Simple steps to measure and improve employee engagement

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Organisations with engaged team members consistently outperform their competitors. Why? Without talented and motivated people, organisations have no hope of flourishing and staying competitive. Engaged employees are more likely to rise to meet the challenges you present them with, go the extra mile, deliver an excellent customer experience, and more. Here’s how to measure and improve employee engagement in your organisation to get the best business outcomes.

What is employee engagement and why does it matter?

Engaged employees are those who are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.

Employee engagement done well delivers some remarkable benefits. In fact, numerous studies (McKinsey, Harvard Business Review, Forbes) reveal an organisation’s ability to achieve its goals is directly linked to employee engagement levels.

Engaged employees care for and feel a sense of ownership about their organisation. This could mean proactively going the extra mile, nurturing side projects, raising innovative ideas and promoting new initiatives; or it could simply be making a positive impact on your culture or customer satisfaction.

No matter your organisation’s industry, size or location, making an ongoing commitment to having a good employee engagement strategy is the best way to reach your long-term goals.

In this guide, you’ll learn the best ways to measure employee engagement and listen to your employee voice, as well as tips for improving employee engagement and different initiatives you can implement.

Understand the key components of motivation

In his 2009 book, Drive, Daniel Pink offers a new vision for workplace motivation based on psychological research (Harlow and Deci, 1971). Pink argues that traditional “carrot and stick” approaches to motivation are outdated and don’t adequately address the needs of the modern workplace.

The new model presents the three key components that are essential to motivation: purpose, autonomy and mastery.

Purpose: to see the bigger picture and believe you’re working towards something larger and more important than yourself.

Autonomy: to control what you do, when you do it, and who you do it with. (This motivates us to think creatively.)

Mastery: to improve your skills or in your role.

Use this model as a framework when considering how to measure and improve employee engagement in your workplace. For example, can you use communication, collaboration and training opportunities to connect your people with your organisation’s purpose? Can you give people more ownership, opportunities for autonomy and a chance to express their creativity?

Measure employee engagement

For many organisations today, your people are your competitive advantage. But, it’s important to remember there are more work and career opportunities and choices available to them than ever before! So if you want to retain your top talent, you need to know the reasons they stay and why they might leave.

Measuring engagement is a great place to start. This allows you to have your finger on the pulse in your workforce. It also gives you the insights you need to identify problems sooner rather than later. (I.e. you don’t have to wait to hear about a problem in an exit interview, when it could be resolved sooner.)

There are a number of ways to measure employee engagement, including: 

  • An annual or six-monthly employee engagement survey
  • Quarterly engagement pulse surveys
  • Exit interviews
  • Focus groups
  • Informal channels.

A note on exit interviews

While exit interviews can provide useful information, they do come with two main challenges. The first is data quality. Data quality depends on how honest and forthcoming your departing employee is; some feel time pressure, or are simply unmotivated to participate. Others may not like to share negative feedback about a manager, particularly if they need references. The second challenge is the lack of a one-best-way process, because different organisations have different needs and goals.

Tip: Engaging a third-party provider to conduct exit interviews can improve data quality and help you establish a method that suits your organisation’s needs and goals.

Before you start to measure anything, you need to understand what you’re measuring and what you want to learn about. There are many layers to employee engagement, and many ways to measure it.

When done correctly, annual employee engagement surveys are a great place to start. Confidential surveys conducted by third-party providers can improve data quality, as employees are more likely to express themselves honestly and openly. This allows you to gain valuable insights you may not have been able to receive otherwise. You can also gather a mix of qualitative and quantitative data through Likert scales and open-text responses.

Annual employee engagement surveys are a great place to start.

Alternatively, you can conduct shorter pulse surveys on a quarterly or monthly basis, short monthly check-ins, 1-to-1s, open forums and/or team meetings.

Tip: Engaging a third-party provider is a great way to give people the confidence that their feedback will remain anonymous.

Every organisation is different. Choose what you think might work best for your organisation, involve your team members in the process, and test to see what works. You can ask your team members what frequency they prefer, which methods they prefer to use to deliver feedback, and what makes them feel most comfortable.

Don’t just rely on measurement tools. Train your managers and leaders to understand what engagement is, how to talk about it, and what to do if their team members are showing warning signs of disengagement. They should know how to combine collected data points with day-to-day observations to gauge employees engagement levels.

If you’re still not sure where to start, simply begin by having conversations with your people and collecting data. If you want to launch a survey in house, do your research. Engaging a third-party provider is generally best practice, as people can be reluctant to share their true thoughts and feelings if they’re not confident in anonymity. A third-party provider will also help you analyse the data and provide guidance about what to do next. What you do with the data after a survey is just as important as capturing it in the first place.

Analyse results and make a clear plan

So, you’ve completed a survey or sought feedback through another method and it’s time to analyse results. What’s the best way to make sense of it all?

Look for common themes

After measuring employee engagement, you’ll probably have a lot of data to analyse. Remember that it’s impossible to please everyone. Just because one person believes you should renovate your office or grant everyone an additional week of annual leave, doesn’t mean it’s achievable, realistic or useful for your organisation to implement.

Instead, look for common themes and work towards mutually beneficial solutions. Addressing the concerns of the majority will help you increase employee engagement overall.

Don’t ignore data because you feel like you’ve heard it all before. You may need to address low-scoring data points, such as low salaries, and either improve it, supplement it by offering alternative benefits, or highlight it so candidates are aware before they accept a job with your organisation.

Case study: one organisation we conducted an employee engagement survey for achieved low agreement scores for how employees saw their career pathways in the organisation. Managers were confused, because they knew they offered competitive and attractive progression and upskilling opportunities. The problem they identified was that they were not being communicated well enough. After improving their communication strategy, they were able to see agreement levels in this category increase.

For high-scoring areas, shout it from the rooftops! If you have great leaders and hands-on managers, tell candidates about it. Share stories on social media and your website. Remind your existing team about the things they love, build it into your employer brand and make it part of your competitive advantage.

Drill deeper

Don’t assume anything when it comes to employee engagement! As demonstrated in the example above, some data calls for further investigation. Open-text responses in your survey, informal discussions or focus groups can provide you with more clarity to take action.

Don’t shrug your shoulders at areas in your organisation that achieve average agreement levels. What can you do to improve these areas, as well as your lower-scoring areas?

Make a plan

After you’ve made sense of the data, it’s time to create a plan. Be realistic about the timeframes in which you can implement new initiatives. Consider establishing short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. Working on engagement is not an overnight project. Rather, it’s a journey.

Engagement data can be complex and assessing trends can take time.

The worst thing you can do is ask employees for their feedback and not take action or communicate results.

When you obtain employee feedback, it’s critical to take action. We’ve heard of the damaging consequences organisations face, particularly when they renege on their commitment to conducting surveys (because it’s too hard)! This only tells your team members that your organisation isn’t willing to listen or act on supporting their needs.

If you’re finding it challenging to do it yourself, getting support from third-party providers can give you more clarity and provide a great return on investment. You could also try reducing your survey to the most important 10-15 key questions you want to focus on.

Communicate results and implement change

Young business colleagues discussing over charts on board, talking about new ideas in office

Share the results and action plan from your employee engagement survey with your team

After your team members have taken the time to submit their feedback, they’re likely to be interested in learning about the results. After analysing results and creating a clear action plan, you’re ready to communicate with your team members.

Communicate your plans and the reasons for these decisions. The more you can inform them about your action plan, the more buy-in you’ll be able to obtain (even if they don’t agree with 100% of your decisions).

Tip: Collecting employee feedback and not acting on it can have more negative consequences than not collecting feedback at all. In fact, it can further exacerbate employee dissatisfaction.

