Candidate Loyalty: Top Tips for Real Results

September 18, 2020

Categorised in: Employee Engagement, News, Recruitment

Attracting and retaining the best talent in such a highly competitive industry like recruitment is one of the biggest challenges. Candidate acquisition can be one of your biggest investments, but often much of that talent is never engaged with or placed on assignments, and sits in the deep dark hole of your ever expanding candidate database, unless you have sophisticated software and intelligent automation to actively target and map these ‘dormant’ candidates with roles and regular engagement. And let's not forget, securing loyalty from temp workers you have placed can be hard to achieve too, in a transient working world with so much choice, access to information and powerful online communities for job seekers. Of course, your recruitment consultants and Resourcers are your core assets to achieve this – but relationships alone aren't always enough.

Get on board or get left behind

There’s a growing number of forward-thinking agencies taking active steps to engage and look after their talent in a bid to secure a stronger brand and reputation and ultimately cementing loyalty from their candidates. Not to mention those becoming part of strong movements to improve the welfare and working conditions of key contingent labour, such as those Governed by the GLAA. When you also factor in the expectations of procurement and supplier selection from the large employers/frameworks and PSL opportunities – who expect to see their temp workers to be looked after and engaged.

Here’s our 7 top tips to better retention

1: Mobile first

We live in a mobile world – your candidates are highly likely to have a phone in their hand for a large percentage of their working day (and at their leisure), it's our first resource for connection now – fact so if you’re not on board with that – you need to be. Look at how you can make the most of this technology to keep your candidates connected, informed, supported and motivated.

2: Transparency and access to vital information

‘I’ve lost my payslip – can you send me a copy’, ‘I can’t find my last P45’, ‘ Who’s my pension with - I can’t remember’, …....sound familiar – how many hours wasted fielding enquiries like this could your team use to build your business. Digital encryption allows for very secure and efficient delivery of payslips and pensions information in real time to your candidates – so they never have to lose a payslip again – you can put all their pay in one place and they can access it wherever and whenever they need it.

3: Show you care

Acts of kindness and compassion are priceless – you can cement loyalty and respect significantly by demonstrating you care about your candidates, and giving them tools, support and advise to help them in times of crisis or during periods of extreme challenge.

Mental Health support has never been more critical as it is now to the whole working population – life is challenging, and healthy and happy minds create strong productive and motivated people. Appreciating that everyone is facing their own personal challenges like finding themselves as a primary carer for sick relatives for example and addressing these challenges with support can really reduce absence and boost their performance.

4: Support better health – to get better performance

Your candidates are your workforce – they are your lifeblood, and you need them to be at their peak, so don’t overlook the contribution you can make to improve their health and wellbeing. Providing support that will actively reduce time off to see health professionals and absence due to sickness is going to have a very positive impact on your bottom line -and they will value that vital support! Mobile based GP services, health advise, gym discounts, nutrition ideas are all key to this.

5: Add value to pay

There’s never been a more important time to help your candidate's money go further, many households are under extreme financial pressure right now. Offering easy to use money savings discounts on everyday spending, and mechanisms to save rewards to offset against large purchases is a great tool to help that hourly rate go much further. Put that in a mobile platform and keep reminding your candidates of latest offers and you’re already boosting your engagement with them and adding more value to their pay packet.

6: Recognise success and achievement

Simple regular and visible recognition for a job well done, or recognition of key milestones and achievements can cement a relationship like nothing else – having a simple platform to make this easy and accessible can kick start loyalty, and ensure your candidates are talking to their friends and family about your business.

7: Don’t leave them in the dark – keep the conversation going

Staying in contact with your candidates can help to keep your agency at the forefront of their job hunt. Being able to provide candidates with simple real time communications and access to inductions, standard documents, news and updates creates a community of engaged people – who feel part of something.

HIVE360 is working across the recruitment sector offering a robust, fully compliant and future proof alternative to the traditional umbrella company solution for temp payroll management.  But it’s a solution that is so much more than payroll. Our game changing mobile engagement app delivers vital pay and pension communication, 24/7 GP & mental health support, vital support for working carers and an array of attractive lifestyle benefits in the palm of your candidate's hand.

At HIVE360 we offer a truly unique partnership where we work with you to manage the employment administration and ‘engagement experience’ of your workforce.  It’s an attractive commercial solution that delivers significant cost savings, process efficiencies and ultimately bottom line increases, but more importantly is really shaping our clients’ competitive positioning and helping to drive business growth through attracting and retaining the best talent and securing high value contracts.