In a tight labour force market, sourcing candidates has become a real struggle, particularly for the health care and social assistance sector. Candidate numbers via online job boards are rapidly dwindling yet many organisations still favour these channels.

Not only are we seeing a huge reduction in active job applicants for care roles, but one might also question the quality of candidates still using these channels to get a job. The term “revolving door” comes to mind.

Benefits of Diversifying Recruitment Sources

Research suggests that diversifying recruitment sources can lead to better hiring outcomes, such as:

• A more diverse pool of candidates and thus
• More diverse hires
• A better company cultural fit
• Broader candidate reach
• Higher quality candidates
• With longer tenure

Some examples of recruitment sources are online job boards, agencies, employee referral, social media, community outreach, flyer drop, vocational institutions and migration programs.

The power of your employees

Employee referral programs have been found to be one of the most effective ways to find top-notch candidates. Research published in the Journal of Business and Psychology found that employee referral programs were the most effective recruitment source for finding candidates who were a good fit for the organisation. Additionally, research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that employees who were referred by someone they knew were more likely to stay, resulting in lower turnover rates and greater retention. As an added bonus, the referring employee also had longer tenure!

Moreover, employee referral programs have been found to be cost-effective. A study published in the Journal of Labour Economics found that employee referral programs had a lower cost per hire compared to other recruitment sources. Monetary referral rewards also go directly back to employees and thus become an investment, instead of an external spend.

Employee referral is also an ongoing source of new staff, as for each new hire, organisations can tap into a whole new, often local, network. It’s the low-hanging fruit of recruitment sourcing, yet completely under-utilised in many organisations.

How to turn referral from a drip to a drizzle

“It’s too cumbersome to manage!” is a phrase often uttered when talking about employee referral programs. And it is indeed, when using a spreadsheet. So 20th century. There are modern solutions that streamline the referral process and make it fun and rewarding for employees, either integrated in a recruitment system or via a dedicated app. Organisations using an employee referral app, such as Care Friends in Australia and the UK, are creating a culture of referring and get up to 30% of new hires via this high-quality source. On average, these referrals have tenure more than double that of staff sourced via other channels, making referral an important source to add to your mix.

Questions to ask yourself now

To overcome the challenges of a tight labour market by diversifying recruitment sources, organisations need to ask themselves a few important questions: What is the breakdown of our current recruitment sources, the number of hires and retention by source? Are we overly reliant on a single recruitment source, and how can better leverage our existing employees to help us recruit?

If you are finding that you’re not yet getting more than 15% of new hires via referral, then you have at least one new recruitment source to tap into.

With nearly two decades of experience in Human Resources, Marleen Galligan is a seasoned professional with a diverse skill set that includes recruitment, change management, training, marketing and communication, EVP, and psychometric assessments. Leveraging her educational background in psychology, Marleen provides valuable guidance to clients through a range of services and tools, including their Employee Referral app, Care Friends, to help turbocharge the power of employee referral and their Psychometric Assessment tool, Care Advantage, to effectively screen candidates.

Sources

Seek.com.au

Breaugh, J. A. (2008). Employee referrals: A review. Journal of Human Resources, 43(2), 262-276.

Cable, D. M., & Turban, D. B. (2003). The value of organizational reputation in the recruitment context: A brand‐equity perspective. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(11), 2244-2266.

Chua, R. Y., & Ingram, P. (2013). A tale of two cities: Competing logics and practice variation in the professionalizing of mutual funds. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1), 1-33.

Dineen, B. R., Noe, R. A., & Shaw, J. D. (2008). What leads to the referral of job candidates? An exploratory field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 50-59.

Holm, H., Eriksson, T., & Åkerman, N. (2018). Examining the effectiveness of employee referral programmes: A quasi-experiment. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(17), 2459-2478.

Martin, A., & Liao, H. (2016). Do birds of a feather flock, fly, and continue to fly together? The differential and evolving effects of attraction, selection, and attrition on personality-based within-organization homogeneity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(5), 679-696.

Rynes, S. L., & Cable, D. M. (2003). Recruitment research in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 93-119.

Slaughter, J. E., & Zickar, M. J. (2006). Referral source and applicant reactions: A study of fairness perceptions and organizational attraction. Journal of Business and Psychology, 21(3), 313-328.

Turban, D. B., & Keon, T. L. (1993). Organizational attractiveness: An interactionist perspective. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 23(22), 1858-1876.

www.carefriends.com.au

The post Why Online Job Boards are No Longer Enough: The Power of Employee Referral Programs appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

We spoke with Abdullah Haddara, Director of Haddarco, a Melbourne-based construction company, to understand more about the challenges of recruitment in the construction industry over the past few years and what has worked well for them when it comes to combatting these challenges.

Q: Could you please tell us more about Haddarco?

Haddarco is a Melbourne-based construction company that focuses on providing high-end support and service through our work, which mostly consists of government and private sector projects.

The company was established around sixty years ago by my father, Radwan Haddara. It started out as a very small, family-owned business that was a 1-3 man band – this approach built a great foundation for the business.

In the last ten years or so, we’ve really shifted direction and grown to more than 20 employees, with many projects on the go. Since we don’t really do advertising and rely mostly on word-of-mouth, maintaining our strong reputation within our industry and ensuring our projects are of high quality is paramount.

At the heart of our work is our people. Throughout the organisation’s growth, we’ve maintained our values and culture of loyalty, trust, respect and understanding each other on a deeper level. Focussing on these values and our culture has enabled our team to collaborate and adapt effectively, which in turn means we are able to deliver high-quality projects consistently.

We gathered our people in a team building exercise in which we asked them to describe best what they felt working for Haddarco. Words like, honesty, integrity, professionalism, innovation, foresight and purpose were prevalent. From this, our team chose our company motto, Building with purpose. Soon after, our mission statement was formed:

“Haddarco’s mission is to deliver better builds by providing the highest level of professionalism and workmanship, to deliver the client’s dreams through integrity, innovation, and foresight, and to serve with a sense of purpose.”

