Three Mistakes Ruining Your Employee Attraction Efforts

Highly talented young employees are not the only ones who have become more demanding. Today, employees of all ages are much less likely to buy into or be motivated by promises of long-term rewards. After years of increasingly fast-paced change and uncertainty, employers can no longer guarantee long-term rewards for their employees. Most employees try to get what they can from their employers one day at a time. People are embracing the transactional free-agent mindset because they have no other choice. But this also means that employees have more negotiating power: if employees no longer expect to pay their dues for years on end, then employers have to do more to retain them in the short term. The transactional free-agent mindset can appear high-maintenance, but it is actually the result of increased power to ask for more. The most valuable employees are the ones who will reap the most benefits in terms of flexible working arrangements and other rewards. This leaves business leaders asking how they can possibly square their business needs with widespread expectations for greater flexibility in work conditions and career paths.

So, what do you do?

Many employers today realize that a winning culture is the key differentiator when it comes to hiring. Employees today are savvy enough to learn what an organization’s culture is really like very early on, even before they walk in the door on their first day. Social media and employer review sites, such as Glassdoor, have made it easier than ever for job candidates to vet their potential employers before deciding whether or not to work for them.

But what does having a “winning culture” mean? And, more importantly, what does that mean for your organization in particular? Most likely, for your organization, a winning culture does not mean having beer on tap in the break room or hosting a plethora of scheduled social activities for employees. What we’ve seen in our research is that, most often, a winning culture is defined by the more fundamental aspects of the employer–employee relationship.

Corporate cultures are either cultures “by design” or cultures “by default.” Winning cultures are intentionally built, with a clear and compelling mission, reliable communication alignment, strong and supportive leadership, collaborative high-performance teams, real accountability, flexibility, and recognition for high performers.

Reasons that Attraction Efforts Fail

There are three reasons why your attraction efforts are missing the mark when it comes to communicating what your organization’s winning culture looks like: (1) you don’t know what your new hires are looking for in a job; (2) you don’t know why your current talent is leaving; and (3) your culture isn’t supportive enough to foster skill and career development in the long term.

You don’t know what your new hires are looking for in a job.

By now, most employers understand that simply offering the same old-fashioned benefits is no longer enough to attract high-quality candidates. But additional “culture-based” incentives, such as team social activities and other trendy perks, may not reflect what potential new hires are really looking for.

In your interviews with job candidates, start asking them: “What would your dream job look like at our company?” Of course, it probably will not be possible to meet all (or perhaps even most) of the conditions that person lays out in their answer. But if a candidate lets you know that scheduling flexibility is a top priority for them, and you can offer that flexibility, make it clear in your recruiting messages that flexibility is one benefit of working for you.

Start looking at the types of benefits your top competitors are offering and see how they compare to your own. In our decades of research, we’ve identified eight factors that most influence employees’ opinions of a job. See whether or not your competition is providing their teams with:

1. Performance-based compensation: baseline pay and benefits that are comparable to your competition, but, in addition, clearly defined opportunities to earn more based on extra-mile effort and extra-mile results.

2. Supportive leadership: an immediate manager or supervisor who provides regular support, guidance, and direction. A manager who practices the fundamentals of highly engaged management on an ongoing basis.

3. Role and responsibilities: the actual work—but included in this part of the deal must be opportunities for an employee to prove his or her worth. Paths to grow and advance one’s career must be available.

4. Location and workspace: more than just convenience of location. This could also include overall comfort with or control over one’s environment.

5. Scheduling flexibility: the ability to set one’s own schedule, within agreed-upon boundaries. Most often this comes in the form of occasional scheduling accommodations to help employees respond to real-life scheduling needs.

6. Training and development: both formal and informal opportunities to build new, relevant knowledge and skills.

7. Relationships at work: any opportunity to build productive and mutually supportive working relationships with colleagues, leaders, managers, clients, customers, or vendors. Providing access to decision-makers within the organization is also a priority.

8. Autonomy and creative freedom: clear requirements and defined parameters for each project that establish boundaries within which employees can navigate with independence and creativity. This allows employees to flex their creativity confidently without going off track or overstepping their role.

