Your employees are among the most valuable assets to your organization. They don’t just perform the day-to-day tasks of your brand, either. Their unique perspectives and range of talents can boost innovation and give you a competitive edge.
As such, it is vital to identify ways you can attract the highest quality candidates to your organization. This can be especially challenging during the Great Resignation, in which workers are more selective about who they seek employment with. Nevertheless, you can certainly make some headway by utilizing PR tools and methods.
Let’s take a closer look at utilizing PR as part of an effective hiring campaign.
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Address issues first
Before you’re able to effectively utilize PR as part of an hiring campaign, you need to address issues within your business. After all, any great PR campaign should be built on authenticity. Unless you can genuinely show that your business is a place where employees should want to work, your efforts are likely to fall down quickly.
Reach out to your staff and gain their insights in this area. They may have some specific concerns that remain sticking points in their engagement with the business. For instance, if remote employees are reluctant to return to work following the pandemic, engage in a constructive dialogue with them about the reasons for this. There might be some remaining health and safety issues that you can immediately address. Alternatively, you may be able to find some compromise that enables workers to retain a certain amount of flexibility in their schedules. You can then utilize these improvements as perks of employment with your business during your PR campaigns.
In general, a solid approach here is to utilize employee engagement surveys to identify consistent areas of concern or aspects of your culture workers appreciate. Make a start in implementing meaningful improvements. This not only allows you to highlight your brand as a great employer in your PR campaigns. It also helps address previous negative reputation elements that may be in place.
Build trust
One of the clear priorities of any PR campaign should be to build trust with your target demographic. This is no different when utilizing PR methods to establish an effective hiring campaign. After all, candidates are not just applying for a job, they’re committing to spending a significant portion of their time, talents, and energy on your business. They need to be able to trust that you prioritize their interests as well as your own.
This is where employee-generated content can be a valuable part of your campaign. Utilize your social media channels to host materials created by your workers about their experiences with your business. Give them some freedom here, don’t be too controlling over the messaging or approach. Videos, images, and blog posts must have your company branding but it should still be clear these are made by employees. This helps to send trust signals to potential hires.
Another valuable approach to building candidate trust using PR methods is by focusing on your company values. One recent survey found that 56 percent of workers won’t consider collaborating with a company whose values don’t align with their own. Create blog posts on your website and videos about how your company’s operations are driven by your ethics. Be specific here. Potential candidates need to be clear on what your ethics are and how these are reflected in day-to-day actions.
Showcase impact
Using PR for effective hiring isn’t just about advertising what your company has to offer. You need to go further. You may find that you attract higher-quality candidates if your campaign also focuses on the impact the features and benefits have on workers and the wider community. This tends to make employment with you seem much less transactional and more meaningful.
One area this can be particularly effective is in the impact of your range of health benefits. Many people are experiencing a lot of health anxiety at the moment, regarding both their physical and mental well-being. Having ready access to treatment resources and information can help to manage this. You can utilize blog posts, podcasts, and videos to present how your brand’s employee wellness program is improving workers’ continued quality of life.
Another area for focus can be the impact your business has in local communities. Produce frequent PR materials to show examples of charitable initiatives you’ve been actively involved in and partnerships you continue to develop. Importantly, showcase those that have been spearheaded by your employees and how you encourage their interactions with community programs on company time. This shows not only that you seek to positively impact the world, but also that you are likely to support the community interests of potential candidates.
Conclusion
By using PR methods, your brand can effectively connect with quality candidates for employment. You need to start by addressing existing issues within your working culture and promoting improvements you’ve made. Creating content that sends trust signals can demonstrate authenticity that workers find appealing. Importantly, don’t just showcase the perks of employment with your business but also the impact these make. By mindfully using a PR mindset, you can overcome the hiring and retention issues many businesses are facing.
