What makes an Australian organisation attractive?

With Australia’s unemployment rate at 5% and an eight year low, competition for top talent continues to be fierce. Business leaders must put their best foot forward to provide a great employee experience if they are to attract and retain quality employees.

The 2019 Randstad Employer Brand Research explores Australian workers’ perceptions of employer brands, providing a unique understanding of employee and job seeker drivers.

Results
The research revealed a stark gap between expectations and reality in what makes a sector or employer attractive. Whilst Australians want work-life balance (54%), attractive salary and benefits (52%) and job security (47%), companies are perceived to offer healthy finances, job security and use the latest technology. Closing the gap between expectation and reality is what makes an attractive employer.

Looking at sector performance, life sciences has emerged as the most attractive industry for the first time, ahead of early learning which remains in second place and closely followed by the technology sector, down from first place in 2018.

The research also reveals a surprising upwards trend in the popularity of the higher education sector, as five of the country’s universities ranked within the ultra-competitive top 20 most attractive employers nationally.

So, why does a positive employer brand make such a difference? Workers are continuing to battle with work-life balance issues, particularly Gen Z. It’s their top reason for leaving a job. We need to listen and do more to retain good employees by delivering the trifecta of work-life balance, long-term job security and a competitive salary. Get employee experience right and the result is improved productivity and ability to attract quality staff who will stay with your company.

Here are the three key areas that can make the greatest difference to your organisation.

Delivering work life balance
Ensuring that employees have good work-life balance is a key factor to deliver strong performances and higher job satisfaction. Encouraging trusted team members to switch off when they’re not actively working, improves employee well being resulting in long term improvements in performance. Yet for many, the definition of work-life balance is hard to nail down. Often, we try to bring balance by providing latest laptops or mobile phones in an effort to mobilise our people to work from home. But, work life balance is not about working at home versus working at the office, rather it is refocusing our approach to performance to look at work outputs. To deliver work-life balance, we must ensure our businesses are offering flexibility and choice in any policy that is implemented. Offering workers the opportunity to select the most relevant benefits will help them feel valued and appreciated. Let’s make sure we do not jump to actions and tools when we may not have done the necessary groundwork on the training, environment and structure needed to support our policies.

Cascading the experience from leaders
A third of Australians are seeking strong leadership. Having leaders who know and live their company values help people believe in a shared purpose. Leaders need to set the culture and ensure employees understand the ‘why’ behind their business story.

Communicating employee experience
The Randstad’s 2019 Employer Brand Research shows how employee experience can boost brand and talent appeal. Many companies attempt to share the experience that they offer via marketing channels. Whilst social media and digital tools can help amplify your employer brand, real conversion happens at the person to person level. More than 80% of Australians agree that a positive employee experience can increase trust in the organisation as well as the likelihood they would recommend their place of work to family or friends.

Organisations that empower their people to share their experience on a personal level will reap brand dividends. We can see this return of investment as more than three-quarters of the Australians taking part in our research believe that a positive employee experience increased brand perception.

Source: https://www.randstad.com.au