KEEPING UP TO DATE

How to Nail Your Employee Value Proposition

Over the past months, we’ve heard a lot about the “great resignation”. Initially it wasn’t so noticeable in Australia, but now, statistics in Australia prove there is more movement than there has been for years. While some are worried about the great resignation and its impact on their business, it can be a great opportunity for SMEs to hire with so many people looking to move.

In order to take advantage of the opportunity before us, we need to understand what our employees want.

When I ask employers why their team choose to work with them, they often lead with good salary and job security. Although that is important, it is not the main reason why employees leave a job and rates number 10 for why a candidate will accept a new position.

Research conducted globally, asking employees what they wanted in their employment, identified 5 key winning strategies for keeping your team and attracting new people:

Interesting work

Helping to keep work interesting can be different for each person, but a great way to start is checking in with your team. Often by leveraging your team’s knowledge and expanding their work within the confines of their roles, you can gain more than one benefit. It keeps the work interesting, and it gives you a more highly skilled team who can fill in for each other if needed. More than 40% of respondents connected interesting work to personal development so they could contribute more to business goals.

Connection (with the Leader/Manager and colleagues)

Humans (even our introverted colleagues) are social by nature. Creating the bonds and establishing yourself as a trusted manager / leader can make a huge difference when people are considering new opportunities. It is often said that people leave managers not jobs. As a manager, it is part of your role to forge those strong bonds and support the connections between your team members.

Appreciation / recognition for the work they do

For years, one of my most treasured processions was a small card given to my by a manager I respected. She told me that she noticed how hard I worked, but more importantly the difference that my choices made in our wider team. It cost her a little time and a small amount buy the card, but it was invaluable to me. Appreciate and recognition doesn’t have to be expensive but it should be genuine and heartfelt.

Ability to contribute to the team / solutions and success

Being hands on doing the role often means our team see things that we don’t. Giving them the opportunity to contribute to our and their success and changes which will impact them, demonstrates their opinions are valued. People who feel they have a voice, choose to stay with their employers for longer.

Open communication

Planning times and methods to share information is essential. We all like to have awareness of what is happening in the company we work for. Open communication could be ensuring that your 1 to 1 meetings take place regularly, those coffee catch-ups when you talk about things other than work are possible, formal communication with up-dates of celebrations, changes, misses or opportunities.

Interesting to me, with more than 30 years’ experience in HR, is that not a lot has changed. A study in 2000 at the peak of the Tech bubble collapse in the USA showed the top four were the same. The only difference was the fifth one in 2000 was job security.

The good news for Impact HR clients is that that means we have a lot of experience in determining options that could work for your business to implement each of these ideas and help you secure your current team and attract people to your business. Feel free to reach out for an obligation free discussion about what could work for you and your team on ph.1300 474 672 or info@impacthr.com.au.