You searched for careers at lineage logistics (2024)

A little over a year ago I sat down with my leader and our communications manager to discuss my new role and a particular platform they’d like me to take responsibility for: Glassdoor.

If the truth be told, I knew very little about it. I’d seen our rating suddenly appear within the careers pages of our website and, given my curious nature, I clicked through to see what it was all about. The page was unappealing, the reviews were scarce and I couldn’t help but think we’d placed ourselves uncomfortably into the firing line.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

In the weeks that followed I began my research into the platform and drew my comparisons to sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor. Let’s be honest, if you’re going to buy a new product or book your next holiday you’re going to be checking the reviews first, right? So why wouldn’t you be doing the same for your next potential employer?

Looking for a new job is practically a fulltime job in itself, so it’s no wonder that job seekers are actively pulling on all resources to help them in their quest to find their next role.

A colleague once asked me if I’d be worried about seeing negative reviews on our page, I responded with: “I would actually welcome them”. Allowing them enough time to digest what I said, I pleasantly smiled back to the ‘are you serious’ framed stare and followed up with: “Hearing people tell us what they really think about working here, whether that’s good, bad or indifferent, helps us to improve as an employer, helps us to learn from what people are saying about us and helps us to adapt”.

We’d be naïve, as an employer, to think everything is perfect. Glassdoor is a channel for colleagues and former employees to share in their experiences, and anonymously too. This gives assurance to the person posting the review but also credibility to the audience, and employer, of what has been said.

Bromford is still relatively new to Glassdoor but already we’re reaping the rewards of investing in our profile. In 18 months we’ve increased our review numbers from 11 to over 80, with the average employer rating up from 4.1 to 4.6, and in 2017 we were credited as being the 3rd Best Place to Work in the UK by Glassdoor, our first ever placing in the award, ahead of the likes of Facebook, Salesforce and Apple.

If you’re new to Glassdoor, or yet to join, here are my top 5 tips to get you going:

Have a presence

The reviews will be there, even if you’re not! Adopt your page (it’s really easy to do) and start to build your company brand within the profile. This is your opportunity to share your story through company updates, blogs, photos, videos, and by the reviews that are posted about you!

[Related:Glassdoor at a Glance]

Respond…to everything

Nobody wants to see a bad review about their organisation but they do get posted, and ignoring them won’t make them go away. In fact, if you don’t respond you’re probably doing even more damage to your reputation by not acknowledging somebody’s grievance or opinion. So be polite and let them know you’re listening. Don’t sit on it, make a point of responding promptly and learn from what they have to say.

[Related:How to Respond to Reviews Templates]

Encourage colleagues to get involved

Your colleagues are your company’s biggest advocates, and the custodians of your culture, so make sure you engage them. Just because Glassdoor has the best part of 6 million monthly active users in the UK, don’t assume that all of your workforce know what it is and how it works. Give them some narrative and explain the benefits of capturing their views.

Don’t forget the ones that got away

Colleagues will leave you, that’s inevitable, and there’ll be some that never quite get through your door and make it to day one. Both of these sets of people can provide you with some invaluable insight – so reach out to them! You could use your ATS to generate emails to candidates who apply for your roles who you could ask for feedback about your recruitment process, and your HR team could screen your leavers for you, how you do it is entirely up to you.

[Related:The ROI of Employer Brand]

Share the feedback

Make sure you communicate the learning from your Glassdoor profile with the rest of your organisation. Somebody posted a glowing review about a role they had in the maintenance team? Let the manager know. Is someone unhappy about the interview process they went through? Let the recruiters know. Are people loving the benefits you offer? Let HR know what people are saying – and promote the comments via social to let potential candidates know what employees think! But make sure you look beyond the reviews, you’ll be collecting a whole host of data from your profile which is invaluable to your Talent and Resourcing strategy and will help in the build and management of your company brand. Candidate demographics, job clicks, page visits and followers are just some of the things worthy of your attention.

Glassdoor’s growth in the past couple of years has been pretty phenomenal, something you cannot afford to ignore. If you do, it’s likely that your competitors will have a profile and before long your colleagues and future talent will be looking over their shoulders to see what’s being said about working there. So maybe now is the time to look at that page of yours.

Andy Johnson is an Engagement Specialist at Bromford. This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse. Reprinted with permission.

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10 Reasons to Advertise on Glassdoor

How Glassdoor makes finding top talent faster and more efficient.

The post New to Glassdoor? 5 Tips to Get Started, According to An Engagement Expert appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

Glassdoor’s annual Best Places to Work list is based entirely on employee feedback, so it’s a true testament to your company’s commitment to its workforce. Companies that win the Employees’ Choice Awards receive a toolkit to display the award on their careers sites and Glassdoor profile, giving interested candidates the extra confidence to look for open roles and apply.

How are the winners of Best Places to Work determined?

Award winners are determined using feedback that employees have shared on Glassdoor throughout the past year. Employees complete an anonymous company review that captures their overall job and company satisfaction, as well as qualitative insights into the best reasons to work at their company, along with what needs improvement.

Based on the feedback employees share during the year-long period of eligibility, Glassdoor then applies a proprietary algorithm to each award category. As part of the algorithm, Glassdoor considers the quality, quantity and consistency of reviews.

What is the methodology behind Best Places to Work?

While Glassdoor reserves the right to improve methodology from year to year, the methodology from the year prior can help you understand the basics of how the list is compiled.

Last year, the US list was divided into two categories: Large companies with 1,000 or more employees, and SMBs with fewer than 1,000 employees. Large companies needed at least 75 Glassdoor-approved company reviews in the evaluation period; SMBs needed at least 25 Glassdoor-approved employee reviews to qualify. For Canadian and UK companies, the requirement was 25 approved reviews, and in France and Germany it was 20. These reviews needed to appear during the eligibility period, which ran from 3 November, 2014 to 1 November, 2015.

What is a Glassdoor-approved review?

A Glassdoor-approved review is one that meets our community guidelines and remains on the site. Two important guidelines should be noted:

• We remove content if we have evidence that users were incentivised or coerced into leaving it.
• We believe in the principle of anonymity and free speech – everyone has a right to voice their opinion and be heard without fear of retribution, censorship or other unwanted attention.

This means that while it is acceptable and even desirable to encourage reviews, it’s never acceptable to require employees to write reviews. And because we value anonymity – it’s what gives our users the confidence to be honest – an individual should never be asked to prove that he or she wrote a review.

We also limit reviewers to one employee review per year per company, and will eliminate reviews if we catch attempts to game the system by posting reviews from multiple accounts.

How do I submit my company for Best Places to Work?

It’s easy – just share a review for your company and ask your fellow employees to do the same. The review should take no more than a few minutes to complete. Only one company review per employee is accepted each year, and each review must meet Glassdoor’s community guidelines.

