3 Ways to Improve Employee Retention

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Employee retention is the secret ingredient for long-term growth and competitive differentiation. Employers that hold fast to their best talent can wade off any storms, including pandemics, market competition, and even regulation.

For these reasons, retaining best talent must be a priority for employers.

Why is Employee Retention Important?

Organizations that successfully retain employees experience benefits beyond the saving of training and hiring costs. High retention helps attract the best talent as a company grows. This is because high employee retention rates contribute to:

  • Consistency in operations leading to efficiency and growth
  • Better customer experiences
  • A strong company culture that fosters employee engagement.

When you think about the importance of retention, don’t just consider long-term savings and benefits. High turnover can be costly by leading to financial deficits and the inability to fund required operational expenditures.

Statistics show that turnover alone costs the United States $1 trillion annually. This figure represents a trillion reasons companies must prioritize retention.

But many may ask, why such a high price tag?

Well, that’s because when employees leave a company, there are some costs to consider.

These costs include:

  • Lower morale levels for those left behind
  • Money and time to replace employees, including recruitment and onboarding costs
  • Reduced concentration and productivity
  • Lost knowledge and expertise that lead to inefficiency

Gallup estimates that replacing an employee may cost almost twice as much as hiring them.

So in order to avoid the costs of turnover and reap the benefits high retention, improve employee retention before the first day in these three ways.

Ways to Improve Employee Retention Before the First Day

1.) Write a great Job Description

A great job description should not only attract the best candidates, it should set accurate, positive expectations. This includes laying out company mission and values and, importantly, how current employees live them out.  Don’t hide company values as bullet points near the bottom of a description, as applicants are likely to gloss over them or view them as unimportant. Instead, tie your values to the job requirements.  Writing a great job description that tells a job seeker what to expect–beyond the job duties–is the first step to landing the best candidates.

How to write the best job descriptions?

  • Get the job title right. Ensure you capture the right title for the right job. Avoid fluff and be straightforward as to the nature of the job.
  • Short and sweet. It’s advisable to start with a succinct and straightforward job description. Give an engaging overview of the job, its history, role, and requirements.
  • Modifiers. It’s advisable to avoid extreme modifiers or superlatives. Superlatives include over-the-top languages like ‘best-of-the-best’, ninjas, Rockstars, and world-class tend to prevent potential candidates from applying. Instead, be straightforward.
  • Align responsibilities with growth. Ensure that the roles and duties captured in the job description align or reiterate the candidate’s possibility for development. Match the job requirements with the candidate’s expectations for continued professional growth.
  • Involve current hires. It is advisable to involve current employees in drafting job descriptions. Too often, job descriptions remain hidden in an HR department. Involving current employees may help provide a compelling illustration of the organization that best highlights a workplace.
  • Create urgency. There’s no denying that even if you’re not in dire need of workers or employees, you still want potential candidates to feel obliged to apply now. So, your job description must show urgency.

2.) Center Hiring Process Around Culture

Culture is a critical component of the hiring process. Unfortunately, many recruiters don’t realize how culture impacts recruitment and retention.

Have you ever encountered an organization that claims to have ‘respect’ as a core value, but then doesn’t promptly follow up with its applicants? This is an example of an employer that enshrines the opposite of what they exemplify in behavior. Any good candidate will quickly run away from the process.

Employers must promote values and culture that they can actually backup. This works both ways by attracting the right candidates and discouraging bad-fit candidates from applying. Organizational culture is at the center of the hiring process when everything reflects your culture – from the application process to conducting your interviews, negotiating offers, and onboarding new hires.

3.) Mentorship Programs

Employees want to feel appreciated. Most importantly, they want to grow with the company. The best way to retain employees, even when others are leaving, is to help them feel that they are important part of the company and its success.

Mentorship programs are a classic way of engaging employees and building long-term loyalty and trust. Employees who feel part of  a culture will remain loyal to an employer even when things get tough.

Mentorship programs help new hires feel part of the company by clarifying values and onboarding the employee–physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

Mentorship programs achieve the following:

  • Extend opportunities for professional and career development
  • Improved productivity and onboarding
  • Building diversity
  • Leadership development
  • Creates opportunities for reverse mentoring
  • Supports and sustains a learning culture

There’s no denying that pairing up a new hire with a mentor is a great addition to the onboarding experience – particularly in a highly technical role, or when the hire is working remotely.

Mentors can welcome new hires to the company, offer guidance, and act as role models. In addition, hires can learn the ropes from experienced employees, creating a culture of continuity and momentum in workload processing and workflow activities.

ExactHire – Improving Your Employee Onboarding and Retention

ExactHire believes that the onboarding process begins long before hiring an employee–with proper planning, resources, and a strong work culture. We work with professionals from multiple industries – finance, insurance, legal, healthcare, education, administrative, and many more –to help them hire and onboard best-fit talent for their organization. Contact ExactHire to leverage recruitment solutions that breed the highest retention levels.

Importance of Organizational Culture

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Recently, I’ve written a couple posts reflecting on content from the HR Indiana SHRM conference. This post builds upon that content by focusing on the importance of organizational culture as it relates to  job candidate motivations. Also note that company culture also factors in to an employee’s motivation to stay at their current place of employment, so the lessons can be applied in both situations.

Let’s discuss some statistics and strategies that an organization can analyze in its quest to hire and retain talent.

According to statistics published by G2:

  • 70% of professionals in the U.S. would not work at a leading company if it meant they had to tolerate bad workplace culture,
  • 77% of job seekers consider a company’s culture before applying for a job, and
  • 92% of people would consider changing jobs if offered a role with a company with an excellent corporate reputation.

These percentages loudly shout a distinct message – culture matters when recruiting new talent and trying to keep existing talent.

What is company culture?

According to the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), culture consists of shared beliefs and values established by leaders, and then communicated and reinforced through various methods that ultimately shape employee perceptions, behaviors, and understanding. This is a good definition, but it’s helpful to break it down further to reveal its impact on an organization.

