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Employee Benefits: Your Greatest Recruiting Tool

This week, I attended the Health and Benefits Conference in Vegas where I participated in the Ideas and Innovators session. The event addresses topics such as wellness, benefits, and retirement, and I focused my discussion on how companies can turn their benefits programs into their greatest recruiting tool.

Talent acquisition has changed as the competition for talent increases. And while companies are increasing their investment in ways to attract and engage talent, they aren’t always asking the most basic question:

“What makes a candidate want to join our organization?”

The reality is candidates want what employees want. They don’t want free food, a game room, or weekly lunches with their managers. Beyond salary, most candidates want flexibility in their work options, opportunities for growth, and to be treated fairly. They want the basics.

In research we conducted last year, companies identified benefits as a top reason that candidates decide to join their organization. So, how can companies start to use their benefits programs as a way to attract talent? Below are a few suggestions:

–          Include benefits information on company career sites: Companies should include information about benefits programs on the career sites they use to attract candidates. This information needs to be visible to candidates when they are doing their research on a potential employer.

–          Empower employees to be champions of benefits programs: If your benefit programs are good, employees are going to want to talk about them with friends and former colleagues. They will help to drive employee referrals. If your benefits programs are not good, it might be time to start empowering employees with better solutions. These efforts will boost recruiting and retention strategies.

–          Create more options: Benefits programs should not be a one size fits all approach. Employees have different needs and different expectations from employers. When creating messaging around benefits programs, it will be helpful to show different options available to support employees including wellbeing programs, maternity leave, financial wellness, and retirement plans.

Sometimes the best way to attract talent, is to focus on the basics and solve for what candidates want. By improving benefits programs, companies are addressing both the needs of employees and the needs of candidates.

 

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Talent Acquisition Technology: Innovation from Ireland

Last summer, I was invited by Enterprise Ireland to attend an event in Dublin and learn about some of the leading technology companies in talent acquisition and talent management. Enterprise Ireland is the Government agency in Ireland responsible for supporting Irish businesses in the manufacturing and internationally traded service sectors. Eight hundred Irish owned companies operate across all 50 US states and Enterprise Ireland supports many of these providers. Not surprising, talent and HR is a growing area of investment. Enterprise Ireland helps these businesses to start-up, innovate and ultimately, to achieve global success. It gives them the support and guidance that many stat-ups in the United States lack.

The companies that I met in Ireland were professional and had a clear understanding of their differentiators, goals and target customers.

In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, I want to highlight a few of the leading talent acquisition technology companies headquartered in Ireland.

Sonru: With over 500 customers all over the world, Sonru (which means “stand out”) is a global video interviewing provider that supports companies such as Pepsico and Volvo.

Clinch: In the competitive recruitment marketing industry, Clinch differentiates itself with strong customer support and an innovative product. Over the past year, Clinch has added internal mobility capabilities, SMS and communication, and focused on helping companies stay GDPR compliant.

HireUp: HireUp is a referral app that was designed for employees. It allows employees to share jobs through any channel they want and provides communication and notifications about the status of a candidate to the individual that provided the referral.

Jobbio: with over 6,000 SMB customers, Jobbio is an employer branding company that focuses on helping companies with recruitment marketing, job distribution and the candidate experience.

These companies represent just a handful of innovative providers coming out of Ireland. Other areas of growth include learning, communication, and engagement. The support these providers get from Enterprise Ireland helps them make better decisions around their roadmaps, partnerships, and global expansion.

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Your Employees are Financially Stressed. So, What are You Going to Do About It?

a person using a tablet to show data and charts while other employees take notes

According to research by the American Psychological Association, 72% of Americans are financially stressed. It goes without saying that financial stress takes a serious toll on an individual’s health, happiness, and overall well-being. But it also has a ripple effect on our workforce. When employees are stressed, productivity, performance, and engagement all plummet. So, what are we doing to help employees manage stress? Not much. New research from Aptitude reveals that 70% of companies have no formal process to manage employee stress. Given the impact of stress on our personal and professional lives, can’t we do better? Can’t we provide employees with the right resources and support to manage their personal finances and pay off debt?