Q: How has recruitment been for Haddarco over the past few years?

As with any industry, you need the right people in the right place – and in the construction industry recently, the right people have been very hard to find.

COVID caused a huge workforce shortage – people have left the industry across the board, from direct construction roles (blue and white collar) to related consultant roles, such as architects and engineers. They either moved away from Melbourne to escape lockdowns or, in that time, reassessed whether they really wanted to be in the industry – there was already a lot of pressure in the construction industry and the pandemic gave a lot of people the push to make a shift in their career.

Another challenge is that during the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of companies in our industry willing to pay above and beyond to fill their vacancies and snap up talent, causing further scarcity in an already thinning construction recruitment market.

This workforce shortage has caused increased pressure to complete projects – our deadlines are still there, and now the workforce available to meet them is smaller.

I think it would be safe to say that recruitment is definitely one of our top challenges.

Q: What strategies has Haddarco used to combat recruitment challenges?

We’ve focussed on retention and being adaptable. When the pandemic first hit and no one knew what was going on, we brought all our team members into our office before the lockdowns and reassured them that we would do everything possible to ensure that everyone would be retained – and we followed through on that. We retained all those team members and an important part of that was that they felt they were in safe hands.

Retention is an ongoing focus for us – as mentioned, we have a strong culture of loyalty, trust, respect, and understanding each other. What this looks like for us is making sure we are constantly communicating and collaborating with each other. We have regular team exercises and activities, where we ask our team members what they think of how things are going, what we can do better, and how they are feeling. The effect of COVID on organisations has only made it more clear to us that we will always hold fast to that culture no matter what.

We’ve also become more adaptable with our recruitment. Since our focus is on finding the right person and we recognise that skills can be learned, we’ve widened our scope to include people who may not necessarily be from our industry or have specific experience, but whose skills and background are transferrable to the roles they are applying for.

For example, we were looking for a contract administrator and found there was a shortage of talent with experience in that specific role; so we looked at someone who was an office administrator. They had experience in data entry, so we brought them across and got them to focus on certain aspects of contract administration that they would be proficient in.

We’ve found a number of ways to adapt to recruitment challenges – it really depends on the role, but we’ve found success in thinking outside the box.

Q: What do you look for when recruiting?

In our industry, there are a few key things we look for to meet our business needs. Firstly, efficiency is key – with pressure to meet deadlines, we look for people who have the right skills and, most importantly, attitude.

Obviously, having the technical know-how is important, but being able to work alongside our team members and adapt to client needs is key. We really look for proactive problem solvers – people who can identify problems before they become big issues, and not only identify them, but offer a solution. These people are valuable additions to our collaborative and adaptive team culture.

Finding talent who want a career in construction fits in well with Haddarco, too, because we are big on upskilling. Investing in our team’s training and upskilling means we can support their growth and more easily pivot in times of recruitment strain.

We work with an external talent acquisition partner, Scout Talent, who helps us find and hire for roles through their recruitment campaigns. What set them apart was that they facilitate psychometric testing, which helps us go that one step beyond just finding someone with the right skills – with these psychometric tests, Scout helps us find candidates who are the best matches for our culture and organisation. Since our culture is so important to us, this service is so valuable in helping us really get that personality match right. 

When we were looking for a recruitment partner, it was important to us that we find a partner that wanted to get to know us and understand our bigger picture. We’d encountered many other recruiters whose approach was a cookie-cutter business model; for them, it was a matter of making sure they get their commission on whoever they find for us – then six months down the track, they may even try to recruit that person for another client. 

The common theme was that they weren’t really focused on building that customer relationship with us – and we found that understanding and partnership with Scout Talent.

Q: What is your advice to other construction HR teams struggling with recruitment?

While a lot of businesses went under during COVID, Haddarco stayed its course as a rapidly growing business. And to keep facilitating that growth, I don’t want to speak to 5-6 recruiters, I want to talk to a dedicated point of contact. My advice to external recruiters working for a particular client industry such as construction is to definitely focus on your customer service and building that personal relationship. 

Our priority at Haddarco is to have a cohesive workforce and environment, so finding a recruitment partner in Scout Talent, who really understands our bigger picture and helps us find people who align with our work culture, has been invaluable. 

My advice to construction companies is that when you’re hiring, look for longevity. A quick fix isn’t going to solve your problem, so don’t settle for just anyone you can find. It’s really about looking for the right fit and working with your external partners to ensure that you’re looking at the big picture.

Abdullah Haddara is the Director and Head of Operations of Haddarco, a Melbourne-based construction company. He has almost 20 years of experience the industry, and holds a Bachelor of Construction Management & Economics, a Diploma of Building Construction, and an Advanced Diploma in Business Accounting. 

The post How Haddarco has navigated recruitment in the construction industry appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Despite the country slowly returning to pre-COVID “normalcy” there are still huge workforce shortages in the healthcare and social assistance sector, particularly aged care – regardless of whether talent is needed in residential care settings or in regional/remote areas, there is a continued battle to fill shifts. 

In a sector that is already struggling financially, the pressure on recruitment teams and managers to fill vacancies is an ever-building crescendo. Reduced candidate numbers, no-shows to interviews and even no-shows on the first day on the job are increasing, leaving managers at their wits’ end. 

The need for speed

But with pressure comes risks. The need for speed to snap up any available care staff is a slippery slope to hasty hiring decisions. We’re seeing organisations using fewer reference checks, removing additional screening or going from one (video) interview straight into sending a contract. 

Although speed-to-hire is important, preventing hiring mistakes remains critical, as the cost of a hiring mistake is not only front-loaded but continues to ripple long after the bad hire has been dismissed.

Research finds that a bad hire can cost an employer between 15 – 21 per cent of that employee’s salary, with the extent of the impact depending on the industry and seniority of the role. They furthermore found that 61 per cent of employers have settled for a candidate that did not sufficiently match the job role, ultimately hindering growth and incurring additional costs to the organisation.

