As employees weigh their options, employers are seeing high turnover rates. In November 2021, the number of American employees who quit their jobs was at a record high, with 4.5 million people leaving their current positions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Prior to the pandemic, I believe the Great Resignation was destined to happen due to factors like an inattention to company culture. When the pandemic hit, there was no turning back: Increased inflation rates, stress levels and layoffs likely inspired employees to look elsewhere.

As the Great Resignation continues to severely impact the workplace, I’ve heard that companies are struggling to attract and retain employees amid a highly competitive job market. This situation ultimately demands that employers step up their recruitment marketing game to compete for the best talent in the industry.

In particular, a dramatic growth in e-commerce during the pandemic has sparked the need for better digital customer experience (CX). In the current digital age, a positive CX means everything when it comes to creating and preserving long-term customer relationships. Without fully staffed CX teams, employees may struggle to provide quality experiences for customers to remain loyal. And in today’s recruitment landscape, internal contact centers and CX business process outsourcers (BPOs) may experience lower job fill rates and higher levels of attrition. In those circumstances, more stress is likely to build for the CX employees that remain, leaving even the most loyal staff to question their commitment.

Across the industry, I’ve seen companies struggling to expand CX teams and balance current employees’ workload, which can make it difficult to maintain a high-quality CX and keep customers loyal. As CX companies compete to retain loyal customers, they also compete to recruit and retain loyal employees, which ultimately requires a successful recruitment marketing strategy.

Long-Term Attraction And Retention

Although it’s challenging, many CX companies have strategically recruited and retained best-fit employees, even during the Great Resignation. To turn around understaffed contact centers and CX BPOs, the trick is to pay close attention to potential employees’ current behaviors and needs. To gain these insights into employees’ well-being and build connections, leadership team members should host brainstorm sessions, reach out for one-to-one conversations and participate in work-culture events. When there’s a deeper understanding of the company’s internal culture, it’s easier for recruitment teams to both hire externally and grow internally.

In today’s job market, filling vacancies requires proactive strategy and execution to attract employees. Posting a job opening and passively waiting for people to apply is unlikely to produce the desired results (if it produces any). Taking an active versus passive approach to recruitment can help ensure you are poised to surf the post-pandemic waves. Here are a few ways recruitment marketing teams can pivot recruitment strategies with an intentional approach:

1. Onboard friends and family: An incentivized employee referral program can yield high-quality candidates with a vested interest in working with friends and family. However, ensuring consistency across departments, creating well-orchestrated internal campaigns using a tracking system and monitoring effectiveness all require a concerted effort by the recruitment marketing team and operations leaders.

2. Personalize perks and bonuses: Competing for talent with an ever-increasing pay rate may help with recruitment and retention in the short term, but it is not sustainable. In my experience, pay incentives—like wage increases, sign-on bonuses and retention bonuses—work only when companies also use these offers as differentiators.

3. Speak top candidates’ language: In the currently competitive landscape, it’s crucial to present a high-caliber and united brand that attracts perfect-match candidates. If it’s time for a recruitment marketing refresh, reposition the company’s mission and vision to help better target these candidates. For example, HGS recently announced its new identity as a digital-led, people-driven organization that is transforming the CX industry.

Improving Employee Retention

While attracting employees is a crucial part of the recruitment process, I believe retention plays an even more important role in culture and overall company success. However, an extra bonus or promotion isn’t always enough to keep the most loyal employees.

Try applying the Herzberg motivation-hygiene theory, which assumes that certain aspects of the job can lead to dissatisfaction and others can increase satisfaction. A wage increase, for example, does not necessarily cause employees to be satisfied: It just causes them to be less dissatisfied. Wage increases should be tied to intrinsic motivators to increase satisfaction and retention. On the other hand, employers should look inward to boost morale and retain employees by doing the following:

1. Feature individual achievements: Appreciation is at the heart of a positive company culture. When a company calls out employees’ achievements, they help employees realize that others in the company recognize their day-to-day work. Leaders can highlight success in the company through an internal channel or even a LinkedIn post.

2. Cultivate a positive work-from-home culture: In today’s work-from-home culture, it is difficult for employees to socialize and create meaningful relationships with co-workers. The lack of connection calls for a strong culture program that prioritizes relationship-building. Leadership can provide opportunities for employees to get to know each other through online happy hours, group lunches and social games. Once leadership introduces employees to each other, relationships will likely come naturally to foster a positive company culture.

The Future Of Recruitment Marketing

The pandemic greatly impacted the workplace, ultimately changing the CX recruitment landscape for the foreseeable future. I believe overcoming staffing challenges today and in the future requires a proactive, creative, data-based and digitally driven approach that is attentive to employees’ behaviors and desired lifestyle. Differentiation is important for creating a successful recruitment marketing strategy that attracts and retains employees.

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