Become an Employer of Choice

The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) released data that indicates the cost for an organization to replace an employee is 50 to 60 percent of that employee’s annual salary. Another study by Gallup (which takes into consideration many of the indirect impacts you'll learn about in the course) shows it’s more like 50 to 200 percent–an estimate they say is at the conservative end. 

Either way, you’re probably doing the math in your head right now, adding up the annual pay of the number of folks who quit your organization this past year. At a 100-person company with an average salary of $50K, even a modest turnover rate could cost as much as $2.6 million per year.

These costs spring from several areas: Turnover directly impacts customer satisfaction. It interrupts or reduces the speed of your operational processes. It slows the company’s ability to grow or scale. And it puts an additional level of strain on the colleagues who must then cover the responsibilities of their departed team members on top of fulfilling their own responsibilities. 

HR, and businesses in general, have had the market operating in their favor for so long, that the effectiveness of passive tactics have allowed them to forget the basic principles that drive strong recruiting results. The supply of available positions at attractive compensation levels has been historically scarce, and the number of qualified applicants has been historically plentiful. The opposite is now true. 

This workshop is about developing a competitive advantage over the other choices that a candidate has - and perhaps making sure they’re aware that you’re a choice at all - in an environment saturated with other options. Unless and until supply and demand once again flip, especially for specialized, hard-to-fill positions, these are critical lessons in how to attract the right candidates to not only fill your vacancies with reliable people - but to put you in a position to grow without disruption.

Your company has a second brand related to its primary brand. It's about how you’re viewed as an employer. This is your employer brand, and it lives and breathes in the minds and hearts of your former, current, and future employees.

Employer branding, is how you take control of how your organization is perceived as an employer - and effectively brand your business as a great place to work.

For those forward-thinking companies already focusing on their employer brand, it’s working. How do we know that it’s working? Because according to LinkedIn’s Annual Report, companies considered to have strong employer brands saw:

• 2x faster to hire
• 50% more qualified applicants
• Half the cost to hire
• 28% reduction in turnover

In a Randstad employer brand research study, over 80 percent of workforce leaders agreed that a strong employer brand significantly improves a company's ability to hire optimal candidates.

Despite how great the above outcomes are - some are secondary metrics that can distract from sustainable success in cultivating talent. We will teach you where to focus when you're measuring KPI's.

One of the most abused buzzwords in business today is “strategy.” It’s like nails on a chalkboard for us to hear it when people mean something else. Or for people who don’t work with strategy to claim that they do. But believe it when we tell you that employer branding is deeply rooted in strategy.

Through a combination of research methodologies, you will gain a deep understanding of what makes your company unique - so you can share your story with targeted prospective employees.

One of our biggest disappointments about the employee engagement industry is how many processes it advocates that generate information that simply isn’t actionable. That’s the core of the reason why you need to begin with assessing your executive leadership. 

You want the employer brand to be in perfect alignment with the overall business strategy. Any gaps between leadership perceptions and employee experience tend to be where the root causes of retention issues lurk.

Positive drivers of employee experience refer to the factors that create a positive and engaging workplace environment for employees. These factors take different forms in every organization. Sometimes an interviewee will volunteer this information naturally during the course of conversation. Other times, it’s not something easy for them to articulate, or they simply haven’t thought about their job or career in this way. We will teach you a systematic interview method that will provide the data for an objective understanding of what is most important to your workforce.

The advantage of conducting an employee experience assessment, regardless of whether it’s done in the context of an employer branding initiative, is that as you conduct it, you can assess particular kinds of experiences within certain segments of your organization. The candidate experience differs significantly from your existing employee experience in its components. But the common theme is that there is an individual whom the company needs to reach a certain outcome. In the case of an employee - it is accomplishing operational objectives. In the case of a candidate it is twofold - applying for employment and accepting an offer.

You and your company are well on your way with learning how to develop and execute on a fantastic employee value proposition (EVP). That EVP will define the value employees will get from working for your organization in particular. 

