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Employee Experience starts way before you even post that job advertisement. It starts with your existing reputation and online presence. That's why you ask the question "What do you know about the company?", right? Well, here candidates should really be telling you that you have no presence, your website sucks and is old-school and that they have asked around and the reputation is not so great. Or the exact opposite. Let's be honest that's all we know before going into an interview with anyone.
Employee Experience during the attraction phase is crucial because your reputation as an employer will determine the quality of your employees. It is that simple; if you want quality employees you must fix your reputation by fixing your talent management processes and working conditions.
I have seen companies trying to rebuild the business that has gone to the dogs but are unable to because quality candidates would never think of working for them and when they do, they leave very quickly. When the basics are missing you will not keep good people. You will be left with average and poor who are not suitable for the hard task of building the business back up. It is a vicious cycle that can only be broken by destroying everything related to people management and starting from scratch.
But you cannot be superficial because people are smart, they even started to see through Google and the other big guys, just look at their average length of service; just over a year. You can no longer look good from the outside and be rotten on the inside hoping nobody will know. People will know, because everything is published on the net. A great example of this is the hospitality industry which is suffering and unable to address its problem.
Nobody wants to work in the industry and I don't blame them. Read here why. And here. After 19 years in the industry, I would never recommend it to anybody and I hate myself for saying this. What we do to people is incompatible with life and the workforce is aware of this. You see CHROs and CEOs acting like recruitment mascots with no impact. We have tried to put in programs like internships, and Elevate (management program) etc. which are great and needed but they do not solve the existing issues within the industry. So we spend money on them only to lose employees shortly after they join because of the broken people management system that drives people away. What a waste of money if you ask me.
Building your verbal and online reputation is the starting point of a successful business. You don't want to be talked about like "Oh no, I would never work for them". Here is the kicker, leaders and managers (and business owners) take everything personally when they receive feedback but somehow they don't take the reputation they build personally. Why not? It is your handy work! You are the ones who made me say "The management is unethical and incompetent". Why aren't you taking it personally? Don't be selective with the feedback you receive. If I was a business owner I would look at my online reputation as an employer and based on that fire every manager and leader because when my reputation is low it means my business is going down. Why don't we pay attention to this just like we pay attention to our reputation of the business from the guest experience point of view? That would be a fantastic KPI for leaders and managers if you ask me.
The new way of looking at businesses is Employer Reputation because who wants to work with someone with a bad rep? Nobody, and when nobody wants to work with you, your business will close down very quickly.
Attracting talent is more important than you think and it lies in your talent management processes. If you cannot fix them a nice celebratory picture on LinkedIn will not solve your problem.
Exciting news! My second book, "Blind Leading the Disengaged - From Kindergarten to Employee Experience," is dropping in April! It's a treasure trove of solutions and cool ideas to shake up your people management game. But before we get there, let's chat about where we're at now—The Corporate Kindergarten, as I spilt the beans in my first book. Check it out, and let's transform your workplace from a daycare to an awesome employee experience hub!:
