4 Steps to Impressing Top Talent

While many employers worry about whether or not the right candidate to fill their vacant position will ever walk through the door, they should perhaps be more focused on how to keep them from turning around and walking straight back out! Businesses today are focusing on how to make an attractive first impression on job seekers in order to ensure that when the right candidate does come along, they decide to stay. A bad first impression is difficult to overcome. It has been suggested that it can take up to twelve positive encounters to make up for a bad first impression! But don’t worry; there are ways to ensure you’re not scaring the top talent away when you finally get a potentially perfect fit. 

1: Modernise your website and workspace

These days, most job seekers form their first impression of a business before they even enter the premises. Having an attractive website can give your business an edge, so always make sure it is looking professional and up to date. Don’t forget to keep your offices tidy and open, your candidates will pay close attention to how the environment they could be working in looks and feels.

 

2: Be enthusiastic! Share why you love your job

Applicants want to hear about what is unique and special about the company. Share what separates your business from the next, what kind of events or social activities staff get up to, and why it’s more fun to work for you!

3: Emphasise the long-term benefits

Top performers want to work for a company with strong growth potential. In order to make a fantastic first impression, emphasise the long-term benefits your company offers, and the avenues provided for career advancement related to the goals your candidate has expressed. This is a sure fire way to make sure top talent sticks around for the long-haul!

 

4: Customise the pitch

Not every job seeker is looking for the same thing. Make sure you do your research and emphasise the elements of your company that the candidate you are talking to cares about the most. Change up the message and make the job sound tailor made for them!

How can you check that these steps are working? To stay in touch with your plans and make sure your efforts are paying off, be sure to always check back to your original changes and explore goal-oriented options such as job satisfaction surveys.

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The results are in: costs of poor employee engagement and it's not pretty. 

A recent study by Gallup, examining the level of employee engagement of over 1.5 million employees in 50,000 businesses, from more than 34 countries have found the cost of low employee engagement to be in excess of $370 billion annually!

According to the study, employee engagement is absolutely essential to company performance, with those companies scoring in the 99^th percentile for employee engagement reporting a success rate four times that of those companies with lower employee engagement.

High employee engagement has been shown to significantly impact job performance in the following critical ways: 

• 37% lower absenteeism
• 25% lower turnover (in high-turnover organizations)
• 65% lower turnover (in low-turnover organizations)
• 28% less shrinkage
• 48% fewer safety incidents
• 41% fewer patient safety incidents
• 41% fewer quality incidents (defects)
• 10% higher customer metrics
• 21% higher productivity
• 22% higher profitability

Companies reporting job satisfaction in the upper half of employee engagement results are predicted to have doubled the chance of KPI achievement to those scoring in the lower half. With the study now in it's eighth year, and results remaining consistent to date, the importance of job satisfaction is not one to be taken lightly.

While simply asking your employees, “Are you satisfied in your job?” may appear to address any concerns, neglecting to explore the factors that contribute to this does not provide management with the tools to properly address these specific issues. It is up to you to the employer to investigate how to best engage, but if you need help getting started have a look at 5 Ways to Keep Employees Happy.

Source: Gallup

Reducing staff turnover by keeping your workers happy

The concept that ‘happy workers are hard workers’ is not a foreign concept in any workplace.


Nevertheless, too many businesses struggle to retain their staff and suffer from high turnover rates. 


Ensuring that your workers are satisfied in the workplace can greatly reduce the costs associated with recruitment, training and reductions in productivity due to introducing new staff into your workplace. 


Here are some simple tips to keep your staff where you want them.

• First understand why staff are leaving and address these issues promptly
•  Assess your staff benefits compared to those offered in different companies. If your staff aren’t receiving a similar package, it’s time to re-evaluate
• Increase the flexibility provided in your workplace, particularly for working parents
• Let staff bring their own devices to work and allow them to access social media while on the job. Believe it or not, flexible IT practices have been associated with  increased job satisfaction and workers who use social media are up to 75% more  productive.
• If your industry can allow it allow options for staff to work from home
• Provide workers with responsibility and allow them to use it
• Show your staff respect

By outlining a clear path to performance growth, job promotion, listening to your staff and responding to issues they raise should enable your staff to feel respected and valued.  All key factors when ensuring your staff are happy!