Fortunately, some organizations are committed to doing more. Companies are being more strategic when they think about financial stress and investing in solutions that impact the bottom line. In our latest research, we found that 1 in 4 companies have financial wellness solutions. While it is exciting that companies are embracing financial wellness, many of these solutions do little to help employees manage the stress. Instead, they simply provide information and data without an action plan to help employees as they move forward. Financial wellness is an area that is still emerging and organizations must make better decisions around the providers they consider.

One of the financial wellness providers I have been most impressed with this year is Best Money Moves. Their solution helps organizations tackle the real issues impacting our workforce in a way that maintains employee privacy and empowerment. It is a mobile-first employee benefit solution that helps employees understand and take control of their finances. It also offers “money coaches” to help employees make better decisions about their finances moving forward.

Most companies understand that financial stress has become a crisis and that this is the time to address it. Yet, finding the right solutions can be tricky. Here are a few recommendations to think about as you begin tackling financial stress in your organization:

  • Measure It: Find solutions that do more than just make assumptions or generalize financial stress. Instead, consider solutions that truly measure individual stress levels and provide an action plan to help employees take control of their finances.
  • Keep It Simple: Finances are scary. The worst thing an employer can do is invest in solutions that overcomplicate financial wellness and make it intimidating. Companies should look for solutions that keep it simple and easy for employees to understand what they need to do.
  • Establish Trust: Privacy is a critical consideration in financial wellness. Employees need a solution that they can trust will maintain their privacy and provide the right advice.

We are excited to be providing more research on financial wellness this year and would love to hear what solutions you are using and what challenges you are facing.

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New Year, New Priorities, and New Data

We are ready for a new year. We have been busy planning ahead and we are setting new goals and priorities. It is an exciting time to be in HCM and we are looking forward to the next twelve months.

Here are a few of the things you can expect to see from Aptitude in 2018:

  • New Data: Mollie launched her Impact Survey and she is in the process of analyzing the key findings that include payroll, compensation, and total rewards data. Later this month we are launching our Talent Acquisition and Engagement Survey and will look at investment, integration, and analytics. We will be sharing our findings in early February.
  • New Website: We are all about simplicity this year, and our new website will reflect this commitment. We want to make it as easy as possible for our community to find our research, connect with analysts, and discover our latest thoughts and insights. We will be launching a new website in early Q2.
  • New Content: We are becoming more consistent with the content we publish – not only reports, but also blogs (every Tuesday and Wednesday) and Aptitude Fast Facts; data points we will share on our website and twitter every Monday.
  • New Conversations: Connecting with HR and Talent Acquisition leaders and practitioners is a big part of what we do. We plan to make this an even bigger commitment in 2018 through research advisory councils and new relationships and conversations.
  • New Index Reports: We are updating our Payroll, ATS, and Recruitment Marketing Index Reports. Also, we are tackling RPO and recognition this year. We will share more information on our Index Reports in the next few weeks.

We are excited for everything “new” this year and would love any feedback on our surveys, content, website…anything. Let us know what research you are hoping to see this year!

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New Research: Talent Acquisition Systems 2017

talent acquisition systems 2017 mockup

It has been over a year since we published our first ATS Index report and what a year it has been. Over the past year, providers have enhanced interview management capabilities, dabbled with Artificial Intelligence (AI), provided more options for employee referrals, and improved analytics and dashboards. It has been a busy time.

