When you’re recruiting within a competitive industry, it’s important that the package you’re offering stands out from the crowd. But when you’re trying to do this within a limited budget, it can be hard to simply throw money at a higher salary or bigger pension package.
Even if you are in a position to offer bigger money, the effect on existing staff needs to be considered, with other employees at a similar level needing to be kept in line with new starter salaries to avoid a mass walk-out or jeopardising morale.
So what can you do to both encourage the brightest talent to your company and not alienate the rest of the workforce?
Internal Culture
Rather than risking staff morale by throwing money at talented individuals, consider how you can invest in improving the culture within the workplace. By making it a nicer place to work for everyone, you will be inviting new recruits to join an already happy and motivated workforce and you’ll avoid giving all of the perks to one individual and alienating the rest of the team. But how do you do this?
The Segment of One
The new workplace culture is all about enabling people to work around their own personal circumstances while still benefiting the company. The old factory mindset of 9-5 is dying out and if you’re still clinging on to this model without having a business-critical need, this could jeopardise your ability to attract the best talent to your workplace, even with a nice juicy salary. But how does the “segment of one” work in reality?
Well further than just allowing working from home or introducing flexible hours, companies can introduce a culture that personalises the relationship between employer and employee and considers their individual needs and requirements rather than simply implementing a strict set of rules for everyone in the company to abide by. Not only does this show a level of trust in the employee, it also demonstrates that the company has the needs of its employees at its heart.
An example of this that was recently discussed is the ability to work on international assignments. With an ever increasing marketplace, companies are rarely just involved within one country, and embracing this by offering employees the opportunity to travel and be actively involved in global projects can be viewed as a perk, even when it’s simply helping the company to do business.
Where this is introduced considerately, with sufficient support in place to help employees and their families integrate and settle, research has shown that 70% of companies consider that doing this has increased staff loyalty to the employer.
But what if you’re not in a position to offer international projects? There are a number of ways in which companies can introduce some alternative job perks that can help to attract and keep top talent. These include:
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Professional development. Give people the opportunity to gain the skills to progress in their career and most importantly, ensure that they opportunities exist within the company to use these skills without going to a competitor
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Sponsor volunteer programs. This is increasing in popularity among companies where employees want to volunteer but don’t have the time
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Gym discounts. If you can’t sponsor a free gym pass for everyone then see if you can introduce discount schemes. Not only will it act as an attractive perk but it could also improve wellbeing among your teams
As well as improving life for the employee, alternative job perks can increase the loyalty of your workers and help to attract talent in a competitive recruitment marketplace. Rather than rocking the boat by offering big salaries, see how you can improve morale and hire the top talent by investing in your workplace culture.
Castle Hill House