​Six ways to show you’re a great employer

The current job market is extremely competitive and attracting and retaining top talent can be difficult. With the increase in hybrid working models and flexible schedules, candidates are focused on incentives, work-life balance, and innovation.

If your business is committed to creating a positive company culture and a strong employer brand, you will stand out in the marketplace. But a company is only as good as its employees. So here are six effective ways to attract top employees to your business.

1. Create a strong company culture

Your company should have a defined company culture – aligning with your values, your mission, your message, and your brand. Having a defined company culture means you can provide the right environment for your employees to meet their own needs while working toward your business goals. If you believe in your mission and values, and you hire employees who believe in it too, this will create a shared sense of purpose, commitment, and greater employee fulfilment. 

Your culture could include simple things, like providing opportunities for flexible working, offering a level of autonomy to employees, having team lunches or outings regularly, casual dress code, or giving employees the day off for their birthday. All these things are simple to introduce and can make a role significantly more attractive to potential candidates.

Healthy company culture will create an attractive space for new talent, while also retaining your current employees.

2. Be active on social media

Your social media presence can show potential candidates the true personality of your brand and give them a glance into life at your organisation. This gives you a great opportunity to show how amazing it is to work within your business. From business perks, lunch days out, staff competitions, to rewarding employees for a job well done, make sure to showcase why your company is a great place to work. It gives your audience something to react to, starting a conversation that will further engage them.

Even when not actively searching for a new job, people engage with businesses on social media. So if your company provides customers valuable or entertaining content that goes beyond just promoting the business, you’ll build a trusting and engaging relationship with your audience. This trust will give your business a lead over others, especially when you’re working to obtain new talent.

3. Offer career progression

The prospect of career progression and professional development is often essential in a candidate’s decision to accept a job offer or not. This means it’s vital for companies to ensure they signpost all available opportunities for professional development when looking for candidates.

Take time to build a structure that allows for career development within your company. Letting staff know where they can go and how they can get there will give them a reason to stay within your business. 

By establishing training initiatives that focus on increasing the hard and soft skill sets of your employees, you will have a better probability of attracting those candidates thinking about longer-term career development.

4. Show great leadership

Potential candidates want to know who they will be working for – all the way up to the top. All leaders within your company should live and breathe your values. They need to demonstrate integrity and always uphold the values of your company.

When employees see and believe this, management will have a huge amount of respect. When employees respect management, they feel secure. When employees feel secure, they are more content in their workplace. Managers need to be open, honest, accessible, communicate well and provide feedback. This is key to employee satisfaction.

In an atmosphere like this, if an employee wants to take their career in a different direction or perhaps gain experience in a new area, they will feel they can easily approach management to discuss this before looking to another company for potential opportunities. 

5. Be flexible

Move away from traditional working approaches and become a flexible employer. Post-pandemic, a lot of companies that went remote aren’t planning to return to their physical offices. Your company may want to follow their lead — this flexibility is a key attraction to many candidates across all types of industries. 

By being flexible you will be able to attract employees with families and other commitments, while also greatly attracting the Millennial generation. You could facilitate a hybrid working model, offer remote working options, open office environments, flexible working hours, half-day Fridays – there are so many different initiatives you can introduce into your company that promotes a modern-day, forward-thinking mentality. In a nutshell, move away from the conventional working standards – this is what will attract the ‘mobile on-the-go’ top-end employees.

6. Rewards and recognition

Rewards, recognition, and praise are essential in attracting top-quality talent, while also helping to improve staff retention.

Don’t ever hesitate giving credit to someone who deserves it. Taking a moment to acknowledge someone (or team) can mean a lot. For big accomplishments or top-performing employees, showing appreciation with a reward will certainly go a long way to boosting employee morale. This show of gratitude sends out a positive signal to all your staff that you value and appreciate your talented and loyal employees. Incentives don’t need to be expensive – a small gift voucher, being treated to lunch, or a half-day are all great ways to say thank you.

These rewards and recognitions will also help you create a good reputation as a company that values its staff, and somewhere people want to work. 

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