Employer Brand Hacks: 10 Tactics to Steal from Consumer Marketing

Posted on November 22, 2023November 22, 2023 by akessler

By Simon Wright, Global Head of Talent Advisory Consulting

Consumer marketers have honed their brand strategies through decades of tracking detailed customer analytics, optimising digital experiences and crafting emotionally compelling messages. When it comes to leveraging data and analytics, consumer marketing is ahead of employer branding. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Talent acquisition pros can adapt these same tactics to understand candidates, polish touchpoints and build strong employer brands. Your employer brand can steal a page from the consumer brand playbook to step up talent attraction and retention.

Hacking the Employer Brand: 10 Tricks from Consumer Marketing

To help you think outside the recruitment box, we’ve outlined 10 employer brand hacks below to infuse your candidate attraction strategy with consumer-savvy flair. From mystery shoppers to NPS surveys, these creative approaches will revolutionise your talent attraction strategy.

1. Engagement Analytics

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Measure engagement metrics on ecommerce and social platforms to gauge product resonance.

Employer Brand Hack: Consumer marketing is as much science as it is art these days. Take page from your marketing peers and leverage analytics tools to monitor engagement levels with your content across digital platforms and third-party sites. You can gain valuable insights into how potential candidates perceive your employee value proposition (EVP) by monitoring the types of content that talent interacts with on sites like LinkedIn and your career pages.

For example, heavy traffic and shares of content spotlighting your company’s flexible work options, learning and development programs or commitment to DE&I indicates these subjects are important to candidates. Likewise, you can identify red flags where pieces of your EVP are falling flat or even turning candidates away.

By analysing these engagement metrics, talent acquisition teams can refine outward-facing messaging to better reflect and emphasise the cultural elements already igniting passions.

2. Sentiment Analysis

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Analyse customer conversations on social media to gauge sentiment around products.

Employer Brand Hack: Job forums and social media channels have become backchannel focus groups, where in-the-know candidates exchange intel and impressions of potential employers. The everyday dialogue happening online shapes perceptions of your organisation and EVP outside your control. Are you listening?

Immerse yourself in these dynamic discussions by using social listening tools to assess the narratives being woven about your company culture and their sentiment. Pay special attention to the emotional tone. What feelings are sparked at the mention of your organisation? Is it warmth, intrigue and affinity? Or perhaps skepticism, frustration or even antagonism?

These unfiltered insights should inform your talent marketing strategy in real-time. Where positivity and praise emerge, double down on those messages. When you uncover misconceptions, course correct. Talent will continue to chatter, but plugged-in talent leaders can help guide the tone.

3. Feedback and Review Platforms

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Closely monitor customer reviews on sites like Amazon or Trustpilot.

Employer Brand Hack: Employer review platforms like Glassdoor, Indeed or kununu have become gold mines for candid insights directly from current and former employees. Monitoring these key sites should be a standard pulse-check for talent acquisition leaders and CHROs alike. But be warned—this is where you’ll find the unvarnished truth.

One way to improve your employer brand is through employer review sites. We recommend a quarterly audit digging into themes and analysing sentiment over time. Are certain departments or practices called out repeatedly? Do some locations have better scores than others?

Used strategically, these insights provide CEOs, talent acquisition leaders and hiring managers at every level with an unfiltered mirror into the inner workings of company culture as employees are actively experiencing it. With this invaluable intelligence in hand, you can address problem spots through policy change or manager coaching. You can also double down on what’s working—the perks, flexibility, and cultural elements making employees stay.

4. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Use NPS to gauge product loyalty and word-of-mouth potential.

Employer Brand Hack: Implementing employee NPS (eNPS) and candidate NPS (cNPS) surveys offers a valuable pulse check for recruitment and retention alike.

With existing employees, these surveys quantify the likelihood of recommending your organisation as a workplace. Low scores signal disengagement. Likewise, surveying candidates during the recruitment journey provides an understanding where expectations aren’t matching up with realities, helping you to refine your talent screening practices. Candidate NPS surveys can be sent post-interview and again post-onboarding for insights into both the recruitment and induction process.

Your employer brand health hinges on aligning the candidate experience with the employee experience and delivering on your brand promises throughout the talent lifecycle. Both eNPS and cNPS metrics offer evidence-based insights to inform your talent program strategy.

How does your Candidate Experience Quotient stack up? Learn all about our new method of calculating candidate experience as well as the hard truth about candidate expectations versus reality in our report, Inside the Candidate Experience.

5. Focus Group Discussions

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Dive deep into consumer preferences using focus groups.

Employer Brand Hack: When was the last time you picked the brains of candidates who have recently been through your recruitment process? As you refine your employer branding strategy and before you evolve your candidate experience, these individuals offer invaluable, straight-from-the-source insights.

In addition to surveys, organise quarterly listening sessions with a mix of talent segments: recent new hires, employees in their first year, candidates who made it to advanced stages but ultimately declined offers, and even short-listers you opted not to hire. In a judgement-free environment, empower them to share candid impressions about their journey with your organisation pre- and post-hire.

Use this time to dig deep. What excited or deterred them about your employer brand initially? How did the interview or communication style align with their expectations of company culture? What workplace elements inspire their loyalty or doubts now as employees? Are perceptions consistent or disparate across genders, generations and ethnic groups?

These focus groups go beyond what a survey can fully capture. As a result, you can pinpoint what’s resonating or missing the mark in talent attraction, selection and retention. Bonus—it also demonstrates that employee input spurs action.

6. Mystery Shopping

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Deploy individuals to assess the customer experience—incognito.