For a talent acquisition platform that can help you post jobs, manage candidates, and hire the right talent all in one place, click here to learn about Scout Talent’s service-enabled software.

Reasons to keep psychometric assessments

Psychometric assessments are becoming increasingly popular for frontline care roles because they effectively showcase a candidate’s soft skills, which can be more challenging to identify through a standard resume. One provider of psychometric assessments for the care sector, Care Advantage, has screened close to 200,000 Australian care applicants in the past seven years. 

However, they too have seen a change in how their assessments are being used and a push-back from managers who just want to get their shifts filled. Although it may be tempting to skip additional screening, there are compelling reasons why these types of assessments work:

• There are many different types of assessments that give insight into aspects of a person that are more difficult to uncover otherwise, such as personality style, risky attitudes to work, cognitive ability, level of emotional intelligence and more. 
• They can identify people with the right fit for a job without necessarily having relevant experience. Perfect for hiring people from different sectors. Skills can be taught!
• Every part of the recruitment process can be exaggerated or faked by the candidate and it’s estimated that 40 per cent of people lie in their resume and another 45 per cent of candidates admit not having been fully honest in an interview. While psychometric assessments can also be exaggerated, many assessments will mention in the final report if this may have been the case.
• Candidates who complete the assessments are often more motivated for the role than those who do not. 
• Psychometric assessments are no longer cumbersome and time-consuming. Many have short-form options, gamification elements and an excellent candidate experience.

Speed and due diligence are not mutually exclusive

Increased speed and efficiency can be achieved by using a recruitment system and automating regular tasks. It is important to keep that human touch when recruiting for frontline care roles. Contacting applicants by phone or text message soon after they apply appears to be best practice. Emails tend to get lost. In addition, many organisations choose to invite applicants to complete psychometric assessments before even looking at a resume. This is particularly handy for passive job seekers who may not have a resume on hand, or for job applicants from different sectors. Plus, it helps sift out applicants who weren’t really interested.

Although the Aged Care Worker Registration Scheme could come into effect this year, due diligence remains important and the responsibility of the organisation. In the end, it is better to get it right from the start than to smoothen the far-reaching ripple of hiring mistakes. 

Want to incorporate psychometric assessments in your talent strategy? The Care Advantage is offering readers five FREE candidate assessments – click here to get in touch and redeem.

With nearly two decades of experience in Human Resources, Marleen Galligan is a seasoned professional with a diverse skill set that includes recruitment, change management, training, marketing and communication, EVP, and psychometric assessments. Leveraging her educational background in psychology, Marleen provides valuable guidance to clients through a range of services and tools, including their Employee Referral app, Care Friends, to help turbocharge the power of employee referral and their Psychometric Assessment tool, Care Advantage, to effectively screen candidates.

The post How psychometric testing can help you recruit faster – without skipping due diligence appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

As a recruitment service provider that works closely with small businesses across Australia and New Zealand, Recruit Shop is tasked with always paying attention to recruitment trends and looking for new ways to stay ahead. In this article, they share top recruitment trends that will give you the best chance at securing the highest quality talent this year.

Recruitment trends to capitalise on in 2023

In: Prioritising skills over experience

What does “5 years of experience” mean? Does it mean they are 3 years more qualified than someone with 2 years of experience? Does it mean they have more talent? More ability? Does it mean that they are ready to start the job immediately upon hire?

What more and more organisations are realising is that it doesn’t necessarily mean any of those things.

Experience is not exactly the same as talent, ability, or capability. It is not proof of strength, on its own. There are even situations where it can be a disadvantage, as they may not be agile enough to adjust to your new needs.

Skills and potential, on the other hand, are universal. Maybe the person has less experience, but they demonstrate that they can learn quickly and that they’ll be able to competently do the job. It’s also good to consider that all new hires – including those with 5, 10, or 20 years’ experience – take weeks if not months of training and handover to adjust anyway.

Finding people with the right skills is the new way to hire, especially when the labour market is tight.

Out: Posting generic job ads

People are no longer desperate for work. The best talent is already employed and, if anything, they are trying to find an organisation that speaks to them, one that makes them truly consider leaving their current job and finding a home somewhere new.

An engaging job advertisement is your most important tool to attract new candidates. You need your job ad to be written in a way that is unique to your business, and you need it to excite people to work with you, kind of like you are trying to sell them a product.

Although copying and pasting a generic job description from the internet will save you time, it’s not going to attract highly motivated, skilled candidates to your role. You can learn to optimise your job ads like a pro, or you can get expert advice on how to market your vacancies most effectively from one of our recruitment consultants.

If you can offer unique qualities and benefits to your new team members, highlight that. If you offer a close-knit team or a flexible culture, candidates want to know that! Pay transparency is important, but marketing your uniqueness will go a long way to entice candidates who resonate with who you are.

In: Extensive onboarding, training, and handover 

Recruitment doesn’t stop at the hire. Extensive onboarding and training is the best way to make sure your new hire not only thrives at the job, but stays.

Along with training and handover, the first few days with your new hire should be spent sharing your business’s story, and inducting them into your culture so that they feel supported professionally and socially. It goes a long way to build trust and lines of communication that will help your new team member to feel like they belong, and like they are empowered to be highly productive in their new role.

Try to support your new hire with handover notes that outline key processes and procedures, what to do if things go wrong, who to ask for certain kinds of information. Plan ahead to spend a lot of time with them, particularly in the first week, and ongoing to check in and ensure they feel comfortable in their first few months.

Here’s a guide to onboarding your new hire to help you.

Out: Targeting only active job seekers

When recruiting, there are two groups of candidates to consider:

• Active candidates, who are actively looking at job boards for new roles, making applications and scheduling interviews; and,
• Passive candidates, who are not actively seeking a new job, but could be interested in the right opportunity if they come across it. They might browse job boards occasionally, but they’re not actively applying for roles.

Your unique job ads will help you grab the attention of the active candidates, but it helps to have a plan for attracting passive candidates, too, particularly when the labour market is so tight.