What do we look for?

For those companies with offices in multiple locations, reviews are evaluated based on where the employee leaving the review is located, so you could be on a list in multiple countries. For example, Expedia and Google landed on both the US and UK lists in 2016, while both Apple and Salesforce landed on the Canadian and US lists.

Beyond the number of reviews, the proprietary algorithm takes into account the quality and consistency of reviews. To prevent gaming, Glassdoor does not reveal complete details of how these factors are taken into consideration.

When is the deadline to submit?

Remember that Glassdoor looks at employee feedback throughout the year, so unlike other awards, it’s important to have ongoing feedback from employees. For Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work awards, the eligibility deadline is the first week in November.

When will the winners of Best Places to Work be announced?

The winners of Best Places to Work will be announced sometime in December.

What are some things your company can do now to become a Best Place to Work?

1. Look at the quantity of your current reviews.

Do you have enough to qualify? How many more reviews would you have needed to get in the running last year?

2. Identify trends in your reviews.

Do the reviews reflect your current working environment? What are employees saying that’s not being addressed? What are you getting right?

3. Use Glassdoor data to set a baseline.

Look at rating trends over time. Can you correlate sentiment to changes in your company?

4. Invite feedback.

If you don’t have a tonne of reviews or the conversation is being driven by past employees, it’s time to launch an engagement campaign to solicit feedback. Actively reach out to employees and invite them to share about their experience. You can do this in a variety of ways: at company-wide meetings, in email signatures, and as part of your onboarding process. Explain how valuable feedback is for your organization’s growth and ability to attract new top talent.

5. Monitor and respond to feedback.

Set up alerts so that you see reviews coming in. Create a plan for how you’d like to respond, both internally and on Glassdoor. If possible, get your leaders involved in responding. Executives and department heads should be alerted to insightful or sensitive reviews and respond if necessary.

6. Implement a feedback loop.

Use your reviews as a source of actionable insights. Maybe a specific job group or location within your company is experiencing turmoil but another is thriving. Use these insights to strategise on how to engage employees by investing in their growth and supporting work/life integration.

How can I find out more about Best Places to Work?

Want to be on the Best Places to Work list? Read this. And learn more about the universal traits of winners by downloading our eBook, Best Places to Work winners. We’ve also published an eBook called The DNA of a Best Place to Work. Or email us at bestplacestowork@glassdoor.com

The post Best Places to Work 2017: FAQ appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

When it comes to recruiting to build your business these days, it’s a congested marketplace. Candidates are taking more control of where their careers are headed—so it’s crucial that you position your company in the best possible light to attract the top talent.

Despite the increasingly competitive business world, there are ways in which you can stand out. Here are some of the first things to think about before you start advertising for your new role, from James Taylor, managing director of Macildowie, one of the UK’s most innovative recruitment consultancies.

1. Fine tune your employer brand.

Given that there is an ever-increasing demand for great candidates, there are some robust, tactical measures that you can implement to make yourself more attractive to today's talent.

Ultimately, it boils down to brand.

Google "Employer Brand" today and you will get more than 3 million hits. It's a concept that is being talked about more and more by the UK’s most successful businesses, and it's about more than just recruitment and talent acquisition.

To attract (and retain) the best candidates in the market, you should implement the following:

• Take the time to work out your “Employee Value Proposition”—essentially why people should want to work for you.
• Positively promote the business, its values and the culture of your team. What makes where you work so special?
• Focus on "candidate experience" during the application and interview process—does your recruitment policy reflect the values of the business?
• Ensure your top team are on board. If you acknowledge that every candidate will research the CEO, Head of Department and Direct Line Manager before they attend an interview, are yours all "on brand"? Do they have a digital footprint that will make a candidate sit up, take notice and want to work for them?
• Ensure your brand vision is consistent throughout your website. Is your online presence reflecting the values of the organisation? Would it excite new recruits and make them want to get to know you?

2. Write an amazing job spec.

The CV is a candidate’s “sales document”. Conversely, your job spec should be a piece of content that sells the opportunity on behalf of your company.

Frankly, too many job specs are one-dimensional and appear to have been put together in a rush.

Not spending due care, attention and time bringing your opportunity to life on paper will mean that you are already lagging behind when it comes to attracting the very best talent.

Here’s a tick list of five main aspects to the job spec:

• The company—explain the vision, the values, the strategy and who the competitors and customers are. We also actively encourage links to company social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to give candidates an insight into what your employees share and say about the business.
• The department—describe the culture of your department, where your team sits in the overall function, who some of the most influential people are, who the stakeholders are and why the most recent people joined.
• The line manager—as the saying goes, “You join a company, but you leave a boss.” That is so true. Similarly, if a candidate is thinking about whether or not to apply for a job, the background and personality of the line manager could be the deciding factor. Candidates want to work for someone who is passionate about the company, and whom they feel that they will learn from.
• The job—it is your responsibility to bring it to life. That may mean splitting it into main responsibilities, expected projects and where and how the role can impact the business commercially. It may also mean noting the internal customers the candidate will work with, and (if it’s a management position) detailing the experience level of the direct reports.
• Future opportunities—candidates like to know the answer to the question, “If I do this role successfully, what next?” So if your company has a positive track record of promoting candidates internally, explain this in the job description.

Lastly, outlining your definition of success and setting expectations will help candidates pinpoint aspects of their experience that are most relevant, inspire their confidence in the roles and drive home the fact that their development needs will be addressed.

3. Consider hiring for individual merit, not a job role.

Recent research suggests that nearly 90 percent of organisations are hiring based on the soft skills and behaviours of a candidate as opposed to their hard skills or specific sector-based experience.

The main reason for this is the shortage of talent available in the market place. As such, organisations have to become more creative with their hiring, and therefore the “person spec” is becoming more popular.

In essence, what businesses are looking for are candidates whose personal values match those of the business. Candidates with a high capacity for processing information, essentially trainability, are being considered for jobs even if they don’t have the necessary level of experience to do the job on day one.

Therefore, it is important to bring the opportunity to life via a person spec. This should include a lot of the same content as the job spec, but we also recommend the following content:

• Technical, organisational, communicative and creative skills that you prefer
• Specific trade qualifications or education required for the role
• Level of experience required in either similar organisations or equivalent roles
• Personality type that will fit with your team and your organisation’s ethos.

4.Use video.

Quite simply, the digital age is here and it’s here to stay. With so many people now researching and consuming information via their phones, make it as easy as possible for them to access or digest your content.

In summary

Knowing that candidates are taking more control of their career paths, it’s in your best interest as an employer to position your company in the best possible light. Part of your success will come from upgrading how you position both your job spec and your person spec. I wish you luck in your endeavour.

The post How to Make Your Business Stand Out to Job Seekers appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

Employer branding has become top of mind for many organizations looking to attract and build trust with quality candidates, increase retention rates and improve workplace productivity.

