If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that you can’t predict the future. So rather than prophesise about what might be, let’s instead focus on what will be. What are the “knowns”? And how can we prepare for them when it comes to employer branding?

Returning to the office

In Australia, we’re fortunate enough that returning to the office is possible for us this year. But the office won’t look the same and may never be what it once was. “Hot desking” has connotations to “pandemic” and talent leaders are considering how we can make our workplaces social (and collaborative) while social distancing.

Some hires will have joined your business during the height of the pandemic. This means, in many cases, people who have been with your business for months may not have attended your office yet. This is where employer branding and talent teams need to collaborate effectively with internal communications and culture teams. Returning to an office environment after 2020 can be stressful and confusing for team members, so it’s imperative to guide them through the process, make them feel safe, and demonstrate an active effort towards re-establishing culture in the office environment.

What does all this have to do with employer branding? Retention. Confusion and uncertainty are gateways to frustration and ultimately leaving your employees feeling forgotten about. Reinforcing the “whys” of your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) through positive employee experiences will mean happier, retained people.

Remote boom continues

While many of us are returning to the office, 2020 proved that remote workforces are not only possible, but effective. Being able to perform any job from anywhere is also linked to better hygiene, health and safety – and many employees will prefer not to rush back to crowded daily commutes on public transport any time soon.

When it comes to your employer brand, this raises questions around the new reality. Does your careers page only show people clustered around a foosball table? Have you adapted your attraction and sourcing strategies to remove location barriers? What about onboarding – have you truly adapted to remote onboard or is it just a patch and repair with the hope that we’ll return to normal?

The face of work has changed forever, and what you communicate to candidates and the experiences they may have should reflect that.

Recovery from brain drain

For the businesses and industries that were hit hard last year, 2021 will mean looking to plug and fill the brain drain. You may have had to release good talent out of necessity. Many candidates transferred their skills to more stable industries. As our organisations recover, an alumni strategy could play an important role. Re-engaging with former employees not only builds goodwill, it also accelerates your path to recovery as you’ll be reinstating people who are familiar with your business and can quickly “pick up the thread.”

Consider too that there may be reluctance – not just from returning employees, but candidates who may be loath to join an industry or business impacted by Covid-19. Ensure your employer brand is updated to reflect the situation. Be transparent with candidates and, where possible, highlight what you’ve done to recover and why you’re growing now. Resilience and adaptability are in demand from candidates, so anywhere you can demonstrate this through your employer brand will help you strengthen your reputation.

“Resilience and adaptability are in demand from candidates, so anywhere you can demonstrate this through your employer brand will help you strengthen your reputation.”

Homegrown opportunities

With border restrictions and uncertainty about when global travel will be reinstated, both candidates and businesses alike will need to look locally for opportunities. This means the job market will be even more competitive than before.

When it comes to attracting top talent, your employer brand needs to shine. You might think about an awareness campaign for critical talent, particularly by targeting them in less obvious places; or campaigns with brand affinity opportunity. Creating goodwill and positive brand alignments will help keep your organisation front of mind for top candidates.

For more niche roles, continue to look at adjacent industries for transferrable skills. Ensure you have the training, induction and onboarding in place to help this talent group get up to speed as quickly as possible. It’s also important to manage expectations. Hiring managers will need to understand employees may need more support as they transition, and candidates should understand they’ll have a lot to learn.

While there are a few things we can safely bet on for 2021, we’ll certainly be facing our fair share of uncertainty. The trial-by-fire that was 2020 has taught us a lot of lessons about facing the unknown, and though there will be a lot to navigate this coming year, being aware of these “known” factors will hold us in good stead to face whatever comes our way.

Meagan is a book worm, house-plant killer and Employer Brand Leader at Bupa A&NZ. She has worked agency-side and in-house in employer branding and marketing for some of the world’s biggest brands. From the experience she gained living and working in Australia, Sweden, and the UK, Meagan is a passionate believer in the power of words and knows a thing or two about strategy and creative problem-solving.

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At Next Wave Talent, Talent Table’s first ever digital event, recruiters, business leaders and talent acquisition professionals came together to explore concepts around the future of talent acquisition.

The bottom line? While many organisations have experienced disruptions in recruitment this year, talent acquisition is, and will continue to be, a critical function in the new world of work.

Organisations still need top talent. That means talent professionals and business leaders need to understand the best ways to articulate their organisations’ employer brand and develop their talent strategy to get the best ROI.

If you’re a business leader or talent acquisition professional, recruiting in the new world of work means you must become a subject-matter expert not only in acquisition, but in talent mobility and development as well. The report states that while no one has a crystal ball to see what the future holds — there is a way for organisations to head in the right direction.

Here are the top three actions from the report you can take today.