Reaching out to passive candidates directly can be very effective, particularly when you can follow it up with really engaging information about the job and the benefits of working with your business.

If this kind of outreach is a little bit time-intensive for your team, Recruit Shop offers a digital headhunting service that can be used in conjunction with our standard recruitment service to help you expedite the process. Combined, the package helps you to pool together active and passive candidates, and make even better hiring decisions on account of having more options.

In: Maintaining relationships with ex-employees

Sometimes, the talent you need is the talent you had. We’re in an era where people leave companies for things like more money or more excitement all the time, even if they generally like their job. This isn’t the same market as a few decades ago, where employees were loyal or felt like they couldn’t experiment and try new things.

This change in attitude can be beneficial to your business: it means that an employee that leaves your organisation may be more than willing to come back, and that person may be exactly what you need. Often, hiring “boomerang employees” as we affectionately call them, can reduce the time taken to onboard and train, as they may remember a lot of your processes and procedures from days gone by.

We highly recommend maintaining positive relationships with all of your ex-employees, as you never know when one of them will be open to returning.

Out: Ghosting unsuccessful candidates

We live in a connected world, with online reviews, social media, and so much more. It is not only bad ethics to forget about unsuccessful candidates – it can be harmful to your business and your hiring efforts.

Those “ghosted” candidates now have a voice they can use to discourage people from joining your team.

It’s best practice to contact each and every unsuccessful candidate to grant them the closure of knowing which of their opportunities are still on the table. A simple, empathetic email can show immense respect and create a more positive experience for the candidate, which reflects well on your business. It could also leave the door open for future hires – ask talented candidates who happen to be unsuccessful if you can add them to a mailing list for future opportunities with your team!

In: Speeding up your time to hire

Imagine that you are a highly-skilled candidate who is in high demand in the current market. You find a job that appeals to you and you apply. More than a week passes before you are invited for your first interview. More than a week passes before the second interview. You are offered the job, and told that you’ll start a few weeks later. By now, you’ve waited more than a month to see if you even have a chance at this one job.

What would that make you think about this organisation?

You might think they are disorganised, or that the position is not a priority.

And what might happen in that time?

You’ll be scheduling other interviews, and fielding other job offers. You’ll become less passionate about working for the first organisation. You may even decide to stay at your current job because things aren’t taking off.

Speeding up the time to hire is critical for businesses that want to stay ahead of their competition. At Recruit Shop, we ensure a fast and efficient process that gets results. We have the resources to spend time keeping your candidates engaged and well-informed as you make your decision. If you want to discuss how we can help you improve your recruitment process without breaking the bank, you can request a callback here.

Out: Trying to do it all yourself, if you’re struggling 

Recruit Shop works closely with small businesses to achieve real results. If you want to capitalise on these recruitment trends but you’re not sure where to start, we can work with you to create a robust recruitment campaign that meets your needs. You can reach out to our team today on +61 1300 901 721 or send an email to info@recruitshop.com.au with information about your vacancy and the kind of candidate you’re seeking. Alternatively, you can request a callback from one of our recruitment specialists to chat about your goals in detail.

This article was originally published on the Recruit Shop website and was reproduced here with permission.

Kyra Kirrane is a content marketing specialist with Scout Talent and its sister company Recruit Shop. Her focus is on coordinating up-to-the-minute content that helps small to medium-sized organisations gain a competitive edge by leveraging high-value trends and best practices in their industry.

Recruit Shop is a low-cost recruitment service provider that supports small businesses across Australia and New Zealand to achieve their goals for growth. Through dedicated advertising and sourcing channels, Recruit Shop helps its clients to secure the best talent, in less time, for a low flat fee.

The post 2023 ins and outs: recruitment trends to capitalise on appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Indeed and Glassdoor recently released their very first joint Hiring and Workplace Trends Report, which explores the projected areas talent acquisition and HR teams will need to focus on in 2023 – including the value of company culture; an increased demand from candidates to see DE&I initiatives; and working with team members to enact feedback and change in the workplace.

In line with these three key trends, Recruitment Marketing Magazine Editor, Susie Mather, gives her thoughts on how organisations can leverage these insights to see growth in the new year. With over 20 years of experience in business and recruitment, Susie’s reflections are informed by the strategies and successes she has seen in the organisation she co-founded, Scout Talent.

Key insight 1: Company culture is valuable in both attracting and retaining team members

Susie: Commercial reality, authenticity and good old common sense are key when it comes to building a robust company culture. Firstly, culture needs to be totally authentic in order to have value; and secondly, businesses have to make commercial sense. The good news is that it’s a straightforward formula: without one of these things, a culture can often be lacking. 

The bad news is: organisations can’t simply “incorporate things” they think would appeal into their culture in the same way they might add Lego bricks to a Lego castle. Think of organisational culture like an individual’s personality – a mixture of DNA and ‘nurture over time’ that is somewhat set and not terribly easy to simply “add things to” in order to appeal to candidates. 

The “adding of things” can definitely be done, but it definitely puts authenticity (at the very least) at risk. For example, you can’t just add trust and integrity as items to your company culture if you haven’t taken the steps to ensure there is transparency within your teams or facilitated situations where team members have to rely on each other. In order to make something a part of your culture, you need to get buy-in from your team members and ensure that adding it aligns with your business goals.

Similarly, “cultural bricks” that contribute to a viable business can’t simply be easily removed later on like a Lego brick is, if the organisation feels they’re no longer ‘needed’. If your team members have operated on a system of transparency to maintain trust within the team, you can’t suddenly decide that information should be siloed – doing so would cause your team members and perhaps even external stakeholders to question the authenticity of your culture.

All the above is why employer branding often goes disappointingly (and expensively) wrong. If an employer branding company offers, even very obliquely, to “add things to your culture” that will help you attract more or better talent – please, run a mile. In fact, just call me and I’ll shout you an Uber. 

Why? Because employer branding is all about identifying, articulating and amplifying an organisation’s actual employer brand, not adding things to enhance it. And the identification phase should involve workshops with key stakeholders, and in-depth talks with at least 40 current employees across the full range of roles and tenures, just for a start.