An EVP embodies the promises made to the candidate during recruitment and is lived out every day through the company culture.

Onboarding gives employees their first look at how an organization's EVP may or may not be realized.

Yeah, it’s that important. If we only had several hours to assess a company’s internal challenges, this is where we would spend most of them.

The information that employers typically use to lure candidates - things like starting wages, benefits, etc. - may not create a compelling emotional connection with prospects. They may not be their key decision factors, or could be causing internal challenges or even turnover without you realizing it. We show you how to identify the right data that makes working for your company look like a smart decision. 

Recruitment and retention challenges are the Human Resources equivalent of your marketing and sales teams having to operate in a saturated market. Neither recruitment nor retention tend to be difficult at times when employment opportunities are scarce and candidates are plentiful. Succeeding in a saturated market is always an exercise in being different.

A saturated market is a sign that there is a lot of opportunity in the market. Consumers are always looking for a change and a differentiator. This is the same case with candidates.

Okay, so we’ve done all this analysis. We have a huge pile of information. What do we do with it now?

The Employer Value Proposition (or EVP) is the cornerstone of the company culture and employer brand. You want yours to be concise and persuasive, while articulating why a qualified candidate would want to work here. It needs to stand out among all the other noise out there.

Landing on an effective EVP requires some deep thinking. We walk you through leveraging the insights from your research to write an ownable and meaningful value proposition. The EVP, including strategic rationale, once adopted, serves as the guiding influence for the tactical execution of an employer branding and recruitment campaign.

Internally, you’ll formalize employee experience positives and closing the gaps on the negatives. These will be different in every organization.

To keep you organized and on-track, we walk you through the facets we routinely find organizations need to put work into during action planning on retention. These action plans span three separate sections of the course, and include real life examples in the form of case studies.

This initiative requires a shift in approach from episodic recruitment (“I need to fill this role now”) to ongoing recruitment - continuously recruiting and conducting informational interviews for key positions within the company, especially in targeted growth areas.

This strategy curates a pre-vetted bench of interested and engaged candidates when you are ready to hire. 

When you’re clear on how the components of a proactive recruitment strategy work together to create a strong and cohesive impression of your brand as an employer on your relevant candidate market - we will look at specific tactics that improve the credibility and impact of your messaging. 

We know from the research that when your EVP is embodied and communicated by real front-line employees, it's far more effective in generating interest and convincing candidates.

We've broken down all of the strategy into step-by-step guides so that you and your team can handle producing your own marketing materials. We've included walkthroughs on how to make and use video, relevant social media platforms. printed materials, and even revamp your existing resources to advance your EVP and forge emotional connections with candidates. Complete with printable guides and gray-box style templates, you'll have everything you need to inform your team.

At this point, you’ve built everything you need to grab the eyeballs of your target candidate audience with your employer brand. But once you have their interest - assuming they’re not magically a fit for your current opening - what do you do with it from there?

Welcome to a deep dive into the art of candidate lead nurturing, a vital aspect of your recruitment strategy. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the intricacies of nurturing connections with potential candidates, whether you prefer to utilize sophisticated software modules or simpler, yet equally effective, approaches with an .xls form.

Lead nurturing plays a pivotal role in Employer Branding campaigns because it ensures a consistent and engaging relationship with potential candidates.

Welcome to our guide on crafting an effective social media strategy. In this video, we'll walk you through the essential steps to develop a robust online presence and harness the power of social media for your recruitment efforts. 

Your primary means of promotion for recruitment will be through LinkedIn, the leading professional social network. However, don't underestimate the value of other platforms, and be prepared to consider asset development across various channels.

Your employer brand is always on. Let’s make sure you and your team have a plan to maintain the effectiveness of your EVP for candidate pools over the long run.

It can sometimes seem daunting to continuously devote effort to maintaining a consistent presence and message to your audiences. Breaking down the steps covered in this section into manageable pieces is not only doable - it’s the way to create a predictable and accessible playbook that will put a team more at ease in changing circumstances.