Are you struggling to attract and retain top talent?

In this webinar, Julie Holmes, Knowledge Partner at Legal Island and Ryan Calvert, Head of Human Resources, Sales & Marketing Recruitment for UK and Ireland at MCS Group discuss how to boost your HR strategies and transform talent acquisition in your organisation.  Learn how to unlock the secret of successful employer value propositions and stand out from the competition. Discover how to create a compelling EVP that resonates with your employees and drives business success.

Bywatching this session, you'll gain invaluable insights on:
• Crafting a compelling EVP that sets your organisation apart
• Attracting top-notch candidates in a competitive market
• Maximising your employer brand to create a magnetic workplace culture

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Recording:

Transcript:

Julie:   Welcome, everyone. Welcome to our Lunch and Learn webinar series with MCS Group. My name is Julie Holmes, and I'm part of the Knowledge Team at Legal-Island.

So, I have a question for you today at lunchtime. Are you struggling to attract and retain talent? Well, if you are, you're not alone. Eight out of 10 SMEs in Ireland reported spending more time on recruitment than they did in 2019 according to the latest Irish Senior Management Business Sentiment Survey conducted by BDO and Ibec.

The CIPD as well has also reported retention of existing staff and attracting new talent are going to be one of the biggest challenges employers will face this year.

So today we're going to discuss the secret of successful employer-employee value proposition, and how you can stand out from the competition. We'll look at how you can create a compelling EVP that resonates with your employees and also drives business success. So, get comfy and get ready to learn some pointers.

And who do we have better to talk to us about EVP than Ryan Calvert, Head of Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, and Recruitment from MCS Group? So, thanks very much for joining us today, Ryan.

Ryan:  Good to be here. Thank you.

Julie:   And as part of the Growing Professional Services team at MCS Group, Ryan manages HR, legal, and compliance rules. His approach is highly personable, and customer service focussed, and he builds sustainable working relationships with both candidates and clients.

So Legal-Island's webinars and podcasts are actually sponsored by MCS Group, and MCS help people find careers that match their skill sets perfectly. They also support employers to build high-performing businesses by connecting them with the most talented candidates in the marketplace. If you're interested in finding out more about how MCS can help you, then head to www.mcsgroup.jobs.

Throughout the presentation you'll have the opportunity to drop any questions that you might have in the question box, and we have time dedicated at the end for some Q&A.

So Ryan, thanks very much, and I'll hand over to you now.

Ryan:  Thank you. Thanks very much. So yeah, I appreciate the intro, and hopefully today's session is going to be reasonably interesting, and people can bring away a couple of points that they can implement within their own company pretty quickly.

So, in terms of the session, it's all about discovering the secret ingredient to attracting and retaining the absolute best talent in the market. And before we sort of kick off and go through an overview of what I'm going to cover today, again, just to reintroduce myself.

My name is Ryan Calvert, and I head up HR, sales, and marketing recruitment for MCS Group across the island of Ireland. I operationally would focus on senior HR appointments, and I am dealing with senior leaders on a day and daily basis to try and understand how to solve this talent puzzle. How do you attract and retain the best talent in the market when there are just so many opportunities out there?

So, if you want to just kick on to the next slide, it'll give us a bit of an overview of what we're going to cover up today.

The first thing, it's going to be all around employee value proposition, so a bit of a focus on both the attraction and retention of talent.

The second one, which I feel is really important and it's really basic, it's something that people will hopefully be able to look at pretty quickly, is how to actually streamline your recruitment process and ensure there are no gaps there.

And the third one, it's how to source for hard-to-fill roles. This is not a step-by-step, how to actually go and find the best talent in the market. But it's probably looking at, "How do we actually create job descriptions? Do we need to have the qualifications that we're putting in job descriptions, or the experience that we're putting in job descriptions? Or is this something that we can actually look at and be a bit more flexible?"

So we want to move on to the next slide. We'll start with employee value proposition.

Throughout the pandemic, EVP has been something that has been talked about extensively, and the key reason behind that is the market has gone absolutely crazy. Utterly mental. Over 10 years in recruitment, I have never seen anything like the market post-COVID.

It has completely exploded and so many companies have really had to refine what they do and how they do it, looking at not only things like compensation, but do they have career frameworks in place? Do they have a great work environment? And what's their culture like?