Shared beliefs and values constitute the foundations of company relationships. Leaders communicate and embody an organization’s shared beliefs and values, which are then reinforced through employee behaviors as they strive towards fulfilling mutual goals and personifying the organization’s mission.

 

 

ExactHire Importance of Company Culture

Organizational Culture: What it is & What Makes it Sustainable, HR Indiana 2022

Work Relationships and Company Culture

Relationships with teammates and managers are important to employees. Even though the pandemic shifted many work environments into more remote settings, individuals seek to have a “work family” regardless of the physical work location. Just because coworkers are not sitting next to each other onsite does not mean that connections to others are unimportant.

Employees can strategize and learn from each other in formal and informal discussions. Inclusive and diverse teams build high-performance teams. An organization needs to provide ways to allow professional relationships to flourish through on and offsite activities, this will greatly improve company culture.

Now, more than ever, people are seeking teammates and supervisors who understand the stressors resulting from the blending of personal and professional challenges. Empathy and support between employees help foster trust, leading to enhanced mental health and productive work relationships.

Employee Growth

Employee growth is essential for a positive company culture. Companies that promote personal and professional development and provide opportunities for employees to learn and grow on the job are more likely to recruit and retain employees as compared to organizations that do not. Provide ample opportunities for additional hard and soft skill training during the work day.

Lunch and Learns and group training sessions for certifications offer a way for teammates to learn and socialize simultaneously. Online courses through sites like LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda), Udemy or Coursera offer convenient, relevant content. If employee training needs to be facilitated by a university, consider tuition reimbursement plans so employees can take classes, or partner with the university to bring learning onsite.

Learning new skills and applying those skills to daily tasks not only reduces employee boredom but leverages the organization into a more competitive stance amongst competitors. Research by Forbes states that 76% of employees are more likely to stay with a company that offers continuous training. If there are concerns about the expense of creating or expanding a Learning and Development (L&D) budget, what about the expense of having open positions due to attrition and being unable to quickly fill them with skilled talent?

Once talent is hired, there is a gap of heightened productivity and ultimately financial loss while new employees seek to apply their knowledge and skills to the role and become acclimated to their new culture. Investing in learning opportunities for employees is a financial investment that will yield favorable returns.

Creating Expectations

Another cultural expectation of employees is understanding what management expects as quantifiable results demonstrating successful task completion. Delivering results in one’s job duties can be a bit opaque, as people have differing definitions of results. Management needs to provide clear parameters of what is expected of the employee and their performance of assigned job duties.

Having clear-cut duties and expectations will aid in improving company culture by limiting confusion. Job seekers benefit from job descriptions that itemize tasks and outline distinct expectations, as opposed to a generalized, vague job posting.

How does it feel to have a task, but not know what the expected results should be?  Frustrating, agitating, unnerving…these are a few emotions that arise when a job seeker or employee is unsure of what successful performance looks like. Even though the world we live in often falls into the gray, management needs to articulate specific expectations of what outcomes yield successful accomplishments. When employees understand the results expected, it fosters a clearer way to complete tasks and learn from the process as well as improve organizational culture.

Work Flexibility

Flexibility is a key part of culture, especially since 2020. Organizations need to reiterate that they value employees acknowledge their lives exist outside the workplace. When an employer offers flexibility with its employees, it is a motivator. Flexibility can include working locations, times and/or days. Can the employee finish the work in  a four-day work week? If so, consider that flexibility. Can the employee come in earlier and leave earlier or the opposite? If so, consider that flexibility.

Having an open and honest dialogue where the employee and supervisor can discuss needs and expectations will help identify a flexible plan that supports not just the employee but the company as a whole. Individuals seek to effectively balance their personal and professional lives, and flexibility helps achieve that balance.

Becoming a Workplace of Choice

Employees seek to stay in or leave a work environment based on the motivators discussed above. And considering that the average person will spend over 90,000 hours working in their lifetime, spending that time completing tasks that are enjoyable in a generally positive workplace matters.

Help your organization become the workplace of choice, where job seekers want to apply and where employees want to stay. Establish and promote your positive and inclusive organizational culture. This will clearly illustrate to job seekers and current employees that your organization is the workplace to be.

Productivity will rise; attrition will be low; and the positive impact on the local and large-scale communities will be ongoing.

 

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Job Candidate Compensation and Benefits

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Job candidate compensation and benefits are a motivating factor for job seekers as they evaluate job opportunities, as well as for employees as they decide whether to remain with an organization.

Recently, I wrote a post reflecting on content from the HR Indiana SHRM conference. This post builds upon that content by focusing on compensation and benefits as it relates to job candidate motivations. Let’s discuss some statistics and strategies that an organization can analyze in the quest to hire and retain talent.

Inflation Impacting Job Candidates

Inflation is soaring. As of June 2022, the United States is experiencing a 9.1% inflation rate. Nearly all goods and services are increasing for the consumer, and here are a few specific examples:

  • Groceries up 12% YOY (year-over-year; largest increase since 1979)
  • Chicken up 17.4% (largest increase EVER)
  • Restaurants up 9% (largest increase EVER)
  • Fuel Oil up 87% (largest increase since 2002)
  • Electricity up 12% (largest increase since 2006)
  • Rent up 5.4% (largest increase since 1987)
  • Airfare up 33% (largest since 1980)

Federal and State Government Affairs Update, HR Indiana 2022

Employees are on edge as they seek to pay bills and save for retirement. According to Wilis Towers Watson research, the anticipated 2023 annual merit increase is approximately 4.1%. But even though wages are increasing, bigger increases in the price of goods and services has job seekers and the employed feeling the pressure. And as much as employers would like to reward and help current employees, pay raises will rarely surpass the current inflation rate. This dynamic is creating fierce competition among employers to retain and recruit talent, and meet their compensation needs.

How can employers create competitive rewards systems to compete for talent?

Creative Compensation and Benefits

According to the United States Labor Department, average hourly earnings grew 5.2% in July from a year earlier, and annual wage gains have exceeded 5% each month this year. While increasing wages were meant as a competitive tool to attract and retain employees, rapid wage growth also contributes to the inflation rate. And wage gains have not kept pace with inflation. Private-sector wages and salaries declined 3.1% in the second quarter from a year earlier when accounting for inflation.

