It’s a fact: Every organization wants the best talent in the market, but not every organization works towards it. Merely wanting to attract the best talent will not produce results; organizations must make themselves attractive for that to happen regularly. In this article, we’ll take a look at some tips that will help you attract and retain top talent.

1. Build Yourselves Up

No matter which field they work in, employees would want to be associated with the best in the industry. If you are not there, you might risk losing on the best talent. So build yourself up, and project a powerful brand that prospects cannot ignore. In today’s age where internet and social media are highly prevalent, it does not take much for a prospect to find information about you, so ensure that your brand has value and recall.

2. Train Your Recruiters

With your recruiters often being the first point of contact with the prospective talent, you want your recruiters to make the best impression possible. Indifferent and inconsistent recruiters might be okay with applicants desperate for the job, but top talent will want to work with someone impressive and responsive. So, make sure that your recruiters are making a favorable first impression on the candidates by training them effectively. They should be able to handle all the questions and doubts raised by the prospects.

3. Communicate

Another thing you must closely watch is your communication with prospects. Maintain communication across the length of the recruitment cycle so that they will not lose interest and move on to another company. Also, be professional and prompt in your communication. If candidates don’t hear from you, they forget you and move on. Placing an emphasis on excellent communication will benefit your existing as well are your future employees. 

4. Provide Clear, Concise Job Descriptions

Convey what you are looking for clearly and concisely. Gone are the days when people are okay with anything as long as they get a job. Today, candidates want to know what the job requires from them and whether they have the skills to deliver. So, ensure that the job description is clear and easily understood by everyone. It would help if you conveyed any preference for prior experience in the job description itself. There is no point wasting time looking at the profiles of candidates who are not suitable for you.

5. Establish Good Workplace Culture

Good workplace culture will act as a giant carrot in attracting top talent. Candidates today know what they want and would like to work with organizations that support their expectations. Therefore, make sure that your workplace culture is engaging and lively, and make sure to convey this to your prospects. Social media posts with your employees themselves talking about the culture will increase credibility and retention for candidates.

6. Offer Challenging Roles

There are boring and monotonous tasks that are a part of every job description. However, if you can make these tasks seem challenging and show that they make a difference to the organization’s future, top talent will be more interested in taking them on. Role satisfaction is an important element in retaining long-term and dedicated team members.

7. Ensure a Good Fit

There is no point in hiring candidates because they have the right qualifications and experience if you feel that they are not a good fit for your workplace. There are many cases where employers compromised on fit to repent later and lose valuable time.

8. Offer Perks

Perks play a vital role in the decision of talent to join the workplace. So, make sure that you have enough extras thrown in so that the talent will feel happy joining you. Organizations nowadays have gone overboard in offering perks to their employees; if you cannot match them, find the lowest-hanging fruits and try offering them. It’s a good idea to invite suggestions from employees on the kind of perks they are looking for; there is no point in providing bonuses if employees don’t want them. An excellent way to better understand your unique workforce’s needs and preferences is to conduct regular Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Surveys.

9. Be the Compensation Leader

If you want the very best to work for you, you will have to be the one offering them the best compensation in the industry. Try to be a compensation leader in your industry by showing them how to get the best compensation by working with you..

10. Offer Career Growth

One of the parameters on which prospective candidates base their decisions is their career growth. If they think you can offer them career growth, they will likely join you even if you can’t provide them the highest compensation. Conversely, if they don’t see growth opportunities, even a high compensation structure will not be enough to lure them.

Besides attracting top talent, employing the best HR software solution for your needs can help grow your organization rapidly. More than anything, your employees make the real difference between the success and failure of your organization.

Learn More

It’s powerful to know what your employees think! You can identify problems like inadequate supervision, communication breakdown, and mounting plans to leave your company before expensive turnover affects your business.

Get more tips on employee engagement when you download our free employee engagement checklist.

Content in partnership with Best Companies Group

Let’s start by agreeing on the circumstance: We are ready to take action to improve Employee Recognition in our company. Yes, we can also all agree that creating a culture where employees feel valued and appreciated at work is much easier said than done. If it was, we wouldn’t have only one in three workers in the U.S. say that they’ve received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days. But, don’t let that discourage you. Why? The reason why so many employee recognition programs fail isn’t because recognition is a wildly impossible thing to tackle, but because these programs just weren’t built to work in the first place.

Turns out, it’s not that complicated – every successful employee recognition approach always boils down to three things: sincerity, efficacy, and fairness.

The Essential Employee Recognition Checklist

1. Sincerity

You have to mean it. If it stems from the genuine idea of wanting to create a happy company, trust us, you’re already halfway there.