So that's something that really has been refined significantly over the past number of years, which is exciting because it's refining what employers do and it's sharpening what they do so that they're actually becoming better. They're better communicating what they do to their target audience, and they're taking care of their staff in a much more succinct manner, which is absolutely no bad thing.

So if we want to flick on to the next slide, I'm going to cover off what a great EVP actually looks like.

So, an attractive EVP is much more than just strong comp and bens. There's so much that goes into it. Comp and bens absolutely help, but I think, for me, the key thing that people should be looking at is compensation and benefits as a standard, but there's much more. So inspiring culture, structured career framework, hybrid flexible working, and an EVP that's actually unique.

If we start with comp and bens, a highly competitive base salary along with market-leading benefits, pre-COVID that was probably enough to attract people and retain people. That was more than enough. Now, it's not the case at all. It's absolutely not the case. People are looking for more.

And some people can't stretch on salary, so they have to look at other things outside of that like benefits, like well-being incentives, like health benefits. So it's important that if you can't stretch on your base salary, you're looking at other ways of doing that.

An employer that I partnered with recently had actually made a point of trying to incorporate their pension contributions within their total package and the way they communicate that to the market. So they had a cap. They were a public sector client. They had a cap on salary of £30,000, but they had 20% employer pension contributions.

I advised them the way they should communicate that to candidates seeking an opportunity is to position it as a £36,000 package because that is something that candidates don't think about. They just look at the base salary. But if it's communicated in that way, it's going to make it much more attractive for them to actually look at that role and go forward.

And they might ordinarily go for a private sector role that's maybe £32,000 with a 5% employer pension contribution. But when it's pitched in the right way, they might think, "Well, I'll take a bit of a hit on the base salary because I'm going to get this amazing benefit within my pension contributions".

So, it's important that employers are actually maximising that and ensuring that they're communicating not only what they're offering as a base salary, but also their total reward and their entire benefits package.

Another one, which it'll be no surprise, is inspiring culture. It's one of the key things that comes out on top of so many different surveys from job seekers on what they're looking for in their next role. And that is having an inspiring culture, and a value-led culture.

So for me, the importance of having a strong culture, it's all around storytelling and it's all around longer-term referrals to the organisation. If somebody is enjoying where they work and they're talking about it to ex-colleagues, to friends, to family, it's going to indirectly direct traffic towards that company longer term.

In a market that is so difficult to find top talent, it's an absolute no-brainer, and it's something that if you've got a great culture, you need to make sure that it's communicated.

I think over the past number of years, I've seen a trend of HR generalist roles, business partner titles, manager titles being changed to people and culture titles: people and culture manager, people and culture business partner, people and culture officer.

And I think the key reason behind that is so many employers have just lost their culture as we've transitioned from a pre-COVID environment to post-COVID where people are now working at home more, they're working in a hybrid capacity, and some people still do work completely remotely.

The culture has shifted, and management don't know how to actually get the best out of their teams. They don't know how to keep people engaged because they don't see them every day like they used to.

So, the culture is really important, and it's something that companies . . . If they haven't looked at it after COVID, after we have moved into the hybrid world, it's something that I would absolutely recommend doing.

It keeps people on board longer term. You can pay people all the money in the world, offer the best benefits, but if you don't offer an inspiring culture, you're really not going to get anywhere, and people will ultimately leave that organisation.

I think another important thing is when you're creating your culture, make sure you create it with the support of your workforce, as well as looking at the actual workforce you're trying to attract, and really trying to understand what it is they're looking for and what it is they want.

Another thing, again, is structured career framework. So, in an environment where companies find it so hard to fill niche roles and slightly more senior roles because there's not enough talent out there, there's so much competition, and candidates still have their choice of two, three, four vacancies if they're good and they're on the market, one of the ways that companies are trying to get around that is they're looking at their own succession planning and workforce planning internally, and creating a very structured career framework so they can go and hire emerging talent pools.

Bring those emerging talent pools through, but have a really structured career framework for them to progress up, as well as really importantly have a fantastic L&D team in place that are able to support them through that journey from entering the company, to progressing, and ultimately filling these really hard-to-fill roles longer term.

And I've seen that in the market, which is a great thing. I've seen a massive spike particularly in sort of manufacturing and professional services in a lot of L&D roles and OD roles coming through, which is a massive signal that companies are almost putting their hand up to say, "We just cannot fill our vacancies in the market. We have to create our own talent". I think that's a great opportunity for emerging talent pools coming through that will be able to step into these roles longer term.

