Surviving the great resignation talent drain
- Written by Cameron Kahler, growth director, ANZ at Workato
How to better engage, retain and grow your recruitment team with automation
Attracting, engaging and retaining the very best talent has always been a challenge for HR and business leaders, but the skills shortage and great resignation have exacerbated the challenge. Talent shortages have moved recruitment from functionally transactional to strategically important, with talent metrics now forming KPIs shared at SLT (senior leadership team) and board levels.
According to a recent report from NAB, over one in five Australians have changed jobs in the last year. A further one in four are still considering it, with many saying COVID has had a big impact on their decision.
The report found many of the key reasons Australians are leaving their jobs are ‘push’ factors, such as a lack of personal fulfillment, purpose or meaning, a lack of career growth, mental health and poor pay and benefits.
NAB’s findings aren’t in isolation. Another report What Workers Want: Winning the War for Talent from PwC discovered 38 per cent of workers plan to leave their jobs over the next 12 months.
More pertinent for employers, the survey also found 48 per cent of business leaders have no plans to redesign their employee value proposition (EVP). Clearly, there’s a disconnect between what businesses think staff want, and what staff actually want.
It’s why organisations are now focusing on employee experience (EX) in order to ensure they engage and retain talent, particularly given it’s never been harder or more expensive to recruit. People are often viewed as the primary differentiator between an organisation and its nearest competitor, and business leaders are fighting to ensure this asset is retained and productive.
Strong EX inherently leads to happier and more fulfilled employees who are less likely to jump ship, which is why it’s such a focus for HR departments and business leaders today.
So, how can organisations improve EX? Automation can play a leading role.
Where automation pays off
Automation can transform workplaces by making work more collaborative, productive and rewarding for staff. By removing dull and repetitive administrative tasks, teams can unlock hours and days each week in productivity to spend on more productive, stimulating and valuable endeavours. Eliminating menial manual tasks associated with fragmented technology platforms employees are required to use, especially in hybrid work environments, can also lead to a reduction in burnout.
And it’s not just in streamlining processes (which inherently addresses EX) that automation has an important role to play, but what happens when you need to recruit more talent?
Automation helps the recruitment process
Automation, sometimes cited as a threat to worker wellbeing, can actually be your team’s greatest ally. Take recruitment for example: With the current talent market so tight and competitive, the power dynamic has shifted and the candidate is very much in the driver’s seat. Sourcing is incredibly difficult, and by automating processes between your ATS (applicant tracking system), communications tool, calendars and jobs boards you can place job ads across multiple platforms, prompt team members to easily share and refer within their own networks at scale, screen and schedule candidates, all within seconds.
Candidates dictate the speed at which they want to operate and so any administrative delays in the recruitment process hurt. Again, automating the administrative steps regarding candidate notes, references, scheduling through stages and offer acceptance is critical in delivering a great candidate experience.
This also sets the relationship with your potential new employee off on the right foot. From their point of view, they have a personal, seamless and smooth experience, setting solid foundations for a prosperous career within an organisation.
Recruitment doesn’t stop there
The challenge many organisations create for themselves is they focus on acquiring new talent, but don’t streamline the onboarding process. This leads to frustration from the employee’s point of view, as the seamless recruitment process quickly becomes a memory.
Leading organisations leveraging automation do the administrative heavy lifting; digitally collecting and verifying all compliance documentation, integrating required data into payroll and other systems the employee requires, ordering equipment, notifying team members and calanderising meetings - all with the click of a button. This frees up hours of valuable time which can be spent focusing on the person, not the paperwork, engaging them on day one and ensuring they are happy and productive quickly.
Intelligent automation can be utilised across most business functions to support your team and make them more productive. Marketing, customer support, sales, finance and IT can all benefit from intelligent automation. By removing menial tasks from an employee’s day, they are given the opportunity to be more collaborative, productive, innovative and happier in their roles. This leads to every staff member delivering a higher impact, driving stronger sales, and enhanced EX.