You may have taken steps such as defining your employer value proposition (EVP), building out a careers website, and managing your profile on Glassdoor, yet you still don’t know if it’s working. As the old adage goes, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” So it’s essential to build measurement into your employer branding program.

Here’s how to get started:

Gather baseline data

Your company probably already captures metrics related to employment and recruiting. Typical measures include:

• Cost-per-hire
• Time-to-hire
• Candidate quality (ratio of qualified applicants to total applicants)
• Retention rate
• Employee engagement
• Employee satisfaction
• Quality-of-hire

In addition to these internal metrics, consider the metrics available on your Glassdoor account that reflect your company’s reputation. These include:

• Overall company rating
• CEO approval rating (% that approve)
• Business outlook (% positive)
• Recommend to a friend (% yes)
• Profile views over time
• Demographics

Numerical measures and quantitative data are not the only way to measure your employer brand. You’ll also want to track anecdotal feedback from employees and candidates via Glassdoor reviews, employee surveys and/or focus groups. Make sure you document key issues on a regular basis so you can monitor trends over time.

Consider your goals

As you examine your metrics, consider the overall goals of your employer branding program.

For example, if your goal includes improving culture by offering development opportunities, pay close attention to retention rates and employee engagement. Also consider adding a metric specific to that goal, such as time-to-promotion. All these metrics can work in conjunction with your Glassdoor ratings and review sentiment; ideally, as you work on improving your culture, you’ll notice an upward trend of employee satisfaction.

If your goals are primarily recruiting-based, such as reducing hiring costs or making many hires to fill out a specific team, you’ll want to track metrics like cost-per-hire, time-to-hire and quality-of-hire. Then carefully monitor your Glassdoor profile views and demographics to see if you’re attracting more candidates to your profile and if they match your hiring targets. Finally, don’t forget to check how your company ratings fare against the competition.

Set a reporting schedule

Without a time-based plan, you may forget to monitor your employer brand and miss out on key successes or opportunities for improvement. We suggest the following schedule:

• Weekly: candidate quality.

• Monthly: Cost-per-hire, time-to-hire, applicant-to-hire, candidate demographics, recommendations, ratings against competitors.
• Quarterly/annually: Overall themes and sentiment, retention rate, quality-of-hire, employee engagement, ratings trends, CEO rating.

With a clear picture of the metrics to track based on your goals, and a schedule for monitoring, you’ll learn what efforts worked, and how well. Best of all, you’ll have real-world data to inform and build the case for next year’s employer branding programs (and budget).

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Learn more

For an up-close look on managing all the data associated with your employer brand, download our eBook Talent Analytics for Dummies®, Glassdoor Special EditionTalent Analytics for Dummies®,Glassdoor Special EditionTalent Analytics for Dummies®,Glassdoor Special EditionTalent Analytics for Dummies®,Glassdoor Special Editionand flip to Chapter 5, “Employer Brand Analytics 101.”

The post How to Measure Your Employment Brand appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

‘What makes a great leader?’ is a question often asked by economists and large corporations across the world. But, perhaps we’re all trying to answer the wrong question. Should we not be identifying exactly ‘how’ these leaders are built? Very few are born with the innate ability to lead, so, it makes sense that such qualities should be coached and fostered.

Enter exciting new London tech startupWhiteHatand its CEO and Co-Founder Euan Blair. His company matches young job-seekers with hiring companies (using a series of data points), and builds personalised apprenticeship programmes so that businesses can snap up diverse and specifically tailored young talent. Why? Well, in April 2017, a new Government legislation – in the form of a tax levy – stipulated that employers operating on a payroll of over £3 million must commit 0.5 per cent towards hiring apprentices. The scheme aims to create 3 million more apprenticeships by 2020 and hopes to be the solution to the skills gap facing the UK employment industry.

A scholarship graduate atYaleand former Investment Banker withMorgan Stanley, Blair started WhiteHat in 2016 to – quite simply – “make apprenticeships better”. Glassdoor’s Mark Di-Toro caught up with Euan to hear some of his thoughts on why young jobseekers should consider this option and the importance employers should be placing on these schemes going forward.

Glassdoor: So Euan, why apprenticeships and why now?

EB: Before founding WhiteHat I was running an organisation helping long-term unemployed people access the labour market. While we had some impressive results, we were too often reaching people after they had already built up significant barriers to work – everything from alcoholism to homelessness. As a result, it was clear we needed to intervene much earlier in order to make a real difference. Also, a surprising number of people struggling to find work had degrees and had accumulated a significant amount of debt. Unfortunately, they had been given bad advice and ended up taking courses that weren’t actually helping them start careers.

Apprenticeships are needed so that we have a real, credible alternative to those who either don’t want to go to university or won’t actually be best served spending 3 years in a purely academic environment. And WhiteHat was founded just over a year ago because theApprenticeship Levy’simpending introduction (it launched in April 2017) meant that all large employers were being forced to at least have the conversation about whether they should be engaging with apprenticeships. That meant that there was an incredible, once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform apprenticeships and turn them from something on the fringes of the post-16 education options available to young people into an incredible way to access great careers without having to go to university.

Q. Tell me about WhiteHat’s mission and values?

Our mission is to accelerate the careers of a diverse group of future leaders. We are a purpose-led organisation, that exists to ensure the apprenticeship agenda succeeds and ultimately will drive greater social mobility by democratising access to the best careers. We have a real problem in the UK that, unlike in countries like Germany or Switzerland, the expectation is that you need to go to university to be really successful. We need a viable, credible, alternative to the academic route, and apprenticeships should be that alternative.

As an employer we are driven by eight key values that inform all of the decisions we make and are core to our culture.

We are all owners:we think about the impact of our actions on the team, the company and on our external perception

Good people win:we believe that respect flows both ways; we are approachable, warm and responsive

We put others first:we go above and beyond to create an exceptional service and experience for our users

We believe in social mobility:your background should never define your destination

We are changemakers:we are working to create impact at scale

Integrity is paramount:we put our apprentices’ success first

We are honest but kind:direct feedback delivered with kindness helps others realise their full potential

We are mission & results driven:we pursue excellence in everything we do and we energise and inspire others through the standards we set

Q. Common perceptions of apprenticeships can be of blue collar workforces. What do you do for young job-seekers that’s different?

We only operate in professional services environments; we are placing young people and building apprenticeship experiences for them across sectors that have traditionally only hired people with a degree and often only from a small number of universities – tech, finance, media, advertising, consulting etc.

Overall the apprenticeship sector hasn’t really moved with the times. As a tech company, we are digital and mobile first when engaging with young people and we use technology across the business to make our offering better and more scalable.

WhiteHat is driving real change in how apprenticeships work by focusing on three key areas.