Another thing is work environment, hybrid and flexible working. So, it's no surprise that it's another thing that comes high up on the wishlist for job seekers. It's to have hybrid and flexible working.

It's something that I would register roles with clients, and if they don't offer hybrid, I would have candidates just advise me they don't want to go forward. It's just something they're not interested in at all.

So for me, it's really important that as an employer, if for whatever reason you can't offer hybrid working, that you at least can offer flexible working.

A good example of that is a manufacturing client that I partner with, who have an environment where the majority of their workforce are focussed on production, and they're on the factory floor five days a week. They can't work from home. It's physically impossible to do their job from home.

So, instead of introducing hybrid working and creating a "them and us" type culture, they created flexible working for the entire workforce. They keep things fair where people can come in a bit earlier and go home a bit earlier, or if they want to start later, they finish later. That's really made a difference in attracting and retaining talent.

And I think people stay with the company longer term because that feeds into their culture and their values, that they're being fair and they want to be consistent and inclusive across the entire business, and not exclude people who, due to their job role, can't work from home.

Another thing, and I feel this is a massive thing, I actually talked about this recently on a different session, is to make your employee value proposition unique. And the way of making it unique is really digging into your culture, communicating your culture to your target market, communicating your culture, your values, your vision to your internal talent, people that work for you.

And another key thing is actually getting yourself involved in different award ceremonies. As a company, one way to stand out as an employer of choice is to be an award-winning business. It is unique. Other companies cannot take that from you, and it will make you stand out as an employer of choice.

If you are offering a candidate the exact same package as another employer, but you've won an award for well-being, or an award for the best place to work, or whatever it is, it will make you stand out, and it'll make people who work for you proud to work for you, which I think is really, really important.

So, it's another massive recommendation. If you're doing great things internally, don't just celebrate them internally. Celebrate them externally, and get that recognition.

So we want to go on to the next slide here. This is all about creating an EVP. This is not to sort of teach you how to suck eggs. I'm sure a lot of people on the webinar today will have been through this time and time again. But it's almost a refresh of the key things you should be doing to absolutely map out the best employee value proposition that you can.

So first and foremost, you need to assess what you currently offer. It's so, so important that you do that, and you benchmark that against other organisations, and assess existing perceptions within your company.

If you just sit in a boardroom and map out your vision, your values, your culture, and roll it out, it's never going to stick. It's just not going to work longer term. It's important you're actually speaking to your own employees and your target audience on that.

A good example of this going wrong, and I actually heard about it on a webinar recently, was the chief executive of BrewDog, who are a beer manufacturing client based in Scotland. The chief executive was quite open that they created their vision, their culture, their values in a boardroom, in an ivory tower with a senior leadership team.

They rolled it out, and it was an absolute and utter car crash. It didn't work, people didn't buy in, and he was big enough and ugly enough to say, "I've messed up here. We need to go back to the drawing board".

He then went and created a number of different focus groups with people across the business at different levels to ensure that there was a lot of inclusivity, as well as the target audience to ensure that they were actually getting feedback from all different parts of the business.

There are so many different generations in an organisation. A millennial might want something different to somebody who is from a different generation, and vice versa. So if you don't get that feedback from your workforce and your target population, you're going to struggle to actually implement something that people buy into.

You also need to define the key components of your EVP. So, once you've had that feedback, you need to understand, "Well, what salary ranges and benefits are going to actually attract the target candidates? What career groups are candidates looking for? Does this all align with strategic objectives? Does it align with our own values?" So it's important that you're reflecting on those things and defining those key components before you put anything in place.

The next part is you get to write your employee value proposition, which is really fun. You put everything that you've learned about your target audience and your internal stakeholders in place, and you get to create this really, really attractive EVP that you can put in place and focus on, on a day and daily basis.

And once you've got that in place, it's all about promoting it. So it's about not keeping it to yourself, not sending it out on one or two emails, but you need to make sure that it is promoted both internally and externally.

This can be through a multitude of different avenues. It could be social media, a day in the life of an employee if you're looking to hire for a particular vacancy. It could be a video review of the employer and what it's like to work there. It could be social media campaigns.

