Debby Routt is Chief People Officer at Marathon Health.
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Three years into the pandemic, companies have been forced to deal with another crisis: the Great Resignation. Attracting and retaining talent has never been more challenging. To stay competitive, employers are reevaluating their recruitment and retention methods.
One of the tactics HR leaders can implement while navigating this challenging time is partnering with their marketing team to find and keep top talent.
Amplify Your Brand
HR sometimes overlooks communicating the company’s mission, values and goals to new hires, their current employees and prospective candidates. Showcase your brand by working with your marketing department to ensure your website tells your story. This simple but effective approach will help you attract employees who share similar values with your company while also demonstrating how you differ from the competition.
We're seeing that Millennials and Gen Z are actively seeking employment opportunities that make them feel their work will have an impact. They do their research and visit sites like LinkedIn and Glassdoor to get a pulse on what current employees are saying. Your marketing team can create day-in-the-life videos or images with employee quotes. Share these on your social channels so job seekers can get a better sense of your culture and what it’s like working at your company.
If a former employee leaves a negative review online, make sure that you respond quickly. Ask marketing to help you create personalized responses and provide them with a contact if they wish to discuss their comments further.
Create A Recruitment Campaign
Work with your marketing team to determine the key roles you want to fill. They can also help you craft an effective advertising strategy, which may include working with an outside ad agency to fill multiple roles in a specific area. They can also help you determine which assets need to be created and advise on the best digital or print channels to help reach your target audience.
Marketing can also help you create a recruitment campaign with engaging messaging that’s tailored to the specific roles you’re looking to fill, whether that’s ad copy, video copy, a landing page or a social media post. Make sure you communicate to marketing how many applicants you’re receiving from your campaign and work with them to make any adjustments to optimize your results. Consider asking marketing for help with A/B testing to determine if a specific asset or message performs better, especially if you’re not getting enough applicants for certain roles.
Don’t Be Afraid To Engage
While it’s common to do exit interviews after an employee gives notice, most employers don’t do “stay interviews” to see how current employees are feeling. Find ways to continuously engage with your employees throughout the year and identify any issues before an employee has one foot out the door.
While not everyone will feel comfortable sharing this type of information, you should try creating a safe space where employees can air their grievances without facing repercussions. You can also send quarterly pulse surveys to gauge overall employee satisfaction. Advise your company’s leadership to communicate the results with the team, take comments and suggestions seriously and make changes where necessary. Remember to share the survey results with marketing. The team can use that feedback to refine their own employee communications approach.
Finally, ask marketing to help identify the best way to communicate to employees how leadership plans to address any issues. Whether it's through an internal email, with a recorded video or at a company town hall, the delivery of the message is just as important as the messaging itself in setting the right tone.
Make It Personal
While email will always be an important part of your communication strategy, it’s easier to demonstrate someone’s personality through video. This is one of the biggest areas where marketing can be your ally. Have your leadership team partner with marketing on videos that feature company updates like product launches or new campaigns. Get even more creative and start a podcast that focuses on topics like company culture or diversity and inclusion that you can share with internal and external audiences.
Finally, marketing can help make town halls more engaging for remote employees by encouraging them to submit pictures or take videos of company events they’ve participated in that can be shared during the meeting. Tactics like this might seem small, but they can go a long way in establishing connections throughout your organization.
HR professionals and marketers can work together within an organization to retain the talent they already have and attract the talent they're looking to add.
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