Don’t let your company size diminish the strength of your employer brand
When job seekers look for work, they often apply to big companies that are well known. That’s not because big companies are arbitrarily better than smaller ones. It’s usually because bigger companies have a stronger brand presence. As a small or medium-sized business, strengthening your employer brand is key to attracting quality talent in a competitive labour market. This article shares four tips to get you started.
Respectful Managers
People don’t leave jobs – they leave managers. According to Gallup’s 2015 study, they found that 75% of job seekers listed poor managers as their reason for leaving their role. You don’t need to be a massive company to have great leaders. Those who can put their team first and treat others with respect and compassion will have the best shot at retaining employees.
A common problem with poor managers is micromanaging. Micromanaging is when managers closely control every part, however small, of an individual’s activity. It’s one thing to provide support and mentorship, but many managers spend more time fixated on what their employee is doing than on what they themselves can be doing to better support their employees. Trusting your employees to do the job you hired them to do while providing support that doesn’t come across as overbearing is key.
Growth Opportunities
Big companies often have standard timelines for when promotions are made and how long employees should spend in a role before moving up to a new role. As a smaller business, you have the flexibility to provide accelerated career progression that employees may not experience at larger companies due to their highly regulated nature. A promotion that might take three years to obtain at a large company could come in under a year at a smaller company. This can be very appealing to ambitious employees who enjoy learning, growing, and developing themselves. Providing employees with opportunities to rise to the occasion and take on new challenges and opportunities will be a driving force in your employer brand strategy
Ownership
Tasks are often delegated to junior employees in big companies.. They complete the tasks and then move onto the next tasks. This can make employees feel unvalued if their work is tedious and may not encourage them to take on additional responsibilities if they don’t have the opportunity to contribute to strategic decisions. As a smaller business, consider involving your employees in decision making processes. Encourage them to share ideas for projects and initiatives and allow them to take the lead on implementing the ideas where possible. Some examples may include creating TikToks to promote your business, updating your company website, or rearranging product displays to better align with customer shopping patterns.
Flexibility
With the great resignation and the tight labour market, workers are placing an increased importance on work-life balance and are looking for flexibility in their schedules. Larger companies with more employees typically have stricter, well-defined policies surrounding time off and working hours to ensure employees at the same level across the company are being treated equitably. As a smaller business, you can take advantage of your decision-making power to provide your employees with flexible working arrangements, including location, time, and frequency of their shifts.
Next time you’re looking to hire employees, make sure to emphasize respectful managers, growth opportunities, ownership and flexibility to help you stand out from bigger companies and increase the quality and quantity of your candidate pool.