5 tips for giving feedback to unsuccessful candidates 

A candidate has taken the time to apply for a job advertised at your workplace and perhaps attended an interview but you have decided the person-job fit just wasn't right and they have been unsuccessful.  It's hard to do, but it is common courtesy to let them know the outcome.  But if you do this right it doesn't have to be a negative experience! It can actually have some long term benefits for your business; 

• You can save time later-as you won’t have to take any number of calls from candidates trying to follow up at any given time

• You can establish your employer brand in a positive light 

• You also leave the opportunity open to hire the applicant for the future!

One of the most common mistakes employers make during recruitment is giving out generic or impersonal feedback to unsuccessful candidates or failing to give out feedback altogether, due to the inherent difficulty in organising and delivering such feedback. The following information will make giving interview feedback easier.

5 tips on how ensure you are delivering quality and constructive feedback:

1. The feedback should be delivered by the person who conducted the interview. Show that a serious and adequate amount of time and deliberation went into the decision and that the final answer is coming from the person most involved.
2.  Include specific examples of the candidate’s responses and how these responses lead to your decision. Did they discuss experiences that didn’t show strengths required for the role? Did they seem only somewhat vested in the role’s tasks when you need someone extremely dedicated?
3. Try to tie feedback into the job specification. Feedback certainly shouldn’t only be about how they carried themselves during interview, link what they included in a cover letter or resume to the outcome.
4. Think about your tone of voice and the words you use. This can be the major aspect they take away with them that affects your employer brand and their future opportunities.
5. Be prepared for the candidate to disagree with you, in this case remain calm, polite and stick to the facts. Take notes on your key reasoning. 

As part of the constructive and fair feedback, common reasons candidates are rejected are:

• Preparedness: the applicant did not appear to know much about the company or the position they were applying for
• Punctuality: Arriving late for the interview without a valid reason
• Direction: Having a lack of career goals or career plan
• Motivation: Appearing unenthusiastic due to their vague and unelaborate responses or failing to provide useful information about themselves or their perceptions of the role
• Honesty: Lying or being evasive about qualifications and previous work experience
• Duration: Stating that they are only interested in working in the position for a short period of time
• Qualifications: Being overqualified or under-qualified for the position advertised

By completing this process in a courteous, constructive and positive manner you not only promote positive sentiment towards your company but are also contributing understanding to the applicant about how they may approach the hiring process more effectively.

And who knows? Perhaps in the future, you'll be calling to accept them into a different position they are better suited to!

Controlling Gossip In The Workplace

“I’m not usually one to gossip…BUT…”

It may seem to be an impossible feat to control what people say to each other at work, but an organisation which is riddled with gossip indicates a poor management style and can lead to low morale, poor working relations, and increased turnover.

But fear not! 

Here are some handy hints to manage the impossible...

Set an example - don’t get drawn into un-work related conversations.

Take a look from the outside in and ask yourself questions about your leadership style. Do you comment about your superiors? Do you tell others what you think should change at work? 

People learn from their leaders and if you are making comments like this, others will think it is acceptable. Try and change the conversation topic if you think it is gossip related and keep a professional mind-set at all times.

Leave your door open - keep an open mind to those who come to you with issues.

If your employees do not feel like they can come to you with a problem, they are likely to start complaining to each other about what is wrong and the gossip mill begins. 

Listen and consider individual ideas and comments then give clear answers to their queries. This is likely to earn appreciation and reduce speculation which in turn will help to reduce gossip.

Confront the issue and focus on solutions

When talking to employees about rumours ensure that it is not personal but rather an organisational value. Saying ‘Gossiping doesn’t have a place here as it effects to your productivity and we are professionals’ is better than ‘those who gossip are bad people and should go back to high school’ as this is not going to create a great working atmosphere. 

If you are involved or overhear a group gossiping, try asking everyone what they think could solve the issue. This will guide employees away from gossiping and towards a solution without being self-righteous.

Go by facts and figures

If you do feel that you can’t avoid the subject of gossip, verify the information you receive. If a piece of information is merely a rumour or gossip, the individual will not be able to provide specifics and you can press the issue. 

If this is your tactic just make sure you are not condescending to a point where you make the gossiper feel uncomfortable, but portray to them that you have doubts. This is likely to discourage the spreading of gossip in the workplace.

By practicing these techniques in your organisation you can lead a much more effective, happy, and productive workplace. 

It is important to remember though that “the only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them”… and so it is nearly inevitable to prevent, but you should do everything in your power to keep it out of the workplace and to prevent it from going too far.