from customer engagement to candidate and employee engagement. Brand messaging takes on a whole new meaning when it has to do with the employer — but when your employees are on board, the benefits extend directly to your customers as well.

Diane talked about how they built a dynamic partnership between HR and marketing, establishing values for Sprinklr that drove stellar employee as well as customer experiences. She said, “We referred to it as The Sprinklr Way —  our foundation for how we live, how we work, and how the values of our employees and our company are then transcended externally to our customers. Happy employees, happy customers.” 

“People sometimes think of marketing as just an external function. But you have to sell to your own employees just as much as you need to sell to customers,” Grad pointed out.  

This was a conversation that hit home: employer brand isn’t just an idea, it needs to be a reality in every organization. In this era when your employer brand is only as good as the outside world’s perception, crafting an authentic and appealing culture is a smart business strategy. As Meghan noted, given today’s focus on crafting great workplace cultures, “it all makes sense.” 

Listen to the full conversation and see our questions for the upcoming #WorkTrends Twitter Chat. And don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode. 

Twitter Chat Questions 

Q1: Why are some employers losing ground at attracting and engaging talent?  #WorkTrends
Q2: What strategies can help organizations create a great workplace culture? #WorkTrends
Q3: How can leaders help their organizations better bring in and keep top talent? #WorkTrends

Find Diane Adams on Linkedin and Twitter
Find Grad Conn on Linkedin and Twitter

This post is sponsored by HR Transform.

Photo: NeOn Brand

#WorkTrends: Great Expectations: Living Your Employer Brand

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This month TalentCulture has been focusing on how people and companies can learn to do better. Nowhere is that more crucial than in the sphere of employer brands. We’re in an era now where companies don’t have full control over their brand: no matter how they present or package it, the outside world may have a wholly different take that outweighs the best intentions. But an employer brand isn’t just an academic exercise, as Meghan M. Biro noted on the latest #WorkTrends — even if that’s how many companies are approaching it now. 

To better clarify the link between employer brands and profitability, Meghan brought in Debra Ruh, a visionary in the field of employer branding. Ruh founded Ruh Global IMPACT, a firm that focuses on branding as well as digital marketing and global disability inclusion strategies (and more). She’s also the mother of an amazing daughter who inspired Debra to focus on the true essence of diversity, and why we need to embrace human potential right now.

“We’re talking about intelligence when we haven’t even decided as a human species what that means,” Debra said.  “The human potential is there. We really need to rethink what we mean by that — and stop deciding that certain people don’t belong in the workforce.”  By doing so, she added, companies are shortchanging the power of true diversity — a proven driver of higher levels of innovation and performance. Witness companies like Amazon, Barclays and Atos, who are bringing people with disabilities into their workforce, and programmatically expanding their commitment to inclusion, with strong business results. By so doing, they’re also shifting the perception of what their brand truly stands for. They’re not just talking the talk, they’re walking it.

What’s key, Meghan noted, is understanding all the touchpoints involved in a brand, and who really controls it. The days of grumbling in public and getting a cease and desist are over — in a sense, the brand is now owned by those who perceive it. And its fate has more to do with that, and with the perception of market influencers, than the company itself. But our expectations are higher than ever, both agreed. “We want our brands — especially the brands that we work for — to stand for more,” Debra said. Tune into this great conversation to find out how to shift a brand into a desirable, authentic, diverse culture. And have faith: it’s never too late to course-correct.

Listen to the full conversation and see our questions for the upcoming #WorkTrends Twitter Chat. And don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode. 

Twitter Chat Questions

Q1: Why are some employers failing at becoming an employer of choice?  #WorkTrends
Q2: What strategies can help organizations become an employer of choice? #WorkTrends
Q3: How can leaders help their organizations live their employer brand? #WorkTrends

Find Debra Ruh on Linkedin and Twitter

Photo: Razvan Chisu

#WorkTrends: The Journey to a Great Employer Brand

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#WorkTrends host Meghan M. Biro sat down with employer brand expert Susan LaMotte to talk about the power of great employer brands — and why every organization needs to assess whether their own employer brand conveys the essence or the eh of the company. Susan, the Founder and CEO of exaqueo, has worked with an incredible range of organizations, from chicken dinners (Boston Market) to communications (T-Mobile) to education (Princeton University) to the empire-sized CVS Health. With all, though, she guides companies to get to their heart and soul. Anything less isn’t going to attract talent or engage employees, she noted.