• Matching

The first area is in the matching of young people to opportunities where they can succeed. This is where we will ultimately use algorithmic matching powered by machine learning to make matches based on competency and desire – increasing the confidence of employers that they are making the right decision when taking on an apprentice.

• Content

The second area is through bringing world-class content into apprenticeships that can rival what the best universities have to offer. We have launched partnerships with General Assembly, Mind Gym, and Debate Mate to create fantastic learning experiences built around the workplace. We believe that quality of education needs to be at the heart of any apprenticeship offering and aligns with our mission to help launch the careers of future leaders, not just help people pass a qualification.

• Social

The third area is powering a social experience for apprentices that can rival the networks students build while at university. Bringing apprentices together through organised societies and events, and finding them dedicated mentors in their chosen field, is an essential part of ensuring that apprentices can develop a great network. We’re shortly launching something Apprentice Nation in conjunction with Rock Corps (who have organised concerts for community volunteers globally with performances by everyone from Pharrell to Beyoncé); more to follow soon on this!

Q. What would you say to a career motivated, but undecided, 16 year old right now?

I would tell them to gather information on as many of the available options as possible. Are they enjoying being in school and thriving in that environment? If so, stay another two years and complete your A-Levels; most employers still prefer to recruit those over the age of 18 and it keeps your options open. You don’t need to know what it is you ultimately want to do aged 16, and now most young people will have worked in several different jobs by the time they reach their 30s, but start identifying what it is you’re really good at, what you really enjoy, and explore any work experience options available to you at school. And if you want to learn more about apprenticeships or just want some unfiltered advice – come visit WhiteHat in our offices and have a chat with our talent team!

Q. Is a traditional degree still the best way to get a job?

It really depends on the job. There are some industries that are proving more resistant to apprenticeships than others. Most of the elite investment banks for example will still only recruit graduates for their investment banking, capital markets, and trading teams. However, even this is slowly changing; these organisations are aware that in the 70s and 80s some of their best traders never had university degrees and realise it’s a problem that this is now almost unheard of.

If you want to work somewhere like marketing, or in the media, or in tech, we’ve worked with employers to open up a whole raft of opportunities for young people who are genuinely creative and can demonstrate a commitment and real interest in the field. For example, if you’re an 18 year old who wants to work for a top advertising agency likeWieden & KennedyorWeAreSocial, if you have a strong presence on social media, have designed a website, or have a portfolio you’ve pulled together, you can do some incredible jobs without ever needing to go to university.

Q. What do you think Glassdoor can bring to young jobseekers as part of the hiring process?

Glassdoor gives young people an incredible insight into what it’s really like to work in different industries and at a particular company through its reviews section. When you’re starting out deciding where to take your career path, having this kind of information is very useful. The more informed the candidate through Glassdoor, the better quality of hire. At WhiteHat we give candidates a lot of interview coaching and always encourage them to do their research on what each company does, as well as their culture and values, and Glassdoor provides them with all this information in an engaging and accessible format. Your interview tips section is really helpful, especially as for many of our candidates, this will be their very first interview experience.

Q. Describe the impact you hope to have had on the jobs market in 10 years’ time?

We want to create an environment where every major corporate has an apprenticeship scheme to rival or even subsume its graduate scheme, and where young people no longer need to go to university in order to access great careers in sectors like tech, finance, media, advertising and become leaders in those fields.

This will create more diverse boardrooms, a greater range of philosophies and approaches among leading executives, and will ensure that a technical, workplace learning approach is equally respected to that of those who like learning in an academic, classroom-based setting.

We also want employers to focus more on hiring based on potential rather than experience, and a significant part of WhiteHat’s efforts are focused on giving them the tools to do this. This is where our platform and the tech-side of what we’re building – covering everything from algorithmic matching to quantifying potential – is so critical. We want this approach to become the new normal.

Does WhiteHat sound like a company you’d like to work for? Apply for their open jobshere. Or, if you’re looking for an apprenticeship, why notsubmityour application and a member of their team will be in touch.

The post WhiteHat CEO Euan Blair: "We'll Inspire Leaders of Tomorrow Through Apprenticeships" appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

One of the core purposes of a website is to function as a shop window. It should be devoid of smears and dust and should display the best bits of your organisation in all their glory. After all, you’re more likely to have someone pop in your ‘virtual’ shop if it is appealing rather than rush off in the direction of a competitor if all they can see is severed doll heads and some mouldy loaves of bread.

Of course, the best and most versatile sites are the ones that operate as the window, the shop, the staff and all the customer service that goes with it.

Envisage your website as your sales director too and given this is often the only chance you get to sell yourself, the question is, are you well-versed in your pitch and looking your best i.e. in website terms, are you doing enough to enhance the user experience and information architecture to make the sale?

When designing a website that will have people breaking down your company doors to get a job, there are a few factors to take into consideration in order to optimise the user's experience and increase that chance of conversion.

1. Functionality and UI

There should be an overall feeling of quality conveyed by the site. Like all the best pieces of modern design from the pencil to the Bic razor, you should know what to do with it from the off.

What feels smart on paper doesn’t always work in practice. Avoiding complexity may not be the decisive factor when trying to get ahead of your competitors, but is a foundation on top of which greatness can be designed.

The user interface should be relevant and the functionality for both exploring and applying for new jobs, easy to navigate. Any calls to action should also be clear.

2. Mobile friendliness

Late last year, Google released data that told us mobile searches surpassed desktop for the first time since the inception of the browser. Consequently, your website needs to be responsive to a variety of device types. It has to be built with the ability to resize, pan and scroll depending on what browser is being used. Use of responsive design doesn’t alone guarantee a great mobile experience. There needs to be device relevant features, content and content structuring. You should be creating a web experience that is not only mobile compatible but truly designed with a mobile first approach in mind.

3. Information architecture

Clarity is key. Knowing where one is and what one should do next on a specific page is paramount. Red Bull handles this very well.

Think audience, not internal structure. First level pages tend to have a user centered content approach. This approach gets diluted at times when navigating deeper levels.

By producing content with the personas in mind, not only on main pages, but on all pages will ensure that the experience is seamless and stays interesting throughout the site.

4. Content

A picture is worth 1000 words, so use them! Your site should combine videos, imagery and infographics with a keen eye on the reader’s attention span.

Research by Visible Measures suggests that if you haven’t fully engaged your audience within the first thirty seconds, you’ve likely lost 33% of viewers and after one minute, 45% have dropped off. Keep it impactful and to the point. Avoiding repetition and vacuous business jargon will also improve your retention rates.

On its careers site, SoundCloud gets straight to the point with a video and Goldman Sachs has a creative interactive element, Careers Quiz. The quiz asks about your educational background, then displays how many alumni are at the bank.

