As 2022 comes to a close and the run-up to the holiday season begins, it can be easy to take your foot off the pedal and forget you’ll have to hit the ground running with a robust talent strategy if you want your organisation to grow in 2023.
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.