Companies spend incredible energy and people power on marketing, but CMOs and their teams are focused on customers, Susan said. And forging a great employer brand takes focusing on employees — but using some of the same strategies: research and more research. Learning everything about employee’s values, needs, behaviors, life in and outside of the workforce is all a part of it, and so is enlisting everyone, every stakeholder, to be part of the effort. And the most important part of the employer brand? “Consistency,” Susan said. “On the marketing side, we look at the attributes of a product and then we settle on the strongest ones that are most important to our customers to build our brand on. We should do the same thing on the employer brand side as well.”

“You hear that, everybody?” Meghan said. “That is absolutely the word of the day.” 

The two discussed the importance of listening — how it’s too easy for executives to overlook complaints or concerns from employees. They talked about candidate experience as well — and agreed that the candidate experience, in fact, is part of the employer brand. “We’ve got this continuous sense that everybody is connected to the lifecycle, the brand, the outcome, the rest of the world,” Meghan said, underscoring that brand meaning isn’t static, but dynamic. It’s every interaction, Susan concurred, even from the first time a candidate hears your brand name: That initial contact “gives them a perspective,” she said. “You’re branding from the first moment.” And as leaders, she added, “that’s what we have to pay attention to.”

Listen to the full conversation and see our questions for the upcoming #WorkTrends Twitter Chat. And don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode. 

Twitter Chat Questions

Q1: Why aren’t some brands better at discovering their employer brand?  #WorkTrends
Q2: What strategies can help organizations better create their employer brand? #WorkTrends
Q3: How can leaders shape a powerful, authentic employer brand? #WorkTrends

Find Susan LaMotte on Linkedin and Twitter

#WorkTrends: Why You Need a Talent Brand, Not an Employer Brand

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This week on #WorkTrends, agency founder and author Lee Caraher has a wake-up call for all of us. Her message? We need to stop focusing on our “employer brand” and start building a talent brand.

You can listen to the full episode below, or keep reading for this week’s topic. Share your thoughts with us using the hashtag #WorkTrends.

Find a Better Way to Retain Millennials

Back in 2008, Lee had a problem — a big one. Her agency, Double Forte, couldn’t retain millennial employees. At first she figured it must be the millennials’ problem, but when they kept quitting she realized it was the organization’s problem.

She was reading negative headlines everywhere about millennials when she decided to stop looking for answers elsewhere and build her own solution. “I rejected everything bad that I heard,” she says. She knew finding a solution mattered: “A business without millennials is a business without a future,” she says.

She recommends one big change to anyone leading a team: Build a culture of appreciation. “The research shows that teams that feel appreciated outperform those that don’t by 30 percent. I grew up in a household where ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ were implied,” she says. “I thought people knew I appreciated them, but they didn’t. So I started saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and by the end of the month everyone else was saying it too. Our nonbillable time went down. People worked better, faster and more efficiently.

“This is a human trait, not a millennial trait. We all work better when we’re appreciated. People come to our office now and say ‘You guys are so nice to each other.’ But that didn’t just happen. You have to practice.”

Through trial and error and a lot of hard work, the company tripled the tenure for people under 30 — to 4 1/2 years.

Create a Talent Magnet

Building an employer brand is about building a great place to work. That’s really become “an arms race of perks,” Lee says — the best paternity leave, free lunch, laundry on-site. “But the best talent is not inspired by perks. The people who are going to drive your business aren’t inspired by free lunch. They are inspired by being around other great people.”

Instead of trying to build an employer brand, Lee’s team focused on building a talent brand — a company known for attracting great talent. That distinction will only become more important as organizations compete for top talent, she says. “If you’re known as a talent brand where great people come to work, you’re going to have a strategic advantage over just being a great place to work.”