P.S. Keep it real. Stay away from using the word “exciting” at all cost. Everyone else is using it and, let’s be honest, most people's personal thoughts on what constitutes excitement is likely to be far removed from sitting in front of a computer all day or actually having to go into work. Period.

5. Nail social

This step is simple but important. Follow buttons should live in footers or some other permanent and overarching place. Share buttons should be added to any content that makes sense for sharing. The more sharable your content is, the more likely prospective candidates are going to be made aware of your existence.

6. Company profile

Stats are short and sharp and information about the organization’s culture, employees, social media presence, industry awards and professional associations should be accompanied by strong visuals - all of which shape a candidate’s perception.

SpaceX’s website is an example of a site that does a good job when it comes to writing its own company profile, combining stats, visuals and simple timelines.

7. Testimonials

Here’s a thought. Instead of blowing your own trumpet, have someone else do it for you. Not only does it look better on you, it gives prospects another viewpoint from which to make an informed decision. Word of mouth always was and still remains the best form of PR.

Reverting back to content point, video testimonials do a good job letting the viewer get up close and personal with a company and its culture. However, one of the best sites to find out about what it’s like to work at a certain company is Glassdoor. Glassdoor provides an independent platform that allows employees and former employees to review companies and management, pros and cons, anonymously. The content is also top-notch. Find a way to link to these testimonials from your former and current employees on your company’s careers page.

8. Testing 1,2,3…

Get actual people walking through the processes so all the bugs can be ironed out before going live. People have short attention spans these days. If your site isn’t working properly, it’s a poor reflection on you as a brand. And, there’s a good chance potential candidates won’t revisit your site if the initial upload times are slow and sluggish.

You need to test as much as possible in order to make sure your site actually works. A/B and multivariate testing should be carried out to optimize what content, visuals and functionality work best.

Remember, testing doesn’t stop when you go live, either. It should always be active. User needs and behaviours shift rapidly and so should websites.

Your careers site is your chance to shine

When designing the career pages of your company website, you should not only mirror the brand perception but bring something new, fresh and even unexpected to the overall impression of the site.

Your careers site is your chance to shine, and is a great opportunity to help you snag the hottest talent on the market.

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André has worked at Mirum for nine years. He has operated in both account leadership and strategic planning. André currentlyworks in London as Head of Strategy and is one of Mirum’s partners. André has a master’s degree Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki and more recently also completed an Executive MBA at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

The post Is Your Website Doing Enough To Attract Fresh Talent? appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

According the latest OFCOM report, smartphones are now the UK’s most popular device for getting online. Mobile Internet usage has been growing at a rapid rate for several years now but the recent take up of 4G services has now brought us to this highly significant tipping point. Mobile is no longer an alternative access point for use when a PC and Laptop aren’t available; it is the primary route to the internet for a majority of the population.

Why is this change occurring?

It is important to realize that this isn’t just about substituting one access point for another and behaving the same way, smartphones have fundamentally changed our relationship with the internet and the mechanics of how it works forever. More than a third of people use their smartphone within five minutes of waking up. Within the 18-24-year-old age range, this number creeps up to more than half. People are spending two hours a day on average on their smartphones, which now represent a crucial digital hub for both work and play.

Unfortunately, most employers are still struggling to keep up when it comes to effectively harnessing mobile in the recruitment process. It is often viewed as difficult, expensive or just an add on in a box ticking exercise. This is an unsustainable position with an overwhelming body of evidence now underlining the vital importance of mobile in the recruitment process.

My advice? Any change in talent acquisition strategy seems to work best when it is planned and done in stages. Instant revolutions are normally not possible. With that in mind, here are some key areas to focus on:

1. Optimise your recruitment marketing content.

The first connection you have with your audience, whether it’s via a proactive message or by someone being exposed to a job post, has a high probability of reaching them via a mobile device. There is a huge amount of competition for attention on someone’s screen and it’s important to make sure that you understand the needs of your audience and are being both empathetic and interesting.

Wherever possible, step away from text. Videos and images are now the currency in the new mobile world. For years, long-form text has been the default method for recruitment marketing, so this is a big change. However, it is a good change, as visual communication is a brilliant way of getting a huge amount of information across in a limited amount of time.

2. Plan to go mobile first with your careers site.

As an industry, we need to step away from the whole idea of a mobile-enabled career site and embrace the mobile-first careers site. Mobile can’t be seen as an afterthought -- it needs to drive the whole concept, design and content of the corporate careers site.

It is important to give people what they want quickly. Don’t make them search for the information that is relevant to them as they are likely to go somewhere else instead. If you can engage user attention quickly, the evidence, from the clients that I have worked with, indicates that they will actually engage with more content on the mobile site than they ever would on a desktop.

If you recruit across a number of different disciplines, an alternative approach to consider would be to build several targeted microsites rather than one big site that is a constant compromise between the needs of different audiences.

3. Put mobile apply on your roadmap.

It’s 2015 -- you can’t dodge this one anymore. An Indeed survey from last year found 66% of job seekers would apply via their mobile device if they were able to. This is confirmed by recent Forrester Wave research, which reports that candidates expect to be able to search and fully apply for jobs on company careers sites using their mobiles. So what can you do to improve things if you don’t currently support mobile apply?

First, review your ATS provision. Can you really afford to continue to tolerate a legacy system that is not fit for your recruiters and your potential candidates? If you’re stuck in a long-term contract with your ATS vendor, put pressure on your provider and investigate the growing number of services that offer a technical workaround for mobile apply.

While this all might seem daunting, it important to do something to improve your mobile strategy. Unfortunately, going mobile isn’t easy and requires investment, however it’s essential in the long term. Based on my experience working with employers, the benefits are also enormous and companies that have started on their mobile journey already have a huge advantage in the market.

The post How To Stop Ignoring Mobile appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to constantly advertise to fill job vacancies or begrudgingly use a recruitment agency because you’re not able to fill a position?

Are you always advertising job vacancies but never getting the right candidates? This is because you’re job pushing, usually done in a panic and probably because someone is leaving. When you job push, you’re not very attractive to candidates, especially if the same job vacancy is still being advertised weeks later. Active job seekers will keep seeing it and keep applying, even though they are not fully qualified.

The aim of the game is to attract highly qualified candidates who have the skills you require and fit your company culture nicely. Here are five simple ways to do this:

1. Culture

If you’re not sure what your company culture is really like, take some time to observe your employees. Are they eager to arrive to work? Do they work well together? Perhaps they’re an innovative team, constantly coming up with ideas to help them achieve their goals. Company culture is firmly rooted, and it won’t change overnight. Changing your company culture will take commitment, but once it’s been accomplished you’ll attract great candidates who will help you grow your business.