New employees are being hired at a higher pay rate than current employees due to market demand causing pay compression. Pay compression occurs when the pay of one or more employees is very close to the pay of more experienced employees in the same job, or even those in higher-level jobs, including managerial positions. To offset pay compression, HR departments are getting creative with their benefits offerings and diligently trying to increase salaries within and/or accentuating other compensation.

Three Main Areas of Compensation

Compensation can overlap into three main areas:

  • Base Salary (Hourly Rate),
  • Short Term Incentives (awards granted typically ≦ 1 year of employment), and
  • Long Term Incentives (awards granted typically ≧ 1 year of employment).

HR must conduct market analyses on pay and incentives to ensure a competitive edge in the recruitment process. Prime Short Term Incentives include bonuses or variable pay. Variable pay is often known as “pay-for-performance”. Long Term Incentives include stock options and 401k (profit) / 403b (nonprofit) retirement plans. A high employer match rate to employee retirement plan contributions enriches the employee’s perception of the employer’s long-term commitment to the employee. During times of high inflation, giving smaller increases or larger bonuses more frequently can help reduce the pain of high inflation and demonstrate a sense of empathy towards employees.

Personalize Incentives

Evaluating employees’ needs and wants are crucial to developing a solid benefits structure for an organization. Promote the organization’s culture and work/life compatibility, but also include more incentives such as:

  • remote work and flex time,
  • student loan repayment,
  • scholarships for employees’ dependents,
  • personal sabbaticals,
  • phased retirement and professional development funds,
  • onsite childcare,
  • and petcare.

Be creative. Take an intrinsic look at your employee team, and collect feedback from them as to what they seek. If an organization can support the means to do so, explore a cafeteria-style benefits system. Employees can select the benefits that are the most essential to their well-being, resulting in more satisfied employees and an increased retention rate.

Pay Equity

According to SHRM, pay equity is compensating employees the same when they perform the same or similar job duties while accounting for other factors such as experience level, job performance, and tenure with the employer. An organization that is effectively leading the way with pay equity amongst its employees will not have pay gaps based on any of EEO’s protected classifications.

To be a leader in pay equity, an organization needs to conduct pay equity audits to ensure that gaps do not exist among individuals performing parallel job duties. HR and senior management will need to review the existing compensation philosophy, revise as needed for equity and communicate the philosophy with openness and transparency to employees of all levels. Questions will arise among employees so encourage employees to discuss concerns and questions with HR directly.

Keep in mind that many states and local municipalities require the removal of salary history information from job applications as part of the “Ban the Box” movement to promote salary equity among individual groups. And even if a company is not subject to Ban the Box legislation, many companies proactively remove salary history questions from the application as an effort to reduce pay discrepancy.

Pay Transparency

According to Harvard Business Review, “pay transparency has positive impacts on employees’ perceptions of trust, fairness, and job satisfaction and has been found to boost individual task performance.”  Many states have passed pay transparency laws where organizations are required to disclose salary ranges for job opportunities. And beyond legal requirements, job sites like Indeed are now providing salary estimates when employers choose not to disclose salary ranges along with their job posts.

Job Candidate Compensation and Benefits

While an employer cannot directly combat rising inflation and supply costs, HR can help lead the charge for competitive job candidate compensation and benefits that will help recruit and retain employees. Pay rate is not the sole deciding factor for an employee; benefits that are truly relevant to the employee’s personal and professional goals will impact employment decisions as well. Solicit feedback from employees, and evaluate their concerns and suggestions. Transparency and action will help build trust between employees and HR, and in the long-term, develop a true team atmosphere.

 

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Quiet Quitting – What Employers Need to Know

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Quiet quitting by employees is shouting a profound message to their employers that Human Resources professionals, and organizations as a whole, cannot ignore. The pandemic impacted businesses in myriad ways, and for many employees, the pandemic delivered an epiphany. Through lockdowns, quarantines, and long periods of remote work, workers had the opportunity to reevaluate their personal and professional lives. Part of this evaluation was taking a hard look at their daily lives and discerning what really mattered to them. Many determined that a healthy work-life balance was essential.

LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2022 report attests to employees’ wants and needs evolving into a more distinct work-life balance. The intrinsic flame burning in many employees started to flicker, and for some that flame went out completely. While quiet quitting is not a new concept, it is on the increase in many organizations. Leadership needs to identify and implement solutions to address the concerns of “quiet quitters” on their teams.

Quiet quitting is getting increased notoriety through social media today. However, the idea has been around in some form for quite a long time. In the past, the idea was used to describe employees who had hit burnout and shifted gears to do the minimum work needed to do the job adequately. That definition is accurate for some quiet quitters; however, quiet quitting has evolved into a more broad concept.

What is Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting does not have a strictly defined meaning, nor does it look the same for all employees. Some quiet quitting employees do not take on additional work or responsibilities, but still complete their responsibilities with excellence. For other employees, their version of quiet quitting is doing the minimum required–and nothing further.

TechTarget generalizes quiet quitting as a “rebellion” against the “hustle culture” of going above and beyond what a job requires, and instead, limiting their tasks to only those within their job description to avoid longer hours. These employees are technically fulfilling their job duties; however, they reject the “work-is-life” mindset where they feel obligated to continually do more. They are not seeking the “golden employee” label. Rather, they are trading long hours, additional projects, and accelerated promotions for the ability to go home and focus on non-work activities. They leave work at work. Ultimately, less is more for them.

From data collected in June 2022 through a Gallup poll, quiet quitters make up at least 50% or more of the United States workforce. Mic drop. Over half of the country’s employees are “quiet quitters”.

What is the Impact of Quiet Quitting?

Quiet quitting is increasing the level of apprehension within companies and impacting productivity. Productivity levels are crucial for a business to thrive especially in our current economic state. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States non-farm worker productivity in the second quarter has fallen 2.5% since the same period last year which is the largest annual drop since 1948. The economy may be on the cusp of a recession due to supply chain issues, inflation, and other factors stemming from the pandemic. Companies are fearful that their financial bottom line will suffer if the production of goods and services cannot meet the demand.