Did you know you can use your employee engagement data in your recruitment and employer branding to tell the real story about your organisation? Looking at your high-performing areas and things you do well is a great place to start.

A presentation is the most effective way to communicate results. Allow the opportunity for them to answer questions. Being prepared with your action plan will allow you to answer questions with confidence.

If you’re going to go down the road of running a survey, make sure you leave biases at the door. You need to be prepared to hear potentially uncomfortable feedback and have some tough conversations with your leadership team about how your team members are feeling. The only way to instigate real change is to take it all in—the good and the bad—and not ignore issues that seem like they’ll be difficult to turn around. If you commit to digging deeper into important issues, your current and future workforce will thank you!

Offer career progression, training and development

To improve employee engagement, increase workplace productivity, and build a motivated team, offering training and development is a proven strategy to help you achieve your goals.

In our latest candidate survey, we asked what factors influence candidates to apply for a job. “Doing work that utilises my skills and talents,” was a top-scoring category. Seeing this result might seem quite obvious! But what can we do with this insight?

During performance reviews, team meetings and 1:1 meetings, ask employees about how well they feel their skills are being utilised in their current role. In particular, focus on employees who have been with your organisation for more than a year, as this group can be most at risk.

Share your career progression framework with team members

How are you sharing career progression opportunities with your team members? They may have their own thoughts about areas they want to develop. If not, help them to understand gaps in their skillset, how they can grow them internally or if you can support them to find external development pathways. Help them envision their future with your organisation, and work towards it together.

Provide senior team members with new challenges

You senior team members can be a powerful asset. But many organisations rely on them without assessing their engagement levels. New challenges can reignite their engagement and passion in your organisation. This doesn’t have to be a new job. It could be opportunities to learn, mentor, undertake a new project or join a cross-functional team. Talk to them about different avenues you can explore, and whether or not it’s realistic for you to deliver a new challenge.

Create learning opportunities that tie your team members to your organisation’s purpose.

If you haven’t established a career progression framework, it’s time to build one. Not only will it help employees, but it will also help with planning and hiring for the future, as you can plot future hiring needs and assess your current teams’ capabilities.

Create learning opportunities that tie your team members to your organisation’s purpose. Give them agency and help them improve their skills and in their role.

Tie training to a clear purpose, as people need to understand how it fits into the bigger picture, the organisation, their team and their own success.

Incorporate training and development into your employee lifestyle

There are many ways you can incorporate training and development into your employee lifecycle, such as:

  • Onboarding – you can encourage new employees to select a project of choice as part of their onboarding process, encouraging them to look for areas of improvement and provide a solution.
  • Structured time for passion projects – Time for projects that fall outside of day-to-day work provides team members with great sense of autonomy and purpose. It should offer benefits to your organization, for example, fixing a software bug, or identifying business improvement processes.
  • Collaborative goal setting – Encourage autonomy and mastery by involving people in setting their own goals and taking part in collaborative goal setting.
  • Linking mutual goals – Help people to see the link between their goals, their team’s goals, and how these link to the businesses’ wider goals, and in doing so help them feel connected to a greater sense of purpose.

Create a culture of collaboration and upskilling

Use technology to enhance collaboration and allow people to share their ideas anywhere, anytime. Collaboration creates opportunities for employees to explore new ideas together, acquire new skills and increase their knowledge.

We typically view collaborative learning as being done in face-to-face contexts. However, technology is a powerful way to facilitate collaborative learning experiences. There are many amazing online training platforms, including Slack, Yammer, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Scout Learning.

Make collaborative learning a regular occurrence, for example, at the start or end of the day, or in short bursts. You can use things like meeting discussions, role play and collaborative problem-solving. This has the added benefit of helping your team to bond, build trust and support each other to drive better organisational outcomes.

An online Learning Management System is an affordable way to offer training and development to your team members.

Involve managers

Managers can play a really important part in creating learning opportunities for their team to develop the skills needed to achieve their goals. Empower them to use your learning platform to assign training that aligns with your organisation’s goals.

Set ‘Goldilocks tasks’ to upskill people

Goldilocks tasks involve stretch goals; that is, ambitious targets that challenge what people deem possible. They often involve collaborative work and have a clear end goal. For example, you could ask your team to resolve bottlenecks in a system, or to improve your organisation’s customer service.

Incorporate peer-to-peer recognition

Peer-to-peer recognition makes people feel more valued, and in turn, care more about what they do. It doesn’t have to be the sole responsibility or your manager or trainers; buddy and peer feedback can be just as important and motivating.

Incorporate reward and recognition

Employees’ relationship with their work shouldn’t be one-sided. How long would we remain in a romantic relationship or friendship with someone who didn’t bring out the best in us? Relationships need to be two-sided with both parties benefitting, feeling encouraged, receiving praise and love. The same can be said about our relationships with work.

Employees are looking for more than salaries, benefits and incentives. An employee can have the same tangible rewards (salary, benefits, bonuses) working for another company (including talent/business competitors) as they do at your organisation. The difference in why they decide to stay at your organisation and not join a competitor is in the intangible rewards that you offer. Employee engagement via recognition is a large part of this intangible, but highly relevant, strategic advantage.

Employee recognition can be a low-cost strategy to increase employee engagement with a big impact! In today’s competitive talent landscape, employees are less likely to be tempted by LinkedIn messages from recruiters if they know they’re appreciated and valued in their current organisation. Only one in three workers strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days (Gallup, 2019). This is echoed in our work with clients across a range of industries; many employees say that they don’t necessarily need a higher salary to feel recognised, they just want someone to let them know they’ve done a job well done.

When was the last time you gave or received organic recognition to someone in your organisation?

Acknowledging an employee’s good work can be as simple as a “thank you” note left on their desk, a shout-out on a company-wide call or an email from someone on their team. It’s important to understand how to give recognition, as not everyone likes to be praised in the same way. Some ideas include:

  • offering recognition with an award or certificate
  • acknowledging team members contributions at a company-wide or team event
  • public recognition or acknowledgement through a company-wide email or intranet
  • private recognition from a peer, boss or customer
  • highlighting that a promotion or increase in role responsibility was because of an individual’s actions and work
  • monetary rewards such as a voucher, prize, or pay increase.

Reward and recognition don’t need to be linked to performance reviews or formal conversations. All levels of the business should be encouraged to give and receive recognition and acknowledgements for their achievements and good work; it shouldn’t just come from the top down. However, praise from senior leaders can often be the most impactful for some individuals, giving them the feeling they’ve been seen by people of influence. If you understand what methods of reward and recognition resonate best with your teams, and the individuals in those teams, creating a culture of recognition will positively impact engagement levels in your organisation.

Young business team receiving award prize at best business project competition event. Business and entrepreneurship award ceremony theme. Focus on unrecognizable people in audience.

Cultivate health and wellbeing

Do you remember the last time you went on a health kick? If so, did you see some great benefits such as increased energy, confidence and mental health? Well, you can see those same positive changes in your workplace by creating a culture of health and wellbeing.

Numerous studies have shown the employees who lead a healthy lifestyle are happier in the workplace and show higher rates of engagement. This results in higher levels of focus and productivity. These employees also have fewer sick days, not only because of their strong immune system, but because they’re less susceptible to stress (a significant driver of poor health).

Employees who add exercise into their workday are 50% more likely to have higher productivity levels, as well as decreased absence rates (when compared to employees who aren’t regular exercisers). (Population Health Management)

Increasingly, corporate wellbeing initiatives are starting to become more integrated into organisations. In addition to being a nice perk for employees, this trend reveals organisations are seeing increased ROI from these types of initiatives.