Employer Brand Hack: Another way to get the insider perspective on your candidate experience is to use an old trick from consumer marketing—mystery shoppers. This involves engaging individuals to navigate the recruitment process undercover, reporting on their experience from start to finish.

Equip your “mystery shopper” to navigate the application, screening and interviews as authentically as possible, jotting detailed notes along the way. Instruct them to assess logistics around communication cadence, process efficiency and technology glitches. But more importantly, they should capture the emotional highs and lows they felt when interacting with your employees, content and brand at each step.

When you debrief, try to uncover interactions where your employer brand deviates from the actual experience across key variables like location, department, seniority level and demographic background. These behind-the-scenes findings will prove invaluable as you seek to optimise recruitment ROI and evolve the candidate journey.

7. Competitive Analysis

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Assess the brand vis-à-vis competitors.

Employer Brand Hack: Benchmark your employer brand against competitors to grasp areas of strength and improvement.

In today’s transparent talent marketplace, candidates have unprecedented visibility into everything from compensation to culture at your organisation as well as your closest rivals. They are comparing you on everything from your work environment to DE&I commitments.

This means your employer brand strategy can no longer happen in a silo. Formal competitive intelligence monitoring can help you benchmark your employer brand against competitors to understand strengths and opportunities.

Audit the career sites, social media channels, job boards, industry reports and review site profiles of competitors to understand what messages and claims they’re leaning into with their employer brand. The goal here is not copying others’ employer brands but to understand how you can stand out and where you can bring sharper focus to what makes your culture uniquely attractive.

8. Deep Dives into Unstructured Feedback

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Sift through customer service calls and chats to identify common themes.

Employer Brand Hack: In their focus on surveys, employer review sites and focus groups, talent acquisition leaders often overlook the wealth of qualitative feedback hiding in plain sight internally.

Sources like exit interviews, town hall meetings and other internal platforms can offer genuine glimpses into how employees view your employer brand. You’ll uncover grounded narratives around things like which leaders inspire employee pride or skepticism, or real-talk on workloads affecting mental health and work-life balance.

This intelligence takes your employer brand strategy from reactive to proactive. It empowers you to intervene early before issues become viral Glassdoor threads. But just as importantly, you can also double down on what’s working, giving you an informed perspective to guide messaging, policy and experience in sync with employee values and expectations.

9. Audience Segmentation

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Segment the customer base to tailor messaging and understand perception among different audiences.

Employer Brand Hack: Employee perceptions within departments, roles, locations and tenure lengths often vary more than we realise. What engages your engineers may disengage your creatives. What excites recent college hires may fall flat for senior leaders.

In today’s fragmented but transparent talent marketplace, one-size-fits all employer branding is no longer effective. By investing time and effort into audience segmentation, CHROs take big step in evolving their EVP to PVP, personal value proposition.

Like customer personas, developing talent personas are a great way to engage in a targeted, personalised approach to talent attraction. These nuanced profiles allow you to sharpen your employer brand and talent attraction content for niche talent pools beyond one generic EVP message. Plus, you can tailor by regional expectations, whether in different cities in the same country or across continents.

Getting segmentation right ensures candidates see your employer brand as a match for people like them from the start.

10. User Behaviour Analytics

Consumer Brand Best Practice: Understand how customers interact with their website or app by using user analytics tools like heatmaps.

Employer Brand Hack: Consumer marketing teams are increasingly adopting digital analytics tools to better understand customer preferences and behaviour. Talent acquisition leaders can borrow this tactic too. Tools like heatmaps and click maps offer visual snapshots tracking precisely how users navigate and scroll career pages. These visual activity maps identify which content generates the most interest or engagement on your career site.

Lingering on the mission statement? Scrolling past office photos? Double-tapping into stories on career mobility but glossing over benefits? These granular insights reveal which candidate attraction content holds the greatest appeal for your candidates.

By understanding where your high-traffic areas and natural user flows are, you can guide candidates with attention-grabbing messages or entry points to more in-depth information. Likewise, you can weave in more stories around topics that are proving popular to leverage that momentum. These tools can also flag areas of friction, like errors or “rage clicks,” that could lead to candidates abandoning their application or leaving your career site.

Employer Brand Strategy: The Value of Data

Data and insights should always be the bedrock beneath an employer brand. Take time to gather feedback, analyse findings and track the impact of new initiatives. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new perspectives and unconventional approaches to stand out from the crowd.

With the right balance of boldness and research, you can craft a magnetic employer brand that both resonates with candidates and drives critical recruitment metrics. So, take a cue from your marketing peers—be brave, think big, and transform employer branding into a discipline as sophisticated as consumer marketing.

Don’t Make These 10 Employer Brand Mistakes

Posted on November 7, 2023November 7, 2023 by akessler

By Simon Wright, Global Head of Talent Advisory

Let’s be real—crafting an authentic, compelling employer brand in today’s dynamic talent marketplace is no easy feat. With diverse candidate expectations and rapid digital disruption, even the most seasoned talent acquisition and HR leaders can slip up. Don’t fret if you’ve made some employer branding missteps along the way. To help you diagnose potential gaps, I’ve put together this handy list of 10 common employer brand mistakes.

These pitfalls can erode candidate trust, diminish your employer value proposition, and even cost you top talent. Learn from other companies’ miscues to refine your brand messaging and employee experience. The key is course-correcting before your employer brand perception deteriorates further. Let’s dive in!

1. A One-Size-Fits-All Approach

Companies often craft a single, broad message, expecting it to resonate with everyone. In our diverse world, nuanced tailoring to different demographics, cultures and backgrounds is far more impactful.