2. Your employees

Say your company culture is great and your employees are always talking about how much they love their jobs. Like attracts like, and your employees are hanging out with like minded people. If they love your company, their friends might, too. To take advantage of this, set up an employee referral program and reward your employees for bringing in great candidates. It should become second nature for your employees to refer great people and increase your talent community.

3. Be social

Social media isn’t just the role of the social media manager, just like customer service isn’t just the role of the customer service manager. Social is for everyone. Give all of your employees the social media training they require, give them guidelines and then encourage them to share their daily activities on the platforms they like to visit.

Building these programs isn’t a waste of time, it’s powerful internal marketing. If your employees are sharing updates and pictures of their great working environment, product launches and training days, they could also reach your ideal candidates. Your messages become more powerful when your employees are saying them.

4. Keep your promise

Be known for a great promise and be known for always keeping your promise. It could be that your company delivers the best training or that your employees will always have the best technology to work with, or even that they’ll always be refueled with the best coffee. Whatever you promise to your employees, keep those promises!

5. Careers page

Use engaging content on your careers page to attract your ideal candidates, hook them, then take them on a journey. Ideally, you want to have a careers website, but a careers page on your site is much better than nothing.

Remember, your potential candidates are looking to find out what it’s like to work at your company, what your recruitment process looks like, what your company culture is like, who works at your organisation and what their daily activities are. Of course, you must make sure your Glassdoor profile page is fully optimised and ensure it includes information such as location, benefits, social platforms, corporate social responsibility programs, awards won and open jobs opportunities. Don’t let these candidates down -- or you’ll lose them!

The post Constantly Attract Candidates With 5 Simple Steps appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

A positive employer brand is essential for creating an engaged workforce. According to Aberdeen, companies with employee engagement programs achieve 26 percent greater year-over-year increase in annual company revenue compared those who do not have formal programs.

An employer brand is also essential for recruiting success: nearly 70 percent Glassdoor users say they are more likely to apply to a job if an employer actively manages its employer brand (Glassdoor U.S. Site Survey, January 2016).

Perhaps the biggest challenge in creating a successful employer branding program is getting the right people on the team. A 2015 study by Universum noted that 60 percent of CEOs claim they own employer branding, while 58 percent of talent executives say they own it. The study concluded, “there is little agreement about what area of the organization should own employer branding.”

Branding is a team effort

The solution to an effective employer branding strategy will be unique to your organization. Cooperation across functions, though, is key—70 percent of senior executives say they see the need for closer cooperation over the next five years to support employer branding efforts (Universum).

Make sure you include representatives from the following groups on your employer branding team:

C-level management. It’s essential that your CEO and other high-profile leaders endorse and promote your company’s employer brand. Encourage them to actively participate on social media and allow employees to help spread the message behind your employer brand.

According to Brandfog survey, three-quarters of U.S. respondents believe that companies whose C-Suite executives and leadership team use social media to communicate about core mission, brand values and purpose are more trustworthy. (The Global Social CEO Survey 2014, Brandfog)

Human resources. It’s probably a no-brainer, but your HR team should be intimately involved in developing and maintaining the company’s employer brand. With a strong appreciation of the company’s employment needs, they are well equipped to develop a profile for the recruiting audience. Tapping data on retention rates and employee satisfaction, they can also identify areas for improvement and focus on top recruiting targets.

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Marketing. While HR excels at recruiting and retaining employees, marketing brethren live and breathe promotion and acquisition. The same skills and discipline needed to attract prospects and potential customers are also applicable to sourcing candidates.

Collaborate with marketing to craft compelling messages and leverage communication channels best suited for your target audience. Creative content and design resources likely already available in your organization can help you create a powerful, appealing employer brand.

Public Relations. Your PR team has a wealth of expertise in creating a positive impression of your company in the media. Collaborate with them on publicizing recent developments or news that can make your company more attractive to candidates. Meanwhile, if a sensitive issue arises that might negatively affect your company reputation, PR can help craft communication to address it.

Information Technology/Marketing Tech. Because many of the activities associated with effective employer branding are conducted online, include IT pro on your employer branding team and leverage their skillsets in developing your careers page or blogs. Meanwhile, those in marketing technology positions, with their knowledge of the latest developments in social media, search strategies and algorithms, can help you reach more people online.

Consultants. Articulating your employer value proposition (EVP) and what makes your workplace a compelling place to work can be a serious in-house challenge, even for those who “live the dream” every day.

One study (Universum, 2015) showed that those who developed an EVP in cooperation with an external partner were much more likely to be satisfied compared with other methods (in fact, the satisfaction rate was 62 percent). Research the benefits and costs to hiring an outside consultant to help you develop a winning employer brand.

Freelance or contract professionals. Because maintaining an employer branding strategy can add assignments to an already busy talent acquisition workload, consider outsourcing some of the effort. Freelance content writers can create and post updates to your careers blog, Facebook page and Twitter feed, or write newsletters and emails targeted to employees and candidates. Engage designers to update your careers site or blog, videographers to create branding videos to share on your networks.

Best all, these professionals usually work on a project basis, saving the hassle and expense of hiring full-time creative help.

Kick-start your employer branding journey

Impress your cross-functional, employer branding teammates (and build the case for employer branding) with a PDF copy of our popular eBook,Employer Branding For Dummies®, Glassdoor Special Edition.

The post Whose Job is Employer Branding? appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

Upon entering Harrods, the world’s largest and most famous department store, visitors are instantly transported to an enchanting land of luxury, where everything one could dream of can be had (for a price, of course). Even alligators, tigers and camels could be bought as household pets until 2014. Former American President Ronald Reagan once rang up to buy a baby elephant as a party mascot.

Steeped in history, grandeur and legend, it’s no wonder that Harrods, established in 1894 as a single roomed grocery shop, has been crowned Britain’s top retailer with over 100,000 daily visitors. Its exceptional customer service and spectacular range of the finest goods, displayed over seven floors and 330 departments, remains universally unrivalled.

But behind the dazzling façade, there’s a powerhouse of people making the magic happen every day. Research has proven that happy employees equal happy customers and happy investors – a formula that Harrods has obviously mastered. For the third time, the British institution has been voted one of the UK’s Best Places to Work 2018. Winners were determined based solely on feedback from employees — arguably the best judges of what makes a company an amazing place to work.

You might be wondering: what are Harrods’ secrets for recruiting and retaining the brightest stars responsible for making it the greatest store in the world? To find out, we caught up with their HR Operations Director, Abi Weeks.

Glassdoor: What does it mean to you to have employees and colleagues rave about working at Harrods?

Abi Weeks: We are very proud to be recognised as one of the Best Places to Work in the UK, particularly as we are the highest-ranking retailer to appear on the list. We are delighted to be at the forefront of our industry in providing varied and fulfilled careers in retail to our employees.

Part of what makes Harrods such a special business to be a part of is the variety of roles we are able to offer, all under one roof.