• Be Specific  |  One “good job” isn’t going to cut it. Recognition is most impactful when you’re as specific
  and descriptive as you can be in your compliments. It shows your employees the extra efforts they put in have not gone unnoticed.
• Make it Personal  |  Don’t make the grave mistake of assuming you know what everyone wants. You’ll be surprised it’s not always about money.
• Peer-to-peer Recognition  |  What makes recognition extra meaningful? When it comes from fellow coworkers who have witnessed firsthand the work you put in.

2. Efficacy

If you don’t make recognition in your company a well-grounded system that believes in and
self supports itself, any recognition program you introduce will quickly fall flat.

• As Quick As Possible  |  Recognition should be given and received as soon as possible. Why? They are less genuine when they seem to be an afterthought.
• Active Participation  |  You have to empower your employees to lead the company in this movement by giving them the ability to recognize and encourage great performance.

3. Fairness

Do not leave anybody out. If you do, your entire plan will backfire swiftly as employees see
the difference in treatment.

• Everyone’s Eligible  |  Unless the programs are department-specific (like Most Productive Sales Person), everyone in your company, regardless of desk or non-desk workers, or their seniority, should feel like it’s a fair game.
• Not a Competition  |  A smart recognition program avoids pitting employees against each other. Competition-based program could create a low-morale, anxiety-filled office where non-winners feel uncredited for the efforts they put in.
• Focus on process, not just outcomes  |  Your employees need to be assured that you appreciate their work while they’re working on it, and not only after achieving the results you wanted.

Remember that recognition is after all, an ongoing process. If you want to create a
company of happy workers who feel appreciated, don’t focus on the outcome. Focus on the
process – the people and what they want.

Are you ready to start a successful Employee Recognition program in your company? Take
this checklist based on the above and use it as a model in your approach.

The Essential Employee Recognition Checklist

1. Sincerity

2. Efficacy

3. Fairness

Read a more in-depth guideline, with real-company examples, on the author’s corporate website.

Learn More

Do your employees feel recognized for their contributions?  Measure that and more when you use our Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Survey. Schedule a time to talk with one of our employer coaches. You’ll learn everything you need to know about employee survey timelines, process and pricing.

Content in partnership with Best Companies Group

Most of us concede that employee engagement is critical to business success, but it’s hard to know where to start or who’s responsible for what. While the Human Resources Department specializes in the acquisition and retention of talent, there’s a special role to be played executive leadership.

Webinar Description

We recently hosted a live, 30-minute webinar about the critical role of the CEO in employee engagement. In the session, we shared data collected from more than 6,000 employers that competed in our Best Places to Work programs in the previous survey year.

If you missed the webinar, click the button below to access the free recording or download the slides.

What You’ll Learn

1. Why CEOs want employee engagement
2. How engagement is defined
3. Top dos and don’ts for the CEO
4. Simple ways to increase engagement
5. Do you have what it takes to be one of the Best Places to Work?

Content in partnership with Best Companies Group

How comfortable is your staff with being themselves in the workplace?

A recent Jobsage survey posed this question to 1,900 employed Americans. They do value being authentic, according to the study. However, 7 in 10 respondents said that they adopt a different personality at work than they do at home. 

Even those who weren't hiding or altering some aspect of their identity still needed an extended period of time to be themselves in a new role, with 1 in 5 saying they needed at least six months to feel comfortable being authentic at work. 

"Employees who feel psychologically safe (as in, more comfortable being themselves at work) are more likely to put in extra effort to see the team or company's mission achieved," said Kelli Mason, chief operations officer at JobSage, which is an employer review site headquartered in Austin, Texas. "They are also more likely to feel safe enough to push back and ask hard questions, which are ultimately in the company's best interest, even if they initially create uncomfortable or difficult conversations and decisions."

Karl Ahlrichs, SHRM-SCP, a speaker and thought leader on human capital and senior consultant for Gregory & Appel insurance company in Indianapolis, emphasized the importance of recognizing that the impact of inauthentic workplaces on retention and recruitment efforts is not equal. Low performers will grip their chairs and cling to the job, whether they feel comfortable in the workplace or not. But high performers can find new positions elsewhere, and they know it. HR professionals should work to create cultures where employees can be open and honest about themselves and their work, and where leaders and managers are transparent and fair when conflicts arise.

"Having an environment of trust, transparency and accountability is necessary. It's fragile and tough to do but if people feel they can bring their full self, and there is an appropriate response if something gets crosswise, high performers don't leave," he said. 

Resignations aren't the only consequence. Work quality and quantity of output are also diminished in inauthentic workplaces.  