By evolving your employee value proposition (EVP) into a dynamic, human-centric personal value proposition (PVP) you embrace a flexible approach that addresses employees’ diverse needs and aspirations as unique individuals, not just workers. The PVP does not replace the EVP; rather, it evolves it. It’s not just about being an attractive employer. It’s about enabling each individual to realise their full potential, and in doing so, empowering your organisation to thrive in an increasingly competitive and complex landscape. 

Learn how to evolve your EVP to a human-centric PVP and increase productivity 23%.

2. Overlooking Employee Voices

Employers sometimes mistake professional aesthetics for authenticity, sharing polished, yet hollow messages. In today’s world of TikTok and Instagram, your talent craves real talk and real storytelling. At the end of the day, facts and stats don’t connect like stories do—whether it’s through videos, podcasts, blogs or social media posts.

One of the most effective ways to manage perception and shift views is through showcasing real-life employee experiences, achievements and testimonials to highlight the positive aspects of your workplace. PeopleScout’s recent research, Inside the Candidate Experience, found that 35% of organisations don’t feature their real employees on their career site. Yet, 86% of candidates say they value stories from employees and that it helps to influence their job search.

Employee testimonials can provide the most candid and compelling insights about a company and are one of the best ways to inject authenticity into your employer brand. So, put your people first, and let their journeys within your organisation take centre stage. Leveraging employee advocates in your employer brand and candidate attraction content will help you grab hearts and stand out from the competition.

3. Static Branding in a Dynamic World

The pandemic was a major shift that changed people’s perspectives on work. The Great Resignation shook things up even more, with workers now expecting a lot more from employers when it comes to meaningful work, development opportunities, work-life balance and flexibility. However, many organisations are still relying on the same old pay and perks-focused EVPs that just don’t inspire today’s talent anymore, leading to low engagement and high turnover.

Companies that define their employer brand—but don’t revisit and revise it periodically—risk appearing out of touch or stagnant. If your organisation hasn’t updated its employer in the last three years, you’re overdue.

4. Overemphasis on Perks, Underemphasis on Purpose

Modern employees, especially younger generations, often prioritise purpose and impact over perks. Our research shows that half (50%) of candidates say an organisation’s mission and purpose are key influences on their decision to apply. Yet, less than half of employers show information about the organisation’s mission, purpose or values on the career site. Companies that solely highlight surface-level benefits may miss attracting deeply committed talent.

Top Considerations When Looking for a new Job by Generation

(Source: Inside the Candidate Experience 2023 Report)

Candidates want fulfilling employment and a company that upholds their values. By not featuring this information on your career site, you’re passing up an opportunity to create an emotional connection with your talent audiences.

I know what you’re thinking—why not just direct candidates to where this information is on our corporate site? Here’s the thing: the second you send applicants somewhere else, you risk losing them. They may never make it back to actually submit an application. Instead, make things seamless by keeping the candidate journey in one place. The more you immerse talent in an experience right on your career site, the more likely they’ll envision themselves at your organisation and apply for a job.

5. Over-Promising, Under-Delivering

Brands sometimes craft a compelling and aspirational image, but if the day-to-day reality doesn’t match, it can lead to disillusionment and distrust among employees.

The number one obstacle for candidates when it comes to applying is not knowing what it’s like to work at an organisation. So, brands that can show candidates what their day-to-day tasks will look like in a role will see more applications and higher-quality candidates. Consider creating videos that show a diverse range of your employees in their real work environment so candidates can see themselves in the role and at your organisation.

6. Neglecting Feedback Loops

Not establishing mechanisms to gauge how the employer brand is perceived internally and externally leaves companies blind to misalignments or areas of improvement. Different workforce segments—full-time workers, contingent workers, working parents, employees just starting their careers and those considering retirement—all have diverse needs. So, involving employees in the EVP development process is a great way to ensure their voices are heard and their perspectives are considered.

Conducting focus groups, workshops or surveys to gather employee input and insights will help you understand how to tailor your EVP to these unique segments. This collaborative approach fosters a sense of ownership and buy-in among employees, increasing their engagement with the EVP and creating a crucial step toward achieving a PVP.

7. Not Addressing Negative Perceptions

Ignoring negative reviews on platforms like Glassdoor can further erode trust. A proactive, open approach of responding to reviews is one of the most important ways to create a strong brand presence on employer review sites.

Leaving thoughtful replies demonstrates maturity and commitment to growth and is guaranteed to show candidates and employees that you care—regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative. In fact, according to a Glassdoor survey, 62% of job candidates agree their perception of a company improves after seeing an employer respond to a review.

8. Lacking Cultural Competence

Global brands must recognise and respect the cultural nuances of the regions they operate in. A message that resonates in one culture might misfire or even offend in another. A lack of cultural literacy in your employer brand can lead to confusion among your talent audiences, making it more difficult to recruit top talent.

When it comes to your global talent strategy, it is important to work with local employees to build an employment brand that is effective across the world. Plus, you want to ensure that your recruitment marketing campaigns are culturally appropriate in each region. This could even include leveraging different social media sites which can have varied relevance for employer brand recognition and job searches from country to country.

9. Failure to Integrate Your Employer Brand Across Touchpoints

An employer brand isn’t just about recruitment ads or company websites. It should be integrated into every employee touchpoint, from onboarding to training to exit interviews.

Every aspect of your employer brand—from voice to visuals—should capture the essence of life at your company. When candidates see your brand personality reflected everywhere, it builds trust. They don’t just hear you boast about culture fit and experience—they feel it through every interaction. So, let your employer brand shine through in big and small ways on your career site, social posts, job descriptions and more. Candidates will gain confidence that your employer value proposition rings true if you walk the walk at every step.