Review and strengthen your employer brand

After so much change this year, you may need to review the employer brand messaging you’re putting into the marketplace. In particular, many organisations are offering people new benefits, including flexible working arrangements and learning opportunities. You may even be onboarding employees remotely and offering additional training to boost engagement.

What’s changed for your organisation this year? When reviewing and strengthening your employer brand, consider the following three areas in particular:

• flexible working arrangements
• health, safety and wellbeing
• learning and development.

Remote work will increase by 278% compared to pre-COVID.

 

62% of employees state they will be working remotely.

 

– FlexCareers annual Flex report

Can you incorporate any new benefits into your employer brand messaging?

Remember, getting your messaging and EVPs right is just the beginning. To make your employer brand and EVPs work to your best advantage, embed it across your entire employee life cycle – not just in attraction and recruitment.

Share authentic and transparent content on your careers site that showcases what’s happening in your organisation and how you’re positively impacting and supporting your people. Focus on employee experience and continue to nurture your talent pools by developing a proactive sourcing strategy underpinned by engaging content tailored to your ideal hire.

Check out our article about how developing a “speak up” culture can improve your employer brand. 

Develop your talent through online learning

Candidates and employees want to understand how their organisation will help their career growth and prepare them for the future of work. Career and industry changes will become more common, so keep this in mind when recruiting. Can your job ads shift focus from industry experience to transferable skills?

Promote your Learning Value Proposition (LVP) prominently on your company careers site, but don’t just embed it in the attraction phase. Use it to support retention too.

68% of people in work intend to pursue professional education independently of their employer.

– FlexCareers annual Flex report

L&D is fast becoming a major player in supporting organisations’ growth and strategic goals. A solid understanding of L&D is critical to future-proof your organisation for the new world of work.

Make diversity and inclusion a strategic priority

Another crucial aspect of your talent strategy should include diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I). Why? Because you can bring in great people, but ensuring belonging is the key to making them stay.

Many talent professionals think DE&I is out of their scope; but it’s time to reframe this belief. A strong DE&I strategy will allow your organisation to continue to attract top talent and drive results (not to mention, increase profitability).

While recruitment teams may not be 100% responsible for D&I, it is definitely something you can influence.

Here’s how PwC lives diversity and inclusion. 

“The most diverse companies are now more likely than ever to outperform less diverse peers on profitability.” – Mckinsey, “Diversity Wins” report, 2020

In developing DE&I in your organisation, develop strong relationships between talent acquisition, HR, L&D and your leadership team. In doing so, teams can work better together to promote DE&I initiatives, influence culture, hire the right people, promote the right messaging (internally and externally), add more value to your organisation and achieve success through your people.

Remember, however, diversity quotas don’t automatically instill inclusion.

Recruiting in the new world of work will require you to add some additional skills to your toolkit. Developing your employer brand, increasing learning opportunities and prioritising D&I may seem like big projects to tackle; but they’ll go a long way to ensure your success over the long term.

For more strategic recommendations, check out the complete report. 

Have you reviewed and refreshed your employer brand messaging this year? Are you offering additional learning opportunities or prioritising D&I? Share a commend below. 

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With the help of historians, architects and stories from HBR readers, HBR took a look at four key moments in modern offices: cubicles, telecommuting, PCs and email.

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For HR professionals, plotting a course through the next 12 months is vital. Ensuring employees are safe, connected, and productive will require constant attention and an understanding that operational rules have changed.

When COVID-19 emerged as a significant threat in early March, businesses around the world rushed to embrace remote working practices. Armed with laptops and mobile phones, many employees found themselves suddenly based in a home office or conducting video conferences from the kitchen table.

Creating a distributed working model

It’s clear, however, that workplaces won’t simply revert to operating the way they were prior to the pandemic. Distancing requirements and threats of future outbreaks mean a standard return to ‘the way things were’ may simply not be possible. Now is the time to determine what position and direction your business will take to harness the benefits that have emerged and to understand if the current employee culture can extend to a distributed team.  

As organisations set up employees at home and braced for a dip in productivity, something incredible emerged: a workforce that could remain productive while at home and within a global crisis. Certainly, there were some organisations where employees could not complete their role at home, however, the general knowledge worker has proven this theory defunct.

Pilot first

The near future is a perfect opportunity to pilot a distributed model of working. With [many] employees already at home organisations can take advantage of the current situation, which has the added benefit of reducing employees’ apprehension about returning to the office.

For most organisations, six months will be an adequate length of time to trial new working arrangements. Start by choosing a start date that aligns with the normal work state – perhaps now that children are returning to school and the immediate threats of community transfer have reduced. The duration of the pilot should reflect business cycles. It should also be long enough to show a trend over time, but short enough to prevent social norms from developing which make changes harder to implement.

Measure what’s important

Like any pilot program, metrics of success must be determined. The two that stand out as the most valuable are productivity and engagement.

