Sophie White – Haymarket Mediatoolkit

March 25, 2020

Talent pooling and recruitment strategies for right now.

bySophie White onEmployer Branding, Recruitment

Do current circumstances mean a freeze on your recruitment? Or have things slowed as the business tries to navigate uncharted waters? Whatever your situation, if recruitment isn’t front of mind right now, there are plenty of things you can be doing to ensure success when your business is ready to hire again.

Managing your brand reputation

Building your brand reputation is crucial at any time but especially now, when everyone will be looking at how you are navigating the current crisis. You have the opportunity to influence and inform your audience. We can help you create content – from videos to whitepapers or emails. You can use these tools to effectively communicate with candidates and your own talent pools.

Nurturing candidates

During this time it’s important not to forget about those who are still actively looking for work. As an employer, look at how you can reassure and update them to keep your business front of mind when vacancies do become available. Keeping your external comms regular and consistent will help you to boost engagement.

Developing content and tools for jobseekers

Creating content with hints and tips for those looking for work and giving them the tools to expand their skills is a great way to help them feel connected to and engaged with your brand. What existing tools or services could you provide to support job seekers through this time? We can help you create content to showcase your brand and keep candidates engaged.

Utilise our CV database

A key feature of our job sites are the CV databases. You are able to search for and download CVs based on the skills and experience you’re looking for, which will enable you to build a selection of high quality candidates that are relevant for future roles.

Having a pool of good quality candidates for when recruitment gets the green light will ensure you are ready to start contacting potential recruits from day one.

Build your recruiter profile

All of our recruiters have a profile on the job sites. This means that candidates can find you from the Employer A-Z section of the website. Your profile can be edited to include key information about who you are as an organisation such as your company overview, culture and values. This sits alongside your job listings and contact information. Here’s an example https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/jobs/employer/151/haymarket-media-group/

Candidates can choose to follow your organisation, which means they’ll get a job alert emailed to them when you upload a vacancy. By building your recruiter profile and including information about the company and what it’s like to work for your organisation, you can encourage more candidates to sign up to hear about your future vacancies.

For more tips and tricks or for support with your recruitment, get in touch with us wonderfulworkplaces@haymarket.com or 020 8267 4476

March 25, 2020

Internal comms in a crisis

bySophie White onInternal comms

How do you keep employees informed, reassured and engaged with the steps your business is taking?

During these difficult times you may be struggling with how to keep employees up to date working out how frequently to communicate or how to deliver important messages. Here at Wonderful Workplaces we can support you with your internal comms to staff to make sure employees fully understand the business’ priorities.

There are several ways to communicate messaging to employees but here are some we know work best:

Internal website– live updates and news, business information, interactive elements, web chat/online support
Emails– templated or bespoke for specific audiences
Videos– Live Q&A giving people a chance to ask questions or a series of small videos with updates from the business/tips and tricks/L&D opportunities
Articles and stories– Q&A articles or blogs from other employees so it feels more personal, less about the brand more about the people.
Direct messages (e.g. texts) – urgent, quick or short updates

We’ve created a CRISIS method to highlight key considerations for your internal comms:

C -ommunicate

Keep the flow of communication open, with regular updates, emails and calls.

R -eassure

Tell your employees you’re working hard to keep things as normal as possible at this unusual time and be open to responding to their questions.

I -nform

Keep all your comms short to the point and with the key information. Try not to use too much jargon so that everyone can understand your messages.

S -upport

Create groups or forums to respond to queries and questions, provide regular links online tools to ensure employees understand where they can go to get help

I -nvolve

Make sure all employees feel like they are a part of your action plan. Allow them to feedback and provide suggestions on how they’d like you to communicate with them.

S -hare

Internal comms are important but it’s also good to make sure they’re working hand in hand with your external comms. Showcase all the great things your employees are doing, recognise their hard work and make sure you’re taking the opportunity to showcase your employer brand.

If you need more support or advice on your internal comms don’t hesitate to get in touch with us wonderfulworkplaces@haymarket.com

March 24, 2020

5 things recruiters struggle with

bySophie White onRecruitment

We spoke to a range of people who work in recruitment, here are some of the top themes of the challenges they face.