Build a Place for Boomerangs

“If you’re born today, you have a 50 percent chance of living to 104,” she says. “We’re going to be working for 60, 70 years, people. There’s no way that one company can hold someone for 70 years.” Because of that change, companies have to think differently about their alumni — former employees. “If we’re going to be sustainable, we have to break the old paradigm of ‘If you leave, you’re dead to me,’ ” she says. “When someone leaves that may not reflect on us at all. It’s all about the person crafting their career.”

So, it’s normal and expected for someone to leave, but if you have a strong talent brand, you might be able to get them back to your organization down the line. “Inspire loyalty for that person’s entire career,” she says.

Continue the conversation. Join us on Twitter (#WorkTrends) for our weekly chat on Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m. Eastern, 10:30 a.m. Pacific or anywhere in the world you are joining from to discuss this topic and more.

Hire a Marketer for Your HR Department

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If there’s one trend that is picking up speed in today’s organizations, it’s the realization that keeping departments in separate silos isn’t the most efficient way to do things. Cross-departmental collaboration is helping companies tap into the skill sets of their talent in new and exciting ways. For example, consider how well HR and marketing work together. When you think about the fact that HR handles recruitment and, as part of that, is becoming more focused on managing the employer brand—hiring a marketer to join your HR team makes sense.

According to the Harvard Business Review, 40 percent of CEOs surveyed said they are relying on employer branding to secure their long-term hiring needs. And when it comes to branding, who better than a marketer to step in and take the lead?

Explore some of the reasons why your HR team could use a marketer:

HR is rooted in marketing principles. In a way, the HR department plays an integral role in shaping the company culture, from the way the employer brand is represented during the recruiting process, to the how employees perceive the company. As EmotiveBrand.comexplains, “The authenticity of the employer brand depends on HR and marketing working together to create an employee experience that is true to the brand.”

Marketers know how to nurture relationships online. The nature of marketing is such that marketers tend to be up on the latest technology tools and platforms to help build customer relationships, says Rajveer Gangwar on LinkedIn. Just as marketers use social media to engage customers, such tactics can—and should—be applied to recruitment and retention efforts. Having a marketing-minded HR team member can help you stay on the cutting-edge.

Employer reputation management will help with talent acquisition. In addition to putting forth a corporate image, it’s important to stay tuned to the conversation. According to a 2016 Glassdoor survey, 69 percent of people said they were likely to apply to a job if the company hiring manages its employer brand actively (e.g., responds to reviews, updates their profile, shares updates on the culture and work environment). Having a marketing person on your HR team can ensure that you are addressing employee reviews and other feedback appropriately and promptly.

A marketer can help maintain a consistent voice across all channels. Chances are, you already have a great team of marketers on staff who work hard to establish branded collateral, so shouldn’t HR benefit from that as well? Dell is just one of many organizations that realized an HR partnership with marketing was a win-win all around. Not only did the pairing allow for a more consistent employer brand identity, but having marketing step in allowed the HR pros to remain focused on the recruiting tasks that they did best.

In-house marketing can help HR improve employee morale. You don’t want to wait until your employees leave your organization before finding out what they really thought of the company. Keeping the lines of communication open and listening to the digital conversations(as marketers do) can provide valuable insight as to what drives and motivates your employees. In turn, you can determine which HR programs are working and if you should implement new ones.

Learn the data and analytics ropes from marketing. Today’s marketers have more data and insights to inform their decisions than ever before, and so does HR—if it can learn how to track and measure performance, that is. Bringing on a marketer to track relevant metrics can help HR improve employee engagement.

From recruitment to employee relations to retention, HR is more complex than ever before. If you have the opportunity to add someone to your HR team, consider someone who can think like a marketer and elevate your employer brand.

Photo Credit: teamgivingsacramento Flickr via Compfight cc

This post was first published on V3Broadsuite.

How to Effectively Tell Your Employer Brand Story

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As competition for top talent continues to heat up, here’s a recruitment strategy worth embracing—tapping into your company’s biggest assets, your employees. By now you’ve come to realize that for better (or for worse!), the people who work for your company double as corporate ambassadors. They’re “the living, breathing embodiment of what you stand for as an employer,” writes Adam Glassman, a recruitment strategies manager. What they say about your corporate brand on social media and online job sites matters.

