What makes a company attractive to candidates

As a company, you want to foster a fun and professional environment where staff feel comfortable and happy and are able to maximise their productivity. When it comes to bringing on new employees, there are many things that a candidate considers before taking on a job offer and based on our research here is an insight into the top priorities.

Fair compensation and benefits

It might seem obvious but a competitive salary is key to attracting top tier candidates. What can also help to reel in a higher caliber of employees is a generous benefit package. Companies can offer a range of benefits and perks to their employees including traditional packages like private healthcare, dental and life insurance. Extra perks can be things like free or discounted meals, subsidised gym membership and travel as well as recognition and perk platforms such as Staff Treats. These types of benefits are a cost effective investment in the wellbeing of your employees encouraging onboarding as well as longevity and retention of existing employees.

Progression and training

Active management of your employees career progression is essential to making your company look attractive to work for. Particularly amongst younger employees and candidates, support in their careers and training and the ability to progress within your company is a massive priority. The path for progression should be clear to your employees and discussed at regular intervals in review meetings. Employees should be aware of opportunities coming up within the company through internal advertising and coaching them through development and training in order to achieve their career goals.

Work life balance and mental health

Do you live to work or work to live? We think you can do both! But only with a healthy work-life balance. Improving on an employees work-life balance starts with their employer. It is essential that as a company, your managers set your employees up for success; encouraging staff to work their contracted hours, offering paid time off and more flexible work arrangements. There is also a plea from employees for more support in terms of their mental health at work. As a company it makes sense to take care of your employees wellbeing, physical and mental, at the very least to save the costs of sick leave and employee burnout.

Flexibility

Workplace flexibility is a big part of work-life balance, which increases employee satisfaction and reduces staff turnover. After the last year of working from home, employee expectations have changed massively, now it has been shown that some industries and companies can function effectively with employees working more flexible hours and working from home exclusively or in a hybrid model. It is now an increasing expectation of employees that companies offer more flexibility in their working model.

Environmentally friendly and social issues

Companies are under more pressure now from their employees to get involved in social issues and sustainability. Particularly as the Millennial and Gen Z workforce grows, these are increasing priorities amongst your employees. Surveys have shown that the majority of millennials wouldn’t work at a company that wasn’t socially responsible and 75% said they would take a pay cut to work for a company who aligned with their values. Increasingly companies will be finding they have to keep up with these changing expectations in order to retain and attract employees of these generations and all of the valuable skills they bring to the table.

In a recent study, 40% of consumers were found to be purpose-driven basing their purchasing decisions on  companies that align with their values including social issues and sustainability. So not only does being socially responsible increase your appeal to employees but also customers.

In 2021, employee expectations of companies are as extensive as those of companies for their workforce. In order to attract top tier candidates, it is well worth considering the above issues and how you can focus on taking care of your employees which will in turn pay off in terms of productivity and  staff retention.