I’m not saying an organisation can’t improve its culture. Not for a second. But it’s nothing to do with employer branding team or company. Changing culture requires the careful and focussed attention of a group of existing stakeholders in an organisation, and buy-in and ownership at all levels including executive and board. 

If you’re looking to elevate your organisational culture in 2023, remember that it’s never quick. It’s never painless. It can be done well. And don’t let any employer branding consultants tell you about adding Lego bricks.

Key insight 2: Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives – and employers’ progress on them – matter to employees

Susie: This topic is dear to my heart. At Scout Talent, we’ve made a particular focus this year on DEI&B, with the B standing for Belonging – which is an important facet because you can create all the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the world, but if your team members don’t feel like they belong in your workplace, then what are you doing it for?

One of my favourite memories, when I think about DEI&B at Scout Talent, is the International Foods Potluck hosted by one of our content marketing specialists and resident DEI&B champion, Kyra Kirrane. I asked her to share more about the Potluck for Recruitment Marketing Magazine, as well as her thoughts on the importance of DEI&B and how employers can do better in 2023. Here’s what she said:

DEI&B seems like a huge undertaking, but it really can start with a conversation and a light-hearted internal event. We have a real passion for food at Scout Talent, so the idea to host an International Foods Potluck came very naturally. As our first DEI&B initiative, it was something that many people could get excited about, everyone could participate in, and there was no cost required of the business to host this really engaging event. 

I put together some collateral, which included a few colourful posters and some carefully crafted Slack messages, and started “marketing” the campaign internally about three weeks out from the date. I recruited some champions to organise the same event in our other offices around the globe, which really helped to make the event feel more impactful. 

Finally, I prepared a little “speech” for the start of the event to set the scene. I explained why we’d gathered: to celebrate our multiculturalism through food. I emphasised that because food is embedded in culture, it’s also deeply connected to identity, and an event like this allows us to preserve and celebrate our diverse cultures in a multicultural society. This is particularly true for people whose culture is not the dominant culture i.e. Australian. As an immigrant myself, and with many, many colleagues who are immigrants to Australia, it was important for me to make space for the myriad cultures that we have the privilege of experiencing every day at Scout Talent. 

I also took a moment to acknowledge that food practices are influenced by access and that we should reflect with gratitude on our access to the delicious food we’d prepared and keep this in mind as we tucked in. 

The event was a great success: we got a really good amount of participation from people bringing in homemade snacks, and I encouraged everyone to come to try them out even if they were unable to bring something along themselves. Our various offices around the world participated and our Slack channels were flooded with pictures of everyone taking part. In particular, some of our team members who are typically more reserved came out with amazing spreads and loads of engagement – a great sign when you’re trying to nurture a culture of inclusion and visibility! 

Upon reflection, I think the following takeaways were key to making this initiative happen, and can be valuable points for organisations looking to improve their DEI&B or start similar initiatives in the new year:

• Empowering your teams: Key to my ability to host this internal event and create a business-wide project team that includes an executive team member, was truly feeling empowered to pursue something I cared about during work hours. 
• Engaged and forward-thinking leaders: Identify strengths in your team members and encourage them to explore them, and flourish.
• A level of independence and autonomy: Once I was empowered to take this project on and turn it into something real, my leader supported me and always gave me her best advice, but let me drive the initiative independently, which reinforced my own communication and leadership skills. 
• A culture of learning and development: Not only was this my most direct pathway into DEI&B (we have dedicated weekly learning hours, which I used to prepare for the potluck) but it is key to creating an inclusive culture because by its nature, becoming more diverse and inclusive asks people to HEAL: harmonise, empathise, accept, and learn (a concept from motivational psychologist and speaker, Eve Ash). Humbling yourself in the face of learning new ways of thinking about the world and its people can be challenging – the more positive, safe, and collaborative your culture, the easier it will be to implement new and exciting initiatives.

Key insight 3: Workers have more leverage to demand change in the workplace

As mentioned in the Indeed and Glassdoor Hiring and Workplace Trends Report, a demographic shift towards an aging population means hiring will continue to be a challenge for years to come. This is translating to workers having more power to demand change in the workplace. 

This isn’t a bad thing at all – in fact, employers should view this as an opportunity to start 2023 strong and ask their team directly for feedback on how they can improve, so team members are shown that their opinions are valued.

One way to ask for feedback is to simply listen. Make the time to really listen to employees’ comments and requests when they come in, with your only intention in that moment being to understand them – the response can come later, after you’ve heard all they’ve had to say.

While you are listening, stay measured and calm. When it is time to respond, protect the organisation fiscally (after all, it does support all these people) by not making reactive decisions. If you don’t have an immediate answer, tell your team member(s) that you will come back to them, and take the time to formulate a well thought-out response, as well as a plan for how you will communicate it.  

Another way you can collect feedback on a wider scale and regular cadence is through a Employee Engagement Survey (EES). At Scout Talent, we conduct an EES within the entire organisation every year to check in with our team – we ask them what they’re happy with, what we could do better, and give them an opportunity to give specific feedback. The most valuable part of doing this is that afterwards, we review the results and discuss feedback as a wider group, then within our divisional teams to implement change. 

In between EES and tidbits of feedback, it’s absolutely essential to constantly show your team members they are valued. Tracey Mathers gives great tips here on how to do exactly that – so that when your team comes to you with requests for change, they’ll feel more comfortable and empowered to do so, and the request itself will feel like exactly that, and not a demand.

A key thing to remember is that any changes that come from employee requests need to be authentic and aligned with the business’ goals both now and into the foreseeable future. Why? Because circumstances will continue to change, and any changes you promise need to be viewed in the whole picture of the company’s culture. After all, cultural bricks aren’t like Lego bricks that can be added and taken away again.

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In Australia, hiring for holiday jobs typically begins in August, ramping up throughout September and peaking in October, with businesses finalising recruitment and schedules well before the Christmas holidays. 

