As competition for recruiting top talent increases, employers are seeing the value in treating employees like customers, a movement known as the “Consumerization of HR”.
Digital and consumer marketing are making paths for new ways of recruiting, working, developing, and engaging employees. Being employee-centered and mindful of the impact of technology in all fields, including HR, will be necessary to succeed and grow your business.
With, 67% of recruiters expecting competition for candidates to increase in 2017, here are four ways you can prepare for this shift in employee culture.
Socially Engaging Candidates
According to betterteam.com, 94% of professional recruiters network on social media for talent acquisition and management; 59% of employees say a company’s social media presence was part of the reason they chose their workplace. These percentages are expected to climb as millennials begin to dominate the workforce.
Using social media for recruitment goes way beyond LinkedIn. Major corporations are using Twitter, Facebook, Instragram and even Snapchat platforms to interact with prospective candidates and showcase their brand in a visually appealing way.
The first step in recruiting through social media is to determine your platform and create an account specifically for this purpose—TheVerityGroupJobs, for example. Use the account to showcase your company culture, profile existing employees, list job openings, leverage hashtags to generate buzz and get creative!
Zulily, an e-commerce company, invites candidates applying for a job to submit an Instagram post that best represents themselves and what they would bring to teamZulilly.
Salesforce, creator of the world’s #1 cloud-based CRM platform, has branded the hashtag #dreamjob. Scroll through the company’s Instragram posts and you’ll find employees in Hawaiian shirts, office dogs and reposts of employee pictures using the hashtag. Salesforce has built an entire online identity that working for the company isn’t just a job, it’s a #dreamjob.
For job seekers, it means the world when a company–whether it’s five employees or on the Fortune 500–creates this level of employee engagement.
Building Custom Work Spaces
Steelcase, the leading manufacturer of office furniture, partnered with IBM to conduct a global sample of 12,480 employees across 17 countries regarding their workplace environment. They found that workers who have control over where and how they work, and are free to choose a work space to fit their task at hand—either focused work or collaborative work—are 88% more engaged.
Traditionally, offices are designed for extroverts with large open floor plans. Companies need to start determining how best to accommodate extroverts and introverts in work spaces.
The study also revealed the connection between creativity and privacy, as employees ranked having a place to work without disruption as the second highest factor that could improve creativity, just behind the need for more time to think.
Work space is not just an office, but part of a successful recruiting agenda to enhance a company’s culture and better engage employees.
Blended Workforces
A study by Intuit predicted that by 2020, 40% of American workers will be independent contractors. The workforce of the future is sure to become a blended culture comprised of full-time employees as well as consultants, contractors, freelancers, part-time employees, and other contingent workers. This is known as the Gig Economy.
In this digital age, the workforce is increasingly mobile. Work can be done from anywhere, anytime. That means freelancers and consultants can select among temporary jobs and projects around the world, while employers can select the best individuals for specific projects from a larger pool than that available in any given area. Uber is a prime example of the gig economy movement.
Some workers take on part-time roles that allow them to mentor others in a field they enjoy. For example, retired business owner Tamma Ford of Seattle, Washington, takes consulting gigs that let her share her expertise with people who are just getting started.
The benefit to employers is a more flexible base of employees without having to provide costly benefits, expanding workspaces and long-term commitments.
The current reality is that people tend to change jobs several times throughout their working lives; blended workforces can be seen as an evolution of that trend.
Team Over Individual Development
Although the idea of team performance is not a new phenomenon, employers are facing increasing pressure to measure the effectiveness of teams over individual development to accomplish critical business objectives.
Focusing on creating a culture in which team roles are clearly defined, employees communicate openly and everyone works together to get the job done increases the effectiveness of an entire organization.
Teamwork starts from the top. It is critical that management is involved to lead the charge to better collaboration.
Cisco, for example, noted great accomplishments are delivered through teams, not just through individuals working in silos. This led to their insight that an individual employee’s experience is really their team experience, which changed the way in which they rewarded performance within the organization.
According to the Brandon Hall Group study, 72% of high-performing companies were able to correlate team dynamics with improved productivity.
There is still direct value in developing and rewarding individuals. The “best of both worlds” solution is developing systems to recognize top performers and boost team performance at the same time.