It could be town halls internally where managing directors or senior leaders are really embedding things. It could be that you have values and you have an award-winning ceremony each quarter that feeds into your values, which keeps people focussed on that longer term.

So again, it's important once everything is being created and sort of drafted that it's actually promoted.

And absolutely last but not least, revisit it and measure success. There is no point in sitting down, putting in place everything, and just thinking, "Well, that's it. Done". It's not. COVID is a great example of how change can happen so quickly within an organisation.

So as a company, because things are changing so dramatically in the market, you need to revisit things, and you need to measure success, and you need to go back to your workforce and assess what's working. You can do that through different surveys.

So I feel that, for me, that's a really basic way of sort of drafting out a really, really strong EVP, and that's something that's going to be really successful. Ultimately, if you've got a strong EVP in place, you're going to be an employer that will be able to attract and retain the absolute best talent in the market.

If we want to flick onto the next slide, this is focussing more on the attraction. So you've got your EVP in place. Without that, this is pointless. There's no point because people won't want to work for you anyway if you don't have a strong EVP.

But let's say you've got your EVP in place, you're a great employer, you've got great benefits, brilliant culture. Perfect, right? So you want to attract people to your organisation now.

I have seen it too many times and it frustrates me that companies take so long to hire talent and to manage recruitment processes. Some of the internal data that I personally pulled shows the significant drop-off rate for job seekers when a CV-to-interview rate, so with the CV coming through to progress to interview, is 18 days, just over two weeks. Whereas if it's six days, just under a week, it is significantly more beneficial and successful at bringing people through that process.

So, it's important that as an employer, if you have to advertise it for two weeks and that is something that you're regulated by, that's fair enough. But if you're not and you can progress things quicker, I highly recommend you do. Candidates have so many opportunities, and if you wait too long, it might be that they're completely disengaged by the time you come through and select them for interview.

I think as well in terms of the actual interview process itself, one of the key things I always recommend is an informal call.

So, a process where the job is open for two weeks and the candidate gets an email from somebody in the HR team or the recruitment team to say, "Congratulations. We've reviewed your profile. We love you. We want to bring you forward for interview", they may have three other opportunities in the pipeline and they might think, "Well, I don't really know anything about this employer. I don't really have the time. I'm just going to pull out of this process, or I'll not bother going back", and they'll just ghost you, which we don't want.

Whereas an informal call buys engagement, and it buys time. It gives you an opportunity to have an informal call with a candidate, talk through the employee value proposition that you have as an employer, talk through the role, get a bit of an insight into their experience, but keep them engaged. That's the type of thing you need to do to keep them actually bought into this process.

There may be other processes they're in that they've been in for a while and may come to a conclusion over the next few days. But if you get them bought in, it's highly likely that they'll hold off until they get a decision from your process before they make any other decisions within the market.

That's so important to educate the job seeker on the employer, the role, explain the process, talk through timeframes, educate them on when they should hear back from you, on what the process actually looks like, talk about the company, sell the company, the benefits of the role, why this role was created.

Also, a really important one, something that's overlooked, let your internal stakeholders know that this process is happening, and when they'll be expected to be in an interview panel.

It's another big barrier of bringing people through the process, shortlisting them for interview, and going to whoever the hiring manager is, "We're scheduling interviews next Thursday", and they're on holiday. And before you know it, it's the following week, which is delaying things significantly.

That's the type of thing that is going to have candidates drop out of a process, which will leave you with that headache that you still can't fill that role.

But if you were actually able to streamline your recruitment process, make it tighter, make it quicker, it's going to really help you get that best talent through the funnel really, really quickly and hopefully appoint them.

Another thing is to be flexible. So, an example, I had an employer recently that had come through, they shortlisted a few people for interview, but they could only interview the candidates on one day, and they only had two times for each candidate.

Now, a few candidates couldn't do that day due to work commitments and personal commitments, and there was no flexibility to see them on a different day, which didn't work. The candidates, no surprise, dropped out of the process. The employer didn't make an appointment, and they were back to square one. If they were a bit more flexible, that may have changed things.

Because the market is so buoyant, it's important that you do remain flexible around your interview availability.

Another key thing is customer service and feedback. It's so important that you are consistent and you have SLAs in place around your feedback to job seekers.

So, whether that is every single person gets at least a confirmation that they've applied and they've unfortunately not been successful, or if they've interviewed, they get comprehensive feedback, that goes such a long way. And not everybody will do that. They will not come back with comprehensive feedback.

