by Laura Belyea, COO at Talivest
In recent years, organizations have increased emphasis on their employer branding. In a competitive marketplace, a “war for talent” places an emphasis on why employer branding is important. It is ultimately an organization’s positioning compared to other competitors in the industry and what it’s truly like to work there. It defines and portrays what it’s like to work for a company.
A strong employer brand has many benefits. For starters, it translates into a strong response rate to job postings and engagement in every level of pre-contact. It can mean more applicants and better-qualified candidates. It can also mean lower employee turnover, improved workplace culture, and increased employee motivation. It can also translate into a reduction in cost-per-hire, and turnover rates therefore increasing employee retention. With all of these great benefits, it is essential to ensuring your brand is strong and reputable.
Potential employees will check out Glassdoor, Indeed, and other avenues to read reviews of your company and assess your company culture, brand, and overall employee engagement. This is why it is so important to ensure the right message is being presented in order to keep attracting top talent.
Top Tips on How To Dramatically Improve Employee Retention
Employee Experience is King!
Organisations invest heavily into creating amazing customer experiences to retain them. It’s time to start looking and treating your employees the same way you do your customers! Throughout the Employee Lifecycle, creating a great employee experience is one of the keys to retaining your talent. HR is getting a huge digital transformation and this allows organisations to continue to improve the employee experience through cloud, mobile, artificial intelligence and automation (for the future of HR technology, check out Will Robots Take Over HR? 5 Emerging Trends From HR Tech World). Creating a great employee experience from Onboarding to offboarding is crucial. Treat your employees like they are your most valued customer and you’ll reap the benefits!
2. Focus on Retention by using Stay Survey’s
Instead of waiting until an employee leaves to do an Exit Survey, conduct a Stay Survey! A Stay Survey gives you the insights into why employees want to continue working for you, as well as areas that you need to focus on to continue to retain them. This allows you to take action and prevent your high performers from walking out the door. It also allows you to do a deep dive when you have an area of the business or department that is experiencing high turnover to understand the reasons and to act upon them.
3. Invest in your Offboarding!
Gone are the days where employees stayed with organisations for 10 – 20 years! The reality these days is a tenure of 18 to 24 months. It’s time for organisations to start thinking differently about how to offboard employees and create a seamless and positive experience. Exiting employees have great insights on how your organisation can improve, you need to collect that valuable feedback. It’s critical to have a corporate alumni program as there are so many great reasons to stay connected with your former employees. They are a huge talent pool for you to rehire (boomerang) and to get referrals, they are your biggest brand ambassadors and could even help you with a sales
lead!
Wondering how your offboarding programme stacks up? Take our 2 minute Offboarding X-Ray to give you a benchmark as well as best practices.
About the author
Laura’s role is to successfully support the growth and strategy for Talivest, as well as provide product support with her expertise within the HR industry. Previously posts were director of HR & operations in Telefonica, Elizabeth Arden and ICON
