The competition to attract top talent in the market is fierce, and competitors are willing to do what it takes to obtain the best of the best—get ready for competitive pay rates and various workplace benefits. So what does this mean for your business?
The good news? Mission-driven employers in 2023 will have an even greater advantage when it comes to attracting talent than they did in past years. As new demographics begin to flood corporate spaces, companies will need to utilize new strategies to attract their attention. Millennials and Gen Z care far more about an organization’s mission and values than older generations. More importantly, employees of all generations have become more focused on finding organizations that share their values.
If these employees can’t find purpose in their work in addition to having enough freedom to choose how they work, they’re more likely to up and leave now than they were two years ago.
How are workforce demographics changing in 2023?
The workforce majority is already shifting to the younger generations, requiring workplace dynamics to adapt. Pew Research says Millennials surpassed Boomers in 2019 by numbering 72.1 million, with Boomers numbering 71.6 million. Millennials and Gen Z will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025.
The biggest difference with these younger professionals? Their expectations.
Here are three significant employee retention trends for 2023 that Millenials and Gen Z are bringing to the working world:
- A company’s mission and social impact matter to employees of Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z generations.
- Recent graduates want flexibility in their careers and the ability to shift between roles and explore new things.
- Communication is different for younger employees, who often don’t prefer communicating by email. Instead, social media or workplace apps will become critical components of workplace communication.
So how can your business attract and retain employees in 2023? You can start calculating and filing employee retention tax credits and explore more about it. Follow these steps to get started:
Source: Pew Research Center
Employer branding: Focus on how your employees see you.
People want to work for companies that matter, with missions that matter, and for causes that matter. What does your business stand for? Figure out why your company matters and make it your company’s brand.
This means building a consistent identity for the company in a way that is understood and experienced by employees. After all, they’re there because they believe in your company’s mission, so others should feel the same as they do. The end goal of employer branding strategies is to continually increase B2B brand awareness and make your team happy to work with you.
According to LinkedIn, 80% of talent acquisition leaders say that a company’s employer branding affects the type of talent they can acquire.
Even more important, 92% of people would consider changing jobs if offered a role with a company with an excellent corporate reputation (CR Magazine).
With these statistics in mind, establishing an inward-facing identity requires creating a culture and identity that people enjoy being part of. This can happen in multiple ways, by creating environments that consider the employee experience.
For example, Salesforce declared the 9-to-5 workday a thing of the past in 2021. They allowed their employees to choose whether or not they’ll return to the office (and how often), along with adjusting their schedules to meet needs—like picking up children from school or maintaining responsibilities at home.
Make your company matter: Be a thought leader in your industry.
Establishing a strong voice as a company, one that is relevant and recognizable within your industry, is key in an employer brand strategy. It will only further solidify your brand’s reputation and attract professionals to your business. Becoming a thought leader in an industry means your brand is positioned as an expert in the field, and therefore, those searching for jobs will seek out those high-level places of employment.
Becoming a thought leader can also be a targeted goal for CEOs, who should be working to be thought leaders themselves while promoting their companies. CEOs are the natural figurehead of a brand and a natural place for trustworthiness to be established. When they are recognized in their industry, this builds trust not only in their personal brand but also in their company. This goes beyond CEOs becoming celebrity-like figures and moves more toward how B2B thought leadership communicates a company’s values.
You want to become the expert on whichever relevant topic and communicate that clearly and consistently. This can be initiated in responses to current events, commentary on issues within or outside of the company, and direction that shows employees (and clients, in turn) the company’s value system from top to bottom.
While money is certainly important for employees, it won’t be how your business will attract talent in 2023. Besides a nice check, they also want jobs that give them identity and demonstrate that they are among the topmost thinkers in the industry. With these preferences in mind, it’s common to conduct training, specifically in hospitality, industry like Restaurant and Hospitality Management Courses are common.
Practically, this looks like generating content and growing an audience (even if it’s a small audience) within your industry. For a business to be a thought leader, they need a team to produce accessible and shareable information for others to learn from.
Wondering if your brand shines as a thought leader? Consider these questions:
- Are you regularly creating new content about subjects relevant to your industry?
- Have you gone to all efforts to make sure your content is accessible to those who want to read it, like sharing it on multiple platforms?
- Have you collaborated with other thought leaders to build a leadership network in your industry?
Show your employees they matter by meeting them where they are.
Sounds cheesy, but you’re missing out if you don’t think this is vital for building relationships with your employees. As mentioned before, employers will do better if they communicate with their employees in the ways they prefer. Here’s what that looks like:
First, figure out systems that maximize employee communication and avoid email—most people prefer it that way, according to the statistics. This also has the added benefit of making communication more personal since many of us work remotely. Find where chats feel more familiar and comfortable to the generations who grew up communicating via text and messaging. Employee recognition statistics suggest that providing incentives for performance and recognizing employees who go above and beyond their job expectations can have a positive impact on building a successful team.
On top of that, meet employees where they are by interacting with them on social media. This can happen in two ways. First, in a very literal sense, interact with them on social media—LinkedIn is the ideal platform because you can maintain a professional relationship while also interacting on a social platform.
This can be interacting with their posts or tagging them in company-wide posts when they have contributed to a project you’re promoting.
In that vein, highlight those employees for their work and share their projects.
Yes, this contributes to overall employee satisfaction because it meets an individual’s need to feel significant. It also showcases your company or brand as a unified star-studded team. You should also consider giving thank-you gifts for employee recognition to make employees feel appreciated and valued. In terms of your employer brand, this drives potential talent and new hires to apply because it actualizes that desire to be a part of something significant and to know your place in it.
How to build your employer brand
It’s quite similar to your externally facing brand: you need to know your company’s identity. This begins with clear communication from start to finish. Who are you? What do you offer the world? What’s the overarching mission? What are the daily step-by-step movements that work together to achieve that mission? Who’s on the team?
Figure out the answers to these questions and communicate them clearly on your website, social media, brand communications, and especially in the language your company uses daily. This language and branding need to filter down from the top of the company—from leadership—to the bottom. Familiarize your leadership with the language, ideology, and identity that you’re working to communicate with prospective talent.
Don’t be tone-deaf. Keep your company relevant by interacting not only on platforms where prospective and existing employees already participate but add another layer by staying in tune with what’s going on in the world.
Companies that have adjusted due to the pandemic, like Salesforce and others, have done this well. They’ve stayed in tune with current employees by adapting work expectations to the needs of their employees in a year when everything has changed.
Another way companies can build their employer brand is through—you guessed it—social media. How can your company interact and showcase what you do online so it’s relevant on social media?
If you want more insight on attracting and retaining talent in 2023 and becoming a thought leader, call us, that’s what we do.