On Indeed, job postings for Christmas opportunities this year have outpaced last year – a sign that retailers are optimistic leading into their busiest time of year. However, recruitment this year will be challenging with the Australian labour market incredibly tight and Christmas jobs receiving lower than normal interest from jobseekers. 

Overall, the retail sector has enjoyed a successful year. Spending has increased by 9.1 per cent since December last year, with spending at department stores and cafés & restaurants up 26 per cent and 24 per cent respectively. Even though consumer confidence has plunged in recent months owing to rising interest rates, retailers clearly have reason to be optimistic. 

Christmas recruitment ramped up throughout August and September

In September this year, job postings featuring Christmas keywords in their title accounted for 2.3 per cent of all postings on Indeed, compared to 1.8 per cent of postings in the same month last year, suggesting a stronger demand for Christmas casual workers. Australian employers also started advertising earlier than usual, with postings ramping up faster throughout August than in previous years. 

The fact that the Christmas jobs share is tracking ahead of last year’s pace is particularly impressive when you consider that the overall number of postings is 46 per cent larger than it was at the same time last year. This means that Christmas jobs this year account for a larger share of a much bigger pie. 

Nevertheless, the gap between this year and last year has closed considerably throughout September, suggesting that the Christmas postings share could peak lower, as a share of total postings, than last year. In the past two years, Christmas recruitment has peaked in the first half of October before gradually declining in the lead-up to Christmas. Jobseekers who apply early can lock in a Christmas gig months in advance.

Search activity has fallen short of last year

In recent years, Christmas job searches have typically peaked a little later than job postings. Last year, Christmas searches peaked towards the end of November, compared with the early October peak for job postings. So far, Christmas job searches are tracking behind the past few years. In September, around 0.8 per cent of searches on Indeed were for Christmas jobs, down from 0.9 per cent over the same period last year. In other words, jobseeker interest is looking lower this festive season than last. 

The dynamics in the Christmas jobs market reflect the overall labour market. We have a combination of increased demand for talent, with no matching increase in jobseeker interest. For jobseekers, this suggests there’ll be plenty of Christmas jobs to go around this season, while for retailers, it presents the risk of limited staff at one of the busiest times of the year.  

Who’s hiring?

Unsurprisingly, around 82 per cent of Christmas roles in August and September were in the retail sector. Nevertheless, the retail frenzy can spill over into other parts of the economy. A day-long shopping spree isn’t possible without refreshments, creating food service roles, while holiday travel creates opportunities in hospitality. And all those toys and clothes don’t magically appear on shelves. Instead, they must be transported from warehouses, creating jobs in transport and logistics. 

Among top Christmas employers, major clothing brands and jewellers rank highly. The biggest Christmas employers tend to be similar from year-to-year.  

Christmas hiring this year reflects the broader labour market dynamics that we’ve observed throughout 2022. There is no shortage of opportunities across the country, concentrated in the retail sector, but there may be a shortage of available candidates. Christmas job postings have been strong throughout August and September but job searches for these types of roles have lagged behind earlier years. That is concerning for Australian retailers as they gear up for their busiest time of year.

Callam Pickering is a Senior Economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab with a focus on Australia. Previously he was an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia focusing on household spending and house prices. He also worked as the economic editor at online publications the Business Spectator and Eureka Report where he covered economic issues relating to Australia. Callam earned a Bachelor of Economics and Accounting from Monash University.

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Tracey Mathers, experienced retailer, business advisor, and speaker, gives her insights on why championing your team members is key to success in retail recruitment and retaining key staff.

Tracey has also shared her thoughts on retail recruitment and how to get it right the first time in an interview with Recruitment Marketing Magazine. Click below to read her thoughts:

Read more: Why getting recruitment right the first time is so important

The post Key ways to make team members feel valued: insights from retail expert, Tracey Mathers appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

We spoke to Tracey Mathers, who has over 35 years of experience in the retail industry, for her insights on how to hire retail team members with quality and longevity in mind—and how to get it right the first time.

From your extensive experience in the retail industry, what are some non-negotiable steps for recruitment teams when hiring for retail?

There were several non-negotiable steps we had—after all, our potential recruits would be joining an already strong team, so I needed to make sure they were going to fit in perfectly and not cause disruption. Some thoughts and examples of essential recruitment steps are:

Do your preparation

• Profiling is a great tool to really understand where people are in their natural flow. I am a brand partner with a company called Contribution Compass and, when profiling, we often pick up that the potential recruit is not strong in the area of expertise we are looking for. This does not mean they will not work in that position, but it gets you knowing ahead what you need to be asking and looking for in the interview. This can save a lot of time and—in some instances—a lot of heartache.
•  Really think about the position you are hiring for. What values do you need? What is the true talent they need to have? What sort of personality will work? Once you understand the true needs of the position, design a range of questions around getting that information from them. Preparation is essential and the more thought you put into your questions for the outcomes you want, the greater the interview will be. Remember: we want them to talk, and we listen.

Take your time during the interview

• It is really important to relax the candidate for a few minutes before you begin. This is just general small talk just to get conversation flowing but keep it light and fun, to hopefully relax them. I would always add something like, I am really looking forward to chatting today and getting to know you more. We want them as relaxed as possible to really get them to let their guard down.
• Many people go by the popular saying, first impressions count. Try not to do this; instead, stay open-minded. Some of the best people I ever hired came in looking like a train wreck, but they were so perfect for the position that all I had to do was help them know how to show up; this is much easier than teaching someone great sales or people skills.
• Don’t rush an interview and don’t get excited after five minutes because you loved their last answer, focus on all answers. This is about connection and taking the time to really evaluate and chat; after all, we are looking for close to perfect for this position. Give yourself plenty of time. I work with retail clients every day and the first thing I do when I discover the turnover in staff they have been experiencing is ask if I may sit in on their next interviews. One of the many things I have learnt from doing that is how important the questions you ask are. It’s important to take your time and ask as many questions as you like; after all, employing a new team member is expensive and time consuming, so we need to take the time to get it as right as we can.