Mark Simpson, Business Performance Director, Queensland shares how NewsCorp promotes health and corporate philanthropy, and increase engagement.

Overcome challenges 

Organisations typically face three main challenges when trying to implement a wellness initiative. These include: not having enough buy-in, having a low budget, or they’re just not sure what to do. Try to narrow it down to target a specific area of wellness, such as healthy eating, mental wellness or fitness. Use the examples below for inspiration.

If you have a low budget, get creative and design a low-budget option. You can also consider different ways to pitch your ideas when requesting budget approval for initiatives. For example, you could ask to split costs across departments. Or, you could present the expense as cost per participant, instead of a lump sum. Consider all the areas in your organisation that could benefit, and communicate this well. Wellness initiatives have a powerful impact on employee engagement, and they’re also great for your overall employer brand. You can even use these initiatives as a customer engagement opportunity.

Ideas for wellness initiatives

If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are some ideas to get you started.

Healthy eating:

  • Invite a speaker to give a talk in your workplace about nutrition
  • Invite a presenter to visit your workplace and demonstrate how to prepare some healthy meals
  • Ask your team members to send through their favourite healthy recipe and create a digital company recipe book.

Mental wellbeing:

  • Invite a guest speaker to talk about how to deal with stress
  • Buy a subscription to a wellbeing app for your team members to use
  • Offer virtual yoga and meditation classes
  • Offer financial health checks to help your team manage their money well
  • Provide care packages.

Fitness:

  • Encourage team members to exercise in their lunch hour by allowing them to stay in their activewear for the rest of the day (should their calendar permit)
  • Choose a fitness program
  • Establish a walking or cycling club.

When all said and done, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Tried and true initiatives often work best.

Gain buy-in

If you choose to run a corporate wellness event, the success of your event will depend on getting buy-in. Talk to your managers and key decision-makers before selecting your initiative. Survey your people and understand their interests (e.g. running or mediation?) so that you’re choosing an initiative to engage the majority. It’s good to gain their buy-in from the beginning.

Plan

Once you’ve determined an initiative you think will work well for your organisation, plan ahead and break down the project in simple steps. Form a committee to share the workload and see if you can get different areas in the organisation involved so you have champions in every department.

Tip: Consider deadlines and significant events, like school holidays.

With respect to resourcing, you might like to consider starting small, and growing it over time. Consider how long you want to run the initiative for.

Use clear communication about the “who, what, when, why and how”. For example, you might like to send an email and back it up through other communication channels (e.g. Slack, Yammer, Chatter, mentions during team and weekly meetings).

Measure

Clearly define the objectives of your initiative and how to measure them. For example, if your objective is to increase activity levels of team members, record your team’s average steps per day at the start of the challenge, and again at the end, to assess the impact of your initiative.

Establish benchmarks and continue to measure results

Employee engagement is an ongoing process. As stated previously, a failure to conduct regular surveys says one thing: you don’t care about your employees’ opinions.

Giving your employees a platform to share feedback gives them a chance to feel heard and express their opinions. It’s an invitation for them to be part of a conversation and gives people a stronger sense of ownership, and the knowledge that their feedback can make a difference.

Compare your survey results year on year. Benchmarking this data can help you better understand how your organisation’s engagement levels are tracking over time and how you can improve it. Measure your organisation against yourself. Comparing past results provides context and will help you create your action plan.

Final thoughts

Employee engagement isn’t just “soft”, intangible, feelings-based reviews about how people feel at work. Employee engagement has a real impact on your organisational success and should be considered a key part of every business strategy.

You can’t improve engagement levels with pool tables, beers and spending time socialising alone (although those can be nice things to have!). These things don’t solve core problems. You improve engagement by listening to employees, ensuring there is recognition in the workplace and creating ongoing feedback loops.

Employee engagement has a real impact on your organisational success and should be considered a key part of every business strategy.

Employees need to feel supported yet challenged, know what their future looks like with your organisation and understand how they’ll be supported to achieve it. Top talent has options. You need to know why your high-performers choose to stay, and what might make them leave. So launch a survey, host internal focus groups, create a plan and make engagement one of your competitive advantages!

Understand what motivates people, look for ways to create learning opportunities that give people a sense of purpose and agency, allow them to improve in their role and develop better skills. If you give people a chance to explore new ideas, acquire new skills, and increase their knowledge, in return, you’ll end up with a more skilled team, increased productivity and higher engagement.

Offer reward and recognition in ways that aren’t directly tied to performance reviews or formal conversations. Encourage it throughout all levels in your organisation, acknowledging people for their achievements and hard work.

Don’t underestimate the power of wellness initiatives. Implement initiatives and measure their success. Use results to regularly report on—and celebrate!—your successes. Get everyone involved and use great communication across various channels to continue to gain buy-in. By measuring the success of your initiative, you’ll be able to get similar initiatives approved in the future, and understand ways to improve.

Ideally, everyone has a role to play in employee engagement. Just remember, it’s an ongoing process that delivers massive rewards.

About the authors

Victoria McGlynn

 

Victoria McGlynn is an Employer Branding Specialist and Marketing Content Producer for Scout Talent Group. Throughout her professional experience, she has used effective storytelling and an authentic voice to help organisations achieve the best business outcomes through crafting effective copy. In addition to producing marketing and advertising copy, her writing has been awarded, shortlisted, and featured in various fashion, culture, lifestyle, and professional publications. She is passionate about reading, writing, sharing and learning.

 

Clare Garrity

 

Clare Garrity is Head of Employer Branding at Scout Talent Group. With qualifications in HR and International Management, she has extensive experience in talent acquisition, people & culture, employer branding and employee engagement. In her current role, she delivers tailored employer branding solutions for Scout Talent Group’s clients. She loves building relationships, helping clients to enhance and promote their cultural values, developing strategies to drive engagement, and seeing those strategies adopted and implemented by teams.

The tricky interview question you need to be prepared for

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As many organisations prepare for the next round of challenges a potential second wave of COVID-19 could pose, be ready to answer to this interview question from candidates.

We all hope for a recovery from COVID-19 that scales quickly. We’ve made a lot of progress, but uncertainty still remains.

You’ve probably considered the risks of a potential second or third wave of COVID-19 (and associated lockdowns), and contemplated how this might impact your organisation as a whole. Are you also considering the ways in which another wave would impact your approach to recruitment and talent management?

Many candidates are considering how a second wave could impact them. As such, there’s a new question that’s leaving some hiring managers stumped: “If I’m the last hired, will I be the first fired?”

“If the market takes a turn for the worse, what will your business’s approach be?”

“Is downsizing a concern, and if so, will it be the newest people be asked to leave first?”

“If I’m the last hired, will I be the first fired?”

If you or your hiring managers are asked this question by candidates in interviews, will you know what to say?

Here’s how candidate behaviour is being impacted by their concerns about a potential second wave, and recommendations for how to answer that tricky interview question, should you come across it.

Impact of a potential second wave on candidate behaviour

Official unemployment numbers aren’t what they appear to be. Economists think the official unemployment rate rose again last month, from 7.1 per cent to around 7.6 per cent. Why? Because the Government’s JobKeeper payments have been keeping hundreds of thousands of workers “attached” to their workplaces through the COVID-19 lockdown, and those workers have still been considered employed even if they haven’t been working any hours. This makes interpreting unemployment data difficult.

According to the ABS, if we included the number of people who are still considered officially employed but who have been working zero hours (because they’ve had no work or they’ve been “stood down”), the official unemployment rate would be much higher.

