The Great Resignation boom is upon us. After a tumultuous 18 months of layoffs and stand-downs, employees are the ones left holding all the cards. 

Job openings are soaring. According to PageUp data, there are 50% more open job ads than there were before the pandemic. 

At the same time, the number of Australian workers quitting their roles to pursue new opportunities is increasing. New research shows 38% of Australian workers plan to look for a new job in the next 12 months, and a further 39% are open to new opportunities.

There are a few reasons for this.

Faced with the prospect of returning to the office, many workers are simply quitting their jobs rather than surrendering the flexibility of their work from home lifestyle. 

Dissatisfied with pay freezes and burned out from increased workloads, employees are jumping ship for greener pastures. The best talent knows they have many options.  

But it’s not all bad news. For working professionals, there is optimism and hope for the future. It’s much-needed after a long year spent weathering a health and economic crisis.

For talent acquisition teams, resignations mean high turnover costs and business disruptions. But it also means more talent on the market, and more people searching for jobs better suited to their skills and interests. 

The opportunity lies with businesses that are quick enough to snap up this talent, and strategic enough to retain their most valued people.  

Rethinking rewards and benefits 

In an effort to keep a hold of talent, some employers are raising wages and offering bonuses. 

Wage conversations are always a factor in whether an employee takes a new role or stays put. But they aren’t the only reason a person leaves a job. 

COVID-19 has created a seismic shift in what employees and job seekers look for in a role – and it’s no longer just about the money. Organisations should be prepared to re-think their benefits and Employee Value Proposition for a remote-first world. 

For example: More than half of Australian working professionals would take a pay cut if it meant they could work from home 100% of the time.

Today’s workers are used to the flexibility and freedom of a work from home lifestyle, and they don’t want to go back. In fact, 34% of employees look for a new role if their employer didn’t provide remote work options.

But it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Three quarters of Australian workers say they’d like a mix of in-person and remote work. Instead of advertising a signing bonus to attract reluctant candidates back to the office, offering a mix of remote and in-person options could be a far bigger drawcard.

Engage employees with internal mobility opportunities

If your employees have an appetite for change, feed it. Internal mobility opportunities like cross-functional team assignments and secondments in new business units give employees fresh challenges and new perspectives. 

Internal mobility opportunities increase cross-company collaboration, which is crucial for keeping employees engaged, motivated and connected to the organisation. 

As PageUp wrote in our Top 60 Employee Engagement tips article, 

“Collaboration is important for employees to feel included and engaged. Studies show teams that share leadership responsibilities, interpersonal interactions and a cross-functional mentality have lower levels of conflict and stress, and higher levels of overall satisfaction.”

And remember: if you don’t offer employees opportunities for growth and career development within your organisation, they won’t hesitate to find it elsewhere. 

Get onboarding (and re-boarding) right the first time 

Perhaps an inevitable trend to emerge from the pandemic is high turnover among new employees. Most of these workers were onboarded remotely, and many have never met their co-workers in person. 

Sustaining a relationship remotely is difficult. Building a relationship remotely is even harder. 

But it’s something organisations need to do if they are to hold on to their hard-won talent. 

20% of employee turnover occurs within the first 45 days, and 90% of employees make the decision to stay at their company within the first six months. 

Considering how much it costs to replace an employee (up to 60% of their first-year salary) it’s clear that it pays to invest in proper onboarding. 

Onboarding sets the tone for a new starter’s time at an organisation, and is particularly important when welcoming remote hires. If that first impression isn’t a great one, new hires can become disengaged, overwhelmed, and leave. 

When onboarding remotely, it’s imperative to make new hires feel supported, seen and connected to their coworkers online. You want to maximise the “employee honeymoon” phase, and minimise anxiety and disengagement. 

When organisations get onboarding right, new hire productivity increases by 62% and retention of new hires increases by more than 50%. 

Just as important is “re-boarding” employees who return after time away. Whether it’s an ex-employee who has been re-hired, a staff member returning from maternity leave, or a furloughed worker you’ve brought back on board, taking the time to get them up to speed will ensure they hit the ground sprinting. 

This helps returnees reintegrate into the workplace culture more easily, introducing them to new processes and technologies instead of throwing them in the deep end. 

This article originally appeared on PageUp, and has been republished here with permission.

Marion Robinson is responsible for spearheading global growth for PageUp in all its forms. She provides strategic direction across PageUp’s client advocacy, partner alliance, marketing and brand-building programs, ensuring total alignment between them so as to deliver on the PageUp growth strategy. Leveraging a wealth of experience in client management roles across a range of industries including Banking, Human Resources and IT, Marion understands the daily people challenges of clients first-hand. 

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Health and wellbeing initiatives, social events, and a tenacious dedication to their people are built into Liberty Financial’s cultural fabric. Liberty Financial’s people help them achieve their vision of helping as many people as possible get financial through offering home, commercial, personal and car loans, as well as insurance. Social Community Administrator for Liberty Financial, Stephanie Ryan gave us a peak behind the curtain about the ways they invest in their people to accomplish this inspiring goal.