The challenge for employers as they grapple with quiet quitting is that not all employees actually want to leave their jobs; hence the “quiet” part of the quiet quitting concept. Lack of advancement opportunities, low pay, and feeling disrespected were the top reasons Americans quit their jobs in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center survey. But many quiet quitters are not experiencing those reasons to quit, they are content with their job…as they decide to perform it.

There will always be a population of employees who feel content being “worker bees” and whose job performance “meets expectations” on their performance evaluations.nd there will always be the employee population that strives for the “gold star” and attains “exceeds expectations” on the performance evaluation.These groups of employees can coexist, but is labeling the “worker bees” as quiet quitters accurate?

Why are People Quiet Quitting?

With layoffs and terminations at a record low, employees have heightened sense of job security. Companies cannot afford to lose employees since they are scrambling to fill a high number of job vacancies. Even if a termination does occur, the odds are favorable for the employee to find another job quickly.

According to the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM), an organization’s culture directly contributes to employee behavior. Some cultural issues that may contribute to quiet quitting, include:

  • Lack of engagement by and between management and employees fosters weak relationships.
  • Communication challenges, along with the fear of conflict, mitigate open dialogue between teams.
  • Remote and hybrid work is a contributing factor to quiet quitting because additional challenges exist to have candid, honest dialog.
  • Management faces additional challenges validating work efforts and task completion in remote and hybrid environments.

Workplace culture sets the foundation of an organization and reiterates what behaviors and performance levels are accepted, rejected and tolerated.

Disadvantages of Quiet Quitting

Quiet quitters who are emotionally uninvested in their jobs often have challenges working in a team environment through a lack of motivation and flexibility. Employees who are not quiet quitting might become frustrated at having to pick up additional responsibilities or tasks from those employees who will not. Resentment builds amongst teams and that dissolves trust and motivation. Employees who do the minimum in tasks have a higher chance of being passed over for promotions and pay increases as compared to other employees.

Advantages of Quiet Quitting

Advantages to quiet quitting do exist. Employees who leave “work at work”, and then spend time on personal interests, might be more relaxed and motivated when they return to work. That could help increase productivity. Quiet quitting for a temporary time could help reduce burnout if the employee takes time to refocus and prioritize. So quiet quitting is ultimately a plea for open communication between employees and management to discuss concerns and deficiencies in the working environment.

How to Combat Quiet Quiet

HR professionals have quite the challenge on their hands, as they are the catalyst for communications between management and quiet quitting employees. HR and senior management within an organization need first to check how engaged entry and mid-level managers are within the organization and with their teams. If engagement is lacking, senior leadership needs to help reskill and motivate managers to help others, especially in new remote and hybrid working environments.

Managers need to find 15-30 minutes weekly to have a sincere, purposeful conversation with members of their teams. These conversations should strengthen relationships and reiterate value in each team member’s efforts. If employees see how their work contributes and is a benefit to the organization, they will be motivated to see value in their work and heighten their accountability for performance.

Listening is just as important. Often employees convey a message without saying a word. So managers need to learn how to recognize these messages and, in response, hold conversations to address and reduce burnout. All employees have challenges in their work and personal lives to varying degrees. It’s up to managers to know their team’s needs and be cognizant of ever changing factors that could transform productive employees into quiet quitters.

Employee Engagement Matters

Considering that the average person will spend over 90,000 hours working in their lifetime, spending that time completing tasks that are enjoyable in a generally positive environment matters. Time magazine shared that Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report found that job dissatisfaction is at a staggering all-time high, and that unhappy and disengaged workers cost the global economy $7.8 trillion in lost productivity.

Organizations cannot afford to lose talent through attrition or sustain a loss of productivity without it impacting the internal dynamics and the external competitiveness of an organization. Quit the status quo and invest in designing and maintaining a workplace culture where employees thrive, and do not just simply survive. When an organization is invested in its employees and is committed to providing a supportive and rewarding culture, employees will see that quitters–even quiet ones–really do not win.

The win-win comes from both inside and outside the organization, where employers and employees agree on how work and life can balance together.

 

 

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

How to write a rejection email for job candidates

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A rejection email for job candidates is not always easy to write. And informing an applicant that they were not selected for an open position is definitely not the highlight of a human resources professional’s day. The task is one of the hardest to complete, as no one wants to deliver disappointing news to others. However, rejection is inevitable, even for individuals with a stellar background and coveted skills.

It’s important to keep in mind that we have all experienced rejection at some point in time. Whether it was not being selected for a lucrative job opportunity, or being passed over for a particular award or acknowledgment–we’ve all felt the sting of rejection. Recalling how that sting affected oneself can often lead an HR professional to take extra steps to buffer the disappointment when delivering rejection messages to job applicants. Kindness truly matters.

Can You Kindly Reject Job Candidates?

Jobseekers want to know their status in the application process. Even if it’s a “no”, applicants need to know their status so they can have closure and shift their job search direction. Receiving feedback, even if it is a rejection, is especially instrumental for those applicants who have had some form of interview. Imagine the confusion that a jobseeker might have if they never hear back from an organization after spending time discussing their qualifications and how they seek to contribute to a prospective employer.

A paramount function of HR is to build relationships with individuals. This goes not just for current employees, but also  for prospective employees. What type of relationship can be built if an employer does not update applicants on their application statuses, or let applicants know that they are no longer in consideration for a position?

Starting the rejection conversation is hard, but it demonstrates professionalism within the organization’s HR department and gives the two parties, HR and the jobseeker, an opportunity to form a connection. While this jobseeker might not be the best fit for the particular role in which they applied, that same person might be the person best qualified for a future opening, so don’t burn bridges

Candidate Rejection Letter Template

In the rejection email template sent by an organization, craft the content with sincerity. The sincerity genuinely shown in the rejection email can help the jobseeker stay motivated and interested in your company. Also, this will help mitigate the chance the jobseeker will spread negativity about their applicant experience to others. Word of mouth can be the best or worst recruitment marketing for an employer, so strive to leave applicants with a positive experience.