Even though JobKeeper is keeping people attached to their workplace, some organisations report they haven’t experienced a shortage of candidates. Application rates are role and industry-specific with some organisations reporting they’re still struggling to attract the right talent, but others are stating they’re being inundated with applications. With respect to talent scarcity, some candidates could be simply waiting it out. For every candidate that decides to apply for a role, there may be more who don’t bother applying because they don’t think it’s a good time to start a position.

No matter your situation, if you’re recruiting, candidates are eager for transparency. In our latest Candidate Experience Survey, we asked candidates what factors are important to them when applying for roles. They’re responses reflect this sentiment:

  • “Ongoing stability.”
  • “Organisation transparency.”
  • “Job security.”
  • “Fairness, equity and professionalism.”
  • “Stable company.”
  • “Authenticity of the company.”
  • “Honesty.”
  • “How I’m valued.”
  • “A company caring for people during crisis and not letting staff down.”
  • “Communication.”

In the survey, “How an organisation treated staff during COVID-19” and “Information regarding an organisation’s response to COVID-19” were top-scoring categories that influence candidates’ decision making when applying for roles.

Employer branding insights report 2020, Scout Talent Group

Want more employer branding insights? Download our free Employer Branding Insights Report 2020 here.

What job board data is saying

According to the latest data from Seek, year-on-year demand for jobseekers has decreased across industries.

Seek job board data - year-on-year demand for jobseekers

Seek job board data reveals year-on-year demand for jobseekers has decreased across industries

Seek data tells a story of industries recovering from low recruitment rates in April 2020, although some appear to be recovering more quickly than others.

Seek industry data

Seek industry job board data

In examining trends between jobs and applicants through data from Indeed, both jobs advertised and application rates were at an all-time low in April 2020. This has since improved, with both roles advertised and application rates picking up again in July 2020. While these rates have not returned to the same levels as they were in 2019, it does reflect positive improvements in public sentiment from both employers and candidates.

Job boad data trends - November 2019 - July 2020

Job board data trends – November 2019 – July 2020

July 2020 job board data

July 2020 job board data

The best way to answer that tricky interview question

So what does all this mean for attraction and candidate shortlisting? Candidates care more now about the way organisations will support them. While it appears that things are improving with increasing numbers of job posts and applications, nothing is 100% certain.

If you’re recruiting and a candidate asks the question: “If I’m the last hired, will I be the first to be let go?”, it’s important to have a response prepared.

It turns out: there’s no single answer that will apply to all organisations. Your answer will depend on your business strategy.

In thinking about the best way to communicate your business strategy to candidates, should employers be proactive in addressing this question, or wait for candidates to ask?

Andrea Davey, CEO for Scout Talent Group recommends, “It’s good to be on the front foot. Have your answer prepared and be ready to broach the subject in Zoom and face-to-face interviews. It’s a difficult topic to navigate and explain in writing via a job ad, whereas in a conversation you have a better opportunity to explain your organisation’s position.”

“Personally, our organisation is lucky to be in a strong position where we can tell candidates that’s not something they have to be concerned about. Our assessments are based on performance and we help our new team members to reach their goals. I think it’s a good way to ensure candidates feel more comfortable and know that we’re here to support them.”

Being able to answer this question honestly and confidently will inspire trust in your candidates and strengthen your employer brand.

Want more employer branding insights? Download our free Employer Branding Insights Report 2020 here. 

If you’re looking to get support or advice with your employer brand and recruitment strategy, book a no-obligation chat with one of our knowledgable recruitment specialists. Contact us today on 1300 366 573 or at info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Creating a robust online recruitment process

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With so many disruptions in 2020, organisations were forced to switch to digital processes (including recruitment!). But is this a chore, or an opportunity? With physical distancing regulations still in place and many team members still working from home, creating an online recruitment process is a great opportunity to increase your organisation’s agility and adaptiveness, and create a greater candidate experience.

The most robust recruitment processes are highly digital, allowing organisations to be more agile. Many digital recruitment processes use best practices, with customised automations and procedures that are more convenient for recruiters, hiring managers and candidates.

But there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Organisations have different structures, locations and existing processes. However, you can map out a digital online recruitment process, while still considering candidate expectations at every stage.

Here are our best tips for creating a robust online recruitment process.

Online recruitment advertising & screening

Many organisations already advertise and screen candidates digitally, so simply follow best practices to manage and screen applications. Use an Applicant Tracking System, make use of auto-statuses to filter unsuitable applicants, use screening questions to quickly assess your top candidates, and communicate with candidates throughout the process with branded templates so they all have a positive experience with your organisation.

If you use an Applicant Tracking System, start screening as soon as possible so all candidates receive timely communication. If you use candidate statuses, assign appropriate filters to indicate any action you’ve taken (for example, “contacted”, “interview booked”, etc.) Sort candidates by their overall rating to determine your frontrunners for interviews.

Online interview scheduling

Today’s candidates are tech savvy and value convenience, so being able to schedule your interviews digitally makes you instantly more desirable as an employer. The majority of millennials hate phone calls! So if this demographic forms the bulk of your applicant pool, scheduling interviews digitally instead of over the phone will improve your overall candidate and help you secure those in-demand candidates in a timely manner. Not to mention, it’s far more convenient for you and your hiring managers.

After you’ve determined your top candidates’ from their applications, schedule interviews as soon as possible. (Some candidates are in high demand and may be interviewing with multiple organisations.)

Choose the right tools to send invitations and schedule interviews, preferably giving candidates some options to choose from. Here are some ideas for digital scheduling tools you can use:

  • Recruitment software/Applicant Tracking System (ATS) – Your recruitment software should have the functionality to schedule interviews online and give candidates a few times to choose from.
  • Calendly – Alternatively, if you don’t have an ATS, this low-cost scheduling tool is used by salespeople, marketers and recruiters alike. It provides a portal to manage all your interviews and calls, and allows candidates to choose times that suit them.
  • MixMax – This tool is another low-cost tool that offers candidates to view your email and choose times that work with them.
  • Google Calendar – One of the simplest options for creating calendar invitations, Google Calendar allows you to create and share interview times with candidates; however, it can be more limited than the above options.

Many candidates can get lost due to scheduling gaps and miscommunications. Having a smooth interview process gives candidates a positive first impression of your organisation and allows you to set and manage their expectations.

Online initial interviews

The faster and more structured your interview process, the better your odds of landing your ideal new hire. In creating an efficient online recruitment process, you may opt to use digital initial interviews for your first round of screening, instead of immediately jumping to face-to-face interviews. (That’s not to say face-to-face interviews aren’t still an important part of the process, but you can still create a great online recruitment process without face-to-face meetings in the preliminary stages.)

Phone interviews can be an effective form of preliminary screening, particularly if you’ve received a large number of applications. However, unlike face-to-face or video interviews, they have their limitations; they can feel a little impersonal and you can’t make eye contact and observe your candidates’ body language or demeanour.

More and more organisations are opting for video interviews during their initial stages of screening, as they are an easy way to save valuable time and resources. Choose the platform you’d like to host your interviews on, such as Skype, Facetime or Zoom.

Communication is critical

While you might easily integrate digital screening into your recruitment process, it can still be new and unfamiliar to some candidates. Be sure to give your candidates all the information they need to be prepared for a virtual interview (including usernames, meeting invitations) and be prepared to get in touch with them to ensure they feel comfortable about the process. Interviews are already stressful experiences, so you don’t want your candidates to feel stressed if they haven’t used the platform before. Include clear instructions in your invitation email to give them the opportunity to represent themselves in the best possible light.

Create an interview guide for you or your hiring manager. Use standardised behavioural-based interview questions tailored to the position you’re hiring for.

Tip: Immediately schedule follow up interviews with the strongest applicants, when appropriate.