“We’re a business of approximately 400 employees across Australia and New Zealand,” said Ryan. “Our size enables us to have a really close-knit, inclusive culture. Our people are everything. We run these initiatives and programs, and offer staff benefits to help keep our people happy and healthy and to attract the best people to join us! We try to offer something for everyone. It’s a really great environment to work in.”

Liberty Financial’s social committee arranges monthly social events and Ryan explains these events are a valuable way to provide their people with avenues to interact outside of work and strengthen relationships.

“It’s important to have these events. We have a very social culture. Everyone is invited to come along and get to know people across the business. We organise ‘monthly mingles’ (such as comedy nights and moonlight cinema shows), two big annual parties and two annual family and friends ‘fun days’. We also celebrate many other cultural days throughout the year, such as International Women’s Day, Movember and Pride month.”

In addition to investing in social events, Liberty Financial also offers a wide range of health and wellness initiatives, which Ryan coordinates. They run monthly health initiatives (such as onsite health assessments, vaccinations, skin checks), participate in the corporate triathlon and corporate games, offer their people subsidised gym memberships, and yoga and mindfulness programs (including a reflection room for employees to relax and destress so they can perform their best!). They even offer an onsite school holiday program for employees’ children through KidsCo.

In particular, their Tour de Office health and charitable initiative was a huge success. The week-long in-house cycling event allows employees to cycle in half-hour sessions throughout the working day and raise money for their charity of choice.

“Health and wellbeing benefits are embedded in our culture, so Tour de Office is just another fun event that ties into it!”

“We signed up for a two-bike package, as we found this was a better way to engage our people so they could ride with a friend. This package included a full-time fitness coach, Sam Pendergast, who is a cyclist himself. He was amazing – engaging our people by encouraging and motivating them and making the event run smoothly.”

Liberty Financial set up their bikes with a wall-length backdrop, replicating the scenery of Tour de France. They also set up the Tour de Office streaming so that people could watch their mates compete.

“Everyone who walked past said ‘wow!’. It was exciting. Some people dressed up for their rides. It was so much fun and created a lot of buzz and healthy competition in the office. Everyone loved that you could set your own pace, get in some exercise and raise money for an amazing cause. We raised $7900 for the Beacon Foundation and were awarded Highest Corporate Fundraiser! So many people got involved and we’re looking forward to participating in the event for Beacon again this year.”

Liberty Financial believes in the value of corporate philanthropy and charitable giving. The Liberty Lend-A-Hand program offers financial and volunteer support to children’s charities; The Mirabel Foundation, The Beacon Foundation and AARDVARK.

“We support our various charities in different ways. We run regular work experience programs with Beacon Foundation, allowing young people to come into the office and rotate through different departments to get a feel for our company and what it’s like to work here.”

“The Mirabel Foundation has annual events that we volunteer for. For example, they throw a big Christmas party, and our people can volunteer to participate and meet the children. AARDVARK runs a songwriting program for young people who love music. They play their own instruments in a band, and for our end of year party, we invite them to perform. It’s a great experience to see them playing their music.”

“Personally, I love all the things we do here. I really value health, so to have all these initiatives on our doorstep, it helps me keep my health and fitness goals in check. I’m sure our initiatives are a drawcard for top talent.”

What initiatives and benefits do you offer your people? Share a comment below.

For more information about how Tour de Office can boost your employee engagement and culture, visit their website.

The post These benefits will make you want to work at Liberty Financial appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Do you know how to build and promote your EVPs when recruiting? Here are some tips to keep in mind.

What are the benefits you’d like to promote? Start by articulating all your standard benefits, such as competitive remuneration (base, or retainer, commissions, bonuses, on-target earnings), leave, flexibility, work-life integration, and your organisational culture.

Don’t forget about your “sometimes forgotten” benefits, such as:

• learning and higher education opportunities
• opportunities for career progression
• work-related social events
• complimentary coffee and food
• proactive leadership and mentoring
• autonomy and trust
• democratic decision making
• clear organisational goals and purpose
• feedback opportunities for progress and improvement
• reward and recognition
• modern technology and good resourcing
• clear communication
• health and wellness initiatives

…the list goes on.

Using this as a foundation, market the heck out of your beautiful, unique organisation! What achievements or awards has your organisation recently received? We all know storytelling is king – so use storytelling as a marketing strategy.

Do you participate in organisational philanthropy? Do you run social activities? Publish stories about these as well to connect with potential candidates.

Human interest stories work best of all, so unashamedly market your heroes. Sell them like they’re on Tinder! (No need to tell them you’re doing this, but then again… maybe they can re-purpose their profile?) You have heroes at every level in your organisation and your talent pool will want to work with them. What stories about your people are dying to be told? Publish stories about interesting and successful people who are currently in the roles you need to fill. Have they won awards or achieved anything that they are proud of?

Think about your executives, founders and directors. Everyone has a story to share, so find story angles that resonate with your talent pool and will make them want to work with you. These stories are, essentially, your value propositions.

Publish feature stories about people in your organisation who have progressed their careers, including where they started, what areas of the business they have experienced, and how they achieved promotions and risen through the ranks.

Build a catalogue of “people stories” and “organisational stories” that you can mix and match with different positions you need to fill.