But the importance of that is if you have, say, one role and you have 10 applicants, if they're all getting feedback . . . Only one person is going to get that role. So those nine other people, you want them having a positive thing to say about your company. You want them speaking to friends, family, ex-colleagues, whoever, about the positive experience they had. They didn't get the role, but it was handled really professionally, and you got some tangible feedback on where you fell down during your interview.

So a really, really basic thing, but something that I feel that if you tighten that up, and you're consistent, and you actually hold people accountable that are managing the recruitment process to that type of process where they're feeding back consistently and providing good customer service, that's going to really help you as a business.

Internally, as an agency, we have an SLA in place of a 24-hour turnaround. When somebody applies for a role, we have to get back to them. And that is managed. There are people that are accountable for that. So that's something that we've implemented that's worked really well, and it really does help that whole customer service experience.

So onto the next slide. This slide is all around how to find talent for hard-to-fill roles. So, as I'd said at the start, it's not a run-through on how to pull together Boolean search strings on LinkedIn recruiter to go and find that niche talent. It's more looking at the bigger picture on some of the reasons that companies aren't able to find talent for roles. And there are so many vacant roles across industry at the minute, which is so frustrating.

So the first thing is the job spec. Have the roles absolutely and utterly been assessed? Have you sat down with the hiring manager and understood what they need from the successful candidate? Does that person need a degree? Do they need to have three years plus experience doing X, Y, and Z? Or can somebody do the role that has slightly less experience and be upskilled?

That is something that I think companies are maybe getting a bit lazy with. They're just pulling together a job spec quite quickly and they're rolling it out. You're missing out on so many different talent pools that could be maximised and you could look at for roles that you're not able to fill, but if you tweaked the actual criteria, that could be something that you solve quite quickly.

Another one is flexibility. So this is one that I do try when I'm speaking with clients on a regular basis. Try and push part-time roles. I would always ask, "Have you looked at this or explored this on a part-time basis?" There is a huge pool of people, whether they have childcare commitments, whether they're caring for elderly or friends and family, whoever it is, they just can't work full-time, and that shouldn't be something that holds them back.

We should be inclusive. We should be creating more opportunity. And there's this huge pool of people that are not in work, or they are maybe working in a role that's not ideal, but they could be doing something more and they just need that flexibility.

So it's really important when you're looking at a job role, you're thinking, "Well, can this be done on a part-time basis?" I guarantee you if you advertise it as a part-time role, or part-time and full-time potential, you will get so many more applications coming through.

Another key thing is sponsorship. So one of the things that we have seen when we're doing a bit of market analysis is the southern market and mainland GB are doing things a lot better around sponsorships. And whether that's just a lack of knowledge, or whether that is people just don't have the appetite, I know specifically in Northern Ireland things could be done slightly better.

So we have seen a few examples recently of quite small professional services practices really struggling to hire talent, but going down that sponsorship route, and ultimately being able to find really, really top talent. And once they were educated on that whole sponsorship process, they were more than happy to jump on board.

The sort of final thing is can we fill these niche roles internally? If you've got a strong L&D team, there's a high probability that that actually can happen.

You're not always looking to hire these ready-made, whatever type of role they are. You're looking at emerging talent pools, and you have, again, a really structured career framework in place along with a really strong L&D department that can bring people through quite quickly and give them that goal that they could be doing this role in three years.

The company can't hire this role at the minute in the market, but if they were able to train these people, they could put them in those roles in a couple of years' time.

That is going to really help with the company culture, it's going to help with engagement, and it's going to help with attrition. People won't want to leave because they're thinking, "Well, I'm going to kick on in this company, and I in three years could be doing that role".

So again, a strong L&D team and thinking outside the box with emerging talent pools, for me, is just another no-brainer.

So you'll be glad to know that is me on today's webinar. Thank you all for listening. Hopefully, it was informative in some way, shape, or form. I think there are hopefully a few basic things there, mainly around recruitment processes, that I would love for people to take away and implement quite quickly. I do see it consistently in the market that a lot of employers don't have structured recruitment processes, and ultimately lose out on talent because of this.

Julie:   Okay. Thanks, Ryan. There was so much in that, so I'll think that everybody's going to have a to-do list from that. Thank you very much.

We did get a couple of questions as well, so we're going to pick your brain a little bit longer, if that's all right.

