Anna Anderson from Art Unlimited joins Gogan on this edition of our webinar series and throws down so much good info in this hour-long webinar about managing the skilled labor crisis. Right now, for every one skilled laborer coming into the field, we have four skilled laborers aging out! We’ll cover a few of her tips and tricks for marketing your company to attract quality, skilled employees to help grow your company, but you’ll probably want to watch the whole thing here.
What is Art Unlimited:
AU is a team of marketing professionals in a digital and traditional advertising agency in Minnesota, who strive to maintain a balance within the constantly changing trends within the skilled labor industries. Their goal is to ensure that their clients’ businesses succeed through a balanced online strategy.
What is CompanyCam:
Founded in 2014, CompanyCam is a photo-based solution created for contractors, by contractors. Users can take unlimited photos — which are location and time stamped, sent to the cloud, and stored securely. Every photo is organized by project and instantly available to your team, allowing you to see what’s going on anytime, anywhere. With CompanyCam you can work smarter, avoid costly mistakes and get paid faster.
Anna has broken down how to attract new employees into the 4 P’s: Purpose, Personality, Perception, and Promotion.
Purpose
Giving your employees purpose, a reason to come to work beyond a paycheck will go a long way in attracting quality people. Happy and satisfied employees help long term retention, will refer new employees to your company, and help create your culture. What are some ways to create a purpose for your employees? Poll your team to find out their passions & interest outside of work. Next, use those results to create group activities around the interests of your team. Even better, use those interests to create a community within your workplace, like sports leagues, or happy hour clubs. Finally, select or create skill development programs for your employees to participate in. Empower your employees to gain new certifications, continue to grow their skills and abilities and celebrate their milestones along the way.
Personality
Your personality can be easily understood by looking at your clearly defined core values. If you live your values and your people have bought into those they’ll become raving fans and recruiters for your company. By living and breathing your core values you are putting your company’s personality into action. Giving back is one of those popular core values — how does your company help satisfy your employees need to feel like their work impacts the community?
Help your employees know they work for a “good” company and not a greedy company. Take initiative and empower your team to give back to the community. It’s about doing the right thing and having the value of doing the right thing — not using it as a marketing ploy. Although sponsorship and giving back to the community is important, Anna gave the disclaimer that “sponsorship effort is a long-term branding strategy, and can take 3 – 18 months for effects to be seen.” So be sure to sponsor groups and causes you and your team really care about. And now take action! Anna suggested the following to embrace your company’s personality:
- Define your Core Values & Promote Them
- Select an award you want to receive
- Add awards & certifications to websites
- Career content on the website must be bilingual
- Plan fun employee team building activities
Perception
Perception is the way of “regarding, understanding, or interpreting something” — that is how people view your company. Reviews are a great indicator of your perception. Frequently online reviews establish first impressions. In fact, 83% of people read reviews to make buying decisions. Monitoring your online reputation is another good step — claim your businesses on Google, Yelp, Bing, Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Indeed company profile. Other ideas include: evaluating your website appearance and social media culture — can someone visualize what it is like to work for you? Focus on your reputation because it becomes the expectation of future behavior based on past experiences.
Anna provided perception-action items. Firstly, add awards and certificates to the website. This will increase engagement and add layers to the website. Secondly, monitor your employee reviews online. And thirdly, be consistent with sharing your amazing company culture through social media.
Promotion
Promotion is an activity that supports or provides active encouragement for the furtherance of the cause. But before you can promote anything, you need to ask yourself these questions: Can your team define your company well? And do you know who you are seeking? Understanding your employees’ values answers these questions. For example, if your company consists of Baby Boomers, they value loyalty and authority more significantly than other generations. Whereas Generation X values commitment and self-preservation, Millennials value authenticity and giving feedback, and Generation Z values diversity and connection.
Bilingual targeting plays a role in this promotion category. Anna recommends adding language switching codes to your website and writing English and Spanish job descriptions. With that in mind, how do you write an engaging job description? Well include a title, bullet points and have a 1‑page experience. And think about it from an SEO perspective — use Key Terms in the job description. You can also list your job postings on websites such as LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Hire, Indeed, Glassdoor, Monster, and Craigslist.
Facebook/LinkedIn job ads need to institute the expectations, encourage people to learn more, and outline your company’s values. When making your ad, use your own images when possible and brand it. Show your culture! An employee referral program has also proven to be effective in promotions. 31% of job seekers find their jobs through referrals by their employed friends or relatives.
Now, for the action items. Anna gave three ideas:
- Verify yelp, google my business, and Facebook listings
- Write job listings for the generation you want to hire
- Choose 1 – 2 ways to become involved in your local community
To learn more about the 4 Ps: Purpose, Personality, Perception, and Promotion, watch the full webinar here! Special thanks to Anna Anderson and Art Unlimited for collaborating with us on this webinar.
We host webinars with our partners and other industry experts twice a month, so keep an eye out for announcements on how to register over on our Facebook page.