10. Ignoring the Role of Middle Management

While top leadership plays a role in defining the brand, it’s often middle management that has the most face time with employees. They translate your employer branding into daily reality. If they aren’t aligned with the brand message or don’t embody its values, the EVP can quickly fall apart as employees recognise the inconsistencies between branding and behaviour.

Managers should undergo employer branding training. When the entire management chain fully buys into the brand promise, managers can activate it for both employees and candidates. With alignment from executives to front-line supervisors, your employer brand transforms from buzzwords into actual company culture.

PeopleScout Can Help You Avoid Employer Brand Mistakes

Avoiding common employer brand mistakes takes dedication, but the rewards are well worth the effort. By sidestepping these pitfalls, you’ll craft authentic and human value propositions, strengthen candidate connections and build an employer brand that is flexible enough to speak to a variety of talent audiences.

PeopleScout’s award-winning in-house Talent Advisory team has fresh ideas to help you evolve your employer brand. Contact us today to get help with your toughest challenges.

Achieving a 38% Recruitment Cost Reduction for a Multinational Retailer

Posted on November 3, 2023November 3, 2023 by akessler

Retail RPO

Achieving a 38% Recruitment Cost Reduction for a Multinational Retailer

PeopleScout helped this retailer with their fluctuating high-volume hiring needs in a difficult market with high turnover and non-competitive salaries, resulting in a 38% cost reduction.

97 % success retaining new hires

62 hiring events hosted in a three-month period

38 % reduction in cost per application

Situation

This multinational retailer required a high volume, flexible RPO solution to ramp hiring up and down based on their seasonal peaks. This included hiring for a variety of positions such as in-store hourly roles, supply chain, security, alterations and restaurant staff.

Solution

PeopleScout created a scalable solution that meets the retailer’s unique needs and seasonal requirements.

A full-cycle hiring program including sourcing, screening, interviewing, background checks and offer decisions
Seasoned recruiting experts across the U.S., UK, India and Poland to augment the client’s team
Introduced a streamlined high-tech application process with quick apply and screening via automated text using Affinix Digital Interview, Affinix CRM and Affinix Analytics
Comprehensive training for all new PeopleScout account team members, including classroom learning, shadowing and certifications to ensure full understanding of the client culture and values before officially starting client recruiting support
Talent Advisory solutions including creation and management of automated recruitment marketing campaigns leveraging Google Display Network, Indeed One-Click and AppCast, a tool that analyses highest performing channels and adjusts budget usage accordingly
In addition to the high-volume RPO efforts, PeopleScout created niche, specialised recruitment teams for various hard-to-fill job functions

Results

Achieved 97% success in retaining new hires to ensure those who accepted the offer showed up to the first day on the job, above the client’s goal of 95%
995,000 clicks and 202,600 applications to sponsored jobs on Indeed in a three-month period
Hosted 62 physical and virtual hiring events, receiving 12,000 RSVPs and making 1,800 offers at virtual events within a three-month period
41,000 clicks and 2,800 applications to jobs promoted on a variety of job boards in a three-month period
38% reduction in cost per application
Ramped internal team up and down based on fluctuations in requisitions, as illustrated in the hiring graph below

AT A GLANCE

COMPANY: Multinational Retailer
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory
ANNUAL HIRES: 60,000+

Contact Sales

Menopause in the Workplace: Creating a Supportive Environment for Women

Posted on October 26, 2023October 26, 2023 by akessler

Once a taboo topic, menopause in the workplace is having a moment. And it’s about time. Globally, 657 million women are in their menopausal years (aged 45–59) and around half contribute to the labour force. According to CIPD, three out of five (59%) working women between the ages of 45 and 55 who are experiencing menopause symptoms say it has a negative impact on them at work.

With stereotypes and embarrassment persisting, some women try to push through the challenges on their own. But at an age when many women are stepping into leadership roles, employers must do more to support employees who are experiencing symptoms of the menopause in the workplace.

What is the Menopause?

Menopause signals a natural transition in a woman’s life, marking the end of menstruation and fertility. It typically occurs between the ages of 45 and 55 as hormone levels fluctuate and decline. While a normal part of ageing, menopause can usher in a variety of symptoms. Hot flushes, night sweats, insomnia, fatigue, memory lapses, mood swings—no two women experience it the same.

How the Menopause Impacts Women at Work

In the same CIPD report, nearly two-thirds (65%) of women said they were less able to concentrate. More than half (58%) experienced more stress, which led to less patience with clients and colleagues.

Not only do menopause symptoms disrupt focus, but they can also impact morale and attendance. In fact, 30% of impacted women have taken sick leave because of their symptoms. However, only a quarter of them felt able to tell their manager the real reason for their absence with some citing embarrassment (34%) and concerns about privacy (45%). Even more concerning is that another 32% said an unsupportive manager was the reason for not disclosing. In some cases, women have even left their jobs due to these challenges.

The decrease in engagement and loss of productivity shouldn’t be overlooked by employers. A report from the Mayo Clinic revealed the U.S. economy loses $26.6 billion (USD) each year due to lost productivity and health expenses resulting from employees who are managing symptoms of the menopause.

With the right support, women can shine through menopause without missing a beat in their careers. Enlightened leaders can create a culture where women openly discuss their experiences and get the flexibility they need.

How to Create a Supportive Environment for the Menopause in the Workplace

HR leaders have real power to destigmatise the menopause and help women thrive. By treating this transition as you would any other employee wellbeing topic and regularly evaluating policies, you can set the tone for women in your organisation. Menopause isn’t just about managing symptoms. It’s about supporting employee growth.