Ryan:  Pick away.

Julie:   Okay, great. So the first one is about benchmarking. Somebody's mentioned that benchmarking, you can do that easy enough by looking at other job ads, same sectors, to see what salaries are being offered. But any hints on how to do that in relation to benefits packages when people aren't maybe as open?

Ryan:  Yeah, it's tricky. A lot of employers are not open to disclosing what they're doing because then another employer is going to do that. I'm in a good position where I have a bird's eye overview of what a lot of different employers do, and I would benchmark quite regularly what employers maybe in a manufacturing industry would do versus professional services, and vice versa.

I think potentially networking, getting out to events, networking with HR professionals, is a way of doing that, and just asking those open questions. Don't be afraid to ask. People will probably be open to disclose them.

Maybe not publicise what benefits they offer, but a lot of employers are now doing that. They're talking about their total reward when their advertising roles. It's not just, "Our base salary is X". It's about the entire package, and that includes hybrid working, that includes what pension contributions the employer offers, and health benefits, and everything in between.

Julie:   Okay, great. I think you're right there that networking is always useful for that.

The other thing I wanted to ask you about . . . because you talked about almost the order of different benefits as well. So LinkedIn from last year showed that, for HR professionals specifically, good work-life balance topped the list. And then an inspiring culture was second, and they actually had compensation and benefits sitting around fifth. So, that was last year from LinkedIn. Do you think that that's changed any?

Ryan:  No, I think it's still the same. I think comp and bens, don't get me wrong, if it's really, really poor, you're going to lose people. But if you're comparable to another organisation, culture and work-life balance are just so important to people.

When I meet with a person who's looking for a new opportunity, the first thing I ask is, "Well, what's your motivation to be on the market, and what are you looking for?" And a lot of the time it's not focussed solely on, "I want to increase my salary by £2,000 or £3,000". A lot of it is, "I want to work from home two days a week or three days a week, and I maybe want to get great pension contributions".

And the culture, it's so important. If the company doesn't have a great culture, you could have all the flexibility in the world, you could work from home five days a week, you could get paid £100,000 a year, but if the culture is rubbish, and it's not an engaged workforce, and there's not a strong leader in place, you're just going to find people will be leaving.

Julie:   Okay. And that was an interesting story you gave about BrewDog as well, about where a senior management team had tried to draft that, but really, as you say, you're better almost checking with all different people throughout the organisation, isn't it?

Ryan:  Yeah. It was your guy Steven Bartlett. It was his podcast. I quite like him. He makes sense on a lot of things. And he was interviewing the guy from BrewDog, and the guy from BrewDog was really open. He was a chief executive. He'd created this company that had expanded significantly. So, he probably was lacking in a lot of leadership skills, which was showing by the fact that he had created a culture and a vision within a boardroom, within this ivory tower, and rolled it out.

That wasn't what people wanted. It was what they wanted in the boardroom, but it wasn't what people that are out actually doing the job wanted. But he rectified that, and he was open about it, and they're one of the most successful businesses at the minute. They're doing fantastically well.

Julie:   Well, I think that's almost what you're saying about adapting to things as well.

So somebody has asked whether you have a template. I know you've said about writing up your EVP, so sitting in a boardroom, being collaborative, almost trying to get all your ideas together. But are there templates, or what would you recommend, or what different formats have you seen them in?

Ryan:  Do you mean in terms of creating it? Is there a template to create an EVP?

Julie:   Yeah. I think somebody's asking when you reach that step that you had in the slide about writing it up, what would you suggest, or what have you seen that maybe is a little bit different?

Ryan:  I don't think there's too much. I think in terms of the slide, it sort of mapped out those key points that would probably be my checklist if I were creating an EVP. I can certainly look to see if there is something we have internally around that sort of checklist format.

But I think in terms of EVP, the important thing is that you're listening first before you create anything, and you're then promoting what you have in place. There's no point having this fantastic EVP that you're not promoting internally, and telling people about.

In our own organisation, we revamped our values a number of years ago. So our values are choices, and we would have Choices Awards every quarter, which is really great. People would nominate different consultants for showing creativity or ownership on a regular basis.

We have a big event that is all about that, and it really gets people really bought in. And it also reinforces that choices are our values, and people are thinking about their choices values day and daily.