Engagement metrics should include the key areas of relationships with managers and peers, wellness, happiness, and alignment with the business. Engagement can be overlooked for productivity or cost metrics, but they will play a vital role in the ongoing success of your model.

Create a dashboard that clearly communicates the ongoing results. This way if productivity or engagement does vary, managers and employees have the opportunity to respond and help make suggestions on what to iterate.

The social aspect of the workplace must also be remembered; the informal links that bind people to an organisation must be maintained to ensure that connection remains. Consider having your office support employees become virtual culture champions, driving initiatives throughout the organisation to foster those lasting bonds.

Be deliberate

The current working environment is successful due to the behaviours and rituals that organisations built pre-pandemic. They will only sustain for a certain period, so be wary of resting on past success.

In your pilot include the use of employee change groups and steering committees to help keep the pilot on track. Design guidelines that outline the environment employees should work in, the behaviours you want to see demonstrated, and how managers should interact with their team. These will help create guard rails to impact behaviour.

Be deliberate in your positioning and don’t suddenly change what your organisation deems to be important. Many companies run very successful fully-remote teams – when you create your pilot, understand where you want to fit on the scale. Will you be fully remote? Will you have an individual-outcome focus? Or will you be team-outcome focused? Do you plan to bring employees or teams into the office for face-to-face time?

Remote working was steadily on the rise before COVID-19, but the pandemic certainly pushed those that were unsure straight into the deep end. HR professionals have a unique opportunity to design and drive a pilot that could transform the way their business operates. As long as you are deliberate about your approach a distributed working model can be a sustainable and beneficial model for businesses and their employees.

Source 

Where to from here for HR? A distributed working model

HCA Mag 

Jacqueline Anderson, HR Director, Nintex

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To help you better manage your remote employees, we’ve gathered our top four tips on how you can improve your remote working arrangements for everyone involved. 

1. Communicate clearly and more often 

One of the biggest downfalls of managing remote employees is the lack of communication. Without the in-person interactions we often have in an office setting, it can be difficult to find time to effectively communicate with your employees or share relevant information with them promptly. So to combat this, make sure to set up at least weekly catch-ups with your entire team, and one-on-ones with each of your employees. 

But, if you have important updates or information to share with your team, don’t wait until your next catch-up or one-on-one. Just as you would pull your team into a quick meeting in the office, message your employees to see if they are available for a brief video conference. Keeping your team informed and in the loop as much as possible will be greatly appreciated by your employees and help them stay motivated and excited about their work, especially during a challenging time.

2. Make sure everyone is aware of what is expected from them

It’s important to remember that working from home can mean different things to different people. While some may choose to work the same hours they normally would in the office, others may want to work different hours, such as starting later in the day and ending later, or vice versa. If your remote working arrangements are open to flexibility, let your employees know that they can adjust their working schedule if needed, but that they need to inform you of their new hours. But, if you need your employees to be online during specific hours, make sure they are aware of that. By being clear and upfront with your employees about what is expected from them while they work from home, you can avoid any misunderstandings which could cause extra stress or anxiety for your team. 

3. Set clear boundaries 

When working from home, it can be difficult to separate your work life from your home life—especially if you live in an apartment or don’t have a home office. For this reason, it’s important to set clear boundaries with your employees about when they can and cannot reach out to you, and vice versa, ask them to also let you know what times of the day they are available. Make sure both you and the rest of your team adhere to these, meaning avoid message your team or schedule any meetings outside of their working hours and discourage others from doing so. Without having clear boundaries with your colleagues and employees, you could find yourself working or being online all day every day, which can lead to you burning out.

On the other hand, it’s also important to set clear boundaries with your partner, kids, roommates, and other family members you may be living with. Let them know that even though you are home, during your working hours you will be busy and should not be disrupted for casual chitchat – natural as that may feel in a household setting. It can also be helpful to avoid doing any household chores during your work hours. Try to keep your work and home life as separate as possible to ensure both you and your employees are getting the most out of your remote working arrangements. 

4. Encourage non-work-related virtual interactions

Working from home for an extended period of time can be a challenging transition, especially for your employees who have never worked remotely, or only did so occasionally. Today, this is further compounded by an increasingly stressful and uncertain global climate. To help keep your team motivated, try and schedule some non-work related virtual interactions. Things like a weekly virtual get-together for lunch where teams can discuss favourite movies or T.V. shows they’re binging at the moment, a monthly virtual happy hour, or even taking a virtual meditation or yoga class together could help keep your team’s spirit and morale up. 

There’s no doubt that working from home can bring many benefits to your health, career and work-life balance. But suddenly finding yourself in a remote working situation can leave employees and employers feeling a little lost and unmotivated. To help both you and your team transition into a remote working environment, make sure to implement these four tips to ensure you are getting the most out of your employees, even when they are not in the office. 

