How to Use Employee Feedback to Recruit Top Talent

Dust off the employee feedback surveys you’ve had stacked on your desk for months – it’s time to put them to use. Information gathered from employee feedback can make connecting with and recruiting the talent you need easier.

Out of 300 organizations considered some of the best places to work, 95 percent of engaged companies use annual engagement surveys, according to the State of Employee Engagement survey done by my company, Quantum Workplace. Not only does implementing these surveys engage current employees, but also the feedback garnered can help enhance recruitment efforts.

Here’s how you can use employee feedback to better recruit today’s top talent:

1. Crafting a Caring Work Environment

Job seekers want to know the workplace will be one they can thrive in, not one that’s hostile or overly competitive. Normally, this type of information is unknown until an employee is hired and working with a company.

In 2015, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) surveyed 600 U.S. employees and found that 67 percent of respondents said respectful treatment of employees on all levels was very important to their job satisfaction. In fact, respectful treatment was cited as very important to job satisfaction by more employees than compensation was.

And yet, only 31 percent of employees said they were satisfied with the level of respectful treatment at their current employer.

You can use the feedback you have from employees to demonstrate to job seekers that you have the kind of caring work environment they are looking for. If employees expressed on your last survey how impressed they are with the support they get from management and coworkers, mention this in your job posts or on your company career page.

2. Flaunt Your Great Coworkers

Let’s face it: We spend more time with our coworkers than we do with our own families. In Virgin Pulse’s 2015 survey of 1,000 full-time employees, 55 percent said their coworkers positively impact their stress levels at work.

Candidates can get some much needed insights into your company culture during the hiring process if they can see what their coworkers will be like before they accept the job.

We all want to be on a successful team, which is why you need to let candidates know you have such a team before they join. Sharing employee feedback about coworker relationships gives job seekers a glance at how well the team works together and if they’ll be supported and encouraged.

Directly quote employees on your company career page and on social media to give candidates a firsthand look at what it’s like to work at your organization. After all, who better to hear from than the employees themselves?

3. Advertise the Quality of Management

Management styles can make or break how employees feel about their jobs. In the previously cited SHRM survey, 53 percent of employees said their relationship with their immediate supervisor was very important to their job satisfaction, yet only 40 percent of employees were satisfied with their current relationships.

If your employees are giving positive feedback about management, sharing that with job seekers will set you apart from other companies. Include this feedback on job posts and the company career page in order to give job seekers confidence that they will receive the support they need to succeed in a new position.

4. Prove Employees’ Voices Matter

Most employees don’t provide feedback without first being prompted. It’s nearly impossible to show that employees’ voice matters unless you specifically ask for their feedback. In the SHRM survey, 49 percent of employees said the organization’s respect for their ideas was important to job satisfaction. Forty-eight percent said communication between employees and senior leadership was important.

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Using employee feedback is beneficial to your recruitment efforts and lets your current employees know their opinions matter to the leaders of the company. Furthermore, sharing employee feedback beyond the company shows employees that they’re impacting the future growth of their organization.

Job seekers know your company can say anything to persuade them to apply for your open position, but employee feedback proves to job seekers that you’re truly interested in your workforce’s opinions. To give job seekers the deep look into your company that they want, share your current employees’ positive experiences on social media or your company’s blog.

What employee feedback do you think is beneficial in attracting job seekers? Let us know in the comments!

Greg Harris is the president and CEO of Quantum Workplace, a company that provides employee engagement tools. You can connect with Greg and the Quantum Workplace team on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.