Time is of the essence in the HR world. Using personalized mass emailing within your ATS will help make the communication process quicker and easier when communicating with applicants. ExactHire HR Software offers the ability for users to create communication templates for immediate and future use. This templates streamline communication with applicants, and allows users to view the communication flow between your team and the applicants.

When crafting communication templates, it is helpful to use personalization tags (AKA shortcuts that personalize content) to customize your message. Personalization tags in a communication template allow the sender to specify items such as name, job listing, company name, etc. This ensures a more “personal” feel with less work.

When writing a rejection email, be concise. Longer emails, at first glance, can imply favorable news. Also, it is more personable for an actual employee to sign the message.  However, if there are safety concerns after sending a rejection email, do not include specific names or direct contact information.

Example of Candidate Rejection Letter

Here is an example of a sample rejection message for your use. Words between the # symbols indicate variable content found in the candidate record. CAPS indicate customized content (based on hiring manager or company).

Dear #first_name#,

Thank you for your interest in the #job_listing# at #company_name#. Your time is valuable, and we appreciate your effort in applying. (Use interviewing if an applicant has interviewed.)

We are grateful to have had many qualified applicants for the role. We carefully evaluated candidates’ qualifications and skills. Although your qualifications were impressive, we are moving forward with another candidate whose qualifications best fit the requirements of the position.

(If an interview has been conducted, consider including: Although your interview itemized your skills, we did not proceed because of REASON FOR REJECTION. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at email address or phone number.)

Please visit COMPANY JOBS PAGE to explore opportunities to join our organization as we encourage you to apply again in the future if you find a job opening better suited to your qualifications.

Again, thank you for your interest in working with us!

FIRST NAME LAST NAME
TITLE
COMPANY NAME

Personalized Candidate Communication

HR professionals can simplify a challenging task by using personalized candidate communication templates to soften news of a rejection. By delivering personalized updates to job applicants, even if it is a rejection, employers promote a positive employer brand. In return, employers will enjoy a larger applicant pool and succeed in providing clarity around what their organization’s needs. Creating personalized communication templates in ExactHire HR Software can help streamline the communication process. Click here to learn more!

A Strategy for Veteran Hiring

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A strategy for veteran hiring may seem difficult to develop, but you don’t need to create one from scratch. However, first your company needs to commit to employing veterans and realize the added value this population of jobseekers can bring to your organization.

Veterans bring unique and sought after qualities to an organization. After leaving their domestic and/or international deployments, veterans conclude their military careers with a wealth of job skills and professional experience that successfully translates to the civilian world. If your organization does not have a strategy for veteran hiring , now is the time to create one.

Why Hiring Veterans Makes Sense

Not only is hiring veterans good for an organization’s culture, but there are also financial benefits to hiring veterans. First off, employers that hire veterans might be eligible for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC). But there other veteran employment programs as well, such as:

Non-Paid Work Experience Program

The Non-Paid Work Experience program allows local, state, and federal government offices to temporarily employ a veteran without having the position count against the agency’s full-time equivalent allocation.

Veteran Readiness and Employment

Veteran Readiness and Employment (VR&E) pays the veteran a monthly subsistence allowance while the veteran learns valuable work-related skills and experience. Through this Special Employer Incentive program, employers receive an incentive to hire veterans who face extraordinary obstacles to employment, which includes reimbursement of as much as 50 percent of the Veteran’s salary for up to six months.

VR&E can provide specialized tools, equipment, and workplace modifications to eligible veterans allowing them to perform their duties. Through the on-the-job training program, VR&E subsidizes veterans’ salaries so employers pay an apprentice-level wage while training veterans. As the veteran progresses, the employer pays a larger portion of the Veteran’s salary, until the training program is completed and the employer is paying the full salary.

Veteran Hiring Events

There are various events that can help introduce an organization to this skilled jobseeker population. Connect with your state government’s workforce development board to learn what hiring events are held for veterans in your state and in the states where you hire. The National Labor Exchange has an interactive map that will connect veterans and employers to employment resources.

Follow the events going on within the Department of Veterans Affairs. Consider having your organization participate in a federal resource program such as the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge program, which connects soon-to-be-discharged veterans with employment opportunities. VETS2INDUSTRY also offers employer strategies for veterans recruitment and support for profit and non-profit organizations.

Building a Veteran Hiring Process

Ideally, an organization should have a dedicated member of the HR team focused on veteran and veteran family recruiting and support – bonus if the dedicated HR team member is a former military member or military spouse. If senior management is unsure of the need for a dedicated veterans recruiter, here are ten reasons why your organization should hire veterans. The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) understands the need for HR specialization and education towards veterans so SHRM, in partnership with Comcast NBCUniversal, created the SHRM Veterans at Work certificate program.

Translate Veteran Skills into Civilian Skills

Resume writing can be cumbersome even for the most linguistic jobseekers. Translating military responsibilities into civilian language can be challenging for veterans. HR resume screeners need to review veterans’ resumes with supportive resources, if needed, since veterans’ accomplishments might be communicated in military lingo. To help novice and seasoned HR staff better understand the accomplishments and successes of a veteran in their particular military roles, CareerOneStop offers an online civilian/military occupation translator.

Recruiting Veterans

Recruiting veterans can be completed in a variety of ways. Ensure that your organization vocalizes and adheres to the mission of providing support to veteran employees. This can be done by boldly expressing your organization’s commitment through your organization’s website and social media channels. Coming from a team focused environment, veterans will be more interested in finding another team-based culture.

Onsite and virtual job fairs are excellent recruitment events to help connect with prospective veteran employees. Promote your jobs on veteran specific job boards and on social media. Get involved with the veteran community to connect with candidates. PsychArmor offers online training modules to learn about veterans’ needs. Specifically, they provide organizations a robust training module specializing in creating a veteran hiring program.