As we shared in our guide to shortlisting your talent pool and selecting the right candidate, two-way recorded video interviews are a great way to “see” candidates and allow them to get to know you too.

Online behavioural assessments

Behavioural assessments can form a valuable part of your online recruitment process. If you conduct these assessments prior to your interviews, the additional level of information can allow you to ask candidates better questions and have better conversations.

You may already use your own online behavioural assessments. (At Scout Talent, our Shortlisting & Selection Specialists use McQuaig behavioural assessments to assess candidates’ job and cultural fit.)

This can provide you with deeper insights and greater understanding of candidates without having met them in person.

Second-stage interviews

With physical distancing regulations starting to ease, your organisation may decide to proceed to face-to-face meetings for your second-stage interviews. Follow best practices for second stage interviews, including using your online scheduling tool to book interviews and using insights from your initial screening (i.e. don’t ask candidates the same questions they have already answered in their application or initial interview!).

Online reference checking

Many organisations ask us if reference checks are still worthwhile. The answer? Yes!

11% of job applicants misrepresented why they left a previous employer (Hubspot).  

Nearly one third of job applications list dates of employment that are inaccurate by more than three months (Background Profiles).

Reference checks help you uncover these inconsistencies. So request contact details for your top candidates’ professional references, seek the most recent and relevant references (in terms of industry and position), and prepare your questions before you reach out to them to add more perspective and assess consistency.

Sending digital offers

So, you’ve found a great candidate and want to extend an offer. Congratulations! It’s an exciting time, but don’t let candidate experience fall by the wayside. If you want to get your candidate excited about your organisation and opportunity, keep in mind that printing and signing documents isn’t very fun!

Onboarding software is a great finishing touch to your online recruitment process, reducing administration pressures and increasing offer acceptance rates. Electronic signatures remove the barriers to acceptance, so candidates can sign anywhere, any time. You can also create simple contract approval workflows to ensure appropriate stakeholders and procedures aren’t missed. You can also use branded templates for your digital offers and other onboarding documentation to continue to build your employer brand.

Sending candidate feedback

Even after you’ve made an exciting new hire, the rest of your applicant pool still need care too. It’s time to notify all candidates about the outcome and thank them for taking the time to apply. If you have an Applicant Tracking System, you should be able to create a professional branded template with personalised tags to send this final feedback. For candidates who have taken the time to complete an interview, a personal phone call or voicemail message is ideal.

Additional tip: Talent pooling

Finally, we would be remiss to talk about online recruitment and not talk about talent pooling. Talent pooling is a beneficial, proactive approach to talent acquisition allowing you to prepare for future challenges and reduce your overall recruitment spend. With many candidates in the market, now is a great time to ask people to submit an expression of interest form and create pools based on roles you’ve previously advertised, even if you’re not able to hire them immediately. You can reach out to them with honest, authentic messaging to nurture them and keep them engaged with your employer brand. Then, when you’re hiring again, you can notify them of your new opportunities.

Once you’ve established an online recruitment process, it will become second nature for you and your team! But remember that for candidates, certain aspects will still be brand new. They may have questions, so be open with your communication, map out the process and ensure you’re delivering a great candidate experience.

Need help creating an online recruitment process? Talk to us today about building your employer brand, marketing your vacancy, establishing an effective screening process and creating a great candidate experience on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

How Australian organisations are stepping forward

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The past few months have certainly been disruptive. After so much change, we wanted to share some positive news stories about how Australian organisations have been adjusting. Here’s what REDI.E, City of Nedlands and Employment Office are doing to adapt, adjust, look after their team members and invest in their long-term talent strategies.

Promoting employer branding and talent pooling

One of our clients, Regional Enterprise Development Institute (REDI.E), is an Indigenous owned and managed organisation delivering training and community services in the Murdi Paaki region (Western NSW) to Indigenous communities.

In light of the escalating COVID-19 crisis, REDI.E made the difficult decision to cease all program operations in March, for the safety and protection of the most vulnerable people in NSW.

CEO, Tracey Shillingsworth, said, “We had to take a proactive approach to protecting our communities and use better delivery methods to continue our most important services and support.”

Tracey Shillingsworth, CEO, REDI.E

Tracey Shillingsworth, CEO, REDI.E

The team has embraced virtual technology and alternative service delivery methods. Tracey has helped the organisation adapt by bringing the power of community to the forefront in an isolating environment. REDI.E called on age-old traditions and the collaborative endeavours of their esteemed Elders: talking, keeping communities informed and ensuring they receive valuable feedback.

With respect to their recruitment strategy, REDI.E is using this time to proactively build their talent pool and keep potential candidates warm and engaged through email marketing and social media.

“Talent pooling is very important to us because we have such a wide exposure of work opportunities in Western NSW. Talent pooling allows me and the senior executive team to communicate with the right people and not waste months advertising for roles. Our whole recruitment process has been significantly reduced. It’s fantastic for employers to know that there are candidates in your pipeline who are already familiar with and appreciate your brand and are interested to work with the community.”

REDI.E is continuing to promote and share their employer brand and Employee Value Proposition (EVP). They’re sharing honest stories about the challenges their team members and communities have faced with physical distancing restrictions and working from home. (A number of news sources have shared why organisation should promote employee stories now more than ever.)

“We’ve provided our team with a lot of flexibility. Our team is very skilled and we’ve been providing additional leadership, mentoring and support for them during this time.”

Embracing work-from-home and eLearning solutions

Aside from talent pooling, other organisations have used the past few months as an opportunity to invest internally in their team through digital learning solutions.

City of Nedlands was fortunate to implement their eLearning platform prior to lockdown going into place in March. They managed to make the work-from-home switch quite efficiently.

“We managed that change quite well by identifying everyone who could work from home, making the transition in three days!” said Shelley Mettam, Manager – Human Resources and Organisational Development. “We have a great IT department and we’re mostly working from the cloud.”

Shelley Mettam

Shelley Mettam, Manager Human Resources & Organisational Development, City of Nedlands

“Now, we’re phasing back onsite work and we have some outdoor workers, but not everyone will return or work from the office at once. Our team has a good capacity to work from home and we’ve set them up with all the tools they need to work effectively.”

While their team members have been working hard, City of Nedlands has used this opportunity to offer training.

“We’ve started offering training to our management team and we have plans to expand this out. There is certain mandatory training, such as fraud, that everyone has to have. We plan to have a training library where people can self-select the topics they’re interested in learning about. We’re going to obtain feedback from managers about what kind of training they think their team would be interested in.”

Making the switch from in-person conferences, seminars and meetings to eLearning has helped them make cost savings.

“It’s certainly helped our budget; it’s a very cost-effective method of delivering training. Even as restrictions ease, we want to encourage our people to do online learning and webinars instead of meeting in large groups. We did some thought-awareness training and everyone found the system very easy to use.”

The Council is currently making arrangements to facilitate the transition back to the office.

“It’s an ongoing process and we’ll likely offer work-from-home options for our people into the future. We have a rotating roster of people coming in and out, and we’re taking a flexible approach to start times. We’re working with managers to determine who can work from home. It’s an opportunity for us to free up parking, reduce long commute times, and offer our people greater flexibility.”

Increasing engagement through corporate wellness initiatives

At Employment Office, we’ve experienced a number of changes too. While our team members were working from home, we’ve hosted fun virtual events outside of office hours, as well as only daily video conferencing to share good news stories and stay connected.

As we’ve returned to the office, we’ve establishing seating arrangements so everyone is at a safe and comfortable distance, increased cleaning initiatives, free parking, hand sanitising stations, and recommendations to wash hands, limit meeting areas and comply with physical distancing regulations.

