According to the latest recruitment statistics, 78% of recruiting firms across the US say employee engagement is highly critical from the hiring stage itself. However, there is still so much disappointment around.
According to a recent Gallup report, most of today’s employees don’t feel engaged at work. The report says only 30% of employees think they have been highly engaged during the hiring stage. The rest of the 70% are either neutral or said they were utterly disengaged at that time.
It is a disturbing statistic. Isn’t it? Hence, it is high time that companies culture employee engagement starting from the initial recruitment phase of their people. And Rekrooting, being in the staffing business directly, was, and will always be sincere about this fact. Our workforce staffing agency considers employee engagement during the recruitment period as the winning formula for hiring the best talents for the long term.
Today, in this article, we will talk about how you can engage employees during their first stage of interaction with you, i.e., the recruitment period. So, what are you waiting for? Start employee engagement before day one with the below proven tips:
Tip #1
Discuss Engagement During the Interview
If you are one of the best recruitment firms providing professional staffing solutions or an employee-centric company hiring directly, the employee engagement concept must be clear. You know already how employee engagement impacts individuals. Right? But candidates might need to be made aware of the idea.
Take some time during your interviews with potential employees to discuss what employee engagement is and why it is crucial. Get some employee engagement surveys done at the organizational level. Next, show them the data about the engagement level of your current workforce. Tell them the total number of engaged people in your organization and let them know how it compares to your industry standards.
Another fantastic talking point for you can be to share the top driving elements of engagement at your company. Let the candidates know how engagement is fostered at the organization among the people at work. For example, have you uncovered through your employee engagement surveys that voicing opinions at work is something your employees prefer? Then tell the candidates how your employees are welcome to express their ideas.
However, if you feel that learning and development is a high-driving element of engagement in your company, let the candidates know about your learning and development programs. Once you finish this, ask your candidates if these things excite them! If you do so, you and the candidates will know how satisfied you will be working together.
Tip #2
Be Clear about Both Plus and Minus
Candidates know that no company is perfect! So, portraying your organization as the most wonderful one in every way will not fool them. They might lose trust in you.
So, be honest and open with job-seekers. It will help them make an educated decision about working for your company. And that’s crucial for a better engagement at the recruitment level. According to a recent LinkedIn study, the #1 challenge candidates face when taking up a new job is finding out the nitty-gritty of a company. So, if you give the exact answers to the potential employees that they want, they will have a great impression of your company before starting to work for you.
Leverage the power of your engagement data to show the candidates why your employees love your company. Also, use the same data to let the candidates know the room for improvement that your company has. With this, you can also share what you are doing to improve these areas and highlight past enhancements. This will impress the candidates at the recruitment level, knowing that you are very transparent at the organizational level.
Tip #3
Get Feedback from New Hires
While you must be aware of the key focus areas of employee engagement in your organization, gathering feedback from your new hires during recruitment is still vital. For instance, you can send a survey link to all candidates, whether hired or not. They can provide detailed feedback about each stage of the hiring process. Also, you can plan some onboarding surveys after two to six weeks of someone starting a new role.
With the insightful feedback from these surveys, your recruitment and the People & Experience team can understand the most valued element of your recruitment and onboarding experience. Also, they will be able to figure out if there is anything that should be left behind while moving forward.
The onboarding surveys provide valuable feedback to company mentors on how nicely their new hire is getting accustomed to their roles. Thus, collecting feedback at the early recruitment stage helps to create a feedback-driven culture in the organization. This helps them understand their voice will be heard and their feedback will be acted upon whenever engagement surveys roll.
Tip #4
Find Dedicated Employee Ambassadors
Websites like Glassdoor prove that job-seekers trust others’ opinions about employers. Candidates want to know if your current employees love working at your organization during the recruitment stage. Thus, having an excellent team of employee ambassadors can help you attract promising talents. And to do this, you need to do your homework.
What will be your homework here?
To put those who love your company forward, you need to analyze the results of the onboarding surveys that we discussed above. Once you are done with that, sort out those employees or departments that specifically seem to be more engaged. Then what you need to do is encourage exceptionally dynamic people to share with others what they love about the company.
It is imperative to ensure your current engaged employees are spreading the positive message more to ensure you are better engaging the candidates during recruitment. Make it easy for them to talk good about you.
For example, you can consistently feature your people on your company-centric blogs. And also, you need to let them know before publishing the content. This allows your employees to share those blogs on their social channels so that their professional friends can explore the pleasant ambience of your company.
The Bottom Line
Ready to engage your people starting from the beginning?
Don’t wait anymore! All you need to do is keep the above tips in mind, and you will surely be able to engage more and more candidates. Let the candidates love your organization from the day they start knowing you! We at Rekrooting have a hands-on experience with the above effective employee engagement strategies at the recruitment level. And undoubtedly, we have got wonderful results!
So, implement them right now, and let us know in the comment section below how beneficial they have been for you.