One item to keep in mind is that not only is an organization recruiting the veteran themselves, but also the veteran’s spouse. Don’t forget to include military spouses in recruitment. The United States Department of Labor provides specific resources to recruit and support military spouses. For active duty military families in particular, remote jobs are of primary interest to military spouses as a military family might be relocated often for new assignments; however, remote jobs offer the ability for the spouse to work uninterrupted anywhere.

It’s About More than Hiring

Veterans have risked so much for our daily freedoms. They have sacrificed safety and comfort so we can have that. We can never fully return the favor to veterans for their sacrifice and courage; however, let’s support them in their civilian endeavors and provide them with an opportunity to utilize their skills in a role that fits both the company and the jobseeker.

 

ExactHire HR Software offers the ability to streamline the applicant process and tag applicants’ skills and characteristics, such as applicant veteran status, for you and your team’s convenience in applicant screening and candidate communication. For more information about our solutions, please contact us.

 

 

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5 Considerations for an Applicant Tracking System Vendor

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If your organization is exploring the use of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), or if your company has taken the first step towards internal efficiency by approving the investment of an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), it might seem like a daunting challenge. Many questions resonate as implementation can be a bit overwhelming even for the most seasoned tech users. What should I do next? Where do I go from here? How does this product work?

Don’t let fear get in the way of efficiency. Implementing an ATS into your organization is an investment of time and financial resources. As HR professionals explore the caveats of an ATS, it is essential to find the tool that works best for your organization with a support team that defines ongoing value.

 

When evaluating a system, here are five items to consider:

 

1) Applicant Tracking System Support

If you are asking yourself, “How do we use this new product?”, that’s an essential question that needs to be answered in depth, in addition to other questions centered on product support. What type of training will we receive from the product vendor? Is training personalized to meet our organization’s needs? After training, if we still have questions, will we be able to contact someone in the United States?

Best-in-class vendors offer personalized training by a Client Success team composed of professionals who are genuinely vested in your organization’s success. Training is provided to your team, and follow up questions, which are expected, are supported by the Client Success team. The Client Success team lives up to its name; they are a bonafide, dedicated team who wants to make your lives easier by using employment software solutions. Relationships are important, and those are built here. Tap into their wisdom and expertise to help guide your use of the ATS.

2) The Applicant Experience

Applicants won’t waste time. Can job seekers apply quickly on mobile devices? If a job seeker finds more than one job to which they want to apply, do they have to start over again?

Convenient for the job seekers you are attracting, look for an ATS that is mobile responsive so that your applicants experience a seamless application process. No passwords should be needed by the applicant; the applicant can use their contact information, such as an email or phone number, to access their applications.

More than one job of interest to your job seekers? Not a problem – top of the line HR Software will offer multi-apply where the applicant can apply to more than one job at a time.  And since the best HR Software offers an organization the ability to use different applications to collect data essential for screening, the applicant will complete the questions you specify in one experience without interruption even if the applicant is applying to multiple jobs based on different application templates.

 

3) ATS Job Board Integrations

Visibility of my jobs is important in this competitive job market. What type of boards are available? To which boards are my jobs automatically sent? Does the ATS offer diversity and niche job boards?

The best HR Software offers the ability to automatically push jobs to free boards like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Snagajob, Job Inventory and indexed for Google for Jobs. No effort needed on your part for those job boards. Interested in other job boards? Some of the best ATS software offers other options to automate job postings to various boards such as diversity boards, niche boards, and many other options.

4) Building Applicant Pools

An applicant today might be the fit for tomorrow’s opening. How can I search for applicants’ talents and skills for my current and future roles? When I find applicants that meet our requirements, how do I communicate with them?

As you screen your applicants, you can “tag” your applicants’ skills and talents using keywords of value to your organization. Best-in-class HR Software offers ways to navigate your view of applicants and jobs to filter to the criteria you are seeking at the moment.

As you find applicants you want to move forward, you’ll need the option to communicate with them via texting  (ideally without additional fees). But not all applicants will want to be texted, so integrated email with customizable communication templates will be required as well. Be sure that your vendor allows you to attach the files with your email communication as well.  Finally, you’ll want to find a software solution that provides communication history displayed on the applicant’s record; however, be sure that HR Managers can restrict access to this area if necessary.

5) ATS Compliance Reporting

Subject to Affirmative Action reporting? Compliance to EEO guidelines and internal company parameters is crucial. Will I be able to analyze data?

You absolutely should! Whether an organization is subject to governmental reporting requirements or simply if they want to keep track of data to fulfill internal parameters, Best-in-class HR Software will offer robust Affirmative Action Plan reporting and reporting compliant with Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines. Whether you are seeking reports for formal reporting, or if you are looking for data specific to particular job(s), top HR Software allows users the opportunity to delve into data using distinctive insights.

An ATS is meant to make HR, hiring managers, and other system users’ lives easier. ExactHire HR Software offers the ability to effectively screen applicants, communicate with those of key interest and identify the talent you seek to fill existing vacancies. ExactHire HR Software can save you time and money through automation and simple quick clicks to perform tasks confirming that an ATS is not an expense but an investment that yields a plethora of rewards.

To see a demo of ExactHire HR Software, click here.

 

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What Is a Recruitment SWOT Analysis?

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The Great Resignation, skills gap and increasing recruitment costs may have you wondering how you can improve your talent acquisition strategy.

The evolving economic and labor landscapes mean that what worked in hiring prior to the pandemic doesn’t work now. How can you systematically assess your approach to recruitment against these changing circumstances?

An old business standby, the SWOT Analysis, can be adapted to help you develop a recruitment strategy that uses your strengths to harness opportunities while reducing your vulnerability to those circumstances that make recruiting so challenging.

SWOT Analysis in HR

SWOT, meaning an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, was developed in the 1960s and is widely used today. A SWOT Analysis takes stock of all four factors in a business endeavor to create a strategy to ensure the endeavor’s success. Individuals and businesses can use a SWOT analysis to aid in planning and goal setting.

SWOT Analyses are effective when making decisions in business planning. Business leaders who use a SWOT analysis benefit from the balanced perspective it provides. Leaders can make decisions that build upon existing strengths without falling victim to uncalculated risks.