We’ve also kicked off a new initiative to increase engagement through corporate wellness. Our home-grown charity Healthy Workplaces designed a new, free app, called Step Forward. The Step Forward app that’s keeping people across Australia and around the world active and engaged by encouraging them to reach 10 000 steps per day.

Step Forward app

Get involved in Step Forward!

We’ve had a number of sponsors and participants from all around Australia. Participants can join the sponsored event weeks, and take as many steps as possible for the chance to win prizes.

“The second week of the Step Forward challenge was sponsored by my organisation,” said Susanne Mather, Executive Director for Employment Office. “I thought this is a sporting event that I can actually win! And that was very fun and exciting.”

Susie Mather

Susie Mather, Executive Director, Employment Office

Interestingly, many people don’t reach the recommended minimum 10 000 steps per day.

“I was really surprised when everyone started on the Step Forward App that, not only was I not averaging 10 000 steps per day (which I thought I would have been!) but no one was. That was a big realisation for us all.”

Interestingly, our people have found that health initiatives like these have positive, unexpected flow-on benefits.

“During the week I averaged 32 000 steps per day, what I found was that it had a long-term residual effect on my fitness,” said Susanne. “Ever since then I’ve been stronger and fitter, which has been great!”

Feedback from our team members has been that they’ve loved participating in the weekly walking challenges.

“I really liked being able to see where everyone was at,” said our Shortlisting & Selection Team Leader Christie Pollock. “That gave me more motivation to keep walking (sometimes well into the night!). And although I felt like I needed a week to recover, I’m aiming to make 10 000 steps per day my new normal.”

Andrea Davey, CEO of Scout Talent Group, participating in Step Forward

Andrea Davey, CEO of Scout Talent Group, participating in Step Forward

During this period of re-adjustment, many organisations are using this time to adapt and invest in long-term initiatives for the future. Changes to the workplace will flow from these realignments, and those that prioritise physical and mental safety of their employees will succeed.

If you’re interested in exploring talent pooling, eLearning, or corporate wellness solutions, contact us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Email templates to help you manage candidate communications during difficult times

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Download these free email templates to manage your organisation’s recruitment and communications with candidates.

What email templates are included in the free download?

Notifying candidates recruitment is on hold

Use this template if you’ve implemented a recruitment freeze, to keep candidates warm and let them know you’ll be in touch again when you’re back up and running.

Online video interviews

Use this template if your recruitment process has changed and you’re using video interviews to prioritise the healthy and safety of your team members and candidates. It provides interview information for candidates, including when the interview is scheduled, what to expect and how to prepare.

Growing talent pools

Use this email template when you’re running recruitment campaigns to grow your talent pool and prepare for when recruitment resumes. It tells candidates you’ll notify them of upcoming opportunities, how you’ll engage with them in the future, and encourages them to share a sign up link with others.

Download button

Assisting you in times of uncertainty

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With circumstances changing daily and a variety of new challenges to navigate, we want you to know that you’re not alone. We’ve been maintaining communication with our clients, and in doing so, we understand many of them are in different situations. Some have implemented recruitment freezes, others have their hands full with workforce management, digitising processes and health and safety measures. Others need to recruit, but are uncertain about what messaging to use, or are being inundated with applications.

At Employment Office, we’re here to help you overcome these challenges and support you in any capacity we can. So, no matter your situation, here are some ways we can help you bridge the gaps.   

Tailored solutions 

If your team members are out of the office or you have your hands full with competing priorities, our reliable Specialists can step in to act as an extension of your team.  

Our Specialists work with you to understand your requirements, provide informed recommendations and tailor the right solution. They can assist you with:

  • Recruitment Advertising – Designing advertisements with appropriate, timely messaging to maintain transparency with candidates.
  • Shortlisting and Selection – Creating a robust screening process, so your organisation isn’t overwhelmed with applications, maintaining great candidate care, and conducting video interviews, behavioural testing, reference checks, and more.
  • Employer Branding – delivering branded communication templates to keep your talent pipeline warm and engaged (because your employer brand still matters, now, more so than ever!). Or, if your team has time to implement some new projects, they can consult with you about the best way to identify your Employee Value Proposition and brand messaging, so when you’re ready to hire, you’re amplifying the right message to the marketplace.

20% off video interviews

You may have team members working from home or your organisation may need to reduce face-to-face contact in general. However, if you need to continue moving valuable candidates through the talent pipeline, you can’t let recruitment grind to a complete halt due to an inability to conduct interviews. 

We want to make a difference to help you meet your recruitment needs and protect your team members from nonessential exposure. To support you during this time, we’re offering 20% off our video interviewing services to give you a fast-tracked, immediate video interview solution if needed. Find out more an enquire here. 

Talent pipelining

High-quality talent is available now. During this temporary time of adjustment with a number of organisations and industries in the midst of recruitment freezes, talent pipelining is a critical long-term strategy. A number of proactive employers are using this time to put measures in place to stay ahead of their talent competitors. When stability returns and hiring gains momentum, competition will be fierce and the A-players will be snapped up quickly.

Our Specialists can work with you to run campaigns to grow your talent pipeline and maintain timely, appropriate communication to keep them engaged – so when you’re ready to hire again, you have a strong candidate pool to make a selection from.

Longer campaigns and delayed onboarding 

Perhaps you’re not sure when you’ll be ready to make a hire. Aside from talent pipelining, there are a number of outside-the-box strategies we can recommend. Employment Office can provide longer campaigns to grow your talent pipeline and delay onboarding. (However, there’s a right and wrong way to do this – we can provide recommendations on how to avoid the pitfalls.)

During challenging times, we understand recruitment doesn’t always grind to a halt. Whether you need assistance designing the right messaging for your recruitment advertisements, or need shortlisting or talent pipelining support, Employment Office is here to help in any capacity we can. Don’t let short-term challenges throw you off your course.

For assistance with any of the above, schedule a discussion with our Recruitment Specialists on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

How to market your (often forgotten) EVPs when recruiting

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Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is crucial to your recruitment marketing process. In fact, it’s more important than anything else when it comes to talent attraction and engagement! Here’s how to market your EVPs. 

Do you know how to build and promote your EVPs when recruiting? Here are some tips to keep in mind.

What are the benefits you’d like to promote? Start by articulating all your standard benefits, such as competitive remuneration (base, or retainer, commissions, bonuses, on-target earnings), leave, flexibility, work-life integration, and your organisational culture.

Don’t forget about your “sometimes forgotten” benefits, such as:

  • learning and higher education opportunities
  • opportunities for career progression
  • work-related social events
  • complimentary coffee and food
  • proactive leadership and mentoring
  • autonomy and trust
  • democratic decision making
  • clear organisational goals and purpose
  • feedback opportunities for progress and improvement
  • reward and recognition
  • modern technology and good resourcing
  • clear communication
  • health and wellness initiatives

…the list goes on.

If you’re still wondering how to market your EVPs, use these benefits as a foundation, market the heck out of your beautiful, unique organisation! What achievements or awards has your organisation recently received? We all know storytelling is king – so use storytelling as a marketing strategy.

Do you participate in organisational philanthropy? Do you run social activities? Publish stories about these as well to connect with potential candidates.

Human interest stories work best of all, so unashamedly market your heroes. Sell them like they’re on Tinder! (No need to tell them you’re doing this, but then again… maybe they can re-purpose their profile?)You have heroes at every level in your organisation and your talent pool will want to work with them. What stories about your people are dying to be told? Publish stories about interesting and successful people who are currently in the roles you need to fill. Have they won awards or achieved anything that they are proud of?