So I think, for me, it's then about promoting your values and then revisiting it. I would revisit EVP every single year without fail. There's absolutely no point in creating something and thinking, "That's it. I'm done. I can put my book down now". It needs to be revisited and you need to look at the market.

Julie:   All right. And that's great, because somebody had asked about how often it should be reviewed. So you've said really annually. And then I guess it could also be built into other processes. Maybe if you're doing your employee feedback surveys, if there are great percentages coming back on engagement or line managers, maybe that's information to celebrate as well and could be almost a feature of the EVP as well.

And then what about the cost of living? Unfortunately, there are some organisations that . . . I mean, everybody is looking at the bottom line, so you can't perhaps increase your salary. I think you've given us different options about that, but how have you seen people really balancing that? What are employers doing?

Ryan:  So it is difficult. There's no easy way around it. And I think in terms of actually overpaying on staff costs, it's going to come back, and that's going to probably be passed on to the customer.

If you are a private sector employer, for example, which is happening unfortunately, you get to a point where you just can't do that and you have to stop and say, "We cannot overpay anymore. It's just not something we can do".

So, I think what I would probably recommend is to have structured pay scales in place that you stick to, and if people want to leave and seek money elsewhere, sometimes you just have to let that happen.

And when you're looking to attract talent, it's a bit like the process of handling a recruitment process from end to end. Get people engaged in your culture. Maybe look at, "Has the company won awards? What is it like to work there?" And people will buy into that.

Can you offer more flexibility? Can you offer somebody the opportunity to work part-time, to work from home three days a week? That, again, really matters to people. That's top of the list.

People want that hybrid work, and they want the work-life balance, and they want a great culture. So, if you really focus your time and energy in and around those two things and people are going to leave because of money, well, that's up to them.

They might end up coming back because they go somewhere that pays them more, but they pay them more because they've got a really crap culture. And they end up thinking, "Well, I don't want to work here anymore. I'm getting paid well, but the culture is terrible".

So, I think we went off in a bit of a tangent there, but focus on your culture and offer as much flexibility as possible.

Julie:   Okay. And speaking of culture as well, you've just led into the next question I have for you. So HR News reported this week that one in six people say that their line managers would be the reason that they perhaps don't speak up at work, or they don't engage as well as they could. So what roles do you think line managers actually have in relation to EVP?

Ryan:  Oh, it's huge. It's absolutely huge. I think if I go back to my point around learning and development, if line managers and senior leaders in an organisation are not trained properly and there's not proper management development training and leadership development training in place so that leaders and managers understand how to manage staff, and haven't just been promoted to that position through being very competent at doing the role at a certain level, but they have no competence to manage staff, it's a major, major issue.

You will get employees that don't want to speak up, and they won't go above their manager in the fear that their manager will hear about it, and it'll put them in a really difficult position.

So I think, for me, line managers play a huge role, an absolutely massive role, and that's why I'm so pro L&D and developing internal talent pools and developing your leaders.

And that, for me, is what I would probably recommend employers do, is to ensure that their leaders are trained appropriately and they know how to manage staff, they know how to empathise with staff, engage with staff, check in with staff regularly, and really sense-check if there are any issues there that need to be picked up on.

Julie:   Great. And as you say, especially in a hybrid environment too, that line manager role is even more important. So HR has a crucial role to play, but they're not the only ones either.

Ryan:  Yeah. Well, in terms of leadership training, I think that's why there's been a massive uplift in training roles. So many companies have moved to this hybrid environment, and managers don't know how to manage people remotely. It's just new to them. They're not really sure how to ensure people are on track and make sure their performance is on track. Before, it was face-to-face and they were able to have those daily check-ins, whereas now it's definitely different.

So, I think from my perspective, line managers play a massive role. A lot of people say, "You don't leave a company. You leave a boss", and I really genuinely believe that. So, if you have a management team that haven't been trained properly and have progressed up through just over-performing at a certain level, that really needs to be looked at because they're just going to drive people out of the business.

Julie:   All right. And then we've got somebody who is asking, "Do you have any tips on how to include culture on job adverts?"

Ryan:  I think in terms of the job ads, we try to ensure that when we're promoting a role, we're talking about total reward as well as why this is a great place to work rather than just making it a job description on a job advert.

So, if you're thinking about your culture, it could be that you have half-day Fridays. It could be that you have regular barbecues if you have summer events, winter events, whatever it might be. Whatever your culture is, you need to talk about that in the job advert, and talk about it at the top of the job advert.

