Most employers understand that the most important asset a company has is its people. In fact, a recent study by Indiana University found that 10% of productivity comes from the top 1% of employees and 26% of output derives from the top 5%.
This means attracting and keeping top talent is imperative if you want to achieve top results.
But if you’re an SME, you’re probably wondering what you can do to secure top talent before the Fortune 500’s stake their claim.
The short answer is to work on your employer brand.
An employer’s brand is what communicates to potential employees what it’s like to work for your company. It shows your value proposition as an employer and what makes your company a great place to work. Companies that have clearly defined employer brands can attract up to 3.5 times more applicants per job listing than similar companies in the same sector.
When creating an employer brand, you need to start by identifying who your target employees are. Are you looking for candidates with years of experience? Or, are you trying to attract ambitious graduates? In each case, how you brand yourself is going to be different.
For example, a recent Accenture study revealed that millennials prefer to work in companies that have a creative and fun culture and that provide ample opportunities for career advancement, both of which were considered more important than salary.
More experienced candidates, who have been in the workforce for a number of years, are more likely to have family responsibilities, and according to a recent survey by Seek, are looking for job security, work-life balance, and salary, rather than a fun culture.
Many SME’s are already good at providing what top talent is looking for; it’s just a matter of getting the message out there. So, once you decide what type of employee is the best fit for your organisation, you need a branding strategy that appeals to this target group.
A great place to start is your company’s website. Besides being a great place to position yourself as a thought leader in your field, you can also use it to broadcast your employer brand message clearly, particularly in your ‘About Us’ and ‘Work for Us’ pages. Social media also provides great opportunities. Make sure your current employees are regularly posting on your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter profiles, as they are the best brand ambassadors you have.
As long as you are consistent with your brand messaging, and make sure the wording in your job listings matches your overall brand message, you should find that you are attracting high quality candidates. And this is great news for your bottom line.
We are delighted to share this week’s blog from Virginia Herlihy, who works for an organisation called How Do We Do It. They provide in-house programmes to help working parents in Australia and the UK combine their dual roles. For those of you that may not know her, here is her background below and we hope you enjoy her featured blog:
A note from Founder, Virginia Herlihy
My passion for helping working parents find a successful way to manage their work and home lives has meant I’ve witnessed first-hand the issues that organisations face in attracting and retaining talent, particularly female talent.
As a working mother of two and a successful small business owner, I’ve personally faced the challenge of combining work and family.
It’s been critical for me to examine and understand my values and develop strategies to achieve success and satisfaction in both areas of my life.
My background in executive coaching, training and group facilitation means I can help both organisations and parents acquire those skills and strategies– to facilitate greater work-life harmony and success.
I’m proud to say, the feedback we’ve received means the programmes and coaching we’ve developed, work.
Key Strategies for Achieving a Balance between Work and Home. How do Working Parents do it?
Today many couples are jointly responsible for sharing their work and family responsibilities, so getting some kind of work/life balance can be a real challenge. If you’re a working mother you probably feel that family and work are competing (and constant) demands. You’re likely to be juggling your own expectations and responsibilities about how you should perform in both areas, as well as those of your colleagues and family. While mothers might get most of the attention when it comes to the challenge of balancing family and work, fathers also struggle to juggle their responsibilities and aspirations.
So, how do YOU do it? Here are some tips that you have time to read because they are short and that we know help, from our experience with working with hundreds of working mothers and working fathers.
Continue to identify, acknowledge and appreciate the benefits of what you’re doing that is working for you/what you gain from the choice you are making to be a working parent.
Remind yourself that you are not alone, and your challenges are normal which is very helpful in itself. Keep actively talking to others like you and sharing experiences. Your network and the tips they share will help normalise your experience.
Stop tuning in to others negative judgements/biases of how you are supposed to make being a working parent work. You can only get this right for you and your family/work.
Get clear on your version of success as a working parent by answering theses questions – What does success look like for me as a working parent? What’s most important to me about my life? What’s most important to me about my working life?
Avoid the language of compromise/trade off/sacrifice, which is negative and implies loss. Instead recognise that you are making choices, which have consequences and benefits so consciously use the language of choice.
Use a scaling technique i.e. rating things from 1-10, low to high – to assess how much you want to do something out of 10 in terms of your energy, motivation, ability, how important it is to others etc. You can also use this to get perspective and rate how important something is in terms of your life overall so that you are less stressed by it. Your intuitive response will give you useful information.
Check your energy around choices you are making/people with whom you are interacting and see whether or not you are being drained or filled. When you have choice, in your personal life particularly, you can limit your exposure to draining people, situations.
Remember to position shift – consider the decision/situation from different perspectives, your position, the other’s position.
Author – Virginia Herlihy, Founder and Director of How do YOU Do It – Working Parents Programmes tailored to your business.
Contact details:
Who is How Do YOU Do It?
Coming out of one of the busiest Januaries I have experienced in the recruitment industry, I feel compelled to share some of my findings on the early part of 2014. As a dedicated Finance & Credit Recruitment Consultant; my findings will be biased towards this sector.