Think about your executives, founders and directors. Everyone has a story to share, so find story angles that resonate with your talent pool and will make them want to work with you. These stories are, essentially, your value propositions.

Publish feature stories about people in your organisation who have progressed their careers, including where they started, what areas of the business they have experienced, and how they achieved promotions and risen through the ranks.

Build a catalogue of “people stories” and “organisational stories” that you can mix and match with different positions you need to fill.

Check out these EVP taglines from some of the World’s Most Attractive Employers (WMAEs) about how to market EVPs.

In building your EVPs, don’t sit at your desk racking your brain – chat with your colleagues. Ask them for ideas and what benefits they enjoy as part of their role (including the less obvious ones). Request good news stories to understand who might be a hero that candidates would love to learn more about.

Ideally, engage an Employer Branding Specialist to identify what your EVPs truly are. The beauty of external specialists is that they can be objective, and your people might be more willing to be open and honest with them. The best employer branding specialists will undertake a significant discovery exercise where they engage with people in different areas of your organisation across a range of roles, tenure and levels of seniority.

When it comes to marketing your EVPs to potential candidates, ruthless authenticity is worth its weight in gold. In the sales and marketing process of recruitment, the last thing you can afford is buyer’s remorse from candidates whose experience doesn’t match their expectations.

How talent pools improve your recruitment processes

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Talent pools are a beneficial, proactive approach to talent acquisition. A talent pool is a database of candidate profiles interested in working for your organisation. They can be a limited group with a specific area of expertise, or a broad group capable of performing a variety of tasks.

There are a number of reasons talent pools are becoming more widespread in recruitment marketing strategy.

1. Reducing the cost of recruitment

While talent pools take time to build, if they’re built correctly they can greatly reduce your recruitment costs. Talent pools reduce or eliminate the need to need to advertise. A recent study found that recruitment costs could be reduced by up to 50% when using talent pools.

2. Reducing time to hire

Talent pools save you time, as you’ve already screened, selected and prequalified a group of candidates. Talent pools allow you to quickly fill a role with the right candidate, with minimal effort from hiring managers and less impact on your day-to-day business.  Research has found that 50% of organisations using talent pools had reduced their time to hire.

3. Identify quality candidates for the future

Having a qualified talent pool helps you identify future potential candidates before you need a role filled. A high-quality talent pool is one where you are continually connecting with talent and updating them with relevant, engaging information, and continuing to grow it by bringing in new, diverse talent.

Whether you’re looking to speed up the recruitment process, reduce cost or identify skill sets, talent pooling is an excellent solution. At Employment Office, we have built our own talent pools and have seen positive results.

“Since we started treating recruitment as a sales process, we’ve been able to funnel talent into one database, our talent pool. As a result, we’ve reduced our recruitment time and costs while nurturing and developing relationships with candidates.” Tudor Marsden-Huggins, Employment Office Managing Director.

How to create your own talent pools

There are a number of different resources to use and factors to consider when developing your own talent pools. Here’s what you need to keep in mind.

  • Collect and manage candidate data: Plan how you will collect and manage candidate information.  Will you use an Applicant Tracking System or manually collect data? Great recruitment software gives you the ability to segment talent pools based on skills and experience, and provides a platform to send communications with ease. When communicating with your talent pool, software gives you greater control and accuracy, and is often easier and more effective to use than data on spreadsheets.
  • Publish an “Expression of Interest” form: Having an expression of interest form on your careers site is a quick and simple way to capture candidate data, even if you don’t have any current vacancies. It allows both passive and active job seekers to express their interest in working for your organisation.
  • Post regular job advertisements: Posting regular, branded recruitment advertisements to stay front of mind for active candidates and will result in a steady stream of applications, who you can add to your talent pool and keep in touch with personalised recruitment marketing content.
  • Utilise social media: Social media adds another touch point with potential candidates and enables you to grow your talent pools. Interact with potential employees through social media channels, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Share your expression of interest form and recruitment advertisements to continue to grow your talent pools.
  • Implement Google Adwords campaigns: Google Ads don’t just work for regular marketing. It’s great for recruitment marketing too and increasing brand awareness.

Decide how to segment your talent pools, based on your recruitment needs and the resources you have available. You might like to create a large talent pool of all candidates who have applied for role with your organisation (who do not currently work in your organisation) to send general recruitment marketing content to. Alternatively, you might like to create smaller talent pools based on skills, experience or location. You can also establish exclusions, so candidates who were ineligible for your roles, or duplicate profiles, are not included.

Designing a content strategy and communication plan 

To get the most from your talent pool, determine how often you want to communicate with candidates.

Depending on your organisation’s needs and if you have the resources and skills in place, you can design a more sophisticated, advanced communication strategy. An engaging content marketing plan keeps potential candidates warm, well-informed and excited about the prospect of working for your organisation.

  • Create communication templates: Having branded communication templates in place ensures you’re keeping your communication with candidates consistent and on-brand. For example, you may like to design templates for sharing a job vacancy, or sharing a piece of interesting content.
  • Conduct an employer branding project: Establishing your Employee Value Value Propositions (EVPs) makes it easier to design content that promotes your core messaging and connect with your ideal candidates.
  • Consider your upcoming recruitment needs: Understanding the roles you need to fill will help you design content in line with the type of talent you need to attract. For example, if you regularly recruit people to join your customer service team, you can incorporate employee profile stories that showcase a “day in the life” of these roles.
  • Assign a dedicated content manager: Sending relevant, timely communication takes dedicated work and planning. Regular communication with your talent pool can easily fall off the radar without a dedicated content manager. Assign someone the responsibility of designing your content marketing plan, making updates to your talent pool, and managing any responses you receive from candidates. Do you have a dedicated content specialist or someone in your marketing team with the capacity and skills to execute this strategy? If not, consider outsourcing this responsibility to an external specialist to work with you and support your strategy.

Create a structured process for reviewing applications and communicating with candidates who have submitted an expression of interest form. Set clear expectations from the start; being part of your talent community does not guarantee people a role in your organisation, but is a way to keep in touch and stay up to date with new opportunities.

Talent pools are a proactive recruitment initiative that will help you find great candidates in a shorter time frame, without spending big bucks. You’ll develop better relationships with potential candidates and be able to fill positions as they become available, instead of scrambling to find candidates. Although they take some time to build and develop, the long-term payoff can be priceless.

At Employment Office, we have experienced Recruitment Marketing Specialists and advanced talent pooling software to help you design an effective strategy. Find out more about our talent pooling solution here. 

Do you need support building talent pools and designing an engaging content marketing strategy? Schedule a discussion with our Recruitment Advertising Specialists here, call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Should you recruit for experience or education in healthcare?

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Healthcare recruiters will always have the dilemma of choosing between hiring for education or experience. Should you hire a candidate who recently graduated and only has one year of experience, but has a master’s degree from the number one ranked program in the country? Or do you take the candidate who has a degree from a less-known institution, but has 12 years of experience?

Deciding between the two can slow down your recruitment processes. So what’s the solution? There’s no one right answer, because both talent demographics are important to the long-term success of your organisation.

Get the best of both worlds by attracting a good mixture of young, academically-inclined employees and those with on-the-job experience. Design a recruitment strategy to target and hire both types of candidates. These demographics have different needs and therefore, require different attraction and engagement methods. Here’s how.

Attracting new healthcare graduates

While hiring graduations is a cost-effective strategy that can invigorate your existing workforce, they’re in high demand, especially in healthcare.

Understand what this talent demographic is looking for in an employer. 87% of millennials state development opportunities are important in their desired roles. Healthcare providers need to provide opportunities for their younger employees to remain competitive both in their own role and in their industry. Can you use this as part of your recruitment advertising or employer branding strategy?

