What Do Employment Gurus Recommend for Attracting the Best Workers?

Aug 31, 2021

We’ve seen a lot of reports recently about the “Great Resignation” with more people quitting their jobs at higher rates than has ever been seen before. There are many reasons why these news headlines are overblown, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is currently a “seller’s market” for those trading their time and their labor for money.

In the US, Amazon is offering a $2,000 sign-on bonus for people that take up a job in its New Jersey warehouses. This, of course, doesn’t get paid in one go, employees receive $100 on their first day with further installments at set intervals.

It’s not just Amazon either, employers up and down the United States and in many other countries are short of workers too.

Therefore, it has never been more important for employers to pull out all the stops to attract the best workers to their companies. After all, if they don’t, they’ll find themselves short of staff and unable to deliver the service that their customers expect.

So how can you do this? Let’s see what the employment gurus have to say!

Create a “Magnetic Offer”

Scott Keller and Mary Meaney, two senior partners at McKinsey & Company, a leading consultancy firm, say that companies should focus on their “employee value proposition” (EVP). This is what employees receive in exchange for their time, effort, ideas, and experience.

Many companies will have HR departments that look at how they can offer the bare minimum to help save on costs. They’ll often dress this up as “looking after the interests of the company” but then sell their legally mandated remuneration package as a great benefit of working for them.

In the UK, this means 28 days holiday, a workplace pension, and statutory sick and maternity pay come as standard. Most candidates can see through any attempt to talk this up and will see it as a red flag.

Instead, you need to focus on a more well-rounded rewards package, more time off to offer a better work-life balance, and demonstrable progression paths. According to Keller and Meaney, this makes your EVP “magnetic”, meaning that it draws candidates to it.

Demonstrate You Care About Welfare and Wellbeing

There are many red flags that should make employees question whether a company is right for them. Things like “work hard, play hard” suggests that employees will be expected to work long and grueling hours, while a company looking for a candidate that is “highly motivated” or has “high energy” often hints at either the desire for extroverts or that they have a poor employee retention rate.

Instead, companies should work hard to demonstrate that they care about the welfare and wellbeing of their staff. Having trained mental health first aiders is a good step, as is offering a flexi-time model that lets people fit some of their work around their lives.

Promoting exercises like yoga can also help with this. Lauren Gasser, a London-based yoga instructor, spends a lot of her time working with employees, providing them with stretches and exercises that can decompress the spine and destress the mind. In 2019, she spoke to PokerStars to provide some simple stretches that players can use between games, though she also suggests that office workers should use them too.

Employing the services of someone like Gasser could help to make your team feel like their welfare and wellbeing are genuine concerns of the company.

Create an Environment That is Supportive of All Workers

Not all the best employees can work nine-to-five Monday to Friday. Some may have personal commitments, such as sharing care responsibilities with a partner, which means they can’t always be in the office for a full working day, while others may have health needs that prevent them from driving or commuting long distances.

None of these factors directly impede a person’s ability to do a job, so by simply excluding them because they can’t be sitting in front of a company desk five days a week means you could be missing out on top talent.

Of course, you may not be able to employ digital nomads who want to work from other time zones, but Jocelyn Mangan, the COO of Snagajob, recommends that employers should be more accommodating towards employees who may not be able or willing to work standard full-time hours.

Giving them more control over their schedule will make your business more attractive to the best talent. In fact, Mangan suggests that many employees will prioritize this flexibility over a high salary, so provided you can meet your business’ needs with flexible working arrangements, it could actually work out being more cost-effective too.