Look for specificity

• Keeping in mind that people often will tell you what they think you want to hear, ask for examples on what they are telling you they are great at. If they share that they are great at handing complaints, ask for an example of where they handled a complaint well, and what the outcome was. Watch them carefully; look at the body language and at their level of communication. Are they looking you in the eyes as they are talking to you? There are so many signs that tell you if they are really connected to themselves and their talents, and if they are telling you the truth or just what they think you need to hear.
• When you are finished interviewing and you ask the question, “Do you have any questions?”, listen to what they ask. Are they great questions about helping them discover more about the organisation or the role? Or are they selfish questions, making it all about what is in it for them? This will give you a good indication of the outcomes they want or expect.

What happens when these non-negotiable steps are missed?

If you make a bad hire, sometimes you can get lucky and might be able to train and manage the person into the role, but often it will cause disruption; it can take people away from where their focus should be and cost the business a lot of money. It can get really bad, which is what I have seen in cases before where key staff leave, as they just can’t handle what is happening and that management is not doing anything to fix it.

What are some common gaps you see in recruitment and business processes that allow for the wrong people to get hired?

The biggest one is what I call desperate hiring, which is when your gut is telling you it is wrong but your
head is saying, I need to get this hire finalised, so they will do. It is so important not to cut corners, so you should have a procedure in place when hiring. Clarify for yourself and your hiring team what the position is, and really understand it. Some questions you can ask yourself to get connected to the role you are trying to fill are:

• What are some attributes a possible candidate could have that would work well for
  the position?
•  Do a profile on candidates to understand them more before the hiring process starts.
• Is there another team member whose opinion I value, and can I ask them to sit in and
  just listen?
• What questions will I be asking?
• What values and strengths am I looking for?

After the interview is over, give yourself time to reflect on the candidate. Did they cover the points you identified as essential? Is there anything that does not feel right? Is there anything you missed asking that you need to ask in the next interview, if there is one?

When you take the time during recruitment to truly understand what you are looking for and the cost of ‘making do’, you will avoid hiring the wrong people.

For businesses that hire reactively, what are some things you’d recommend they do to hire proactively and land key talent?

• Take it slowly, make sure your advertising is really clear and precise.
• Consider a referral program that encourages your team to find high quality candidates through their own network.
• Many companies have implemented work experience platforms that work well as proactive hiring methods. While this is time consuming, it is an effective way to talent pool as you get to choose the talent that shines from it and offer them positions within your business.
• Have guidelines for your hiring process and stick to them.

What are your recommendations for businesses to nurture staff and work towards higher retention rates?

There are so many ways we can work towards creating loyalty and long-term employment retention. Here are a few of my thoughts:

Actively recognise and communicate with people

• People today want to feel like they belong. They want praise, congratulations, feedback and recognition for jobs well done. Money is important, but so is being valued.
• Make sure communication is open and honest. Encourage your team to have candid conversations; listen to these to make sure you have them doing work they love and are good at, have team meetings often so the connection with the team stays strong and feedback or reviews are essential to get motivation and interest going.

Prioritise good leadership habits

• Direction and great leadership are important. People feel more valued when they are communicated with well on expectations and deliverables. When everyone knows what is expected and what they need to be doing, there is a greater sense of belonging.
• Lead by example. Don’t expect a certain behaviour if you are not showing your team that it is what you live by—do what I say, not what I do does not cut it. If people respect you and enjoy interacting with you, they are more likely to hang around longer.
• Be aware of what is happening around you as an owner/leader. Take notice of whether people are being excluded, bullied, or others are taking recognition for work they didn’t do. If you fix the issue then respect will grow for you, and your team will be loyal and want to stay.

Address issues with tact and timeliness

• One non-negotiable I stuck to whenever giving feedback or reviews was that if there was a problem, I always started with a congratulations on something great, then opened the conversation on the problem. From there, I worked with them to find the solution together right then and there, and always finished on a thank you for what they do well. With this method, the problem gets solved and the team member walks away feeling that they know they have improvements to make but that you are also happy in so many other areas.
• Never address an issue with an individual in front of other team members. This will not only make them feel like you don’t value them, but it will also embarrass them and generally they will become disengaged immediately.

How can businesses learn from you?

If you get your team right and leadership is great, there is a much greater chance that you will have a happy team who will continue working with you for as long as you want them.

I have had 35 years’ experience in creating brilliant leaders and teams. It is tiring having to keep training new people, so investing in how we can improve our own skills in leadership and recruitment should be a priority.

I would love to help you build a super successful team, feel really connected with them and know how to manage all situations that arise. What we put off today can become a greater issue tomorrow, so handling things as they arise is essential. I work with both leaders and teams on connection, building greater relationships within teams and confidence building—but it does start with the initial choice on who do we bring in to work with us.

I would love to connect and chat with how I can help you connect more with your own talents to get your recruitment and management processes just right.

Tracey is a well-respected keynote speaker who gives inspirational talks covering topics such as leadership, sales, connection, confidence, and how to survive in business today.

With 35 years’ experience in both the retail and the corporate world, Tracey has a wealth of knowledge in all different aspects that she passes on now through her work as a professional advisor, speaker and mentor, having sold her retail stores in July 2016.

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Don’t know where to start? Here are four ways you can make your recruitment process more accessible.

1. Avoid unconscious bias when recruiting

There are many ways to make your hiring process more accessible, but the first step is to address your own unconscious bias. Unconscious bias refers to an attitude or deep-rooted belief held subconsciously about a specific group of people. It can seep into recruitment practices and create further inequalities and disadvantages to minority groups, including people with disabilities.

To address your own unconscious bias, you must first acknowledge that it exists. Be honest with yourself and consider what type of candidates you tend to lean towards. Are they consistently from a majority group – i.e. able bodied or neurotypical people? If you tend to disregard people with disabilities – whether physical or non-physical – acknowledge this may be an unconscious bias and seek to understand why your unconscious bias exists. 

