Before the pandemic, many businesses struggled to attract new employees. They struggled with the answer to this question: why should someone work for your organization? With so much competition for good talent, businesses must have a compelling response.
After pandemic layoffs we have now come full circle, and organizations are once again struggling to find and attract workers. What is emerging this time, however, is that organizations are finding it difficult to fill positions that historically have been much easier to fill.
Recently the Wall Street Journal ran an article highlighting emerging challenges in finding sales personnel (The Pay is High and Jobs Are Plentiful, but Few Want to Go Into Sales, July 14, 2001). Many organizations are learning that one of the impacts of the pandemic has been a change among workers in what they want from a job.
Make no mistake, monetary compensation is still especially important, but potential workers want to know a litany of other things:
- Will the work be challenging and career enhancing?
- Is the work environment supportive and flexible?
- What benefits do you offer?
- Is your organization competitive?
Think about how you’d answer each of these questions. Do your answers sound like these:
- “Work at home is an available option.”
- “We like to promote from within.”
- “We offer a competitive compensation package.”
- “Our organization has been around for years, and we have a stable customer base.”
These responses are cliched and not compelling. They fail to differentiate your company and offer a convincing answer on why a candidate might want to work for your company.
How would you go about proving to a desirable candidate that your organization excels and should be an advantageous place to work? We have helped several companies find hiring competitive advantages that might look like these:
- “Our average employee tenure is 7.9 years; nearly double the national average of 4.6 years”
- “80% of our employees work from home at least one day a week, including the president”
- “84% of openings in the past 3 years have been filled internally, not externally.”
- “Benefits as a percent of total compensation have grown 25% in the past 3 years”
- “Only 3 companies in our industry didn’t lose money during the pandemic; we were one of them”
These are randomly made up responses, but hopefully they give you an idea of how you can better “sell your job openings.”
If you are struggling to find and attract employees, we recommend you evaluate how your organization is promoted to employees.
If you get stuck Smart Advantage can help.