While recruiters often focus on financial details like salary and bonuses, it's crucial for organisations to share insights into their company culture with prospective hires, whether on social media, their website, or job advertisements.
Businesses are increasingly driving positive change within their company culture, implementing employee-led initiatives such as women in tech programs or hosting talks on key topics like neurodiversity. Showcasing these activities to potential candidates can offer an honest, authentic lens into the company and what it's like to work there.
A prospective employee is likely to look for an honest and open company culture that extends beyond benefits often cited in job ads, like free gym membership and hybrid working. With job-hopping common amongst millennial and Gen-Z employees, young workers are likelier to choose a job based on how well they align with an organisation's goals, attitudes, ethical standpoint, policies, and practices.
A company's vision and values directly link to its employees and may impact behaviour and team dynamics. Still, a company's culture will not always match what a prospective employee seeks. Therefore, it's vital that both the business and the candidates reflect honestly about how they work and what is important to them. For example, some job-seekers may thrive in a target-driven, competitive working environment, while others may prefer collaborating as part of a team where they can pursue their ideas freely.
While including details about company culture is hugely important in attracting employees, an accurate reflection of this in the workplace is essential to get employees to stay. If the day-to-day realities of a workplace don't match up with the description given in the initial recruitment stages, young employees are more likely to leave very quickly in search of a role that better reflects their interests. So employers and recruiters need to be honest about the company culture rather than say what they think the candidate wants to hear.
Being upfront about company culture from the offset can help prospective employees make well-informed decisions about whether they will thrive in a working environment before accepting the role. Mis-selling a company's culture may contribute to early exits among Gen-Z employees; the article found that 55% of 21–28-year-olds have left a role within a year due to their new employer's company culture being different than anticipated.
Conversely, if new employees' expectations of a company culture match their experience, this can help improve retention and boost the company's reputation as a good employer. After employees leave a business, they may be more likely to speak favorably about their time if they feel they were not initially misled about the company's culture.
With company culture so high on the agenda of young workers, businesses need to adapt their recruitment process to include the vital information candidates are looking for early on.
Ultimately, just a simple change can help the recruiting business and prospective employees find their perfect fit.
Published on May 9, 2023 - Read the full article on DiversityQ