So, how can CHROs foster a supportive environment for menopausal staff? Here are some recommendations:

1. Encourage open dialogue and self-advocacy. Make space for open, judgement-free conversations about the menopause and let women know assistance is available. Breaking the stigma through dialogue and education is key.

2. Review policies through a menopause lens. Is time off sufficient? Are you penalising women unfairly? Consider putting a dedicated menopause policy in place. Ensure that work schedules, remote work options, and time off allowances give women managing the menopause the flexibility they need to manage their symptoms.

3. Make accommodations. Give leeway on start times for sleep struggles. Allow remote work flexibility. Simple adjustments like cooling fans, access to cold water and relaxed dress codes can go a long way to help ease hot flashes.

99% of women don’t get any menopause benefits at work

4. Provide education. Make educational resources readily available including FAQs, support groups, webinars, workshops. Consider offering menopause-specific training for managers so they feel more comfortable initiating menopause discussions. Plus, ensure they understand your policies to ensure women are not penalised or sidelined in performance reviews and career advancement unfairly due to menopause difficulties.

It’s time to move past minimising women’s symptoms or whispering about “the change.” Companies that support women experiencing the menopause in the workplace are better at holding on to experienced female talent and avoiding costly turnover. With the right policies and culture, women can feel empowered and valued during this transition. When women feel their company has their backs through this transition, that loyalty and trust lasts. They’ll repay it with their talent and dedication.

The Gender Gap in Energy and Utilities: 3 Strategies for Powering Change

Posted on October 25, 2023October 25, 2023 by nfuqua

The energy and utilities sector has a gender problem. The field is overwhelmingly male-dominated, and if providers are going to be able to meet the global demand in the future, talent leaders in the industry must bring in more women to tackle the gender gap in energy and utilities.

Women make up 39% of the global workforce, but only 16% of the traditional energy sector. This varies by location and job type. In the U.S., natural gas and nuclear energy have the highest percentage of female workers, at 35% and 34%, respectively. But in some countries, like Japan, women make up only 3% of the energy workforce.

According to Deloitte, over two-thirds of executives rate DE&I as an important issue. And for good reason. Diversity is strongly tied to innovation. Diverse teams—including women, neurodivergent individuals and professionals from underrepresented backgrounds—are more creative, make better decisions and solve problems more efficiently.

Additionally, the energy and utilities industry is facing a massive talent shortage. According to McKinsey, the global renewables industry will need 1.1 million blue collar workers to develop and construct wind and solar projects and another 1.7 million workers to operate them, including labourers, electricians and operating engineers. On top of that, an additional 1.3 million white collar workers will be needed to install, operate and maintain these facilities, including wind and solar project developers, project managers, finance experts, legal staff and many other roles.

If talent leaders in the sector stick to the same recruiting strategies aimed at the same talent pools, providers will be understaffed, customers could see more energy service disruptions and workers could experience more incidents and accidents.

In this article, we provide three strategies for increasing the number of female workers in energy and utilities to close the gender gap.

1. Address Barriers for Women

In order to effectively recruit women into the industry, talent leaders need to understand what is keeping them away and work to remove those barriers to entry.

One important issue is pay. Globally, women in the sector face a wage gap that is more than twice as large as it is in non-energy jobs. According to the World Economic Forum, women in energy make about 20% less than their male coworkers. Their research shows that the wage gap stays the same when accounting for ability, education and potential experience, indicating that the gap is not because of differences in skill levels.

This leads to women in the industry being more likely to leave their positions than men, creating a challenge for employers looking to retain their female workforce.

One step employers can take is to complete a pay equity audit. According to the Harvard Business Review, a pay equity audit involves comparing the pay of employees doing “like for like” work in an organisation. To complete this effectively, you will need each employee’s length of service, job classification and demographic information. From there, auditors can perform a regression analysis to account for pay differences based on factors like experience, education and training to identify differences based on gender, race or age.

With that data, experts recommend a two-pronged response. One is remediation, or adjusting the pay of any employees that may qualify. The next step is to identify what led to salary discrepancies in the first place. Were there incorrect job classifications? Or does the hiring process allow for wide differences in starting salaries? This will help create a fair and equitable process going forward.

Additionally, companies shouldn’t be shy or secretive about the work they are doing to build a better workplace environment for women. Workers value that transparency. In fact, several large organisations have made headlines for announcing when they’ve reached gender pay equity, like Adobe and Intel.

2. Invest in Diverse Sourcing Strategies

Once talent leaders confirm that their organisation provides a fair and equitable environment for female workers, the next step is finding them. The energy and utilities industry is not alone in this need. Across all science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) jobs, women only account for 28% of the workforce.

Energy employers should invest in sourcing strategies aimed at underrepresented workers. Consider adding an AI sourcing tool that can identify passive candidates with the skills needed to succeed at your organisation.

Some recruitment CRMs have automated talent matching capabilities that search candidate databases to find qualified candidates for any role. Candidates are then ranked by how closely they fit the role requirements, how likely they are to leave their current position, and their average tenure. Unlike a manual sourcing process, automated talent matching can help fill the top of your funnel in seconds.  

Notably, in PeopleScout’s Affinix^TM CRM, Talent Finder can find and filter qualified candidates. The Diversity Boost feature also amplifies diverse candidates to help you reach your DE&I goals. It even allows talent leaders to identify what diversity means at their organisation, including the goal of identifying qualified female candidates.