"When employees feel comfortable bringing more of their identity to work, they are more likely to provide different perspectives and valuable feedback," said Jill Koob, SHRM-SCP, founder of EnergizeHR, an HR consulting company in Houston, Texas. "This creates a more cohesive team and eliminates blind spots that can result in financial and nonfinancial gains."

5 Strategies to Create a Culture That Supports Authenticity

These are five strategies you can use to increase authenticity in your workplace to address high turnover, decreased productivity and poor working relationships.

1. Remain fair and consistent. 

Staying fair and consistent is the HR professional's top priority, Alhrichs said. He acknowledged this is not an easy task. Consistency is a relatively rigid set of patterns, and he explained that fairness often means being adaptable. Those objectives can conflict on emotionally charged issues. 

"Having an environment where people trust each other so that they can raise their hand and talk diplomatically and objectively about [conflicts] becomes a teaching moment."

2. Lead the way.

Seeing is believing. When HR leaders take the lead by modeling authenticity, employees understand the value of being themselves at work.

Mason said HR professionals can model authenticity by:

• Openly acknowledging times they've failed.
• Taking time off and sharing why it's important to their mental health.
• Embracing and being forthcoming about family obligations that might interfere with work.

 
"When staff see that the leadership is made up of humans, with flaws and lives outside of work, staff members are more likely to feel a sense of safety in bringing more of themselves to work," she said.

3. Provide civility training.

As politics and social movements have gotten increasingly aggressive and social media has further polarized sides, responses to disagreements must be civil. In addition to having consistent training around core values, Koob suggested including civility training.

"Civility is extremely important for employees to feel safe to be themselves and has been shown to greatly increase productivity," she said.

4. Support active listening.

Ahlrichs said active listening is critical to creating trusting workplace cultures. Active listening is giving full attention and consideration to the person speaking, which demonstrates a mutual understanding and respect for those in the conversation.

"If you have a culture of trust, it is possible to say, 'Hey, you said something at the end of the meeting that really bothered me. You might not have meant it, but I really felt it,' " he said. "When handled as a teaching moment, it can actually strengthen the culture." 

5. Focus on inclusion.

People need to feel connected to others to truly be themselves.

"Encourage employees to include co-workers in discussions outside of forced meetings and opportunities for employees to get to know one another," Koob said.

Katie Navarra is a freelance writer based in New York state.

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Using an employee survey as a tool to gauge your employees’ true opinions about your company’s benefit program is essential. Learning what types of benefits employees appreciate most — as well as the types of benefits they would like to have — can help you restructure your employee compensation package to retain existing employees and attract more long-term employees. You can readily include questions about your benefits packages in your employee survey. Read on to learn some of the best practices we’ve used while surveying millions of employees to gather their feedback about their employers’ benefits packages.

Protect Respondent Confidentiality

One of the most crucial aspects of any employee survey is to ensure the respondent anonymity.  You’ll enjoy better response rates, collect more accurate data, demonstrate respect, improve retention, and build trust. Whenever you collect employee feedback, use an outside vendor to protect employee anonymity.

Ask the Right Questions

It’s a big deal, to collect employee feedback. There are a lot of considerations, like technology, confidentiality, communication, and then there’s what you’ll do with the data once you have it. If you and your survey provider are to solve all those problems, be sure you’re asking the right questions before you launch. Are you isolating issues and attitudes? Are you collecting actionable demographic data? And, of course, you’ll want to be sure to ask questions about each of the benefits programs you offer. 

Benchmark Against the Competition

Knowing how you stack up against employers of your size, in your industry, is powerful intel. When you consider the questions you’ll ask and the survey provider you’ll work with, consider whether or not benchmarking data reports will be available to you. And don’t stop there! Be sure you ask questions you’d be asking again in the future. Benchmarking against yourself, year-over-year, is the only way to measure improvement.

Take Action

When your employees give you their feedback, they want to see you respond to it. The first step is to communicate. Let your employees know that you heard them, loud and clear. Tell them you appreciate the honest feedback. Tell them that the leadership is working on an action plan to address what was uncovered.

Best of all, if you work with the right survey provider, you can see employee your response data by department, location, and business unit. When you know that there’s a problem in the sales department, or a victory on the administrative team, that’s important information.

Learn More

When you’re ready to learn more about employee survey timelines, process and pricing, schedule a time to meet with one of our employer coaches. We’ll get all your questions answered.

Content in partnership with Best Companies Group

I hear the same objections at every HR conference I attend. “We aren’t ready for a Best Places to Work program yet…” or “I don’t think the boss wants to know how the employees feel this year…”

And, I get it. Of course, it’s not comfortable to be critiqued or hear about the ways you’re falling short– especially if you’re aware that there are problems. But, is turning a blind eye to shortcomings or problem areas really the answer?

