Companies Must Adapt Their Strategies to Find Qualified Talent Amidst the Evolving Labor Market
After a period of turmoil, the labor market has stabilized.
In 2022, the rate of job quitting in the United States reached heights not seen in over 20 years. Now, though, according to SHRM, the labor market is enjoying “a sense of stability and normalization, following pandemic-era volatility.” The U.S. Bureau of Statistics’ April 2024 Jobs Report revealed that April’s labor force participation rate remained relatively unchanged at 62.7%.
The shift from that “Great Resignation” to what some are referring to as the “Big Stay” underscores the need for companies to adapt their strategies for finding and retaining skilled talent to the changing reality of the labor market.
Strategies to Align Recruitment and Retention
To create a competitive advantage in this new marketplace, employers must turn their focus to retaining high performers. Meanwhile, since many talented candidates will be reluctant to make a change in this new environment, human resources and talent acquisition teams will have to work harder and more strategically.
Fortunately, the strategies that will enable employers to retain their best people will also make them more attractive to the strongest candidates.
Here are some important steps companies should take to retain top-performing workers while also attracting talent with highly desired skill sets.
Leverage Recruitment Data and Analytics
Savvy use of data will help decision-makers optimize their retention and recruitment strategies. Using data in applicant and workplace evaluations can help eliminate bias and reliance on intuition, leading to better matches, smarter hiring decisions and happier employees.
Moreover, analyzing recruitment metrics such as “time to hire,” “quality of hire” and “sourcing channel effectiveness” helps to support more efficient decision-making. Having this data available positions hiring decision-makers for success, while enhancing the timeliness, cost-effectiveness and quality of their hiring process.
Enhance and Regularly Revisit Employee Value Propositions
Having a well-thought-out employee value proposition (EVP) is a foundational aspect of strong employee recruitment and retention programs. According to research by Gartner, organizations that successfully deliver on their employee value proposition can improve new hire commitment by nearly 30% and decrease annual employee turnover by 69%.
A robust EVP is a workforce’s gravitational center — it holds everything together. It demonstrates the culture of an organization, inspires a sense of pride among current employees and attracts prospective candidates.
Decision-makers should continually evaluate their EVP, making sure it accurately reflects their organizational mindset, culture and values. Doing so will allow the EVP to always present itself as the option for quality full-time candidates and consultant positions.
As part of this, leadership should regularly assess company policies to see if they still make sense for the organization. Are there opportunities to adjust policies to align to current market demands and what candidates are looking for? Gathering feedback from current employees on the EVP gives an organization valuable intel that can lead to strengthening current policies.
Also, regularly revisit the language used to convey the organization’s brand voice — does it connect to current and prospective workers? Affirm its authenticity: Make sure they can see it, feel it and believe it.
Build a Positive Company Culture and Work Environment
Creating a positive and consistent company culture can boost employee morale and worker satisfaction, while differentiating the organization from market competition.
Surveys show employees who feel a connection to company culture are:
- 3.7 times as likely to be engaged in work
- 5.2 times as likely to recommend the organization
- 68% less likely to feel burned out
- 55% less likely to look for other job opportunities
Yet, according to Kincentric, 49% of employees feel that their organization isn’t delivering on the experience they promised.
Decision-makers have an opportunity to revisit the experience, environment and culture they foster and elevate it to the level desired by top employees and job candidates. A positive company culture and experience can also provide added motivation for outside consultants to continue to partner with an organization as future projects and positions arise.
Maintain Competitive Compensation and Benefits
While the “Great Resignation” made clear that compensation and benefits aren’t everything, they still matter to current and prospective employees. In fact, in a 2023 survey, 78% of job seekers said salary was the most important factor in their decision, although 88% of job seekers in a different survey said they weigh health, dental and vision benefits when considering job offers.
Clearly, in order to keep and attract top talent, it’s important for organizations to track which way the winds are blowing.
According to iMercer, employers are being more conservative with spending in 2024. Budgets for merit increases were expected to be 3.5%, while “total increase budgets” were projected to be 3.9%. In 2023, those projections were 3.8% and 4.1%, respectively. Further, Payscale’s Annual Salary Budget Survey revealed that in 2024, only 79% of organizations plan to award pay raises — the fewest in years and a dip from the 86% that gave pay hikes to employees in 2023.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund projects inflation for the U.S. to be around 2.8%. Ideally, a company’s annual compensation boost will exceed that figure. This helps employees stay a step ahead and feel valued. Doing so also makes the company more attractive to top workers in companies that are failing to keep up with inflation.
Companies must stay on top of evolving employee benefit trends to remain competitive. It’s critical for decision-makers to address market changes that may impact compensation and benefits trends to gain a competitive recruiting advantage. In addition, decision-makers must also consider compensation rates when looking to bring in consultants for short- or long-term projects. Conducting a pay analysis for desired skill sets and geographical regions ensures that what’s being offered is competitive and in line with what consultants are looking for. These can be conducted in-house or with the help of a staffing partner.
Aston Carter Can Offer a Valuable Perspective
Because of the shifting tides of the labor market over the past four years, it's important for hiring decision-makers to adapt their recruitment strategies to retain skilled talent and to attract top candidates. Staffing and recruitment specialists like Aston Carter can support in many ways.
They provide organizations with flexible talent solutions aligned to their workforce needs — an especially valuable service in a period of economic uncertainty or as strategic initiatives ramp up and down.
Staffing and recruitment experts can also offer insight into key metrics and evolving marketplace (and hiring) trends; key data that can help strengthen and improve the effectiveness of recruitment and retention efforts.
In addition, by building deep relationships with skilled talent across multiple networks, staffing specialists can quickly match candidates to an organization’s needs, project or location. This allows organizations to fill open positions faster with higher-quality candidates especially suited to their workplace culture.
Finally, partners like Aston Carter can also help organizations evaluate and evolve their EVP by offering insight into current job-seeker motivations, wants and needs as they weigh positions and evaluate their options.
If you’d like to discuss adapting your company’s strategies for finding and retaining skilled professional talent in today’s changing labor market, contact us.
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