Also consider low-tech approaches to sourcing more female candidates. Attend “Women in STEM” hiring events, and partner with colleges and universities. The energy sector has become a hard sell for young workers, especially in fossil fuels. One study found that only 44% of millennials and Gen Z in STEM programs would be interested in working in the sector, but 77% were interested in tech. Identifying potential candidates and intervening early can help change minds and bring in more candidates.

3. Update your Employer Brand

Finally, talent leaders in the energy and utilities sector need to make sure that their employer brands appeal to female workers. Are DE&I efforts advertised? Do women appear in careers site imagery? What about company leadership? Are women represented?

Your employer brand is your most powerful tool in attracting top talent. The energy industry lags behind in employer branding and digital recruitment marketing, two factors that appeal to millennial and Gen Z workers and can attract more women. Showcase and celebrate female workers and leaders in places like your careers site and social media. Share the progress you’re making toward diversity and inclusion goals. Advertise benefits like mentorship programs and leadership training.

Also consider your job postings. Do they include gendered language? Words like “competitive, dominant or leader” may discourage women from applying. One survey found that male-dominated fields tend to use more masculine words in job descriptions, at 97%.

These changes can make a real impact. For example, a manufacturing client that operates in an industry that has historically been male-dominated partnered with PeopleScout with the goal of increasing the number of female applicants and hires. PeopleScout worked with the client to develop the Women in Manufacturing campaign. PeopleScout interviewed nearly 20 women who work in roles across the company and who love their jobs. Using this information, PeopleScout built candidate personas to target women interested in the industry, and created a campaign featuring real women who work for the client.

Using our proprietary talent technology Affinix™, we built a dedicated landing page and talent community for female candidates. The four-week Women in Manufacturing campaign launched on International Women’s Day and showcased the company’s woman-friendly, inclusive culture. The campaign featured employee spotlights, videos and stories to showcase how women are integrated into the corporate culture and are integral to the company’s success. This increased the number of women who visited to the employer’s careers site and is moving the needle on the company’s DE&I goals.

Think Long Term to Close the Gender Gap in Energy and Utilities

As with many male-dominated industries, progress won’t happen overnight, but employers should set reasonable and achievable goals to close the gender gap in energy and utilities. With the staffing challenges facing the industry, building a more diverse workforce for the future isn’t an option—it’s a necessity. An RPO partner brings industry expertise, recruitment technology and talent advisory solutions to the table, providing employers the tools they need to find and hire more diverse talent.

For more insights on recruiting in the energy and utilities sector, download our ebook, The Recruitment Handbook for Energy and Utilities.

The Multigenerational Workplace: Bridging the Gap So Everyone Can Thrive [Infographic]

Posted on October 24, 2023October 24, 2023 by akessler

It’s a new era in the workforce as we speed towards 2030 with four powerhouse generations in the mix: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z. Understanding what makes your employees of all ages tick is the key to unlocking a culture where everyone thrives.

Check out this infographic on the multigenerational workforce and pave the way for an inclusive workplace that’s all about motivation and growth.

Get more on the multigenerational workforce in our guide, Destination 2030: 10 Predictions for What’s NEXT in the World of Work.

PeopleScout Named Talent Provider of Year by TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe

Posted on October 17, 2023October 17, 2023 by nfuqua

The global RPO leader was also recognised as the Best Talent Solutions Firm to Work For and Won the Employer Brand Award

LONDON – OCTOBER 16, 2023– PeopleScout has received three honours from the TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe. The company was named both Talent Provider of the Year and Best Talent Solutions Firm to Work For as well as the winner of the Employer Brand award.

“We are delighted to receive this recognition from TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe as evidence of our fresh, creative and bold approach to the work we do for our clients,” said PeopleScout Executive Leader and Group Managing Director of EMEA and APAC, Andrew Wilkinson. “This achievement is a testament not only to our innovative approaches to our clients’ challenges, but also our internal focus on enhancing our own employee experience.”

The judges cited PeopleScout’s consistency in developing creative solutions to client challenges and use of strong processes to deliver impressive results as evidence to support their recognition as Talent Provider of the Year. PeopleScout also demonstrated the use of a bold and inventive employer brand strategy, creating what the judges called a “hugely improved presence for the client through clever, lively and diverse creative work.” Finally, the company’s focus on their people, including processes to provide support, education and training for their employees, was apparent to the judges, earning PeopleScout the distinction of Best Talent Solutions Firm to Work For.

The TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe are open to all HR and employer teams who operate within Europe and set the standard for excellence, innovation and achievement, enabling employers to showcase the incredible work they do in talent acquisition.

All award entries are reviewed throughout a three-stage judging process to ensure credibility and enhance prestige for all those recognised. Once an initial shortlist of finalists is identified by TALiNT Partners’ senior team, a second round of review is conducted by a panel of distinguished industry judges before the final judging day where winners are selected across 13 categories.

See the full list of 2023 TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe here.

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3 Strategies for Solving Hospitality Recruitment Challenges with Technology

Posted on October 5, 2023October 6, 2023 by nfuqua

Amongst travel and hospitality recruitment challenges is a clear and persistent issue: staffing shortages. Talent leaders are struggling to fill empty roles amid low unemployment rates.

According to a 2023 survey by Deloitte, more than half of hotel executives (53%) say their properties have between 25–74% of the workforce they had in 2019. The situation at airports is even tighter with 62% of executives saying their workforce is half its prepandemic size or smaller.

On top of this, the unemployment rate sits at 3.8% in the U.S., 4.3% in the UK and 3.7% in Australia. The travel industry also saw a massive exodus of workers. In 2022, there were record quit rates during the Great Resignation, with the quit rate in leisure and hospitality jumping by a percentage point to 6.4%. So, how can talent leaders hire hospitality and travel workers when the available pool is smaller?

Luckily, the right technology solutions deployed at the right times during the recruitment process can help talent leaders source, attract and screen candidates to find the best talent more efficiently and effectively. In this article, we’ll cover three technology interventions that talent acquisition teams can put into place to tackle hospitality recruitment challenges.

Hospitality Recruitment Challenge No. 1: Our open positions receive few applicants, and many of those who do apply do not have the background or experience needed to succeed in the role.

Solution No. 1: Invest in artificial intelligence sourcing technology to fill the top of your funnel.

Amongst common hospitality recruitment challenges that we see is finding talent with a wide variety of specialised skills across diverse and distant geographies. There is no one-size-fits all approach to hiring travel and hospitality talent. Finding a chef for a luxury property in Lake Como, Italy will look very different from a search for housekeeping staff at a family resort in Orlando, Florida. Finding a flight attendant looks very different from filling a baggage handler role.

With such a tight talent market, employers must target passive talent. During the Great Rehire talent leaders focused on filling roles as quickly as possible, but now they need to focus on finding and hiring more experienced workers.

An AI-enabled candidate sourcing tool can identify passive candidates with the right experience for specific roles and can even identify which candidates would be most likely to leave their current employers. Within seconds, recruiters can build a list of these candidates and share the opportunity. PeopleScout’s talent acquisition suite, Affinix^TM, includes the AI sourcing feature, Talent Finder, which can connect employers with millions of passive candidates.

Consider the following best practices for using an AI sourcing tool:

Before searching for candidates, make sure you have a thorough understanding of the technical and soft skills needed to be successful in the role.
Use features, like PeopleScout’s Diversity Boost, that can identify candidates from underrepresented backgrounds to help meet your DE&I goals.
Blend AI with the human touch. By having a recruiter reach out to a sourced candidate with a personalised message, employers can create a positive experience.
Make sure a human makes all final hiring decisions. AI can make the process more efficient, but hiring managers should make the final call.

Hospitality Recruitment Challenge No. 2: Candidates drop out of our process before reaching the offer stage, either by abandoning the application or ghosting the interview.

Solution No. 2: Improve the candidate experience by making the process quick and easy by embracing tools like SMS or virtual interviews.

Hospitality employers must ensure that their candidate experience sets them apart from other employers at every stage of the candidate journey. For candidates, how they’re treated during the hiring process is a preview of what their experience will be as an employee.

PeopleScout research shows that the hospitality industry has a lot of room for improvement in this area. In our analysis of the candidate experience of more than 215 different organisations, the hospitality sector came in last overall with the lowest average scores in every stage except Follow-Up (in which it was second to last). While hospitality organisations effectively showcased their diversity and inclusion efforts on their career sites, only half gave candidates the opportunity to register their interest.

Your candidate experience should be unique to your brand and help you distinguish yourself from other employers hiring for similar roles or skills. Many talent acquisition teams don’t appreciate that candidates don’t perceive the recruitment process as a funnel. They’re the main character in their own story, and they expect to be treated that way. Candidates want to engage in their job search on their own terms. So, anytime they encounter a roadblock to getting the information they want, especially if they don’t know what to expect in the next stage, they’re more likely to drop out of your process.

There are several ways to leverage technology to make the process easier for candidates. First, start with a shortened application. According to PeopleScout research, nearly 40% of organisations asked candidates to duplicate information that was already contained in their resume or CV. Make sure your application only collects the information that is most critical for determining who moves along to the next step of the process.

From there, other technology solutions can be used to gather the additional information necessary to make a hiring decision. SMS can be used for an initial text screening, and virtual interviews, like those available in Affinix, allow candidates to answer additional questions at their own pace while feeling as though they’re driving the process.

Finally, automated communication can keep a candidate engaged in the process. The right technology platform can help by sending automated messages to candidates, via email or chatbot technology, updating them on their application status. You can even craft messages letting a candidate know if they did not get the job, so they aren’t left wondering if you ghosted them.

Consider the following best practices for using technology to improve your candidate experience:

Make sure your application is mobile-friendly and can be filled out in 10 minutes or less. Test your current application to see how long it takes to apply.
Provide candidates with the opportunity to opt-in to receive text messages or emails from your organisation to remain in compliance with local spam laws.
Tailor the type of virtual interview to the type of role. While video interviews may be appropriate for customer-facing roles, others may prefer the opportunity to answer questions with recorded audio.
Make it simple for candidates to understand where they are in your process; this can be something as simple as a progress bar.

Hospitality Recruitment Challenge No. 3: Our assessment process isn’t effective at identifying the candidates most likely to succeed in the role, leading to increased turnover, reduced productivity and disengaged employees.

Solution No. 3: Assess candidates for passion, purpose and mindset.

The travel and hospitality industry is all about guest experience, and hotels, airlines, restaurants and theme parks differentiate themselves with the unique experience that they provide. So, talent leaders need to find candidates who not only have the right skills and experience but also a deep understanding of the brand and how it is reflected in the service provided.

For example, in a major city, you may find three hotels on the same street, one catering to a high-end luxury experience in a historic building, another geared toward young travellers with bold art and hit music playing in the lobby, and a third designed with business travellers in mind—with a large business centre, meeting rooms and plenty of quiet spaces for someone to plug in their laptop. Many hotel brands even have this variety of styles within their own portfolios. The service provided in each hotel looks different, and a person who excels at a luxury property may not thrive in a trendy hotel.

By selecting the right assessment tool, employers can go beyond looking at just capability, behaviour and results but also determine whether candidates align with their organisation’s purpose, have passion for the work they would do and whether they have the mindset to adapt to new environments.

