how to attract and retain your A Team

‘Demand for L&D professionals soars as firms prioritise retention,’ read a recent Personnel Today headline. The article refers to LinkedIn data stating that while 67% of employees are looking to move jobs this year, 29% could be persuaded to stay if they had the opportunity to develop their skills. This is only part of the picture. The desire for flexibility, more meaningful work, and more attractive and relevant benefits packages is behind a pent-up, ever-growing demand amongst employees for change.

It's not just employees driving a growing post-pandemic recruitment boom. As AI, automation, and the use of data and analytics become vital in the workplace, companies are increasingly looking to hire individuals with specialist capabilities. But because these workers are in high demand, they can pick and choose. This imbalance in supply and demand is exacerbated by the growth in remote working opportunities. Companies are no longer competing for talent with only local firms, but also with businesses across the UK and the world.

With the power shift from employer to employee, companies need to develop and improve their Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to communicate what they can offer, and why candidates would want to work for them.

There are three main areas to focus on.

1.  Making work work

Securing the best candidates is no longer solely about who can offer the highest salary. Talented candidates are looking for an employer that can unleash their potential and help them achieve a healthy work-life balance.

You will need to bear in mind these key things:

Flexibility – It’s time to do away with the one-size-fits-all employment model. Instead, create flexible working structures, covering both where and when work happens, that allow each employee to perform at their best.

According to Accenture research, 83% of workers prefer a hybrid work model. Some prefer to work from home, others prefer an office environment, and many prefer a mixture of the two. Being inflexible about who must be in the office when, will induce many talented workers to look elsewhere.

Millennials are expected to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025 according to research from CBRE. This is a generation that prioritises a healthy work-life balance. Companies such as Adaptavist are beginning to focus on outcomes rather than hours, aiming to create a workplace in which all employees have flexibility in how and when they work.

Benefits – You need to offer benefits that support employees’ wellbeing, allowing them to plan for the future and take care of their day-to-day wants and needs. If your benefits are largely geared towards medical insurance and pensions, it’s time to design a range of benefits which can be personalised according to people’s individual needs at different life stages. Many firms are now adopting wellbeing practices which extend to their benefits package. For example, at Egremont Group, we recently introduced a wellbeing allowance that employees can spend across the categories of physical, mental, intellectual, and financial wellbeing.

Trust – Creating a culture of trust allows flexible work to flourish, increases employee retention and reduces levels of burnout. With trust comes accountability and ownership. From our experience of helping clients achieve breakthrough transformation, we know how radically trust can improve wellbeing and performance. If you watch our short video from Lakeland, you’ll see how higher levels of trust are having a positive impact on leadership culture and effectiveness.

Trust is especially important as we move out of the pandemic. 94% of 800 employers surveyed by Mercer in 2020 said that productivity was the same as or higher than it was before the pandemic. Employees have proved that they are worthy of their employer’s trust, and withholding or backtracking on this flexibility will only damage your culture. Netflix takes trust in the workplace to a whole new level. They don’t keep track of employees’ vacation days or ask them to fill in expense reports. They simply ask that people act ‘in the company’s best interests’.

2.  Making work valuable

A career for life is an outdated notion. In fact, a quick scan of various different reports confirms that the average employee tenure is four to five years, with millennials at half that. With job-hopping now the new norm, employment must become a two-way street, with increased personalisation to keep employees motivated.

A 2022 Censuswide survey of more 4,000 UK workers found that 70% of the UK’s workforce is interested in upskilling in 2022. To retain motivated employees and attract new talent, employers must provide training and development opportunities. These include structured classroom-based courses, e-learning, lunchtime seminars delivered by peers, mentoring programmes, and ad hoc opportunities to pick up new skills outside one’s immediate role. 

What matters most is that you think creatively about what skills your organisation needs and what channels you have at your disposal – always seeking feedback from employees about what they’re interested in. Happier, more engaged employees are more productive, and often more creative, especially when acquiring and applying new skills.

Obviously, as their skills develop, employees will look for opportunities to advance their careers. So you will need clear and transparent career paths. Without these, you’ll be at risk of losing your most skilled and ambitious people.

The landscape of work is changing. Employers and employees alike must be adaptable to keep up. By exposing employees to new ideas and challenging them to use their skills in different contexts, you will make sure they are ready for whatever the future of work holds.

3.  Making work meaningful

A 2018 HBR study found that 9 out of 10 employees were willing to trade a percentage of their lifetime earnings for more meaning at work. That trend continues today. Workers increasingly want to work for companies that give back through social and environmental initiatives. And they don’t accept companies’ claims in these areas at face value. Today, you must demonstrate that your commitment to social and environmental responsibility shines through in everything you do.

Becoming a B-Corp can help to attract top talent. This prestigious and hard-won accreditation proves that a company creates value for non-shareholding stakeholders such as their employees, the local community, and the environment. The B-Corp company Patagonia receives 9,000 applications for each internship position. As the CEO explained, “When you do work that’s good for the world, people want to be part of it.”

Even when businesses aren’t able to reach B-Corp standards, deploying ‘whole systems thinking’ to their social and environmental practices will attract and retain employees who want to do meaningful work.

What does this mean for my company?

The world of work is changing radically and rapidly. People are no longer looking for jobs for life. The industry benchmark for benefits and work-life balance has increased. And technological disruptions require an adaptable workforce.

During the pandemic, people have had time to take a step back and reflect on what they want from their work. They are clear that their employers must offer adequate benefits and flexibility, create a culture of trust, give them exciting and engaging work opportunities, offer work/home life flexibility, and make a positive impact on the world. 

It’s a fiercely competitive marketplace out there, so it’s time to listen and act. To avoid being left behind, elevate your EVP to attract talented workers and keep hold of the pivotal employees you have on your team.

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