You’re already working hard to attract, recruit, and hire new employees—but your job isn’t over once you’ve locked in your ideal job candidates. After hiring and onboarding, your new hires expect you to give them all the resources they need to succeed with your company. So, what’s the next step?
If you’re like most companies, you’ve probably promised your new hires an amazing company culture, rewards for great performance, and support from leadership. Now, it’s time to deliver on the promises that made them choose your company over the competition.
Unfortunately, for countless organizations, this lack of delivery promotes trust issues between leadership and employees, which can have detrimental impacts on company culture. The good news? With the right strategy, human resources can help employees unlock their true potential and maximize their productivity—and it all starts with building trust by investing resources in employees.
Ready to put the resources back into human resources? Here are a few things you can do to promote productivity, improve your company culture, and invest in your hard-working workers.
1. Listen to Your Employees
It doesn’t matter what you think inspires your employees—you’re never going to know what truly motivates them if you don’t actively listen. Think about it: How can your employees trust you to act in their best interest if you don’t make an effort to listen to their feedback? Gallup data shows that the vast majority (87 percent) of today’s workers feel disengaged in the workplace. At the same time, over one-third of employees believe their employers don’t listen to their ideas. Your recruitment and retention strategies hinge on employee engagement, so how can you show your employees that you’re really listening to them?
If you’re not doing it already, start by prioritizing regular pulse surveys. This way, you’ll be able to identify potential areas of improvement and growth. Regular surveys also show your employees that you care about their feedback, and they can serve as helpful tools to enhance the employee experience. When your employees feel respected, heard, and valued, their trust in leadership grows.
So, what’s the catch? It’s not enough to just send surveys and hope for the best. Once you’ve reviewed the results, you need to act on their feedback—and that means reflecting on the good and the bad. Where can you improve? What are you already doing right? The way you respond to your employees will have a direct impact on their willingness to share their thoughts later on. And if you’re not taking a proactive approach, you’ll have a hard time building lasting trust and retaining your highest-performing workers.
As a recruitment leader, you always need to make sure you’re taking care of your workers—but it’s also important to collaborate with leadership to find the best solutions to common employee challenges. To give employees the resources they need to succeed, make an effort to actively listen and take action. Even if you’re making gradual improvements, like adding extra amenities to the break room, your efforts won’t go unnoticed.
2. Create Employee-Focused Programs
Now that you know what your employees need from you, it’s time to rethink your workplace policies. For example, if your survey results show that 90 percent of employees want more flexible scheduling policies, there’s a good chance that changing your policies will help you retain long-term employees and drive more qualified candidates.
When you know what your employees need to flourish in their job roles, you can start creating programs that support their needs and create an empathetic environment. If you’re not sure where to start, consider your current diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy. Where can your workers go to feel supported and heard? Do LGBTQ+ employees have resources to connect with each other?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives might seem like a second thought, but they can make all the difference to your current employees and future job candidates. According to research by McKinsey, nine out of 10 executives have experienced challenges executing their DEI strategies. Although companies acted fast to support employees during the COVID-19 crisis, employees—especially diverse employees and working parents—still struggle with many of the challenges posed by the pandemic.
That’s where employee resources groups can transform your culture. Simply put, employee resources groups provide a safe space where employees with shared interests, challenges, and identities can work together and share common experiences. From women’s networks to LGBTQ+ support groups and military veterans groups, HR has a wide range of opportunities to build supportive, employee-focused programs.
Resource groups help employees come together and express themselves—and they can have a beneficial impact on your employer branding strategy. Plus, when you embrace diversity by cultivating an inclusive work environment, you’ll open the doors to new ideas and innovation by empowering employees to be their authentic selves. Sounds like a win-win, right?
3. Keep an Open Line of Communication
Communication matters. It’s essential at every point of the employee experience to build a better company culture, improve your employer brand, and keep employees engaged. And while corporate communications are a must-have, the most effective communication strategy starts with leaders who are willing to engage with their employees.
Whenever possible, encourage management to be transparent, provide honest employee feedback, and take the time to connect with the team. Leaders should focus on giving employees everything they need to perform to their full potential—just like you’d fill a car with gas so it has what it needs. It’s also critical that your workers know that they can approach leadership with any concerns and that their thoughts will be taken seriously.
Managers can meet employee needs daily starting with basic exchanges, whether that’s asking questions, checking in, or offering advice. Ultimately, authentic connections with employees are vital to identify potential challenges, along with future leaders and high-performing workers who contribute more quietly but play important roles in your organization. If managers don’t know their employees on a personal level, they’ll have a hard time leveraging their team to its full potential.
While it’s important to build trust with employees, leaders also need to sustain that trust. So, what’s the next step? HR and communications teams should work together to provide accessible internal channels for employee communications. From internal group chats to informal meetings, brainstorm ways your company can offer informal forums that create more personal conversations between managers and employees. In turn, you’ll encourage a two-way dialogue where employees feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and opinions.
4. Empower Your Employees
Ultimately, putting the resources back into human resources is all about building trust with your employees. When your workers can bring their authentic selves to work, they’ll perform better and feel more dedicated to your company.
Of course, building trust isn’t going to happen overnight. You’re going to need a comprehensive strategy with flexibility, frequent communication, and evaluations of your progress. But at the end of the day, our clients agree that it’s well worth the effort to cultivate a positive company culture and invest in employees.
When you’re ready to take the next step toward effective recruitment, we’re here to help. Download our self-audit checklist and set up a discovery call with our team to empower your workers with the resources they need to succeed.
