Attracting the best people and engaging with them throughout the employee lifecycle

Speaking at a seminar in London this week to retail executives from the likes of Sainsbury's, Marks & Spencer, Halfords, Superdrug and Thornton's, ORC International highlighted that during the last two to three years 'employee engagement' has become the hot topic for retail HR departments.

Retailers have moved away from measuring employee satisfaction and instead started to measure the relationship between employees and employers with the objective of better engaging with employees in order to drive companies forward. This engagement process starts with attracting the best and most suitable employees.

Attracting the best...

A critical part of attracting employees to an organisation is employer branding, which should not simply be about communications, according to Sally Winston, principal consultant at ORC, but should involve building the branding from within a company and then projecting it outwards.

She cites Sainsbury's as having taken the building of its 'A great place to work' employer branding very seriously. An employee brand manager was appointed which not only showed that the company was putting people on its agenda but it also raised the profile of the research that Sainsbury's intended to undertake on its employees to improve engagement.The starting point for retailers building their employer branding is to ask whether: they actually have a brand; does it match the reality; and does the external market see the brand in the same way as they would like it to be seen?

ORC worked with Carphone Warehouse on developing its employer branding as it had undergone a rapid period of expansion when employee numbers had risen dramatically and senior management wanted it to "retain the feeling of a family company".

Winston adds: "They had used lots of recruitment consultants so the brand message had possibly been lost. They were also finding it difficult to sell Carphone Warehouse as the 'employer of choice' as it was a complicated business with a large proportion of IT people working within it."

After research, including 'deep' interviews with management and other employees, the company came up with a brand essence with specific key attributes. From these findings it was decided how best to communicate the branding to employees and to the outside world, which also prompted the creation of the 'Employee Handbook'. "The research created a clear sense of where the company was going and it is now being used effectively within the company," says Winston.

The results of employee branding research can be used to: review whether the brand values being promoted are the right ones; better understand what it is that attracts potential recruits; inform the development of recruitment materials; and measure the company's strength compared to that of the competition.

New Joiners...

The next step involves engaging with new joiners as any failure in the process can be very costly and time-consuming. Fiona South, research manager at ORC, says that in 2007 the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) estimated that it costs from £900, to recruit a manual worker, to as much as £10,000, for a senior manager or director. And the time involved can be 5.9 weeks for the manual worker and as long as 16.3 weeks for managerial employees.

"If engagement fails then there is a danger that the recruit leaves and resources have been wasted and the process has to be started again," she says. But despite this cost a disappointing one in eight employees leaves their new jobs within the first six months of starting.

The reasons for leaving include the reality not matching expectations possibly as a result of the job being over-sold or incorrect information being given to the employee during the recruitment process. The induction process can also be at fault with 35 per cent of joiners saying their manager did not ensure they were inducted. More worrying was the finding by ORC that only 54 per cent felt their induction had provided them with sufficient knowledge and information to do the job.

To avoid this situation South says companies have to seek to identify the issues before they take hold and employees become disengaged. Paper or online surveys are recommended where there are lots of joiners and where there are regular joiners.

Where there are less new joiners and where there is a need to investigate issues in more detail then qualitative research should be undertaken and this can take the form of interviews or focus groups.

South suggests retailers have the option of running this research when employees first join or after they have been within the business for a period - typically three months. For lesser numbers of people South recommends running reports after the findings of a number of surveys have been combined.

To gain more value from these reports she says they could be compared with the results from other competing organisations, compared with previous surveys, and compared with other departments and different demographics of employee.

After the honeymoon...

Once employees have moved beyond their induction period and passed the honeymoon phase Kate Pritchard, divisional manager at ORC, says it is essential that retailers maintain the engagement of their employees through ongoing research.

However, continuously researching is not the answer unless the findings are fed into the business to address the issues that have been raised. And companies have to overcome scepticism among employees about surveys as Pritchard says only around 40 per cent of employees believe that any action will be taken following a survey.

To help achieve this, Pritchard says: "Surveys have to be embedded in an organisation so change can then be made. They could be held at certain times of the year so the results can lead into the business plan."

It is also beneficial to ensure individual managers take ownership of the results of the survey and that the findings are kept clear and concise so that the managers are able to easily see the key issues and the next steps.

This should help keep employees informed, which is essential: "The most important thing is to let staff see that action is being taken. Involve them and communicate what is being done. A visible plan is needed for all to see. Lots of companies produce posters."

Pritchard highlights Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's as major retailers that clearly understand the benefits of implementing an 'action planning timeline' when they run surveys, which helps them communicate the whole process to all their employees.

Listening to leavers...

When people choose to leave a business it is important that retailers find out exactly why they have taken such a decision as this can then be used to address any issues that may be leading to employee disengagement within the organisation.

Although Seema Shah, research manager at ORC, says employee turnover is unavoidable, if a disproportionate number of people leave before the average service period of five years, then it can become a problem.

Not only does it have a negative impact on morale, put pressure on the workloads of other employees, and reduce knowledge and expertise in the company, but there are also financial implications. ORC calculates that it costs between £2,000 and £12,000 to recruit and train a new employee in addition to the recruitment fees of £500 to £8,000.

To maximise the benefits from surveying leavers Shah says retailers must move away from conducting traditional 'exit' interviews internally to instead employing different techniques externally. This is more likely to lead to anonymity and illicit more honesty. "Employees can mislead interviewers as they are reluctant to criticise management and employers," she says.

A sensible move is to use online, qualitative and telephone interviews to undertake the surveys and to possibly conduct them one to three months after the person has left the organisation as they will then have had time to reflect on events.

From the findings of the surveys Shah says it would then be possible to categorise the reasons why people leave into: the issues that have pushed them away from the business such as a lack of support; the issues that have pulled them away from the job such as pay; and personal reasons. From these findings retailers would then be able to better develop and implement retention strategies