Check out these EVP taglines from some of the World’s Most Attractive Employers (WMAEs).

In building your EVPs, don’t sit at your desk racking your brain – chat with your colleagues. Ask them for ideas and what benefits they enjoy as part of their role (including the less obvious ones). Request good news stories to understand who might be a hero that candidates would love to learn more about.

Ideally, engage an employer branding specialist to identify what your EVPs truly are. The beauty of external specialists is that they can be objective, and your people might be more willing to be open and honest with them. The best employer branding specialists will undertake a significant discovery exercise where they engage with people in different areas of your organisation across a range of roles, tenure and levels of seniority.

When it comes to marketing your EVPs to potential candidates, ruthless authenticity is worth its weight in gold. In the sales and marketing process of recruitment, the last thing you can afford is buyer’s remorse from candidates whose experience doesn’t match their expectations.

What are some ways that you articulate and promote your EVPs? Share a comment below.

The post From the editor: How to market your (often forgotten) EVPs when recruiting appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

When it comes to paid annual leave, Aussie workers are lucky. The average Australian enjoys a standard statutory minimum of 20 days leave a year. In stark contrast, there is no mandated minimum annual leave in the US and many Americans receive only 10 days of paid holiday leave each year from their employer.

Aussies have a reputation for enjoying a great quality of life and you’d expect us to use up our annual leave to hit the beach or travel overseas. Sadly not. According to a Roy Morgan Study, the Australian workforce has racked up about 134 million days of unused annual leave, a huge figure for a population of only 24 million. The report claims each worker has about 16 unused days on average.

While the statistics are shocking, there are a few obvious reasons why Aussies don’t take their time off. A report from the Australian Institute revealed 12% of workers felt guilty about taking leave, and 26% said they had too much work on their plate. A further 31% said they “didn’t need” the time, while 33% said work was too busy.

The true cost of hoarding leave

Like many workers across the globe, Australians are in danger of being overworked. Global studies show annual leave plays a key role in boosting morale, recharging the batteries, staying productive, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Without annual leave, workers are at risk of developing work-related stress conditions.

Research reveals not taking leave can cause work performance to suffer, leading to absenteeism and more mistakes. While the economic effects are well-documented, the effects on our long-term health make for troubling reading. A recent study compared the health risks of work-related stress to second-hand smoke inhalation and predicted a 20% surge in death rates related to longer working hours and high-stress environments.

Open leave: the right solution?

Is there a solution to this problem? Global employers, led by pioneers including Virgin Group and Netflix, have started to offer unlimited annual leave. Unlimited leave, or Open PTO as it is sometimes known, is a system where employers do not cap annual leave, leaving workers to take as much time as they need.  While unlimited leave was unthinkable in years gone by, organisation are exploring the concept to ensure workers have enough time to recuperate.

It is estimated that 1%-2% of US organisations offer unlimited leave, and Australian employers including eHarmony, Hawker Britton, Inventium and Student Flights offer similar policies.

The thought of unlimited leave might raise fears workers will abandon the office and abuse their holiday quota. Yet statistics show it can lead to employees taking less time off due to internal competition and feelings of guilt. So uncapped leave won’t solve all of Australia’s annual leave problems. It also requires a shift in approach in the workplace to a mindset that encourages time off.

An estimated 51% of Australian workers store up their annual leave. Leave-hoarding is a byproduct of Australia’s annual leave model, where workers need to earn extra days off over a period of time. In the UK, leave-hoarding is less of a problem as employees are given 5.6 weeks leave as soon as they start a role. So rather than saving up time and toughing it out, unlimited PTO gives workers a rest when they need it the most.

Four reasons to consider unlimited leave

Indeed started offering employees unlimited leave more than two years ago and we have been impressed by the results. While leave days taken have risen by 20% globally, this has been outweighed by an increase in productivity. The company experienced record growth in 2017, and we have experienced low attrition rates and strong engagement with employees.

We believe there are four main reasons to consider unlimited leave:

1. Get a morale boost – Greater trust and respect between employers and employees. An entrepreneurial approach, rather than a prescriptive one, leads to an improved sense of worth.
2. Hire the best – Unlimited leave will give you an edge when you’re hiring and is viewed as one of the top employment perks.
3. Attract millennials – This growing demographic believes flexible working is important. Flexibility is linked to improved performance, personal benefit, and loyalty.
4. Cut costs – organisations often track unused leave as a liability. Unlimited leave eradicates the problem.

We believe unlimited leave works. Trusted, empowered, and rested employees have a better chance of being happy and performing in their roles. With 134 million days of unused leave across Australia, a move to uncapped time off could help organisations reduce the risk of burnout in the workforce, and make employees healthier and more productive. As long as it is introduced in the right way and respected across the workplace, unlimited leave really could work to your benefit.

Paul Wolfe is SVP, Head of Global Human Resources at Indeed, the #1 global search engine for jobs. He has over 15 years of experience as a human resources executive having served as a VP and SVP in a number of well-known companies, including Match.com, Orbitz, Conde Nast and Ticketmaster. His specialties include talent acquisition and management, succession planning, performance management, and leadership development.

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