How to Position Your Company as an Employer of Choice
The hiring market today is incredibly competitive. In many cases, the employer is no longer the one with all the power. Just because you have a job opening doesn’t mean that top candidates will flock to apply.
The best candidates are assessing companies as a whole before they apply. Not only must they be interested in the position and its tasks, but they must also find the company appealing to work for. They must like what you do and be confident that you’re a strong employer who will compensate them well and help them grow in their career.
Due to this, employers now need to market themselves well and really make themselves stand out in the hiring market. In this article, we will explain how to position your company as an employer of choice. We also offer some tips on creating and marketing an employer brand.
In today’s hiring market, you have to position your company as an outstanding employer to attract talent.
What Makes a Company an Attractive Employer?
What each individual looks for in a company will vary. However, there are a few standard factors that almost every employee looks for. The amount of weight put on each factor will again vary. For example, for some, having a flexible schedule is more important than having lots of benefits while others may be happy to work 9-5, yet will want a strong benefits package.
All employees want to work somewhere where they are valued, compensated appropriately, and are not micro or poorly managed. Below are some of the most common things candidates look for in an employer:
Work-Life Balance
Overworking employees is never a good thing! Attractive employers offer a great work-life balance, promoting that their employees take time off. Without a healthy work-life balance, employees can start to resent their employers and will likely burn out.
Ways to promote a good work-life balance include offering a high number of vacation days and limiting overtime request approvals. Setting out work schedules, such as the number of hours to work each day, is also essential. Managers should never make employees feel bad for going home at the end of their workday.
If you have remote workers, you must put more focus on ensuring employees take enough time off. This is because overworking and not being able to turn off from work are some of the biggest issues for employees who work from home.
Quality of the Organization’s Work
Employees generally want to work for companies whose work they admire. This can include being a leader in their industry, having top clients, and being a well-known brand. If top candidates see the work of your organization and aren’t impressed, they won’t apply.
Healthy public relations play into this too. If you have a PR crisis that leaves your brand looking bad, people won’t want to work for you.
A Charitable Arm
Showing that you’re a generous organization can attract candidates, especially if their values align with charities that you support. Employees are getting more and more turned off by large corporations that only care about profits. Highlighting how you give back to the community can attract a lot of additional applicants. Ways to be charitable range from giving donations to non-profits to actively volunteering.
Potential employees have to be impressed by the work your company does.
High-Level Benefits
Candidates look for companies that will take care of them through high-level benefits. Benefits employees look for include a good number of vacation days, paid sick leave, and a good health plan.
More and more employers are also differentiating themselves by offering additional benefits. These range from having a gym on-site or allowing pets in the office to providing healthy snacks or a coffee and snack budget for remote employees.
Competitive Salaries
The best candidates expect to be sufficiently compensated for their experience. Even if you check every other box regarding being a “top employer,” you’ll lose the best candidates if you don’t offer a competitive salary.
Keep an eye on average salaries for the positions you post. Also, be prepared to increase your maximum salary to secure the best of the best if they come with a good justification for this increase.
Career Development Opportunities
Employees in the current market are looking for employers that help them grow. This growth is achieved through a strong career development strategy.
A main way to help employees grow is by discussing their career goals with them and implementing a development plan. You can also assign internal mentors and pay for courses or classes to help employees increase their skills.
Be sure to also hire internally as much as possible. Even if employees can grow their skills with you, realizing that there is no way to move up the ladder in your organization can cause you to lose applicants when you post job openings.
Rapid Growth
Seeing that a company is growing quickly can be very appealing to candidates. This is especially true with high-achieving candidates who are looking for a successful company where they can move up the ladder.
If your company is growing quickly, you must ensure that you adjust your team and strategy as you go. If workloads increase due to growth but you don’t hire additional staff, your current team will be overworked. If this happens, they are likely to become unsatisfied, which can result in bad feedback and high turnover. As discussed earlier, you don’t want potential employees to think your current team is unhappy.
Top candidates look for impressive benefits, salaries, and development opportunities.
Flexibility
After working at home during the pandemic, many employees are now demanding more flexibility. This includes flexibility in where they work and the schedule they follow.
Offering a hybrid model seems to be where a lot of employers are going and this allows you to appeal to all employees. Those who want to be in the office full-time, remote full-time, or a combination are all catered for. Allowing employees to start their day when they want, within reason, is a big plus too.
A Low Turnover Rate and Positive Employee Reviews
With the rise of websites like Glassdoor, it’s easier than ever for candidates to see what real employees think of working at your company. Of course, candidates won’t want to work for you if most of your employee feedback is negative.
You also want to ensure that your employee turnover rate is low. High employee turnover is not good as frequently hiring and training new employees is costly and time-consuming. Additionally, if potential employees notice that your turnover rate is high, they will be less likely to apply as it suggests your organization isn’t a healthy place to work and doesn’t help employees grow.
Candidates may notice a high turnover rate if you constantly have job openings or if they see you posting the same job frequently.
The best way to ensure you get positive employee feedback and reduce turnover rate is to be an exceptional employer! By implementing many of the above perks, plus having a healthy management structure, there’s no reason why employees won't love working for you.
How Do I Become an Attractive Employer?
Becoming an attractive employer starts with assessing where you currently stand. Do you offer all of the qualities discussed above? If not, look at the ones you are lacking and plan how you can make up for those. This could include offering more flexibility to staff or making your salaries more competitive.
Also, look at how you’re perceived as an employer. Are online ratings about working for you favorable? If not, take the feedback in and make adjustments.
You can also talk to your current staff about what you do well as an employer and what could be improved. This should be something that you do frequently anyway to ensure employees stay satisfied. But the practice can also highlight what you can work on in order to attract more top candidates.
Once you make the necessary adjustments, you should then work on generating an appealing employer brand to promote to potential candidates.
You can position your company as an employer of choice by offering staff flexibility, such as being able to work from home.
How Do You Create an Attractive Employer Brand?
An employer brand is similar to your organization’s brand and it’s an important part of recruitment marketing. It shows what you stand for as an employer and what you offer to those who work for you.
When creating an employer brand, think about what type of candidates you want to attract. Once you have some candidate personas in mind, you can consider what they look for in an employer and position yourself to offer that.
Once you’ve developed your employer brand, you can promote it across social media and on your website. For example, you may use social media to show your organization on a company retreat, showing that you're a close team that will be fun to work with. A strong employee brand helps you stand out in a competitive hiring market as well.
Frequently promoting your employer brand also helps you reach passive candidates. These are individuals who aren’t actively looking for a new job but would consider a move to the right company. By reaching these candidates, you increase the size of the talent pool you have to choose from.
In addition, putting your employer brand in the spotlight frequently helps with continuous recruitment. Even if you don’t have a position open, you can appeal to your ideal candidates. Then, when a relevant position does open up, they’ll be more tempted to apply.
In Conclusion
Standing out as a top employer in the hiring market is crucial, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. By creating an outstanding work environment that puts employees first and values their development, you’ll have no trouble attracting the best candidates. Creating and promoting an employer brand will make that task even easier!
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand how to position your company as an employer of choice. But, if you would like some help creating and promoting an employer brand, contact Lynne Palmer. With over 60 years of experience, we can also help connect you with the best talent in the market when job openings do arise. Get in touch with the Lynne Palmer team today to learn more!