The concept of the “employer brand”—how you communicate your organization’s values, culture, and personality—has come a long way in recent years. Research from Betterteammakes a case for investing in your employer brand, citing that companies with strong, positive brands receive twice as many applications as those with negative brands. They also pay less for talent (companies with bad reputations pay a 10 percent premium per hire).

These days, the majority of job candidates look beyond a company’s website when researching job opportunities; 62 percent research companies on social media, such as looking up current employee profiles on LinkedIn or reading reviews on Glassdoor. In fact, 70 percent of candidates say they trust what employees say about a company more than brand ads.

To attract the right talent, your company needs to effectively tell your employer brand story. And for employer branding to be most effective, it needs to be viewed as a retention strategyand not simply a talent acquisition strategy. Here are some tips to help you take control of your brand narrative:

Embrace storytelling. Use storytelling techniques to optimize your company’s job descriptions, career site, and company page in an effort to attract qualified candidates for which your brand’s values will resonate. “Highlighting company differentiators like culture, benefits, and events on your career site and other inbound channels will attract great potential people who are passionate about finding the right fit,” explains Bryan Chaney, a talent and employer branding specialist. Make sure your employer brand is on display throughout the candidate hiring experience—from start to finish.

Think social and visual. Venture beyond the typical job board listings and consider advertising on podcasts and social media channels like Snapchat. Showcase the culture of your company using vivid visuals and images that accentuate the positive but are also realistic. Posts that are brief, bright, and most importantly— authentic—will gain you brand exposure that leads to talent. Let your employees contribute on your social channels, too. Learn from brands like Oracle that are sharing employee-generated content that tells a true but compelling story of what it’s like to work there.

Boost employee happiness. Employee happiness and employer branding work hand in hand. “The factors that comprise employee happiness (culture, benefits, work/life balance, career opportunities, etc.) all contribute to the health of your employer brand,” according to The 2016 State of Employer Branding, a survey conducted by Jibe, which provides candidate experience and recruitment software. Reflect internally to ensure that your company culture makes it a place where employees want to work.

Prove ROI using analytics. Among the 35 percent of companies in the Jibe survey that could demonstrate an ROI on their employer branding activities, 91 percent invested in analytics. Develop KPIs and set up analytics tracking to measure your employer brand activities—enabling you to boost your budget where it counts most.

Taking these steps to tell your employer brand story effectively is critical as you work to attract top talent and increase employee engagement. Treat your employees as the brand ambassadors they already are, and you’ll begin to see dividends in terms of how your company is perceived.

#WorkTrends Recap: Brand Culture at the Intersection of HR and Strategy

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Imagine your consumer brand and employer brand as concentric circles. In the very center you’ll find an overlap of similar traits. So why do companies struggle to understand how the two are actually critical to both your consumers and employees and impact both on the same level.

On this week’s #WorkTrends show, host Meghan M. Biro was joined by Larry Oakner and Rebecca Longman of Tenet Partners. They discussed the intricacies of company branding, human resources, and employee engagement.

Larry and Rebecca shared what it takes to make your organization a magnet for keeping employees and attracting desired talent.

Here are a few key points that Larry and Rebecca shared:

  • HR leaders should be more involved with their staff more frequently. A constant conversation should happen
  • Humanity is key, not just numbers
  • More companies need to understand the impact employees have on the bottom line

Did you miss the show? You can listen to the #WorkTrends podcast on our BlogTalk Radio channel here: http://bit.ly/2kKfYS6

You can also check out the highlights of the conversation from our Storify here:

Didn’t make it to this week’s #WorkTrends show? Don’t worry, you can tune in and participate in the podcast and chat with us every Wednesday from 1-2pm ET (10-11am PT). Next Wednesday, March 1, Meghan will be joined by Kimberly Howell and Kelsey Stephens of PAN to discuss the importance of workplace assessments.