The biggest shift in the past year is the realization that the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) as a stand-alone product is not enough. In order to be efficient and provide a positive candidate experience, organizations need capabilities that engage talent both before they apply for a job and after they accept an offer. The providers we included in this year report offer much more than an ATS and several offer end-to-end talent acquisition solutions. The list of this year’s providers includes: ADP, Cornerstone OnDemand, gr8 People, Greenhouse, IBM, iCIMS, Jobvite, Lever, Newton Software,  Oracle, PeopleFluent, SAP, SmartRecruiters, Symphony Talent, and Workday.

We have made some significant improvements to this year’s report including

  • Integration: As more providers are offering ecosystems and marketplaces, we included more information on how providers are integrating with third-party providers and what their platforms offer for integration and support.
  • Security: Few providers in this report can truly support a global enterprise client. As companies look to expand globally, we believe that security is an important differentiator.
  • Advanced Capabilities: We evaluated providers based on some of the advanced capabilities we are seeing in the market, including events management, internal mobility, employee referrals, and CRM capabilities.
  • SWOT Analysis: We replaced the customer journey section of the report with a SWOT analysis to show where providers have strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
  • Investment: Many of the providers in this report have received a considerable amount of investment. We called this out in the beginning of each profile, as financial viability is a key differentiator.
  • More Analyst Insight: We included more insight into what impressed us about each provider and what companies should consider when evaluating these solutions.
  • New Providers: This year gr8 People and Symphony Talent were both included in this report.

We are excited for all of the change in the market and we would love to hear any feedback on the report.

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Blog Talent Acquisition Strategies

A New Year, A New Survey, A New Conversation

A street sign with directions pointing different ways labeled what, where, who, when , why and how

If you follow the HCM space, you may have noticed that everyone seems to say and write about the same stuff. We all talk about analytics being important, the rise of a more flexible workforce and the need for solutions that focus on the individual. We talk about mobile, social, and video and how they are being used. We talk about the evolution of talent acquisition and HR departments and examine trends. And while all of these topics are important, we believe it’s time for a new conversation. One that focuses on what works, what doesn‘t and what needs to change in the future. A conversation with new ideas and new actions all powered by data and insight.

We want to start that conversation today and we want you to be a part of it. We are so excited to launch our Hire, Engage and Retain survey that will look at what drives success when finding and keeping talent. We want to hear about the processes and technology you are using and what will change in 2016. By taking this 20 minute survey, we want you to have an opportunity to share your story and help us start this conversation.

Below are a few ways this survey is different and few things to expect from our research.

Why Is This Survey Different?

  1. Focus on Communication: Communication is a critical part of HCM that often goes ignored. We have included questions to help determine how companies are communicating with talent and what they plan to do in 2016.
  2. Start-Stop-Continue: As we enter the new year, most companies have big plans for how they are hiring and engaging talent. We want to know what processes and technology you plan to start, what you plan to stop and what you will continue to do.
  3. Differentiators: The relationship you have with your technology is an important one. We want to look at what differentiates providers beyond product capabilities and how providers are partnering with companies to help drive business results.
  4. A Consistent Approach to Talent: Many parallels can be drawn between how companies communicate and interact with candidates and how they communicate and interact with employees. Yet, they are not always consistent. We are looking at where companies can improve the ways they both hire, engage and retain top talent.

What Can You Expect from our Research?

  1. Customer Satisfaction: We will be exploring customer satisfaction across all areas of the customer journey from needs assessment and readiness to selection to implementation and beyond.
  2. Holistic Talent Acquisition: Talent acquisition is complex and important enough to deserve its own suite of technology solutions. We will look at how companies are building out a comprehensive talent acquisition model, investing in leading platforms and thinking about an ecosystem of solutions.
  3. Engagement Experience: We will be looking at how companies are thinking differently about engagement solutions and investing in recognition, wellness, communication platforms, and performance tools to better engage their workforce.
  4. Aptitude Index Reports: This research will help to power or aptitude index reports that profile the leading providers and examines their differentiators across the customer journey.

We hope you will join us in this new research adventure and share your experiences with us. We looking forward to hearing your story. Happy New Year!

 

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