[Related: Get in the Running for Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work]

Glassdoor: What are some of your best practices when it comes to recruiting the best talent?

Abi Weeks: Harrods have a dedicated in-house recruitment team, comprising a skilled team of experts who specialise in retail across all levels, from Sales Associates and Boutique Managers to Store Directors. Existing employees are encouraged and incentivised to recommend a friend, or to become part of our ‘Talent Spotting’ team, reporting back on exceptional service wherever they receive it.

Our team also place importance on identifying future talent, and we run various future talent programmes such as School Leavers, offering students fast-tracked, educative and immersive opportunities. We want people to recognise retail as an industry where school-leavers can build long-lasting, varied and fulfilled careers, and this programme allows us to cultivate talent from an early stage.

Glassdoor: What do you look for in informed candidates? What makes someone a perfect fit to work at Harrods?

Abi Weeks: At Harrods, we are looking for candidates who want to build a career with us, so we are always thrilled to hear about candidates’ long-term career goals. I’m always impressed by candidates who showcase their commitment to being the best at what they do, whichever area of the business this lies in. Every single employee can improve the way our company works, whether on the shop floor or by providing essential support from other areas of the business. We also look for a customer-focused approach. There are many different types of customers at Harrods, but only one type of customer service: exceptional.

[Related: How to Recruit the Informed Candidate at Scale]

Glassdoor: Recruiting is only one part of the equation. How do you retain talent once they are employees at Harrods?

Abi Weeks: At Harrods, we are dedicated to making sure our employees have the opportunity to build a career and not just a job. We encourage employees to apply for other roles within the business, and commit resources to helping staff grow and engage their skill-sets; holding a Careers Week biannually and offering training and accredited educational opportunities through a dedicated learning and development team. We also run secondment schemes throughout the year. The purpose of these secondments is not only to allow the participant a taste of working in another area of the business, but to allow them to develop new skills and gain experience which may enable them to change the direction of their career should they choose to do so. For instance, a member of the retail team might be given the opportunity to experience working within the marketing team or with Harrods.com.

Glassdoor: What have you done this year to foster employee trust and engagement at Harrods?

Abi Weeks: Every year Harrods HR team challenges itself to improve our employees’ experience of working for Harrods. We recently reviewed our benefits package for our teams and now have thousands of offers from gym discounts to healthcare plans available to every employee to really help them feel the benefit of working for Harrods in their daily lives.

We also update staff on the wider business strategy and development at regular all-company Town Halls. For example, we recently showcased some of the new product which will be unveiled when the first stage of ‘The Taste Revolution!’, a redevelopment and restoration of the store’s famous Food Hall, with an engaging talk from the store’s Director of Food & Restaurants. This engagement and feedback process allows us to ensure employees feel part of the success of the store.

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Glassdoor: Your employees love working here as we see the strong rating on Glassdoor. How do you make this a great place to work day in and day out?

Abi Weeks: From day one of their career journey at Harrods, we are dedicated to making sure our employees have the opportunity to build a meaningful career here. We believe that a good work environment is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact on employees’ personal, as well as their professional lives.,

There are a number of things we do, for example, we make sure that a Director attends every Welcome (induction) for new employees and talks about their role and Harrods culture, as well as answering any questions new joiners might have about what it’s like to work for Harrods - the aim of this is to inspire new joiners to maximise their potential.

We deliver a range of programmes through our Health & Wellbeing department – such as stress management, counselling services, podiatry, Physiotherapy, as well as the support of an onsite team of doctor, nurse, and occupational health advisers.

We know how to have fun. This year we hosted two summer events, where we hired out two theme parks for our employees and their families – all of whom had a great time.

Glassdoor: How do you work with your management teams to make sure employees have great leadership?

Abi Weeks: We feel it’s important for our retail teams to have a clear sense of direction. At Harrods, we have set a clear ‘north star’, a collaborative ambition for everyone to connect to and aspire to achieve. This is to deliver exceptional results by providing an exceptional experience for the Harrods customer every day. We refer to this as ‘#BeExceptional’ and it's great to hear the teams challenging themselves and each other on how they bring this ethos to their daily roles.

Harrods has a strong cultural DNA. We pride ourselves on our culture of service excellence and the exceptional experience we provide our customers every day. The leadership team needs to live and breathe these values and build loyalty and commitment from their teams and a sense of pride in our iconic brand. Our Directors, like all employees, are custodians of the Harrods heritage and it’s an important part of all of our roles.

We work hard as a leadership team to ensure our Directors are as accessible as possible, that’s not always easy but we try to create as many forums as possible to enable this to happen. From daily floor-walks to quarterly all-business updates, senior Directors from across Harrods are involved in all aspects of the business, and meet with employees on a daily basis. This visibility and on-going engagement are particularly important, not only to ensure that the highest standards are being maintained for customers, but also to show employees that everyone is working towards the same objectives and taking pride in the work that we are doing as an organisation.

[Related: 5 Traits of Best Places to Work Winners]

Glassdoor: What are some of the coolest or most unique perks and benefits you offer?

Abi Weeks: All Harrods staff are enrolled in our Harrods Rewards Card scheme, on top of an attractive discount and business clothing allowance to be used in store. We also recently reviewed our benefits package for our teams and now have a range of over 6,500 offers from gym discounts to healthcare plans available to every Harrods and Concession employee to really help them feel the benefit of working for Harrods in their daily lives.

Recognition of achievements is extremely important at Harrods. We believe that if you recognise and praise the behaviours that you want to see, then it will inspire other employees to go above and beyond. We hold regular ‘oscars-style’ Abi Weeksards ceremonies to recognise members of staff across different areas of the business for exceptional service and top salespeople as well as for our the longest-serving employees.

Learn More & Download

Employee Engagement Checklist & Calendar

Everything you need to create an employee engagement programme – guaranteed not only to improve employee productivity and retention but also your bottom line.

The post How to Recruit Like the Best Store in the World appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

Glassdoor has been active in the UK for around three years now, and in that time many employers have started to use our platform to advertise their jobs and manage their employer brand. Some of the more progressive companies have come up with really innovative ways to leverage their Glassdoor reviews for recruitment marketing purposes. In this post, we salute some of the best examples:

Nandos

The restaurant chain recently launched a recruitment marketing campaign by advertising on the London Underground network, based all around reviews from its Glassdoor profile. This was the first time in the UK that an employer has used Glassdoor reviews in above-the-line advertising and it shows how powerful user-generated content can be when it comes to marketing a brand.

Unilever

Unilever is a big believer in transparency and the company has up with something unique. It has created two videos for its YouTube page and careers channel targeted at graduates. The videos focus on real employees currently on the Unilever Graduate Recruitment Scheme reading and discussing real Glassdoor reviews of the company and relating those comments to their own experiences.