Once you’ve acknowledged your unconscious bias, work to change your thinking and actively avoid generalisations or assumptions about candidates. It’s important for recruiters to understand that in many cases, a candidate doesn’t have to be neurotypical or able-bodied to be the best fit for the job. Recognising this is the first step towards promoting diversity and inclusion in the recruitment process, as well as creating an equal playing field for people of all abilities.

2. Using inclusive language 

People with disabilities often face many disadvantages in the workforce, including when they’re applying for jobs. If the position you’re recruiting for is open to people of all abilities, it’s important to clearly indicate this in your job ad, along with necessary practical information about the role’s accessibility (i.e., wheelchair-accessible parking and/or bathrooms, internal audio induction loops, Braille labeling, ability to work from home, etc.). 

A simple line such as ‘This position is open to people of all abilities’ will help job seekers with a disability feel more comfortable applying, in turn opening your recruitment to a wider and more diverse talent pool. 

3. Posting the vacancy on hiring platforms that promote accessibility, to ensure people of all abilities can access the job ad with ease.

Some job sites and hiring platforms can be difficult to navigate for those with hearing or visual impairments, which can prevent these candidates from applying and potentially cost your organisation to miss out on great talent. 

When advertising a role, ensure all platforms are accessible to those with hearing or visual impairments. Examples include: 

• The ability to enlarge text
• Adding alt text to images
• Website text and font with a high contrast
• Video and multimedia with audio descriptions and captions
  

4. Design every step of the hiring process to be accessible for all abilities

Every step of the recruitment process should be accessible for all candidates, regardless of their ability. Make sure you communicate with the candidate in a way that is accessible to them, and ask how they would prefer to communicate with you. For example, if a candidate is hearing impaired and relies on a hearing aid or lip reading, consider opting for emails rather than phone calls. 

Similarly, when scheduling an interview, ask a candidate if they would prefer to meet in person or remotely via video call. Video calls may be preferable for candidates with a disability for a number of reasons: they take the hassle out of travel and transport for people using wheelchairs or mobility aids, while allowing those with hearing impairments to lip-read or use closed captions. 

If you’re interviewing a candidate in person, ensure the location is accessible for people with all types of mobility aids, including wheelchairs, walking sticks, crutches, or guide dogs, and avoid noisy or overcrowded locations as this can become challenging for those with hearing impairments, autism, or sensory processing disorders.

The key here is that every candidate and every person with a disability has different needs. Ask a candidate what they would like in the recruitment process and offer ways to support them with this.  

Sally McKibbin is Indeed’s Career Coach and Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging expert. Sally has over a decade’s experience in recruitment and HR. Sally’s passion lies in helping people find jobs they love.

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All this begins at the recruitment stage; those in charge must consider the organisation’s recruitment process, and how this impacts diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace. 

The opportunity to develop a team that is varied and diverse begins with the initial application. Most recruitment methods, such as resumes, reference checks and cover letters, create the first hurdle to achieving an inclusive workplace: they introduce unconscious bias. In this setting, unconscious bias is where the recruiter unintentionally categorises or pigeonholes a candidate based on their own social understandings or beliefs. 

Unconscious bias does not necessarily align with an individual’s conscious values and is much more prevalent than conscious prejudice. According to this 2021 Harvard Business Review article, a large body of research has “found that hiring managers display bias against underrepresented minorities”.

To “answer the call of the current moment”, as the article describes, recruiters must consider introducing alternative hiring methods.

Overcoming the inertia 

Despite extensive research done in this area and the blatant need for a more sophisticated, hiring process, there is a surprising amount of inertia in Australia when it comes to reliance on traditional practices. 

WithYouWithMe (WYWM) has found most organisations continue to rely on resumes: an overwhelming majority (92 per cent) of organisations rely on reference checks, resumes, and cover letters to screen applicants. Diving deeper, the research uncovered over two-thirds (69 per cent) of organisations still rely on resumes, while 63 per cent fall back on reference checks.     

Promisingly, there is progress being made in hiring practices, especially over the last few years. Two-fifths (41 per cent) of managers say their organisations have introduced blind resumes, which remove key details like names, age, and university names, to reduce unconscious bias and make for a fairer hiring process.

While blind resumes are a great step in the right direction, psychometric and aptitude testing are potentially the best ways of ensuring an inclusive hiring process. 

Broadly, psychometric testing measures a person’s favoured behavioural style within the workplace and helps identify leadership potential among employees. Aptitude testing, as the name implies, is designed to identify a candidate’s aptitude strengths and weaknesses, in order to more accurately assign them a career path or a training program, which rewards their strengths. 

Common outcomes we have observed include improved creativity and focus. There has been a greater awareness among employees of their leadership and communication skills, which foster deeper collaboration. All in all, these point to stronger organisational performance.  

Despite the benefits, these hiring methods aren’t used in many Australian organisations, with only one in three managers using these processes to screen for suitable candidates. 

There remains much ground to cover in this respect; we must start thinking differently about our workforce and access new forms of data for our present and future talent pool.     

Train, educate – and measure 

Training and education is another area where organisations can improve D&I in hiring. Yet according to WYWM’s research, almost 30 per cent of organisations have no mandatory training on inclusive hiring, and only 52 per cent have interview training for cultural awareness. 

The upside is of those who have policies on D&I for hiring processes, 92 per cent and 96 per cent of medium and large enterprises respectively have processes in place to review and evaluate their effectiveness. 

Doing this evaluation allows business and HR leaders to document the impact of the recruitment process and design an effective, future-proof program. This is key to eradicating biases. 

To build a workforce that is engaged and productive, D&I is key. Innovation is only truly possible when knowledge from varied backgrounds and perspectives is shared.

While it’s important to educate staff and create a workplace where diversity and differences are embraced, it often comes down to the courage of leaders to do away with archaic processes and redefine D&I.   

Alicia Kouparitsas is Chief Marketing Officer at WithYouWithMe – an Australian tech start-up and social impact company focused on reshaping the global employment landscape. 

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