By building an assessment during pre-screening that accounts for passion, purpose and mindset in addition to the standard skills and experience, employers can use technology to shortlist candidates based on several different attributes at the same time. This way, employers can get a clear picture of the different strengths and weaknesses of candidates in order to make informed decisions about which candidates are best to bring forward to the interview stage.

By identifying candidates who match well with an employer’s brand of guest experience, talent leaders can reduce turnover and build a happier, more engaged team. In turn, that leads to better customer experience and a better bottom line.

Consider the following best practices for building an effective assessment for hospitality talent:

Identify the essential behaviours for the role to separate those who will actually be successful from those who simply present well during an interview.
Build assessment tools around your organisation’s vision and values so applicants have a chance to form a connection to them from the start.
Self-evaluation tools can also be used to help applicants consider their own strengths and whether the role will offer sufficient opportunity to use and demonstrate them.
Distinguish between good candidates who meet the criteria and great candidates who will take an organisation further.

Finding the Right Talent Technology for Hospitality

The travel and hospitality industry still faces an uphill climb in returning to or even exceeding their prepandemic staffing levels, but talent leaders have additional and improved tools available to help identify, attract and screen candidates. However, in a full marketplace, finding the right tools can be a challenge. Consider partnering with an RPO with expertise in technology that can help identify the most impactful ways new tools can solve your most pressing hospitality recruitment challenges.

Get more strategies for attracting and hiring hospitality, travel and tourism talent, with our Recruitment Handbook for Travel and Hospitality.

Reinventing Your EVP: The Secret to Hacking Your Productivity and Performance

Posted on September 29, 2023October 30, 2023 by akessler

By Simon Wright, Global Head of Talent Advisory Consulting

CHROs are a facing a tough balancing act. Employees want flexibility, purpose and belonging. The C-suite wants innovation, productivity and profit. How can you satisfy both without compromising? The answer lies in evolving your employee value proposition (EVP) into a dynamic, human-centric personal value proposition (PVP).

I know, I know, your EVP seemed pretty solid just a few years ago. But let’s face it, times have changed. The pandemic shifted mindsets, the Great Resignation shook things up, and workers now expect a whole lot more from employers when it comes to meaningful work, development opportunities, work-life balance and flexibility. Yet despite these changes, many organisations are still relying on the same transactional EVPs focused on compensation and benefits, leading to low engagement levels and high turnover.

This article delves into the profound changes happening in our workplaces, the shift in employee expectations and how a more human-centric approach to your EVP can help you keep up.

The Productivity Vacuum

One-third of new hires begin looking for a new job within the first six months. It takes approximately eight months for an employee to reach their full productivity. So, if a third of employees leave their job before they’ve become fully productive, organisations experience a productivity vacuum that not only disrupts continuity and knowledge transfer but impedes innovation and business performance.

This productivity vacuum is costing the global economy $8.8 trillion (USD) every year, or 9% of global GDP, according to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report. To put this into perspective, $8.8 trillion is the combined market capitalisation of the top 10 companies in the world or the third wealthiest country based on GDP.

(Sources: Gallup | Mercer | Microsoft | Gartner)

The connection between employee retention and productivity—and in turn revenue growth—is a compelling driver for organisations to prioritise engagement and retention efforts. Retaining top talent through a compelling EVP is crucial to mitigate disruption, knowledge loss and financial costs caused by attrition. According to Gartner, companies with a strong EVP can decrease annual employee turnover by 69%. Plus, these organisations are four times more likely to have highly engaged employees and two times more likely to have high performers.

Your EVP captures the essence of your uniqueness as an employer and the give-and-get between your organisation and your employees.

However, today’s employees are demanding more, and the one-size-fits-all EVP approach must evolve to keep up. Rethinking your EVP with a more human-centric approach that recognises employees as people, not just workers, can help achieve the balance between empathy and economics. By focusing on shifting the EVP to a Personal Value Proposition, or PVP—so each employee feels it’s personalised to them—organisations can go beyond traditional offerings and provide exceptional life experiences that match employee needs and deliver a positive emotional connection.

Introducing the Personal Value Proposition (PVP)

Lucky for you, we’re sharing how forward-thinking companies are effectively shifting from a generic EVP to human-centric strategy that shapes the individual employee experience. The Personal Value Proposition (PVP) is a personalized, flexible approach tailored to address employees’ diverse needs and aspirations as unique individuals, not just workers.

Think of the PVP like building your own custom sports car versus buying one off the factory lot. You get to select each component to match your preferences—convertible or hardtop, leather or cloth seats, high-powered V8 or fuel-efficient hybrid engine—tailoring a one-of-a-kind vehicle personalised just for you. Similarly, organisations embracing a PVP approach offer employees personal growth opportunities, flexibility in their work arrangements and customised career paths that align to what motivates them.

The result? A 18% increase in productivity and a 23% increase in profitability, according to Gallup.

Getting More Personal to Boost Productivity

The PVP does not replace the EVP; rather, it evolves it. It’s not just about being an attractive employer. It’s about enabling each individual to realise their full potential, and in doing so, empowering your organisation to thrive in an increasingly competitive and complex landscape. Give your EVP a fresh new flavour that will leave employees smiling and revenue growing. Because keeping your workforce happy and driving performance doesn’t have to be impossible. A PVP makes it possible.

Intrigued to learn more? Get the inside scoop on evolving to a PVP along with stats on the productivity vacuum crisis and the steps for scaling your PVP strategy in our new ebook, The Human Advantage: Redefining EVP to Fuel Organizational Performance.

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The Human Advantage: Redefining EVP to Fuel Organisational Performance

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