Remember, the TalentCulture #WorkTrends conversation continues every day across several social media channels. Stay up-to-date by following our #WorkTrends Twitter stream; pop into our LinkedIn group to interact with other members; or check out our Google+ community. Engage with us any time on our social networks, or stay current with trending World of Work topics on our website or through our weekly email newsletter.

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#WorkTrends Preview: Brand Culture at the Intersection of HR and Strategy

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Imagine your consumer brand and employer brand as concentric circles. In the very center you’ll find an overlap of similar traits. So why do companies struggle to understand how the two are actually critical to both your consumers and employees and impact both on the same level.

On Wednesday, February 22, #WorkTrends host Meghan M. Biro is joined by Tenet Partners experts Larry Oakner and Rebecca Longman when they discuss the intricacies of how your company brand is positioned at the intersection of Human Resources and overall company strategy.

Join them at 1pm EST to hear what it takes to make your organization a magnet for keeping employees and attracting desired talent.

Brand Culture at the Intersection of HR and Strategy

#WorkTrends Logo Design

Join Larry, Rebecca and me on our LIVE online podcast Wednesday, Feb 22 — 1 pm ET / 10 am PT.

Immediately following the podcast, the team invites the TalentCulture community over to the #WorkTrends Twitter stream to continue the discussion. We encourage everyone with a Twitter account to participate as we gather for a live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: How can organizations deliver on the brand promise to employees? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q2: How can marketing and HR collaborate to create a unified brand message? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Q3: What are the benefits of treating employees like customers? #WorkTrends (Tweet this question)

Don’t want to wait until next Wednesday to join the conversation? You don’t have to. I invite you to check out the #WorkTrends Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and our TalentCulture G+ community. Share your questions, ideas and opinions with our awesome community any time. See you there!

Join Our Social Community & Stay Up-to-Date!

Passive-Recruiting

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Corporate Perks: A Thinly Veiled Disguise

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It’s no secret that there is a war going on… a tug of war to be exact. Companies are scrambling to find the best and brightest talent and many are failing miserably. One of the tactics used by many companies is to seduce candidates with profound and presumably attractive perks as a lure for employment. Further, these same tactics can be used as a retention tool with existing employees. In the short-term, perks are novel and with that may be considered interesting, but in the long-run, they are not the enduring enticement employers believe them to be.

Perks come in many shapes and forms and offer varying benefits. Some companies believe that free food, paid travel, and other offerings of the like are exactly what it takes to attract new talent and to keep the talent they have. Simply, this is not a solid long-term solution. What’s worse is when one company attempts to mimic a competitor’s perks in the hopes that they, too, can enjoy the same presumed successes and much to their chagrin it goes sideways and for good reason.

Company perks should be a reflection of the company’s culture and match the values of that specific organization. Since no two companies are alike, it’s an erroneous assumption to believe that what works for one company should work for another.

Give the people what they want

According to a survey conducted by Gallup, a sample population of job seekers were asked what matters most to them about a potential employer. The results of the survey revealed that the respondents were interested in a company’s mission, culture, growth, advancement opportunities, compensation and compelling statements as to why they should consider employment with one organization over another. Not a mention of free food, ping-pong tables or free haircuts was cited by anyone in this survey.

An article on Careertopia, supports the findings revealed by the Gallup survey. The articles goes on to state that the five things job seekers want from an employer are: career growth; work-life balance; fair compensation; great leadership; and alignment with a company’s mission, vision and values. Once again, perks were not mentioned as being an attraction factor.

The Millennials speak

In a different survey conducted by Gallup, they queried 1,700 U.S. workers to determine the attraction factors that appeal to the three employed generations. What the results of this survey revealed is that Millennials, who are presumed to be job hopping know-it-alls, are in actuality seeking out employers that cater to a generation thirsty for opportunities to learn and grow, to be managed by great leadership, to be engrossed in work that is interesting and which offers challenges, along with opportunities to advance their careers. Additionally, the survey results disclosed that a workplace with an informal and “fun” environment was not a high-attraction factor highly coveted by this generation.

Independent of the Gallup survey, Deloitte conducted a Millennial survey which revealed that compensation along with interesting work and work-life balance rose to the top of the results and what is most in demand by Millennials.

