Getting Employees Engaged: How About the First Date?

With all the talk about employee engagement, it's easy to forget that there's no one to be engaged until someone agrees to accept an engagement with the company.

The Law of Employee Attraction: How Do You Become a Recruiting Peacock?

Sales people are quick to let you know that nothing happens in a company until a sale is made. And even that can't happen until good prospects are found, courted, and closed.

Tim Wright, (that's not Tim in the photo!) fellow EE Network member, sparked my thinking on this with his Brand EE post. He pointed to Julie Norquist Roy's article, Your Brand Here: Why Employer Brand Is Critical to Retention and Engagement, in the May issue of Talent Management.

He was especially struck by this:

The employee's...first impression may extend far beyond company offerings in position, salary and benefits. Today's workforce is equally concerned with opportunities for career advancement, rewards and recognition, management style, and company culture. Together these blend to make up the employer value proposition and employer brand, that impact the employee experience and, ultimately, the hire's decision to join and remain with an organization.

So I decided to check with one of my Age of Conversation co-authors, Dan Schawbel, who lives and breathes "Brand" every day. For those who want a peek at what a pro is seeing when it comes to employer branding, here's a stream-of-consciousness insight from Dan:

Employer branding isn't revolutionary, but it has  been streamlined by the outbreak of social media. With a minimal budget, any company can portray an honest and impactful brand to a worldwide audience.  From podcasts highlighting what it would be like to work there, to a strong presence on social networks like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, companies can almost physically touch applicants like never before.  Why would they want to do this?  Companies are looking to recruit passive candidates, whom are either happily employed at respective companies or who are attending colleges or universities.  In this war for talent, companies are being forced to break out of their "legal chains" and embrace new tools to communicate with excellent candidates.  Although employers are not yet ready to accept video resumes and websites, there is research to show that they will screen candidates by their personal eBrand through Google.

Who are out in front of the employer branding pack?

Some companies, such as Microsoft, have had breakthroughs in the employer branding regime, with viewmyworld.com.  Other companies have stepped foot onto the Second Life platform.  They have met candidates through virtual job fairs online and actually hired them in real life.  Other companies have leveraged Twitter to push out job postings to candidates interested in the company.  What better to communicate the opening of a job or introduce a candidate into a new role than a blog.  Polly Pearson (www.pollypearson.com) is one of the first HR Executives from an enterprise to blog about corporate culture and actually interview employees for her blog posts.  The goal with employer branding is to close the gap between hearing about a job and actually holding a position in the company.  Those who will succeed in this area will use social media in order to attract, recruit and retain new talent.

Is this what you're hearing in your organization? If so, is it being done well?

Person Dan Schawbel

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Comments

[Jo]

We always seem to talk about companies as if they are something other than us - they are only us.

The practicalities of recruiting haven't changed though the channels we have available to us have increased.

If we write adverts (and design work) around what employees want, the number of totally irrelevant applications goes down and the number of good applications goes up. I think there only two areas of HR where you see such dramatic improvements for a little effort - the other being team building which you wrote on yesterday.

Telling future employees what they want to know and need to know attracts the right people.

The size of the dramatic effects: 1000 un-appointable applications to 4 good ones. 8 rounds to appoint overseas (with look-see visits) to 1. We don't even need effects this large to make our lives much easier!

Let's hear what other people have to say. I would be interested in an HR department that doesn't catastrophize!

[Steve Roesler]

Jo,

Indeed, companies are certainly "us." The only way that they actually remain "us" is when we take personal responsibility for what we do within them. One way to tell that responsibility and ownership is gone is when an employee explains a policy that "they" have.

As for recruiting, I think you are going for the heart of the matter: focus on the intended audience. It would seem that with ever increasing numbers of channels, the recruiting task would become somewhat easier. My own recent experiences have been that when enough internal people become enamored of the technology, the technology--and not the audience--receives the real attention. (That's not just true of HR).