I was one of those lucky people to work straight through the Christmas period so I rode out the quiet days and clung on during the January surge. Whether it be a trend in just my own clients or a reflection of the market as a whole, there has been a definite increase in demand for experienced Analysts, Collectors, Business Development Managers, Credit Controllers and Support Staff across the Finance industry. I believe this trend is linked to the ‘non-bank’ smaller lenders making an aggressive push to take market share in lending; particularly on home loans. Borrowers who may have been disenchanted with ‘non-bank’ lenders since the GFC have increased their confidence and in some cases have turned away from banks due to their higher interest rates and increased lending criteria. This has meant a requirement for more staff for these businesses and an increase in jobs. This demand has subsequently been reflected by an increase in quality candidates looking to snap up the best jobs out there this side of Christmas (up 8% on January 2013). This is great for employers, however; more opportunity means more choice and competition for candidates.
The choice that strong candidates have in this market has created the ability for them to demand more money; and trust me they are! Depending on your budget requirements and flexibility you may or may not be able to meet these demands but I have certainly witnessed my clients in this market becoming more generous in their salary provisions so it is certainly something to consider if you wish to compete strongly for the best talent.
I have also noticed a certain ferocity in the competition for these strong candidates in credit and finance this year. A great candidate is always interviewing for several positions at once and they have varying levels of honesty in describing yours as their ‘Number One Priority.’ This creates an obligation on the employer to differentiate themselves from their competitors on what matters most to a superior performer; the benefits. Now this varies from person to person, salary is of course the most obvious point of differentiation but I have also witnessed an increasing emphasis on finding ‘The Right Role;’ this comes down to something less tangible; Culture.
The culture of an organisation comes down to a few fundamental points: management, team involvement, rewards, recognition and performance monitoring. While it is easy to stick an extra few Ks onto the salary, these cultural points are less easy to address (at least in the short term).
The length and smoothness of the recruitment process is also an initial indication to the candidate of the culture of the business. If the process is long and arduous and the hiring manager is taking 2 months to make a decision, this reflects poorly on the company and its brand; it is not a good look. And in this market where superior performers are available for no longer than 72 hours, I highly recommend moving quickly.
I am more than familiar with the hoops that candidates have to jump through to get their foot in the door with financial institutions and alike: multiple interviews, psychometric tests, skills tests, background checks, yet another interview and I certainly understand the value of each and every step. The onus is therefore on the hiring manager to move the candidates quickly through each stage and for the recruiter (i.e. yours truly) to keep the candidate motivated and excited about the opportunity throughout the whole process. This is where specialist recruiters can really complement internal teams and make your life a whole lot easier throughout the selection process.
If you need help harnessing and managing star candidates for your organisation, call Lauren Eardley our Specialist Finance Recruiter on 02 9221 6422.
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So, you’re a company.
You want the best people to work for you. Really talented people, unique even, with experience and skills and personalities that will bring even greater success to you.
But why on earth would they want to work for you?
Do you know why? Can you articulate it? Does your company have a strong brand, an attractive brand? Do people perceive you as a leader in your industry? Are your existing teams filled with people who actively share their skills and knowledge and expertise for the betterment of the whole?
Understanding a candidate’s expectations of your company and its culture is critical from the very start. If a disconnect exists between a candidate’s expectations and the reality of the situation, it can quickly lead to problems with engagement, performance, and business productivity. The candidate needs to know what is expected of them as well as feel a sense of strong company culture that is not only clear but inviting.
So, how do you go about building and leveraging a positive talent brand?
Brands are a powerful combination of symbols, messages and beliefs about a product or employer. You need to think about your potential candidates like a marketer would think about their potential customers. Take a look at the current advertising your company conducts. How does it come across? What are the key messages being put out? Who are you trying to attract?
The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:
– Delivering the message clearly
– Confirming your credibility
– Connecting with your target prospects emotionally
– Motivating the buyer
– Concreting loyalty
In terms of attracting the best performing people to work for your company, your branding is about getting them to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem, ie, working for an exceptional company, and industry leader, that satisfies their professional needs and provides an arena in which they can contribute their skills and talents, make an impact, and continue to learn and grow.
To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. As the thrust of this blog entry is about attracting high performing candidates to your company, our most recent online poll asked: “High Performance Employees: what is the #1 thing your organisation offers to attract them that works?”
The results were:
#1 – Providing opportunities for continued learning, both formal and informal – 25.0%
#2 – Having a confidence-inspiring company “brand” that ensures high-performing people want to work for you – 16.6%
– Providing a leadership and mentoring program – 16.6%
– Paying above-market rate salaries – 8.3%
– Having a defined career progression plan in place – 6.2%
– Being decisive and quick to make job offers so the high performers don’t go elsewhere – 4.1%
It is interesting that money was fourth in our respondents’ list of priorities. Perhaps this reflects the fact that it is a given that high performing people will be appropriately compensated for their contributions and competencies anyway, and that exceptional people are seeking more than just monetary reward?
Clearly working somewhere that has a gold-standard reputation as a top employer is very important, but a culture of continued learning is number one in people’s list of priorities when seeking employment opportunities, something for all organisations to bear in mind when formulating brand strategies and during recruitment exercises.
This week’s Challenge Consulting News features two articles on this topic – for your free subscription, click here …