Really try and sell the job so it gets people engaged. If you're putting the job advert up and it's just almost very similar to other employers, people are not going to buy in.

So, my recommendation would be when you're talking about what's on offer to the candidate, the job seeker, you talk about, yes, salary and benefits, but include things that are going really well around the company culture, and maybe awards that the company has won, internal promotion opportunities for people, people that have progressed through the business. All that, communicate that in a job ad.

And again, when you get through to that recruitment process and you have that informal call, maybe just for 20 minutes, that's where you get people bought in.

I love getting somebody on the phone and actually educating them on a role that on paper they think, "Not for me", but when they hear from me and they actually hear what the role is going to offer them, and what the culture is like, and what the employer is doing, what their growth plans are, they're then bought in and they're thinking, "All right. You got me. I'm in".

So for me, it's really important to just make sure you have that call with people and talk them through it.

Julie:   It's almost about treating people like people as well, so thinking about what appeals to you. I think you'd mentioned that as well, about looking at what you do well and shouting about it a little bit more.

Okay. Let me see. And then people have just asked a little bit . . . You were talking about ROI and GB doing much better than us in relation to sponsorship in Northern Ireland. Again, we'll have people from all over the place, so if you can just kind of just clarify what you were saying there.

Ryan:  Yeah. So I think what we see is that in terms of sponsorship specifically in Northern Ireland, a lot of employers that I would partner with are not as open to it when they're struggling on a role. And it's something that I feel that some employers could probably be a bit more open to.

They maybe look at it and think, "That's too expensive", or, "I don't really understand the process", whereas clients I've dealt with in other jurisdictions seem to be much more on board with it.

And that's an educational piece I've had with a lot of clients who have niche roles that they just can't fill. They're so niche that they can't progress people through that pipeline and develop them into those roles because they're such a niche role. So they might have to look at people that are coming from a different country, and they're maybe just not as open to it as they could be. So that's a conversation I've had with a lot of different employers.

Julie:   Great. So, everybody, I think we all want to give Ryan a virtual round of applause because that was a fantastic session, and lots of information in it as well.

Ryan:  Thank you.

Julie:   So again, looking at your EVP, thinking about your culture, and your own internal unique selling points, and basically how you can communicate that to your candidates and to your own staff as well so that they can celebrate it. Thanks very much, Ryan.

And just before you go, Maria, if you could bring up that slide for me, please. As I've already mentioned, MCS is a big part of what we do at Legal-Island, and involved with us in lots of events. And so, I just wanted to let you know about a couple of dates for your calendar.

So join us in person or online for a day of learning, networking, and inspiration at our upcoming Annual Review of Employment Law. The dates are as you can see there. For Northern Ireland, it's 7 November in Belfast, and for Ireland, it's 29 November.

So you've got a choice about whether you'd like to attend in person or online. We have some of our usual speakers, so Mark McAllister from the LRA for Northern Ireland, and Jennifer Cashman from RDJ in Ireland.

If you'd like to find out more about those, please check out our events on Legal-Island website.

So that's a paid event, obviously. There's an early bird special, so you know what they say about the early bird catching the worm.

We also have some 25th anniversary webinars, which we're doing throughout the month of June. We've already run a couple of them and have been very successful.

So if you would like to take part in those, you can check out our website and look at the different topics, like Power and Potential of Employment Charters on 12 June.

On 19 June, we'll be looking at Working Time Regulations both in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and look at how that's changed over the past 25 years.

And then on 3 July, we'll be looking at diversity and inclusion and the rise of the AI machines, and understand that they can be as inclusive as we make them.

So all in all, thanks for joining us today, everybody. I hope you found that information helpful.

Thanks, Ryan, for such an engaging session, and for answering all those questions. We put you on the spot there a little bit at the end.

Ryan:  That's okay.

Julie:   And I just want to thank my colleague Maria, too, for offering all the tech support.

So again, remember, if you're interested in finding out more about how MCS can help you, and I think Ryan has given you lots to work on, head to www.mcsgroup.jobs and you can have a chat with them.

Join us on LinkedIn, or again, look up our different websites as well.

So, thanks very much for attending, and we'll see you soon.

Ryan:  Great. Thank you.

Julie:   Thanks, Ryan.

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