When it comes to shortlisting and selection, this talent pool can be snapped up quickly. Use powerful closing strategies to seal the deal, such as speeding up the process and using the power of influence. Impressing them with an efficient process and unique offer if a great way to win candidates over your talent competitors.

Also, many graduates choose to work with healthcare providers where they completed their internship programs. Do you have a strong internship strategy, and are you connecting it effectively with your recruitment initiatives? (Internships can be a game-changer for your talent pipeline but they come with risks and time commitments, as you will need to structure their program thoughtfully and get buy-in from your people who will be guiding them through their learning goals.)

Establish partnerships with local universities and programs to reach students before they graduate and stay competitive.

Attracting experienced healthcare professionals

Baby Boomers are starting to leave the workforce at a rapid rate. By some estimates, 10,000 retire each day. This has a big impact on healthcare organisations whose workforce consists of a large number of employees in their sixties.

Experienced nurses and healthcare professionals retiring creates knowledge gaps where graduates aren’t up to specialist level by the time the older workforce retires. While there’s no way to prevent boomers from retiring, healthcare organisations must establish workforce planning and proactive recruitment strategies to prepare for these departures. This will ease the burden associated with having to continually hire new individuals to fill vacant positions that are left behind by senior level employees.

Hospitals, clinics, aged care and other healthcare providers need to revamp their approach to hiring by putting together an attractive benefits package to make their positions more attractive.

A strong employer brand goes miles in attracting the best healthcare talent. Highlight the benefits your organisation offers outside of salary. For example, career progression, flexibility, workplace wellness programs and employee social events.

Danila Dilba Health Service strengthened their employer brand through a careers video, written and video employee profile stories, their careers website and more.

“[This] helped us strengthen our employer brand and market our unique employee value proposition across Australia. Along with the branding project we revamped our website and careers pages which helped us attract quality applicants.

“Our employer branding initiatives have been very successful in ensuring we receive our fair share of quality talent. It’s helped us in both recruitment and retention. We’ve retained a greater number of employees as we’ve opened more leadership positions,” – Sulal Mathai, HR Manager, Danila Dilba Health Service.

Promote your unique differences from your talent competitors, sharing this message across your careers website, recruitment advertisements and social channels. Talent pooling is another effective, proactive recruitment strategy to inspire and educate your audience about your offering. Being proactive, strengthening your employer brand and building a talent pipeline will ensure your success in healthcare recruitment.

Nurture your pipeline and keep them engaged through emailing marketing and your social media channels. This way, you’ll have a warm and qualified group of potential candidates to market new roles to and fill your positions more quickly.

Instead of choosing between experience or education, design a recruitment strategy to target and attract both talent demographics. With a bit of thoughtful planning, finding the right mix and creating a balance will set you up for long-term success.

Looking for advice about recruitment advertising or employer branding to attract the best candidates to your healthcare vacancy? Schedule a discussion with our Recruitment Specialists, call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.

Avoid costly mis-hires: How local governments can reduce hiring risk

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Taking on new employees in local government can have its challenges. While recruitment always carries some risk, the wrong hire can be particularly devastating for smaller Councils.

New hires make us wonder, can they work well with our existing team? Will they show the dedication required for their role? Will they leave after a few months?

While screening and onboarding new employees can be costly and time-consuming, following hiring best practices can help you reduce the odds of making the wrong hire, and increase the likelihood to place the right person in your role. 

Here are six tips to help you reduce hiring risk.

 1. Define the role

Attracting the right person means understanding your organisation and role requirements inside and out. Establishing set criteria before your start advertising helps you stay focused when you do start to receive applications.

Seek input from key people invested in the role: your hiring manager, and whoever the role’s new manager and team members will be. Write down the list of duties your new hire will be required to perform and the skills they need. Use experience and qualifications to narrow down your talent pool.

Then, tailor your recruitment advertisement accordingly. Culture is important in local governments, both for individual teams and your organisation as a whole. In your recruitment advertisement describe the work environment your new hire can expect. Sharing details about the way your organisation operates (and excels) will help both you and your candidates decide if your role is the right fit.  

2. Use the power of referrals

Reduce hiring risk through referrals. Referrals are one of the best ways to source talent you can trust. It’s faster, and often cheaper than traditional methods. To increase the number of referrals you receive, consider putting in place an employee referral program. These programs save time and money, as you won’t need to spend hours wading through resumes or waste money on job postings that don’t attract the right candidates.

Your current team knows what it takes to be successful, and they can be a fantastic asset when it comes to finding new talent. People who already work in your Council will typically refer people with similar work ethic. So if you have a high-calibre team, you’ll attract high-calibre talent.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on recruitment advertisements, you can spend as little as a quarter of that amount through referrals – costs associated with referrals typically come from employee compensation from successful referrals. This can vary based on your organisation’s needs.

3. Use smart interviewing techniques

Interviewing is not only an important opportunity to gain direct insights into your candidates, but having the right processes will save you valuable time and resources.

Develop a list of behavioural and skills-based interview questions to screen candidates over two-way recorded video interviews or over the phone before inviting them for a face-to-face interview. Use your list of interview questions to keep interviews fair and consistent.

While remote interviews are an investment, they save you time in the long run. By recording initial interviews (after obtaining permission from interviewees), you can share it with multiple team members to gain their feedback on which candidates to progress with. Gaining their insights can allow you to make a more informed decision.

When it comes time to the face-to-face interview stage, many Councils invite team members to conduct a panel interview. Each interviewer takes turns to ask questions individually, the remaining panel members have time to listen to what the candidate is saying and observe their body language. Dividing the responsibilities gives both strong and weak interviewers the chance to ask questions, increasing the likelihood that all appropriate questions will be asked.

Panel interviews reduce the risk of personal bias and ensure the validity of interview findings. It’s also an opportunity for candidates to interact with their potential coworkers, and gain a better understanding of the role as it’s seen from different employees’ perspective.

 4. Check references

After you’ve found a great candidate, it’s time for reference checks. Ask referees to confirm:

  • Education, certifications, qualifications and skills
  • Title or position in their previous role
  • More information about the nature of their former duties and personality.

Reference checks help you to narrow down your pool of candidates and reduce hiring risk, especially if you’re torn between several applicants who all interviewed well. Managers eliminate 21 per cent of applicants after speaking with their professional contacts (OfficeTeam).

Learning about an applicant’s professional background from a direct source can be a great way to determine if they’re a good fit. Cross-reference contact information through independent research. If they provide a contact number for their supervisor at a former place of employment, look up the organisation.

5. Establish trial periods

Many local governments engage in trial periods with new hires. This allows you to see how they perform, without making a commitment to permanent employment. It’s an opportunity to see how they interact with the rest of the team and whether they’ll be a successful long-term fit or not.

It can also save you money, and give you the time and proof you need to assess your new hires’ abilities – beyond their resume and interview.  

6. Conduct checks

Background and pre-employment checks give you the peace of mind to confirm your hiring decision, particularly in local government roles where employees are trusted with confidential or sensitive information. This can save your organisation from hiring mistakes that could lead to misconduct or fraud. 

Checks give you access to employment history, police checks, traffic checks, financial checks and more. Specialist support from a recruitment services provider like Employment Office gives you fast, easy-to-understand reports when you need it.

 Assessing all the data you can, gaining input from your team members and conducting checks ensure you make smart, efficient hiring decisions for the betterment of your Council. So make your next hire a great one, and lower the risk!

For support with Recruitment Advertising and Shortlisting Services, schedule a discussion today. Call us on 1300 366 573 or email info@employmentoffice.com.au.