The Sandwich generation

For people born between 1965 and 1978, also known as Generation X, they too have stated what is important for them in the workplace. For this group, work-life balance rises to the top of the results. For this generation, the realities of managing parenthood along with taking care of a parent is becoming more commonplace with each passing year. To that end, having a flexible schedule that allows for care-giving is a big attraction factor. Further, Gen X has developed a reputation for being results oriented, problem solvers who seek out work opportunities where their feedback and opinions are welcomed. Free food, indoor putting greens and other perks of this nature were not mentioned.

The thing that really matters

As leadership scrambles around seeking out the next best shiny object to use in their recruitment and retention arsenal, they need to stop and revisit that which is already in front of them: their company culture. This one item is the biggest and best perk any organization can offer to potential and existing employees. This is what attracts and keeps needed talent. People seek out a culture that aligns with their personal beliefs. Servant leadership, 360 feedback, companies that take an interest in their employees’ well-being, opportunities to learn, good communication, respectful interactions, work-life balance, fair pay, and for job seekers, a shortened hiring processes and timely follow-through with communications all matter. All of these are indicative of an organization’s culture and what is being researched by job seekers and responded to by employees.

The irony is that the bells and whistles that many companies buy into are actually not what they need. People place more value on a relationship and a good work opportunity than they do a ping-pong table or free haircut. I guess the old expression is correct… sometimes people can’t see the forest through the trees.

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Employer Brand vs. Consumer Brand: What’s the Difference?

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Branding has been a buzzword for a while now—a hot one—but employer branding as a concept? That’s still relatively new. Many companies know they should be doing more of it to recruit talent and increase employee engagement—but they don’t have the budget or resources to follow through. Others might simply confuse it with consumer branding, which is understandable since there is some overlap.

If employer branding is part of your 2017 planning, here are reasons it’s important and also different from consumer branding. And, here are some ways to you can make employer branding work for your company.

The Case for Employer Branding

According to LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends 2017 report, executives said that they had allocated only 8 percent of their recruiting budgets to employer branding. Yet 53 percent stated they’d invest more in employer branding if money was no object. That’s probably because they’ve come to realize that employer branding is a worthy investment. Just consider the research done by Harvard Business Review, which revealed that a poor reputation costs companies at least 10 percent more per hire.

Add to that the fact that passive job seekers are very likely to “shop around” when seeking out better employment opportunities, and you can see why it’s so important to stand out in a good way. And that’s what employer branding is all about.

Employer Brand is Just One Puzzle Piece

Whether you’re talking about your products, services, workforce, or prospective talent, reputation matters. Having consistency when it comes to the core values of your brand is important whether it involves how you treat your customers or your company culture.

In fact, many organizations are finding success through promoting their employer branding outwardly to showcase why their companies are great places to work. Think about it: A satisfied and engaged staffer is more likely to make referrals or discuss how awesome their employer is on employee review sites and social media. From a job seeker’s perspective, such well-branded testimonials can be very appealing to see when researching a company.

On the flipside, as Kirsten Davidson, head of employer branding at Glassdoor, puts it, “when customers and the external world see a disconnect between a company’s brand and the true experience of working there, it sends a clear signal that something isn’t right.”

That being said, while there should be a clear connection between the consumer and employer brand, there are also several areas in which you must approach the two differently. Take a look:

Audiences. One major difference between consumer and employee branding is considering whom you are trying to reach. Naturally, the target for your employer brand will be much more focused than your consumer brand, for which you’ll likely want to have more of a mass appeal.

Communication channels. While you may do a lot of consumer branding through content marketing, Facebook, or other advertising channels, your employer branding will be more effective on platforms like LinkedIn, company review sites, a career-specific Twitter account, and a career page on your company website. Keeping the messaging separate will help ensure you are reaching your audiences on the channels they are most likely to be using when either in product research or job-seeking mode.

Engagement goals. For consumer branding efforts, you might measure success in brand awareness, customer acquisition, and sales. For employer branding, recruitment and improved employee relations are key goals. Therefore, you’ll need to think of employer branding as more of a long-term strategy you can build upon throughout the entire employment life cycle versus some of the more instant gratification metrics you’d consider when you launch a new product campaign, for example.