When performing a SWOT analysis, decision makers typically start by drawing a quadrant with four boxes. They then label each box beginning with the top left with one of the four factors: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In a business setting, it’s best if the quadrant is drawn on a large presentation pad or whiteboard for maximum participation from all stakeholders.

The best SWOT Analyses have the following characteristics.

  • Focus on the business activity in question.
  • Avoid complexity that hinders decision-making.
  • Prioritize specificity and honesty over vagueness and evasion.
  • Include input from several stakeholders to overcome the subjective nature of the analysis.
  • Perform the analysis in relation to top competitors in the business activity in question.

There are many benefits of a SWOT analysis in recruitment. It offers the organization an opportunity to reframe their recruitment challenges using a range of considerations not normally examined. Using this fresh perspective, hiring teams may see patterns previously missed. You may find it helpful to also perform an onboarding SWOT analysis and employee engagement SWOT analysis to gain further insight into your recruiting process.

Recruitment SWOT Analysis

Performing your own recruitment SWOT analysis can help you devise a talent acquisition strategy that will leverage your company’s unique strengths to overcome its particular challenges. It will help you identify the employers competing for the same talent and consider the recruitment process from the candidate’s perspective.

Before embarking on a SWOT analysis for the hiring process, gather relevant data and identify the people whose input will help make the analysis as objective and productive as possible. Recruitment areas to examine for SWOT analysis include things such as distributing an anonymous employee survey or performing a job search and researching your company from the candidate’s perspective.

When deciding how to do a SWOT analysis of recruitment for your own company, follow these tips.

  • Clearly identify your recruitment goals, including unofficial goals that the hiring team may not have expressed yet.
  • Identify organizations competing for the same talent, even if they are not a competitor within your industry.
  • Consider candidates’ perspectives when reviewing opportunities and threats.
  • Gather information from outside sources, such as employee reviews on Glassdoor and anonymous surveys from employees and previous candidates.
  • In addition to considering the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, take stock of those factors specific to the HR department.  
  • Consider only those factors which are relevant in the present or the very near future.
  • Think about aspects of your organization that are unrelated to HR but still relevant to the recruiting process, such as company brand and core competencies.

Recruitment Strengths and Weaknesses

The recruitment strengths and weaknesses you list on your SWOT analysis are factors within your organization. These are the factors you have the most control over, but they are also the items about which you’re least likely to be objective. Again, having multiple stakeholders contribute to the SWOT analysis for recruitment will produce the best results.

Recruiting strengths are those items that positively impact your candidate search or make your company appealing to job seekers.

Common strengths of the best recruitment process include:

  • Pay scale above industry norms
  • Tuition reimbursement program
  • Executive buy-in for the importance of recruitment in relation to the company’s goals.
  • A strong team in which members feel valued and cared for
  • An applicant tracking system for talent recruitment that ensures the most qualified applicants are at the top of the interview list
  • A mobile-friendly job application

Recruiting weaknesses are those internal factors that make your candidate search more difficult or cause applicants to view your company as less desirable than your competitors.

Common weaknesses in the recruiting process include:

  • A benefits package that is more costly and less comprehensive than your competitors
  • Lack of insight about which job sites for recruiting job seekers reliably produce the best applicants for your company
  • An online application that takes longer than 15 minutes to fill out
  • A physically demanding or uncomfortable work environment
  • Lack of advancement opportunities

Recruitment Opportunities and Threats

Recruitment opportunities and threats are external factors over which you have little or no control. They may include an influx of recent graduates, lack of candidates with the necessary skills or widespread crises such as the pandemic.

You may have difficulty deciding which quadrant to use as you’re finding opportunities to recruit better. Some factors, like your employer brand, begin as an internal element, but then become an external factor subject to independent opinion. Rather than getting caught up in placing a factor in the “right” box, focus on the insights arising from the discussion about your SWOT analysis for recruitment.  

Examples of opportunities include:

  • The city in which your company is headquartered just appeared on a list of best places to live.
  • You can recruit from almost any geographical region for newly remote positions.
  • A competitor is downsizing and laying off employees.
  • The local university offers educational programs in line with your industry needs.
  • Your brand enjoys a good reputation in your community.

Examples of recruitment threats include:

  • A recent court case just increased personal liability for employees in key positions.
  • There aren’t enough graduates in your field to fill the open positions across your industry.
  • Your recruiting competition has switched to a fully remote workforce.
  • When performing internet research from a candidate’s perspective, you find that your organization has a poor employer brand.
  • The big job sites don’t work well for your highly specialized open positions.

Overcome Recruiting Challenges with SWOT Analysis

When you’ve finished your SWOT analysis, you should have around five, but no more than 10, factors in each quadrant. Your aim is to develop a “strategic fit.” Internal factors should complement external factors. And strengths and opportunities should effectively overcome weaknesses and threats.

For example, perhaps an external threat to your recruiting efforts is that your local area lacks enough candidates with necessary skills. Ideally, a strength or opportunity would exist to mitigate this threat. Your organization could develop an opportunity by partnering with local schools to develop a curriculum to teach students the in-demand skills. Or you could bolster your recruiting strengths by offering an in-house apprenticeship program.

A recruitment SWOT analysis can help you analyze the factors that lead to both your recruiting challenges and success. It’s an effective way to gain insights into the circumstances that affect your recruiting efforts. Whether you’re addressing the changing landscape of talent acquisition in general or looking for solutions to challenges unique to your locale or industry, a recruitment SWOT analysis can offer much-needed perspective.

 

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Why Should Companies Hire New Graduates?

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Read any article on hiring recent graduates, and you’ll find a litany of ageist aphorisms. Some pigeonhole Millennials as lazy and entitled. Others sing their praises for their ability to be adaptable or ambitious, as opposed to (we’re led to assume) their aged coworkers set in their ways and coasting along until retirement.

Then there are fresh takes on Zoomers–the most recent college graduates.  According to some, they are driven more by salary than a good opportunity to learn new skills, and so at the drop of a dime will job hop for a slightly better salary.

