Your 5 step plan to becoming an employer of choice

Simply put, an employer of choice is an organisation that candidates think about and apply to without having to have the role extensively marketed to them. I want to work in finance, so I’ll go and work for Lloyds or KPMG. I want to work for a car manufacturer, so I’m off to BMW or Audi.

Well, it’s not quite that easy.

A real employer of choice is someone with a reputation so good, that even if they aren’t well known in the big wide world, the candidates who know the industry or market they work in will fire over an application because they’ve heard good things. That’s what an organisation of any size should aspire to – not just a big name that everyone knows about, and relies on recognition for those applications.

So how do you become an employer of choice? Luckily, we’ve narrowed it down a bit and created a five step process. But we won’t lie and say it’s an easy five step process – but hey, at least you’ve got the foundation to go off and become an ‘employer of choice’. Let’s dive in!

1. Sort out your internal processes

What’s the one thing that infuriates everyone in every department of every business or organisation ever? Nope, not an empty coffee jar or toilet roll holder – it’s red tape, hoops and general miserable bureaucracy.

Turns out that Gen Xs, Ys, Zs, Alphas, Millennials and all the other people who don’t like to be clubbed together under a buzzword system all hate the same thing,

According to the folks at Harvard Business Review, around a third of our time at work is spent on menial tasks, and it’s seriously upsetting us to the point of leaving. Just go to Glassdoor and start reading reviews about the top 50 employers in the country, and it’s quite terrifying how many people left their jobs because they couldn’t get anything done.

Just by ironing out pointless admin and really looking at process and compliance, you’ll create a foundation stone for something beautiful and desirable. Imagine doing the same job you do now without lots of painful meetings designed to agree action points? You could action that now!

2. Create a workplace that stimulates and relaxes

For some strange reason, it’s easy to forget we’re all frightened little animals at the end of the day. Whether it’s a terrifyingly loud sales floor, an overbearing boss sitting watching over everyone’s screens, or a desk the size of a fruit crate right next to a gigantic air conditioning unit, our work seems to suffer if we aren’t able to do it the way we want to.

You may have already sorted out the comfy chairs and colourful artwork on the walls, but are you really thinking about individual needs? Can Cliff from accounts get those 30 silent hours he needs each week when he’s sat next to the ping pong table? And can Barry the graphic designer really pull out all the stops if he can’t go for six walks around the building every afternoon?

Instead of guessing, just ask what each individual needs to make life more fun and interesting at work. If you show some flexibility, then you’ll get workers who feel trusted and cared for – and guess what, maybe they’ll write that on Glassdoor one day.

3. Make your benefits work both ways

“I know, let’s give our employees discounted cinema tickets to try and make us stand out from our competitors!” once said a manager who was struggling with staff engagement in probably the 1990s. Benefits as we have them now should really be called ‘bribes’ or ‘distractions’. They’re nice to haves, but often relied on as some sort of footnote to try and remind employees that life ain't all that bad, and that they should be grateful.

Stop wasting your time with coverall benefits that people use once in a blue moon. Instead, look at benefits that will help your teams to develop outside the office.

Think subscriptions to apps like Headspace, fully-paid gym memberships or private healthcare that isn’t limited to injury or illness. Back up those sit-stand desks in the office with exciting ergonomic setups at home. Free eye tests? Pay for their prescriptions and that extra pair for emergencies too. And for the love of God, get rid of those pointless 1% discounts for things that nobody wants, but beef up the benefits list. They’ll still cost you and don’t do anything for anyone’s development.

Don’t forget to focus on your cultural benefits too. It doesn’t have to be about products or services – when was the last time the whole team had lunch together (paid for by the company)? And is it ok for people not to feel guilty if they want to finish a little earlier if they’ve finished their work? These benefits are infinitely more powerful than a cheap cinema ticket.

4. Open up your feedback highways

Open and honest feedback. Have you ever felt pressured to suddenly have a difficult conversation about something you would have just ignored and worked around before?

This is a common theme as managers ask their teams to stop lurching under the autocratic strains of the senior leadership team, and instead rise up and say ‘no, I can’t code an entire payment journey in two days’. But this is where some extra thought is needed to make these difficult conversations smoother.

Don’t become an autocrat in pursuit of honest feedback. Instead, lead by example.

If there’s a difficult conversation coming up, try warning the person first, and tell them the topic, that they aren’t in trouble or under fire, and that you’ll discuss it further in half an hour. This will allow time for the nausea to pass, and for them to build their case or provide evidence that their wrongdoing is justified or not accurate, giving you a clearer answer free from spur-of-the-moment passion or panic.

Once they’ve had time to ruminate and come up with their answer, make it really clear that the next steps are about moving forward. Get rid of the ugly told-off-by-teacher strategy that managers have used for years, and talk about cause, solution and learnings.

Then, once the person has had that experience and solved the problem or learned from a mistake in a positive way, ask them to do the same thing to you. Funnily enough, by giving people a technique to deliver bad news and create a solution that dispels anxiety and negativity, you’ll find that feedback becomes more natural and regular.

5. Inspire from the top down - but build culture from the ground up

We covered the importance of building culture from the bottom up in our recent knowledge bites, but this is hands down the most important and most effective step in becoming an employer of choice. After you’ve asked your people to define your culture (in the form of an EVP), don’t just write it down and leave it on a shelf somewhere for new joiners to browse and forget about. Embed it at every level, with leaders doing the hardest work.

If you can inspire others to follow the culture that they defined, you create a very strong loop where beliefs, needs and wants are being reinforced by managers. Everyone is suddenly on the same side!

Who wouldn’t want to work somewhere where leaders are challenging you to work the way you want to, instead of the way they want you to work. If that doesn’t make you an employer of choice, we’re not sure what else does.

You may have noticed that we didn’t talk about salary at any point during this article. And guess what – that’s on purpose.

Salary is important, but it doesn’t make you an employer of choice. That’s a very powerful takeaway, especially at a time when it feels like everyone is just outbidding each other in the war for talent.

By focusing on process and culture rather than cold hard cash, you can create something that feels less contractual. If people feel like they’re actually cared for, they actually have a voice and the way they want to work is supported and reinforced, then money becomes much less important all of a sudden. And that is the true meaning of being an ‘employer of choice’. I’ll choose to earn less, because working here matters so much to me.