Voice. Many companies can establish a voice that appeals to their consumers, but when it comes to employer branding, they tend to fall short and come off as corporate and generic. Don’t be afraid to establish a distinct but authentic voice for your employer branding efforts that represents your workforce.

For example, when Cisco realized its bland job posting social media announcements weren’t generating much interest, they decided to add a more human touch and personal voice to their employer branding efforts. In fact, they enlisted their actual employees to tell others why they loved working for the tech company.

While the execution of your employer and consumer branding efforts might look very different in terms of who you’re trying to reach, the messaging, and the outcomes you’re trying to achieve, they should ultimately complement each other. When done right, both your customers and prospective employees will appreciate the value of your brand as a whole, and feel good about building a relationship with you.

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Keeping It Real: 3 Fundamentals Of An Authentic Employer Brand

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Pondering the recent data breach of 21.5 million Federal Employees, I’m in one of those bottom line moods, so let’s talk bottom line. For many brands, that means a genuine relationship between employer and employee, and that has everything to do with a strong, firmly rooted employer brand.

One common misconception: that a good employer brand starts with pricey image consultants. Yes: marketing that awesome employer brand is a great idea. But let’s take care of the inside first. Top talent often comes equipped with a healthy dose of self-preservation, and that’s a good thing — it breeds savvy, competitiveness and self-reliance. Without an authentically trustworthy employer brand, that same instinct for self-preservation will turn against you: it says you’re more interested in façade than fact, and that leadership really has other priorities. And all the fancy logos in the world won’t save your ROI.

When employees don’t trust an organization, they naturally hold back from wholehearted engagement, with far-reaching, corrosive consequences — churn and retention among them, some far more subtle. And really, we can’t get around this one: a truly authentic, engaging employer brand starts with an authentic, engaged concern for your workforce.

Here are three ways, glamorous or not, to keep it real.

Prioritize Security

Not glamorous, but critical: the latest glaring security breach is a perfect storm of a fallible personnel system and the unwieldy, apparently very permeable frontier of Big Data (not the adjectives we want to use about the future of work). Just ask those 21.5 million government workers whose sensitive (and very personal) data was hacked right out of personnel.

That they willingly provided extremely private information as part of an HR screening process to gain security clearance: the essence of HR irony. Now that we dwell in the Cloud, do your workforce a solid and invest in the strongest security systems you can, and then maintain it, improve it, and invest some more. The worst kind of disengagement is one based on fears that turn out to be justified.

Take A Holistic Approach

My friend and colleague Susan LaMotte defines a solid employer brand as founded on an understanding that employees aren’t driven by their jobs, they’re driven by their lives. The friction between real-life needs and work lives is another tremendous disengager — but a workplace that supports and develops all sides (what LaMotte calls the whole self) of an employee is one of the clearest signs that you care about your talent.

A strong, engaging, and clearly defined employer brand provides an arena where employees can engage themselves and be productive. This can and should happen across all levels, from recruitment to onboarding to training to business as usual.

Always Check In

Not just for engagement, but for success, you need the opinions and input of your workforce. Never assume things are fine. Never stop looking for better ways to check in: the workforce’s pulse has to be taken in myriad hard and soft ways, from pop-up surveys to interviews, on screen, video conference, face to face.

Don’t underestimate the value of regular debriefing meetings: our ability and need to practice hindsight after major efforts is as primal as our instinct for self-preservation. All those tales around the campfire after the hunting party have stayed in our mindsets. Providing multiple channels for feedback conveys a respect for your employees’ positions, personal preferences, and the nature of what they have to say. Then innovate ways to dovetail that input into every facet of the workplace.

Authenticity dwells in action, not image, and one common misconception posits that a good employer brand starts with pricey image consultants. Actually, it doesn’t start there, but it does need to be there. Take care of the core first: the very folk who make it happen. Then, yes, the active promotion of that well-rooted, beautifully clothed employer brand can and should happen: a strategic, multi-platform branding campaign that reinforces the reputation you know you have a right to promote. 

A version of this was first posted on Forbes.

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