In this McKinsey article, they start by making the statement. 

"Nearly half of the employees who voluntarily left the workforce during the pandemic aren’t coming back on their own. Employers must go and get them. Here’s how to start."

McKinsey make a great point, that in the past when you recruited people there was a clear playbook.

I remember in my corporate role that you would

  • Recruit from a pool of named competitors or
  • Recruit from a pool of people that worked for you in the past
  • Recruit from people that demonstrated a certain skill set, digital for example

But now you are recruiting from a completing different place, you might be recruiting talent that walked away from work during the pandemic.

You might be recruiting people who want to be in the office, you make be trying to recruit people that will only work from home.  You maybe trying to recruit people who want to work hybrid or people who want to work at a third place.  You might be competing with companies offering a 4 day week.  In this past you tended to recruit from a 30 mile radius from the office, now you can recruit from anyway in the world. 

McKinsey also say 

"To get in the game, companies must offer adequate compensation and benefits packages."

But is this really the case?

If you are Facebook (now Meta), Google, when they have a job, there is a line around the block.

You go for an interview there, you don't argue about the number of days vacation as you want to work there.  Pay is important, yes, but if they offered you 5K less than you wanted, you might take the salary sacrifice. 

Why are they successful at recruiting people?

Because they have externalised their culture.  You know what it's like to work there and you want to.

So why don't you externalise your culture?

Why don't you empower your employees to talk authentically on social about what it's like to work at your company?  And I don't mean sharing brochures and brochureware.

  • Get your employees to talk about how passionate they are about the company's sustainability program. 
  • Get your employees to talk about the great atmosphere, the team work, the empowerment you are given.
  • Get your employees to talk about your diversity, your inclusion, your support for LGBTQ+ rights.
  • Get your employees to talk about the keywords you want to be found for on Google.

Soon, you will find that your future employees will see this content and will think "I want to work there".

We find clients of ours that have stopped using recruitment consultants and job ads, because they no longer need to go through with all this expense.  They own the digital narrative in their sector or vertical and they are able to both retain and recruit people this this ownership of the digital conversation. 

I totally agree with McKinsey that

"But to win, they must recognize how the rules of the game have changed."

But most solutions that are being peddled for this, don't solve the problem.

A 4 day week does not solve the problem of working in the office or hybrid work, you will still find it hard to get people and retain them.  While a 4 day week may give you some competitive advantage for how long? 

The sticky workplace

McKinsey do talk about the "sticky workplace", where they talk about "fostering psychological safety and a sense of community" and you can do this by empowering your team(s) with social media.