If your organization is hiring right now, you’re in good company; the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that at the end of November 2021, there were 10.6 million job openings in the United States. While workplaces struggle with staffing and workers struggle to find jobs that work for their new normal, it’s important to know how to approach hiring.
Let’s start with the basics! Here are five real benefits that job-seeking employees want from your organization in 2022, and how you can make sure your organization comes out on top in the hiring process.
Starting with the basics, you need to make sure that you are offering competitive compensation in your field. iHire shared that in 2021, 70.9% of surveyed workers left a job for salary reasons. That’s not a statistic you can hope to ignore!
Superficial benefits are no longer appealing, and likely never were. Employees don’t want perks like fancy coffee in-house or the ability to bring their dog into work (we’ll get to that later!); they want financial security and competitive compensation for the investment of their time in your organization. Why would a worker stay with your company on the promise of future advancement when your competition is offering a substantial pay bump and a signing bonus?
Focus on nailing the basics for your team; generous salaries, health and dental coverage, family leave, and retirement matching are today’s standard baseline. If you’re not offering these benefits, rest assured that your competitors are— don’t miss out on your dream candidate by not covering the essentials!
You don’t need us to tell you that the world of work has changed; when most workplaces transitioned over to working remotely, it was a game-changer for the job market and the majority of employees.
Once considered a privilege, working from home now gives many people flexibility that they could have only dreamed of in previous positions. Being able to care for their children, pets, and homes while working at the same time, as well as lowered costs from no more commute and additional work costs, are just a few of the reasons why many people prefer remote work. Some of your workers might have also had to relocate to areas with lower costs of living amidst rising prices.
The same iHire study showed that 41.3% of workers surveyed said a more flexible schedule would encourage them to stay in their current roles with 31.8% saying that they do the same for remote work options.
The pandemic proved that being in-house isn’t necessary for a lot of roles. While there are unique challenges to managing a hybrid or fully remote team. if a boss demands a return to in-person work without strong, demonstrated reasoning behind that decision, your workplace is going to quickly become part of the Great Resignation.
The solution: ask your team what they want, then listen to them! Do they feel most comfortable and productive fully remote, or do they want to explore a hybrid option? Do they feel safe even considering returning? How do they perform best in their roles?
Take that feedback into consideration and, as long as they are hitting their metrics and fulfilling their job responsibilities, trust them to know what’s best for them and give them that flexibility. Watch engagement increase as a result!
The days when a worker committed to one company for life and dedicated their entire career to it are long gone. One in four workers planned to change jobs in 2021— the new path of a professional career requires movement every few years to make leaps in salary and title changes necessary to build a career.
The reality is, no one is going to work with one company forever. It’s not possible for one organization to maintain and sustain the modern worker’s entire career unless you’re a mega-corporation, and even that isn’t guaranteed.
Give them a reason to stay! Building pay bumps and title changes into positions will show employees that you care about their advancement, not just the companies. It will also help you develop your internal talent pipeline since you’ll have an established way forward for your team.
If you’re still working on creating those paths forward, use the best resource at your disposal to figure it out: your team! How do they envision their role changing and expanding? What are their career goals? How can you help them achieve their aspirations while doing business?
Growth and development are equally important but are also different enough to consider separately. Making sure that your employees are developing in their roles means that you’re thinking about what they need as individuals, which means you have to understand them as individuals.
You can do this through individualized coaching and the use of assessments in your organization. By adopting a standardized tool across departments like assessments, you create a shared language amongst your team and give everyone a mutual understanding of the behavior and motivation of their teammates amongst other traits assessments can reveal.
The good news is that you can structure your organization to be a magnet for fresh talent looking to expand on their skill sets. Attract top talent by building developmental benefits into the role— you can do this by making sure each role has individualized development plans and continuous learning opportunities.
By helping your employees understand themselves, you create an environment where they are encouraged to be themselves. This understanding will help them create connections too valuable to lose and you’ll keep them at your organization longer. It also creates a network in a way that will continue to benefit you both even if they decide to move on.
Finally, workers are looking for a company that reflects their values. A survey from Lexington Law revealed that sixty percent of workers surveyed would take a 50% pay cut to work a job they loved. The same study shared that they are twice as likely to value personal interests, benefits, company culture, and growth opportunities over salary when choosing a job.
The modern worker is working to live, not living to work, and they want their company to reflect what they value! Just as employers are investing in their workers, remember that workers are investing their most valuable resource in your organization: their time. Define and live by your values as an organization, and you’re going to see higher investment and engagement from your employees.
The good thing about the current job market is that workers are directly telling employers what they need— it’s your job to listen and respond. Make sure your organization provides competitive salaries, flexible workplaces, growth and development opportunities and aligned values, and you’re going to find your dream team in 2022.
Are you interested in unlocking your organization’s potential with DISC or other behavioral assessment tools? TTI SI can help! Contact us here to get started.