Human Resources professionals are not typically to blame for dissatisfaction and disengagement in the workplace. However, they are the ones who can initiate and drive change. But, before you can design a satisfaction improvement plan, you must equip yourself with the knowledge of where your organizational weaknesses truly lie. Is leadership the issue? Is it leadership in one particular location or department, specifically? Without the power of the data from an employee engagement and satisfaction survey, you just can’t be sure. 

Once you’ve gathered the data and feedback from your employees, you can take action in smarter, more strategic ways that will improve whats most impactful to employee engagement at your organization– the things that your unique employee group actually responds to.

The Proof is in the Numbers

LinkedIn recently published an interesting article containing stats on feedback. One study, conducted by Gallup, found that managers who received feedback on their strengths showed 8.9% greater profitability. In another study, those who received strengths feedback had turnover rates that were 14.9% lower than for employees who received no feedback. And lastly, a study found that teams with managers who received strengths feedback showed 12.5% greater productivity post-intervention than teams with managers who received no feedback. Increased profitability, lower turnover rates, and high productivity– these are all results of giving and receiving feedback.

But, they only mentioned “strengths” feedback, so that is just the good stuff, right? According to the article, 92% of respondents agreed with the assertion, “Negative (redirecting) feedback, if delivered appropriately, is effective at improving performance.” So, hearing the bad stuff can be a catalyst for positive change as well.

They Might Be Afraid, Too

And since we’re on the topic of apprehension, it’s worth noting that your employees might be just as afraid to give you honest feedback as you are to hear it. That’s why the number one rule in surveying your employees is that anonymity must be protected.

Ensure your respondents’ identities cannot be linked to their answers by using a third-party vendor that is trained and experienced in handling, protecting and delivering employee feedback data. Reassure employees of their confidentiality and then act on that trust. Do not attempt to match comments to individuals, rather assess your results and strive to improve problem areas holistically.

Taking the leap and opening yourself (or your company) up for criticism, while potentially painful, can yield worthwhile and lasting results. After all, “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve,” says Bill Gates

Learn More

It’s powerful to know what your employees think! You can identify problems like poor supervision, communication breakdown, and mounting plans to leave your company before expensive turnover affects your business.

When you’re ready to learn more about employee survey timelines, process and pricing, schedule a time to meet with one of our employer coaches. We’ll get all your questions answered.

Content in partnership with Best Companies Group

Organizations that value employee engagement has much to gain by adopting a no-layoff policy. This game-changing, people policy assures employees that the organization will not issue pink slips when the economy goes south. A no-layoff policy provides one more competitive advantage for being a Best Places to Work business..

During the recession in 2008, a small business owner in the residential and commercial wood-flooring business considered options to keep his organization afloat. Wanting to avoid layoffs, he decided to involve employees in the decision-making process. The team identified cost-cutting measures and voluntarily reduced work hours to counteract the slowdown. Together they solved the organization’s financial shortfall and prevented layoffs. When sales rebounded, they were poised to immediately respond to demand. Below are some reasons to consider a no-layoff policy.

1. Employee Trauma

Those who lose a job are hard hit, especially if they have families to support. They go from being gainfully employed one day to wondering how will they pay their mortgage or rent, utility bills, or car payments the next. Layoffs not only have residual effects on those let go but on staff that remain. It can erode trust in future job security, create a distrust for employers well into the future and cause anxiety and reduced performance for those that remain.

2. Survivor Mode

Some managers believe surviving employees should be happy to keep their jobs. Those surviving employees, however, have developed important bonds with coworkers. It is emotionally difficult for survivors to see laid-off workers go. Survivors may be relieved to have avoided a pink slip, yet are afraid they might be next. Similar to departing employees, surviving employees may begin networking too.

3. Leaders in Limbo

Layoffs are tough on leaders. Fielding questions from surviving employees and facing the predictable drop in post-layoff productivity, leaders must deal with the added stress of an already difficult time.

When leaders are required to lay off their employees, they may begin to question their organization’s core values; internalizing the conflict between treating people well and protecting the organization’s interests.

4. Customer Confusion

Customers like to establish working relationships with organization representatives over time. For that reason, turnover can damage customer service. When an employee knows your customer well, s/he delivers goods and services more effectively. It is difficult to assign a price to the loss of goodwill when familiar employees suddenly disappear.

5. Lost Cost Savings

Rarely does a layoff save an organization money. After paying severance, outplacement assistance, and retention bonuses for key survivors not to abandon ship, when will the organization begin experiencing cost savings? Add into the mix lost productivity, disengaged employees, employee relations issues, and the recession could be over before the cost savings start to kick in.

Content in partnership with Best Companies Group