Blog: Experiences and messaging are key to post pandemic resourcing

As if in the blink of an eye, the labour market has turned again. A long period, characterised by skill shortages and talented candidates being at a premium, was dramatically curtailed by the pandemic and the doubt, caution and confusion it wrought. And yet, fast forward to today, even with Covid far from conquered, labour market sentiment has shifted. 

If we consider the UK economy, GDP is set to increase by 7.25% this year, according to the Bank of England. In February, they estimated this figure to be just 5%. There was a 16% surge in vacancies in Q1 according to the ONS. Azuma stated that job postings in April matched those of February 2020. And the monthly index of demand for staff from REC/KPMG rose this month to its highest level in 23 years. 

As organisations seek to grow, to scale up, to pivot, then the battle for the hearts and minds of candidates and employees alike is significantly fiercer than it has been for 18 months. 

The people you seek to hire and retain in order to pursue the opportunities of a post pandemic boom, will be equally sought after by your competitors.

For exactly this reason, gaining a topical understanding of the market, of confidence levels, of sentiment and of intentions is of huge importance. An appreciation of the market and of candidate motivations even a year ago, never mind a pre-pandemic one, feels out of date and out of touch.

And it’s for that reason, we’ve recently conducted an online piece of research amongst TA leaders, asking them about their concerns and their opportunities for the year ahead. 

We asked our participants which element of the employer branding journey was causing them the most worry looking ahead. 

As far as the fixed and more tangible elements of the journey – attraction messaging, candidate communications, the ATS and the careers site – these appeared not to be keeping our research participants awake at night. However, talent acquisition professionals feel in control of only certain parts of the candidate (and employee) journey. 

Of much more concern were elements of this journey, such as the candidate experience, the employee experience once joiners landed in the organisation and hiring manager’s awareness of the times in which we are living.

Around three quarters of those responding selected these three options as being of most concern, in broadly equal measure. 

And this is where the talent acquisition professional effectively loses control of the promise their EVP is making to candidates and joiners alike. They will craft a beautiful careers site and award-winning attraction messaging, but their ability to communicate the essence of their EVP in order to influence hiring managers and other internal stakeholders feels much less secure. 

The challenge and the opportunity, then, is about this sense of internal influence. To cajole, inform, educate those people with responsibility for the candidate and joiner experience, that they have a huge amount of impact in terms of an applicant’s decision to join and to stay. 

We’ve lived with the concept of the experience economy since 1998. Over goods and services, we are increasingly seeking an experience – and likely an experience we can share via social media channels. We want to sample new cuisines, we want – in perhaps more normal times – to travel to different holiday locations, we want to jump out of planes or into mud baths. Apple Stores, for example, exist not necessarily to shift product, but to offer an insight into the Apple brand experience.

Whether we’re buying products or changing jobs, we’ve never been more acutely aware of the experience this process is delivering. Does such an experience provide a warm and reassuring impression or are warning signals flashing already?

If candidates were perhaps prepared to put up with a less than stellar hiring and joining experience in the worst of the Covid turmoil, those days are long gone.

As organisations quite rightly develop new messaging to respond to a more active candidate, one with more choice, options and confidence, thought needs to be given to the less tangible elements of the candidate journey. The more striking a promise or proposition an employer delivers to external applicant audiences, the more confident it has to be that every part of such applicant’s journeys are delivering on this promise. Through their on-boarding, their contact and engagement with line managers and their subsequent landing in the business, as much thought and attention should be lavished on these touch points, as the messaging that initiated their journey. 

But is it happening right now? Right when a clear, compelling message has to be delivered to candidates who are keen on a change of scenery, but equally aware that they do not lack for choice.

When we asked our survey participants what represented the greatest challenge to their Employer Brand over the next 12 months, 34% of our survey felt this lay in the inability to convey a consistent message across their organisation. 

This feels a hugely telling response.

The implication is that internal stakeholders have a tendency to play fast and loose with employer branding messages. The outputs of this are bad enough. Confused, confusing, diluted and duplicated messaging. A lack of unified purpose and actions. And an employee base unsure what is expected of them. 

So much for the outputs. Perhaps even worse are the potential sources of such inconsistency. Has the employer brand messaging not been communicated with enough vigour, clarity and cut-through across the organisation, with the associated business case not made?

Or perhaps such inconsistency is the result of employer branding that has perhaps become diluted and tired, with stakeholders beginning to adopt their own take on key messages, feeling the employer brand has lost its way, its mojo and its impact?

Although the construct of the employer brand is something more real and tangible today across many organisations, than was the case pre-pandemic, it feels as if many internal stakeholders are unaware of how, or indeed if, they should work with it.

And whilst the talent acquisition industry is often judged by what it delivers externally, perhaps the real struggle is how it influences internally.

About
Neil Harrison is recognised as a leading employer brand specialist, creating insights and actionable intelligence around key people audiences. Internal employee communities as well as external talent pools. These are insights which will help drive informed EVPs and their associated employer brands. Factors such as Brexit, as well as a tightening labour market, mean that organisations serious about talent acquisition need to act based on knowledge rather than guesswork.