5 tips to automate employee engagement without losing the human touch
The pandemic has taken its toll on the workforce. Few functions feel the burden more than human resources (HR). Business leaders depend on HR teams to recruit and retain top talent, ultimately accelerating recovery and helping companies stay competitive. But who’s looking out for HR practitioners and recruiters, especially during these challenging times?
Despite having a large labour force, Asia-Pacific faces a growing shortage of skilled workers. Countries bearing the brunt of the talent crunch include Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, and Singapore. A 47 million skilled workers talent deficit is expected by 2030, which means that if HR teams aren’t already struggling to achieve headcount goals today, they will in less than 10 years.
The shortage of talents is not the only factor contributing to the stiff competition. As top talents are exposed to greater opportunities, their expectations are evolving. Candidates today expect fast action and consistent engagement through the hiring process. How fast? 10 days is the consensus – that’s how long top candidates stay on the market. Wait any longer, and be prepared to lose your preferred candidate.
As the talent shortage meets rising candidate expectations, they spark the perfect storm. HR leaders, who struggle to find the right talent across geographies while balancing a nonstop deluge of work online, can’t help but feel the burn. 42% of teams struggle under the weight of too many projects and responsibilities. Perennial challenges are more acutely felt today. Intense stress is forcing the HR industry to rethink its digital recruitment strategies.
But even with the hurdles ahead, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Streamlined processes and automated engagement are the answers to employment engagement
Tough times can lead to the best of times if we stay open to change. While it typically falls on the individual to figure out how to deal with burnout, there’s increased recognition that organisations have a responsibility to reevaluate their recruitment processes.
Traditional recruitment processes suffer a poor reputation because they are notoriously manual, consuming excessive time and effort. 1 in 3 HR employees find such processes highly ineffective and unsystematic. Yet, many recruitment agencies and recruiters stay stuck with old ways of working. When it comes to recruitment and talent acquisition, it’s still common practice to turn to professional network platforms such as LinkedIn and leverage communication outreach channels like InMail and email for engagement and candidate nurturing.
Relying solely on such workflows imposes a cost on efficiency and sustainability. These activities generate high consumption of time resources, demand high degrees of manual progression, and breed reliance on external platforms that don’t offer the control needed to maximise digital recruitment success.
What’s needed is a single-source digital communications platform that can help you streamline your recruitment process and automate the life cycle of sourcing and qualifying candidates. This is where having a digital communications strategy can help HR leaders work sustainably, recruit the talent needed, and keep employee engagement high.
We’ve developed a handy reference that summarises how HR leaders are winning the hiring race in Asia. Read on to discover 5 tips to help your team automate employee engagement without losing the human touch.
Tip 1: Leverage rich messaging capabilities to drive results
After reviewing multiple applications, you may decide to reach out to applicants via email or a phone call. Unfortunately, these standard approaches come with drawbacks. Emails are par for the course but lack the X factor, while phone calls are unsuitable for high contact volumes, especially for lean HR teams juggling multiple responsibilities. There’s a third option you may not have considered – SMS.
SMS messages command incredibly high open rates of an estimated 98% and remain the most direct and effective communication channel compared to email, tweets, and Facebook posts. At Whispir, we’ve paired the power of SMS with another capability in our stack – rich messaging. A rich message is a microsite you can create to impress candidates at first sight. When SMS messages are combined with rich, personalised landing pages, call-to-action and response rates get a boost as high as 88%, according to our research.
With rich messaging capabilities, you’re not only maximising engagement and reducing drop-offs. You’re also differentiating yourself by taking a different communication approach. If you’ve already got the applicants’ details, use the information to send them to a registration form that has their information pre-filled. That’ll show your initiative and make a great first impression.
Tip 2: Personalise for every candidate, no matter how big the talent pool
Candidates applying to join your organisation want to be treated as individuals. Personalised messages ensure applicants don’t feel like just another number, and this approach makes all the difference when it comes to boosting engagement. Our platform helps leading recruiters achieve personalisation at scale by automating this process.
So whether it’s setting up interviews between candidates and hiring managers, or crafting personalised messaging to keep applicants informed during the recruitment journey, our platform enables you to sound personable across every communication touchpoint, no matter how big the talent pool.
Tip 3: Look and sound like the employer of choice across multiple channels
The look and feel of your outgoing communications matter, even for recruitment. Our Message Builder enables anyone to quickly and easily create beautiful, professional-looking content with drag-and-drop components. Now, you can build on pre-designed and approved templates to keep your messaging and branding consistent across the board.
Tip 4: Reclaim hours of productivity with automation
Recruitment workflows can be long and tedious. The full process, including candidate identification, role criteria filtration, omnichannel outreach and engagement, and finally, negotiation and reporting, can stretch past weeks – research shows that it takes a company an average of 36 working days to hire talent.
What if you could take these time-consuming manual processes off your hands by transforming them into automated communications within minutes? Now you can. One of Whispir’s core capabilities is automated workflows. This means you can automate processes such as scheduling interviews, sending out interview reminders, prompting feedback from hiring managers, and more.
Tip 5: Give your recruitment drive the extra edge
Differentiate your organisation with creative engagement content. Go beyond the typical job description. With unique options, such as sending a “meet the team” video or an interactive experience of your diversity and inclusion initiatives, you can easily win top talent.
Go beyond talent acquisition and engagement with Whispir
Talent acquisition is a key element in any HR strategy, so it’s imperative that you get it right. To help you get the candidates you want and drive engagement, we recommend downloading our eBook for a deeper dive to help you build a stronger recruitment strategy.
If you’re interested to gain industry insights from Asia’s leading HR professionals, you may also want to check out this webinar on how leaders are recruiting today’s top talents more effectively with digital communications.
Whispir’s digital communications platform gives you a headstart with a streamlined, automated, and efficient process to source and procure the best talent. We continue to serve the rest of your HR needs for employee engagement and even omnichannel marketing. Whispir has worked with several HR and recruitment companies such as Itel International throughout Southeast Asia and worldwide to deliver innovative and customised solutions.
To discover how we can help you, get in touch with us. Why wait? Start Whispiring today.