1. A creative approach to recruitment

“We have to be more creative to target potential employees”

It can be really hard to stand out in such a crowded market so how do you attract the right talent? Doing things differently and thinking outside the box can be a challenge, but it can also get you seen and heard by new talent pools

Take a look at some work we did with HEINEKEN to showcase them as an employer and generate engagement with their brand. https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/go-places-heineken-cloudfactory-show-employer-branding-its-best/1410903

2. Getting your message heard

“We have great things to say but no one ever hears it”

You already have a great company mission, values and purpose but amplifying the message to the right people is difficult. We have a platform of engaged users who are ready to listen, which means we can generate the audience you need.

Take a look at our family of brands and who we can connect you with. https://www.haymarket.com/brands/

3. Attracting the right people

“Attracting the RIGHT people is a challenge”

Endless rounds of interviews to find that no one quite fits the bill is always demotivating. Creating your own talent pool or referral schemes can help you reach the right audience at the right time.

We have a great track record for driving applications to roles, in 2019 we delivered 9,452 applications

4. Filling niche roles

“Recruiting for specialist niche roles is such a challenge for us”

Hard to fill roles can be challenging, but it’s about selling the story behind the job. Painting a picture of what the role entails and hearing about it directly from someone already doing it can all be helpful techniques to pique interest.

Take a look at our article for Care UK about becoming a prison GP (definitely a niche, hard to fill role) https://www.gponline.com/working-female-prison-gp-dr-helen-bramwell/article/1670900

5. Getting the rest of the team on board

“As HR professionals, the onus is on us too much… it should be on the hiring manager and senior stakeholders too.”

How can you engage the rest of the business in recruitment and make sure they understand their role in the process too? Creating toolkits and advice for hiring managers can be a good place to start. Hosting workshops and roundtables to get employees engaged in the process and how you can attract the right people is key in helping them to understand the process and challenges of HR.

We can provide businesses with the skills they need to talk to their teams internally and get everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. Getting buy in from your senior management team is sometimes tricky but it’s essential for driving real change.

Can you relate to any of these challenges? Get in touch with us to find out how we can help.

March 10, 2020

7 factors that influence people’s opinions of an employer

bySophie White onEmployer Branding

How do you get them to like you? Well, according to our survey, these are the top 7 things that influence a candidate’s opinion of you as an employer. 7. The corporate culture Before anyone takes a leap into a new role they want to know what it’s actually like to work there. How does […]

February 24, 2020

The office dog- your new four legged colleague?

bySophie White onAnimal encounters, Employer Branding

An HSE report states that over 12 million days are lost in the UK each year due to work related stress, anxiety or depression. There have been numerous studies over the years looking at the benefits of animal interaction from therapy dogs for recovering patients to stress prevention through petting a feline friend. Nestle (who own the pet brand Purina) started their Pets at Work (PaW) scheme in 2015 and have now rolled it out to 5 of their sites due to its success. Aside from reducing stress there are many more benefits for your employees in being able to bring their dogs to work.

Making new friends, and I don’t just mean four-legged ones. People are more likely to stop and chat with your dog even if they don’t know you, meaning employees meet and get to know people from other departments.
Having your dog at work means less chance of rushing out the door worrying about your pet on their own at home. This gives staff the flexibility to choose their hours without the worry of pet care.
Physical health can be improved because your dog needs to go out for a walk at lunchtime and therefore so must you.
Dog cuddles.

It isn’t quite as easy as just opening the door to every fluffy friend though, there are a number of things to consider first.

Does your building or office allow animals? In some cases, office leases may not allow animals so make sure you investigate before starting doggy daycare.
How do your staff feel about having animals in the office? It is important that inviting animals into the workplace has a positive impact so make sure you are aware of any allergies of phobias.
Are your applicants suitable? In the same way that you interview people to join the company, dogs should be able to pass a series of tests to assess their suitability for your office. If a dog is going to spend long hours (or flexible ones, because our canine employees deserve the same benefits), they need to be able to behave to a standard that won’t reduce the productivity of your office. Basic commands, toilet training and sociability as well as making sure they have the appropriate vaccinations are a must.
Is your office suitable for pets? There needs to be somewhere for pets to sleep and eat whilst their owners are working as well as having somewhere to take them out for walks and toilet trips.

If your office is not suitable for dogs, there are other office animals you could consider, here are some alternative workplace pets.

Cat – May ruin all the furniture and take unauthorised absences. Does not take direction well.
Fish – Poor detail retention but nice to look at.
Tortoise – Slow, but will never leave.
Guinea Pig – Great for running new ideas past.
Zebra – Impractical.