What Your Company Does Matters: Here’s Why.

Good pay isn’t enough to attract good employees. They want to know what your company does beyond the day-to-day business activities.

Is your company engaged in the local community? Does your company have a DEI initiative? What about your company’s environmental impact or strategy? 

These non-pay-related questions are increasingly common among job seekers and it’s not a short-term trend. How potential employees view and evaluate potential employers goes far beyond a simple paycheck. 

Today’s Job Market is More Competitive Than Ever

Standing out as an employer has become increasingly difficult. This is why it’s so important to be clear about your company’s values,  programs, benefits, and any aspect that goes beyond a paycheck. 

Job seekers want to work somewhere that aligns with their personal values and beliefs, provides them with a clear incentive to stay loyal, and somewhere they could stay for years to come.

What it Takes to Become a Competitive Employer

Create Diverse Teams

The best workplaces are comprised of diverse teams. This allows for more variety in perspective and skills, making better results for clients and opening more doors for development and expansion. 

Diverse teams give job employees the opportunity to learn more from their peers and establish strong relationships at work. Diversity and inclusion also help stimulate participation.

Offer More Than a Paycheck

Great, desirable workplaces have more than just competitive salaries. Your compensation should include long-term incentives, such as bonuses and profit sharing, comprehensive benefits, schedule flexibility, and more. 

These options that were once “nice-to-have” are quickly becoming “must-haves” for would-be employees. They’re looking for chances to earn more, whether that’s in the form of cash or something else. Some companies offer extra vacation days or paid-for activities outside of work, such as fitness classes. 

Your compensation doesn’t have to look the same as every other company, but it should provide enough value to potential employees to attract the talent you need.

Be Green

You don’t have to work in the environmental sector to be green. 

Your customers and potential employees care about your impact on the environment. 

Are you paperless? Do you donate to green causes? Will you participate in green initiatives?

Determine a green strategy that works for your company and stick to it. Even if it starts small, show potential employees that you do, in fact, care about the environment and will do what you can to protect the Earth. 

Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword; people care about your sustainable business practices. 

Serve Your Community

Great workplaces have a positive impact on the community they reside in. Giving back to your community is a great way to attract top talent.  This can include financial donations, but truly great companies donate time and resources, too. 

This could look like organizing corporate events to give back, such as city clean-ups, volunteering events at local non-profits, and working directly with community leaders to make a meaningful contribution to the community.

Many organizations start by asking their employees which causes they wish to support. Giving employees the chance to give back effortlessly will do wonders for morale. 

Offer Development Opportunities

The best workplaces invest in their people.

Offering training and development opportunities for your staff is a highly effective method to attract and retain top talent. Listen to what your employees are looking for.

Providing these development opportunities shows that you’re interested in their personal growth and care about keeping them around for the long haul.

Create Mentorship Opportunities

Performance management helps guide, support, and develop exceptional performance, but great workplaces take this a step further by offering mentorship opportunities for their employees.  

This gives workers clarity on what makes a “top performer” and helps employees achieve this. Setting up mentorship programs is a great way to get employees involved in the company’s development by investing in their own growth.

In today’s job market, you can stay ahead of the curve by offering these programs in person and remotely. Many companies are making the shift to a hybrid work set-up: meaning that employees can work from home and from the office. 

Remote Training

As aforementioned, remote working set-ups are integral to the modern employee.

Providing training, development, meetings, and other opportunities remotely can help retain employees for many years. Providing this flexibility is quickly becoming another “must-have” for job-seekers.

Invest in Employees’ Health and Wellness

75% of employees stay at their job because of the benefits. Job seekers need to know their employer cares about their well-being.

This is why it’s important to offer comprehensive benefit plans for your employees. This means offering options that give employees the ability to take care of their physical and mental health with ease.

Whether it’s fitness programs, health spending accounts, better returns for prescriptions, or something else, giving your employees the benefits they need to be their best will pay off in the long run. 

You Can’t Do it All at Once

Being a competitive employer has never been more challenging. There have also never been more options for creating a competitive workplace.

You can’t make all of these changes overnight, nor should you. Before you move forward with any changes, you should talk to your existing employees.

Ask them what they love about work and what they don’t. Ask them what they want more of and less of, and what you can do to make their job more appealing. Ask them what would make their work-life balance easier. 

We recommend giving employees the opportunity to provide feedback anonymously so that they can give you real answers. Your goal should be to make your company a “must-work” place. You can achieve this with time, patience, and long-term change.