30/08/2013
Today’s enlightened employer has realised for many years that the reactive advertising approach combined with interrogation interview techniques and the “So why do you want to work for us?” approach to their people and recruitment strategy is outdated and will only get them so far. The modern Human Resources/Capital literature is awash with academia, HR consultants and talent strategists extolling the virtues of investment in employer branding, employee value proposition, engagement and talent acquisition … but what actually works?
For sake of clarity (and hopefully simplification), here are some key definitions:
- Employer Branding: the reputation of an organisation as an employer (Barrow & Amblin, 1996) or the “sum of a company’s efforts to communicate to existing and prospective staff what makes it a desirable place to work” (Lloyd, 2002)
- Employee Value Proposition: explicit description of the ideals of what an organisation would most like to be associated with, it’s unique selling points as an employer, and the Psychological Contract and the balanced expectation of what an organisation and its employees expect to give to and take from each other
- Engagement: as opposed to employee satisfaction, motivation and organisational culture, engagement in the modern context is an employee’s involvement with, commitment to, and satisfaction with work (Schmidt et al, 1993)
- Talent Acquisition: targeted recruitment of high performing individuals to contribute to high performing teams, ideally after an effective workforce planning and talent gap analysis and identification process …. but this ideal is not always the reality.
While it may seem simple, one key mistake that many employers make is the decision to grow and thrive by focusing on hiring and importing the best talent in the marketplace at any cost. A valuable exercise is to first ask questions such as:
- What is the value of the talent that we already have?
- How do they see the organisation and the work environment?
- What sort of skills and people do we want?
Substantial investment in talent attraction and acquisition strategies and potentially expensive recruitment fees to bring people to the “BBQ” can be wasted if the “backyard” of your own organisation is in a state of disrepair, uncomfortable, and unattractive. There is little point targeting your competition’s best and brightest if you can’t retain them and perhaps your competition’s best aren’t the right resources for your business anyway.
Engagement is important and has been linked directly to organisation profitability and revenue growth (Aberdeen Group, 2013). Investing in an appealing work environment may be a more effective use of resources and investment – as stated poignantly by Dave Noer, a notable US psychologist, “The organisations that will thrive in the new reality are those with employees who have the option to leave but choose to stay. Those that fail will be populated by employees who are there only because they are afraid to go elsewhere”. There is a raft of reasons why people may not be engaged and unproductive at work (and some of them may not be work itself) so working hard on engaging them (as opposed to letting them go for the common good) may be a poor focus. Alternatively, directing resources to creating a positive work environment for those who are motivated to contribute to organisation’s goals will effectively:
- Increase productivity and positive outcomes linked to organisational strategy
- Contribute positively to the internal reputation, culture and employment brand
- Enable effective people and culture strategies linked to corporate strategies and proper identification of the sort of people and talent to contribute to future growth
- Increase the likelihood that once hired, those people will stay and add their own style, ideas and skills to the diverse pool that creates the unique culture and work environment that makes the organisation what it is.