You don’t know why your current talent is leaving.

It is normal for employees to come and go, especially today. But if you start to notice that your best talent is voluntarily leaving at an increased rate, it might be worth investigating why. The reasons that top talent is leaving could be the same reasons that top talent doesn’t want to come and work for you in the first place.

By the time those employees are heading out the door, it’s almost certainly too late to ask, “What can we do to keep you working for us?” So, don’t just ask those who are already planning on leaving what they need: ask your best employees what they need from you as an employer on an ongoing basis.

Do not just ask them, “Are you happy here?” Rather, talk to them regularly to find out what they really want or need, whether it is a special deal or a small accommodation. Understanding an individual employee’s unique needs or wants is the key to being able to reward or support that person in a meaningful way. The more unusual the needs and wants of a particular employee, the more valuable it will be if you are able to meet those needs and wants, because it will be harder for other employers to replicate. If you can work out a special deal with a starting employee, you will have a powerful retention tool. Of course, you have to keep asking because their needs and wants are likely to change over time.

It may be that your employees are lacking the resources, support, or training that they need in order to succeed.

Does that mean you should do everything for everybody? No. Should you cater to their every whim? No. But employees need to know that somebody understands what they want and need, somebody cares, and somebody is going to work with them to help them earn more of it. The key is not to give employees false hope or make false promises. When employees express needs and wants that are totally unrealistic, you should let them know. The next step, however, is to help them see what is realistic.

It may be that your employees are lacking the resources, support, or training that they need in order to succeed. Too often employees lose interest in a job because they are struggling with the work. Maybe they have become frustrated at their inability to adequately learn a skill, perform a task, or get comfortable with a responsibility. That is usually the beginning of a downward spiral for mid- and high-level performers.

In these cases, the number one thing a manager can do is help the employee improve so they will start feeling better about the job and regain interest. Help the employee see what is going wrong—when, where, and why—so that both of you can identify what needs to be done to make the situation improve. Employees feel much better about a job when they are winning as opposed to losing. The problem is, you can’t just tell them that they are. You actually have to do the hard work of helping them start winning, whether that’s improving their performance or providing them with a necessary resource.

By taking care of the best employees you already have, you help to establish your reputation as a prestigious employer for future candidates, as well.

Your culture isn’t supportive enough to foster skill and career development in the long term.

Career development today requires employees to improve their skills constantly and make lateral moves within their organization in order to succeed. No matter what else you may offer as an employer, if you don’t provide clear opportunities for employees to grow, then you’re practically guaranteeing that you’ll be viewed as a “way-station” job by future candidates. That is, potential employees will see your organization as a place to hide out and soak up as many resources as they can before finding a job where they can truly establish themselves and grow.

One way of embedding continuous development into your culture is to seek ways to reward and recognize your superstar talent. Avoid the mistake of thinking that some of your employees are so talented, skilled, or motivated that they do not really need the attention of managers. The better they are, the more attention they want: superstars want managers who know exactly who they are, help them succeed, and keep close track of their success.

If you really want to stand out as an employer who grows and develops employees, you have to retain the superstars long enough to actually grow and develop them over time. Someone has to make concerted efforts to surround them with teaching- or coaching-style managers, advisers, organizational supporters, and maybe even mentors. The question every leader and manager should ask is: What roles can I play in this process?

Once you’ve established that reputation within your organization, let your job candidates know, specifically, how your organization helps employees grow in their careers. Do you provide mentorship opportunities with key decision-makers in the company? Do you offer prestigious training opportunities? How do you identify new leaders and set them up for success?

No matter what buzzwords or promises you make in your recruiting brochures, if you don’t have a truly winning culture to back up the trendy perks, candidates will be able to tell. And they’ll almost certainly pass on the word to their job-seeking friends. No one wants to work somewhere that doesn’t fit their needs, doesn’t sufficiently support current employees, or doesn’t provide employees with a future.

There is no quick fix, but the talent wars are on—if you want to come out on top, you have to take time to make your company culture stronger each and every day.