BNP Paribas

The French banking giant pulls in Glassdoor reviews and publishes the ratings on its careers page. Not only is this a great way of demonstrating that it is an employer that embraces transparency, it also allows candidates to potentially self-select out of a recruitment process before applying. This saves BNP Paribas a huge amount of time and money filtering and selecting the candidates with the best fit. Honourable mention should also go to AutoTrader, which does something similar, as does retailer Albert Heijn in the Netherlands. Other employers such as BP, Harrods, Yell and Holiday Extras also link to their Glassdoor profiles from their careers pages.

HomeServe

HomeServe is a UK Best Place to Work and is not afraid to shout about it! The company goes further than most when it comes to promoting its Glassdoor award winand has rented a huge billboard in Walsall near its HQ.

SAP

Glassdoor created a unique video with SAPto explain how and why SAP uses Glassdoor ratings and reviews to assess and improve its employer brand. In the video, Global Head of Employment Branding, Matthew Jeffery, explains how the SAP employment brand is one of authenticity and how Glassdoor is pivotal to that ethos. SAP uses the ratings to benchmark itself against its competitors and shares the Glassdoor data with the leadership team.

These exciting examples of innovation show how employers are changing the way they promote themselves to potential employees. This is just the start!

The post Innovative Uses of Glassdoor Reviews and Ratings by Employers appeared first on ROW | Glassdoor for Employers.

In today’s labour market with a record unemployment rate, it is imperative for companies to retain top talent. Gone are the days when employee turnover was a cost of doing business. In fact, retention has become just as important as recruiting.

“Workers aren’t as interchangeable and easy-to-replace in today’s tech-focused workforce, as in past generations,” says Glassdoor’s Chief Economist Dr. Andrew Chamberlain. “Having a tech-savvy workforce is a critical asset and key to innovation for many companies across all industries from tech and consulting to healthcare. Losing these highly-skilled employees to the competition can be detrimental and can mean hard-to-replace knowledge, customers and more walk out the door as well.”

Therefore, employers are creating “robust perks, benefits and employee development programmes that cater to their workforce, keep employees happy and drive retention.”

We spoke to a handful of 2018 Top CEOs about how they prioritise employee retention not just in human resources, but throughout the organisation. Here are their go-to retention secrets and strategies. Consider implementing these policies in your own organisation.

1. Create an environment rich in feedback and transparency

It’s no surprise that we at Glassdoor are huge fans of transparency. But for Gireesh Sonnad, CEO of Silverline, transparency and consistent communication are the keys to building a solid foundation of employee engagement and retention.

“One of the best ways to foster trust and employee engagement is simply to listen and discuss feedback. In addition to a complete open-door policy, I hold office hours every other week with the primary purpose of supporting that feedback mechanism. Employees tune in from home and gather in the office to hear about new developments, company strategy, and exciting news. Importantly, I directly answer ANY questions that are submitted (anonymously, through our corporate social intranet) or that are asked on the spot. The company has seen fantastic participation and have found it to be a wonderful opportunity to discover what’s important to our employees.”

For Silverline’s remote employees and contractors distributed throughout the country, Sonnad has made face-to-face connection a priority. “I am doing this through a ‘Vision and Values’ Tour in which I travel to each of our satellite offices and hold focused sessions on where we are as a company, the values we hold dear as an organisation, and the future that we see as a team.”

[Related: Hiring for Keeps: How to Reduce Churn and Retain Your Best Hires]

2. Show appreciation through engagement and compensation

Food service can be a tough industry to retain workers unless you’re In-N-Out, a popular burger chain in the US. The restaurant’s CEO Lynsi Snyder engages “the 30-year veterans to the ones putting on their aprons for the first time” by treating them with respect and appreciation.

“To us this means creating a positive, fun atmosphere, allowing them to grow with us, paying them well for their hard work and remembering to thank them for what they do for our company every day,” says Snyder, the #4 Top CEO in the US this year. “They are amazing, and so is the management team, which has grown along with the company. Showing my appreciation and recognising their dedication is much more than a matter of salaries and bonuses. We spend a lot of time doing activities together — we have annual trips, we play sports and every year we have several trips to my Dad’s ranch, sometimes for workshops and play, sometimes just for In-N-Out family time.”

[Related: 5 Tips for Recruiting the Right Talent]

3. Enable staff with the resources and support they need

A compelling mission can inspire any employee to weather the good days as well as the not-so-good days. There is perhaps no place where this is truer than Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, headquartered in New York City. However, when we spoke to MSK CEO Craig Thompson, he said that in addition to the mission he sees it as his responsibility to provide employees with everything they need to provide care.

“I try to make sure that everyone that comes to work here has what they need to complete their job successfully every day,” says Thompson of his personal commitment to the over 16,000 employees who help patients and their families. Whether attending to interns, residents, nurses or students, Thompson says, “My job is to help solve the problems when people don’t have what they need to provide optimal care. It’s really making sure that we distribute the resources so that everybody can do [optimally] at their job.”

4. Work with employees to develop innovative career plans that allow for learning and development

Professional growth is one of the most important facets that job seekers look for in a company. Whether that means a clearly communicated promotion track or company-sponsored tuition assistance, a culture of learning is key.

For Zoom Video Communication CEO Eric S. Yuan, this growth is at the core of his company’s retention strategy. “I think about how to make sure that the employees look at the big picture of their career path. One thing we really focus on, I told our employees, ‘If you learn a lot of things, this is a part of your value. No matter where you go, even someday you’ve left Zoom, you have already increased value by yourself. You will bring that value with you. And that’s why you have to enjoy the process. Enjoy working here and keep growing yourself as the company grows.’ The best scenario would be for employees to grow themselves as the company grows, that’s what I tell them, because if the company does not grow, it’s hard for employees to grow. If we stop growing as a company, the employees will quit. Both need to grow in parallel.”

[Related: 5 Ways to Encourage Professional Development]

5. Implement a process for identifying and challenging high performers

In addition to having an inclusive culture where unique talents, insights and perspectives are embraced, KPMG CEO Lynne Doughtie retains top talent by empowering her leaders to “invest in extraordinary people”.

Doughty says, “we make sure our teams are constantly identifying high performers and high potentials. Top talent wants to know we are helping them grow and develop throughout their careers. We make sure our business leaders create stretch assignments and new roles, provide mentors and sponsors, and constantly recommend opportunities to expand their careers.”

6. Reinforce your mission through employer branding and rally team members around that mission

“We find that most people who come to work at Kaiser Permanente are motivated by our mission to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve,” says Bernard J. Tyson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest healthcare providers in the US.

As evidenced by is 212,000 employee, Tyson contends that upholding the organisation’s beliefs keeps employees engaged. “This is a place where people truly feel part of something bigger than themselves.”

Learn More
Customisable Employee Engagement Kit

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