In truth, you don’t have to pay Millennials in trophies or lure Zoomers with hefty sign-on bonuses–any more than you had to endorse flannel as business casual attire when you hired Generation X.

Moreover, hiring new graduates makes sense even if these stereotypes are true. The skill shortage is real, and all the data points to the power of a diverse workforce. In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to recruit new graduates, regardless of their generational traits.

Hiring Fresh Graduates

There are many benefits of hiring college graduates. They’re understandably excited to have graduated college and start their careers. As candidates without experience, they often will accept a lower job salary in exchange for upskilling opportunities. There are other great reasons to hire new grads that far outweigh the disadvantages of hiring fresh graduates.

Reach your diversity goals. When companies hire fresh graduates, they’re more likely to attain their diversity goals. Pew Research Center reports that recent graduates are more diverse than ever. A diverse workforce is good for your business. According to McKinsey, companies succeeding at diversity are 35 percent more likely to enjoy profit margins above the median for their industry.

Access a passive talent pool. Most hiring managers would agree a currently employed candidate is more appealing than a jobless candidate. Turns out 41 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed, with at least 10 percent earning less than $25,000. Chances are that these hard-working employees would prefer a role with a promising future at your company.

Hire digitally proficient employees. One trope about today’s fresh graduates is mostly true: they pickup new technology quicker than older generations, an unsurprising fact since Millennials were the first generation to grow up with the internet–and  Zoomers may not remember a time without smart phones. New graduates can likely help the company quickly improve its online presence or make more efficient use of existing software.

Challenges of Hiring New Graduates

These numerous benefits aside, there are problems faced by employers in hiring new graduates.

And while one article ungraciously claims “Millennials’ Work Ethic Is In The Eye Of The Beholder,” you’ve been a hiring manager long enough to know the same could be said of many people, regardless of age. The weakness of a new graduate employee has less to do with tired stereotypes.

Simply put, new graduates have different expectations than their older counterparts.

  • Recent graduates want to work for companies that “care about their individual well-being,” according to Gallup. While that may seem like a nebulous requirement for an employer, it’s clear your company needs to develop a culture that humanizes your employees in order to attract new graduates.
  •  The internet is integral to the way younger generations connect with the world. Companies need to engage in mobile recruiting coupled with a strong online presence to attract fresh graduates. You need more than one or two ads on job sites to appeal to fresh graduates. Your company needs to have a strong, authentic social media and online presence, including a branded careers site.
  • Lastly, lack of experience for fresh graduates is a legitimate concern for hiring managers. To successfully hire and onboard Millennials and Zoomers, your company needs to help them quickly acquire the knowledge you might expect from more experienced employees.

Campus Recruiting

The best place to find your newly graduated new hire is—you guessed it—on campus. The following tips will help you recruit graduates on campus.

  • Make sure your job ads are listed on the university’s job board as well their social media pages. One of the advantages of campus recruiting is that you can target your audience when you use university’s niche job board.
  • Have a strong LinkedIn presence. As graduation approaches, many students will strengthen their LinkedIn profile. You can search for recent graduates and reach out through InMail.
  • Make sure your branded careers site is appealing to recent graduates. Your careers site should include information about your company culture as well as “behind-the-scenes” videos.
  • Host an on-campus job fair complete with free company swag. Your campus recruiting strategy isn’t complete without an onsite job fair. Make sure you advertise the job fair both on campus and online. Have several employees at the booth with plenty of literature about your company and its open positions.
  • Build relationships with college organizations and the university’s career department. Your business isn’t the only one competing for new graduates. You want to make sure your company is top-of-mind when career advisors are counseling students.

Job Offer for New Graduates

Gallup surveyed new graduates and published the findings in their report “How Millennials Want to Work and Live.” When Gallup asked Millennials what they look for in a job offer for after graduation, pay and benefits did not make the top five. When making a job offer for new graduates, you need to highlight the job quality most important to them.

Opportunity to Learn and Grow

Continuous learning and opportunities to grow are important to 59 percent of new graduates. These candidates understand their inexperience is a disadvantage. The see ongoing upskilling as a way to career stability. Tuition reimbursement and certifications are important to fresh graduates.

Quality of Executive Leadership

Your executive team makes important decisions about the company’s culture and direction. For this reason, strong executive leadership is important to 58 percent of Millennials. New graduates will be more likely to accept your job offer if you’ve explained the company’s vision well.

Quality of Direct Manager

Over half of Millennials agree with 60 percent of Baby Boomers on at least one thing: quality of manager is extremely important. Throughout the interview process, give candidates the opportunity to meet their potential manager.

Challenging, Meaningful Work

While no one wants to be bored at work, new graduates are more likely to decline an offer for a job that isn’t interesting. But that doesn’t mean you need to rewrite your job description to make it more entertaining for your new hire. Creating a culture of innovation can make even a receptionist role more interesting if it means you’re open to creative solutions that extend beyond the usual scope of the role.

Advancement Opportunities

Gallup’s survey indicates that half of new graduates consider advancement opportunities an important factor for a graduating senior’s job offer. Keep in mind, fresh graduates are just starting their careers and are looking forward to achieving goals. The best job offer for new graduates will include clear guidelines about advancement decisions as well as career pathing for the new hire.

Pay and Benefits

Compensation may not have made the top five. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t an important factor for new graduate job offers. Pay and benefits are a close sixth in importance at 48 percent.

Hiring New Graduates

New graduates grew up with the internet and smartphones. They witnessed several historical events before entering the job market. But they still have the same sense of excitement about their future as previous generations. And the outlook and preferences of Generation Z  are still evolving. Don’t fall into the trap of dismissing new graduates as fussy job hoppers, and don’t broadly characterize them as upgrades of your older employees.

The key to recruiting new graduates is to humanize the candidate experience and see them as individuals. If you think about it, that’s what all your prospective new hires want.

Do you need help analyzing your recruitment process? Download our free scorecard to evaluate whether your recruitment process is helping or hindering your job offer acceptance rate.

 

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