Whether it’s down to fear of missing out, the anxious times in which we’re living, or simply our increasing and accelerating capacity to access such stories, then we have an unquenchable desire to stay up to date with news. And the stories that carry such news. Regardless whether that news relates to financial updates, the endless permutations of the European Championship draw, Covid metrics or the labour market.
The news cycle turns constantly. News becomes old, at pace.
We become acutely aware of news that appears out of date. Alexa, for example, regularly regales me with stories that broke several days ago. We notice this. It grates. It feels out of step. If they’re behind the curve on this, what else are they getting wrong? What else are they slow out of the blocks with?
There’s a similar desire and necessity to keep abreast of the labour market. It has changed at bewildering speeds over the last 15 months. Prior to the pandemic, unemployment was low and even if GDP was merely plodding along, then job creation was, at worst, reasonable.
And then March 2020 happened. Unemployment and/or furloughing went through the roof. Recruitment largely ceased to happen – with the honourable exceptions of sectors such as healthcare and food retail – as people and organisations tried to get their collective heads around an economy, and, therefore, labour market, on Government-funded life support.
Fast forward, quite literally, to today, and nothing is more constant than more change.
This week, Axios reported a 52% increase in job postings for HR-related roles from February 2020.
The CBI is forecasting GDP growth of 8.2% this year and 6.1% for 2022.
At the beginning of the month, REC/KPMG reported the fastest vacancy growth in the UK since 1998. This corresponds with the sharpest drop in workers for four years, as an estimated 750,000 EU workers have made their way back to the continent, according to the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence.
But if that represents one perspective on the labour market, there remain other lenses through which to peer. There are still 4m employees on furlough. As the amount the Government provides employers reduces at the end of July and then concludes at the end of September, how will this impact candidate audiences and skill shortages?
LinkedIn, too, have two pieces of apparently contradictory research out at the same time, adding to the general opaqueness and candidate uncertainty. Their #TheBigShift touches on the apparent resume flood we have touched on before, as employees see a strengthening jobs market as the opportunity to leave either roles or organisations they have outgrown. At the same time, LinkedIn reports that 77% of recruiters are suggesting that candidates are less committed to changing jobs, citing issues such as the wariness and caution of leaving secure employment and a secure income, given the upheaval of the last year.
So, even if employees feel this might be the time to consider changing jobs, they lack the confidence and reassurance to make that move.
“We’ve noticed a strange development in the market place, whereby we have seen an increase in demand for good candidates, particularly in the HR space, but also employers insisting on sector-specific knowledge. If people skills are in demand this isn’t going to be helpful going forward and I would argue that people skills are totally transferable across sectors and different sectors bring different insights,” Julie Griggs, HR Director, Buckinghamshire New University.
What should the response, then, be from employers? Market sentiment is shifting at pace – what seemed like an appropriate response to such a market just months ago, feels dated, anachronistic and backward looking.
Would-be candidates want some indication of stability, responsiveness and sure-footedness.
They want to know that news, particularly employment and career news, is up to date and relates to today’s market.
If the labour market outlook and context are changing, what does it say to candidates if an organisation’s employer branding and messaging – through its people stories – remains the same?
To gain some form of understanding of how major organisations were responding to such change, I’m in the middle of some research into the careers sites of the FTSE100, with a particular focus on how they are referencing Covid and just how topical their employee stories and films are.
Or aren’t.
What better way to construct a picture of how their employer supported them during Covid and how they themselves are contributing to building back better, than through topical employee stories? The sorts of stories which provide reassurance, association and security not only to internal audiences but also external candidate audiences.
The sorts of stories that, today, can be filmed quickly and cost effectively. That can be easily aligned to an EVP or cohesive brand message platform.
The sorts of stories that very few organisations within the FTSE100 are apparently delivering.
“As soon as the nation found itself in lockdown, we created a COVID pop-up banner which appeared when candidate accessed our careers site, to draw attention and ensure users were funnelled to a specific landing page, rather than having to dig for it themselves. The content reflected the tone of voice from our employee comms and included updates on our application process and help guides, such as virtual interview tips. But at its core was showing how Nationwide was supporting its colleagues, how our colleagues were supporting each another and, importantly, the communities they serve. This page was updated regularly to reflect our updated position and its peak was the 8th most viewed page on the site”, Tom Portingale, Senior Employer Brand Manager, Nationwide.
And this is very much in line with one of the most interesting take-outs from the research I put together, along with WDAD Communications, recently. One of the final questions we asked of the 100 or so talent acquisition professionals who completed our survey touched on what would be of most benefit to them achieving their Employer Branding objectives over the next year.
The most pressing response, perhaps not entirely surprisingly, related to the size of the size of the budget allocated to this space. However, for 34% of our group, a greater agility in creating interesting people stories was a close runner up.
“Definitely resonates – one aspect is top of mind at the moment, is finding ways to curate and publish relevant and recent employer brand content more easily. This is focused on areas we think candidates will be even more interested in now – supportive culture, well-being, inclusion, flexible working, etc. CCEP have great stories to tell here, but editorial processes need to be slicker, and so to help with this we are setting up a cross-functional group to get this working efficiently. We are creating a story hub on the careers site also, but the idea will be to re-purpose stories and share over relevant social media channels. We are also looking at tools to support user-generated content to get short video stories in a simpler and more cost-effective way, to use externally but also to engage colleagues across the new Europacific organisation”, Jackie Hallums, Employer Brand and Talent Acquisition Centre of Expertise, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.
As a sector, we have to be better and more agile at constructing a cohesive and adaptable narrative capable of telling an employer’s story. And not simply doing this every 3-4 years and leaving assets, positions and stories set in place. We have only to observe how much has changed over the last 15 months and at what pace. Not only employment figures, GDP metrics and furlough stats. But sentiment, confidence levels and assurance.
“Things are dynamic, always have been, but even more heightened is the sense of change and a need for agility, so organisations need to be more adaptable in changing their narrative than they previously might have been”, Julie Griggs.
We’ve made sure our stories on social reflect what our people are experiencing (and not everyone is doing lunchtime yoga), but it’s not just in Covid times that your content should be constantly refreshed, it’s all the time – and I do think from here on in people stories are going to become even more important and a real indication of company culture. If a company isn’t showing an up-to-date picture of its people and how they are experiencing life, you have to ask yourself why”, Alison Heron, Employer Brand & Employee Experience Lead, GSK Consumer Healthcare.
Such sentiment and confidence will be significantly influenced by whether an organisation is responding to change or largely ignoring it until another 3-4 year cycle comes around.
Am I, as a candidate, reading stories that speak to the current climate and outlook? Do they answer the questions and doubts that I might have? Do they come from people whose issues reflect my own? Are they answering the questions that might be preventing me from considering this potential new employer?
Or are they vague, generic and imply that Covid and its aftermath never happened?
“I totally agree with your point about keeping the EB fresh and relevant, so it should absolutely be changing in line with how an org is responding to Covid. A couple of things we’ve done in the last 15 months – firstly to add content to the website about how we’re looking after candidates, as well as our own people, and give them an insight into changes to the process, onboarding etc”, Alison Heron.
There’s a fascinating piece of research out this month from McKinsey, which suggests that those organisations that were in the top 10% for annual growth invested 2.6x more in terms of ‘intangible assets’ – digitalisation, employee training, innovation and brand building.
And there are few more tangible means of delivering an intangible asset, such as your employer brand, than enabling your people to construct an agile, responsive and changing picture of life within your organisation.
What sort of narrative are your own people stories telling? In which direction are they pointing? And what do they say about your organisation’s responsiveness, agility and people focus?
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 