With more than 15 years of experience in the recruitment industry, Jay Munro has worked in a variety of roles in agencies and job boards, from consulting and recruiting, through to leading the product development of new sourcing technologies. As an Employer Insights Strategist with the Indeed Employer Insights Team, Jay pairs platform data with industry trend analysis to share Indeed’s story and bring the value of the company’s programs and solutions to life.

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For many of us, this might just mean a different way of working and communicating. We have the technology to still be able to work, communicate and stay connected and most of it is free (or low cost).

This provides an opportunity to get creative, find new ways of working and communicating, and to think beyond what we know as we broaden our horizons. If you have teams working remotely, these tools and apps will help you maintain business as usual.

Download the free guide here. 

Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, and she is a Social Amplification Specialist with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets, find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget and amplify your internal champions to increase your visibility. Her goal is to make the hero in your industry sector.  She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.

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Searches for remote work on Indeed have surged over the past week. With thousands of Australians forced into self-isolation, jobs that you can perform from the comfort of your own home have never been more appealing. 

Since 14 March, searches for remote work have surged and are now almost 150% higher than averages in January and February. Much of this increase has occurred over the past week as the government’s response to COVID-19 has escalated.

What recommendations does Indeed have for talent leaders who can offer remote work opportunities at this time?

Advertise your role on Indeed and other job boards. There are people looking for these opportunities every day. Before you post your job, be sure to review and refine your advertisement with three things in mind:

1. Keep it clear and concise – now is the time to be transparent and list the minimum requirements of the role in a succinct and simple to read manner
2. Remember “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me?) – why is this the right opportunity and company for the candidate? What will they get out of this?
3. Next steps – in the current climate, candidates may be applying for multiple positions with a range of employers. Be sure to list the next steps, even if it is simply when they can expect to hear from you, so that the candidate knows what to expect and is less likely to ghost you or move onto other applications.

In addition to job advertisements, now is the time for talent leaders to also be flexible. Be mindful that candidates may request different formats of interview (e.g. phone or video), or if you are requesting these formats, be aware that some candidates may not be comfortable with this new form of screening/recruitment. Provide information upfront and communicate effectively with candidates about expectations to reduce their anxiety and give them a chance to represent themselves in the best light. 

How can organisations without current remote work opportunities put measures in place so that they can offer this? 

Try to be open-minded. Yesterday’s fixed-premise job could be tomorrow’s most popular and productive remote working opportunity. Investigate the technologies you have at hand, and those available which will enable different types of roles to be performed remotely. 

But it’s not just about technology. This will be a different way of working for employees and managers, so it’s important that everyone involved is well-prepared. If this is the first time you’re going to be offering remote working opportunities, it may be a good idea to do your research first. Whether it be accessing information on sites like Indeed, that offer tips to both candidates and managers on how to get the most out of remote working, or speaking to industry colleagues who are already making strides in this area.  

The “ways of working” between employees and their managers is something that is best determined collaboratively, gaining active buy-in from both parties. Set expectations for check-ins, available hours when questions and contact is welcomed, and targets that need to be worked towards. Identify the support that each employee will need whilst working remotely, which may be more social or communicative, rather than tools and equipment.

And finally, employ behaviours that build trust. Be supportive that distractions will occur, ask for open and constructive feedback (both ways), and encourage creative ideas of how to be productive and meet goals in more innovative ways.

Callam Pickering is an 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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Remote work conditions are attractive to a large number of skilled professionals from different demographics. This type of flexibility is particularly helpful for workers who are caregivers or experience difficult commutes.

HR Dive reports on a recent study conducted by Robert Hall about how telecommuting to work can increase the likelihood of candidates being attracted to a role:

Seventy-seven percent of workers in a recent survey said they’d be more likely to accept a job offer if they knew they could telecommute at least some of the time…

 

Enticed by visions of commute-free days, 86% of employees between the ages of 18 and 34 said they’d sooner sign a contract with remote work options. Employees older than 55 were the least likely to see working from home as a worthy perk, but 65% of them still answered in the affirmative.

On the flip side, the two biggest drawbacks cited in the study were people abusing the benefit and not sticking to work hours, and feelings of isolation from missing out on a team environment.

Other disadvantages also referenced include:

• interpersonal relationships suffering
• loss of facetime may result in missing new projects or promotions
• not having anyone to bounce ideas off.

If your organisation chooses to implement remote work options to attract more candidates, avoid some of these pitfalls by enforcing sound policies. Employers should work with staff to create a plan to manage expectations, create short and long-term goals, equip staff with secure technology, and create a working schedule.

In an increasingly tight job market, this job benefit might just be the perk you need to win over potential hires. If implemented correctly, it can result in benefits for both employers and staff.

Does your organisation offer remote work flexibility? If so, do you consider it a success? Tell us in the comments.

Source

How remote work options could win over potential hires

Katie Scheu

HR Dive

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