Matt KendallHigh attrition and churn rates are the stuff of nightmares for BPO providers and call centers, and, as young employees become more and more demanding, the challenge is greater now than ever.
Young recruits aged 18-30 are the bedrock of the services talent pool, so understanding how to keep them engaged, motivated, and aligned with your brand is necessary to maintaining a reliable workforce.
The following tips come from a number of BPO providers with successful youth recruitment campaigns, offering great advice for keeping the new generations invested in your company.
1 – Align Digital Recruitment and Social Media
Social media has become well-known as a valuable recruitment tool, but using it correctly is a challenge in itself.
“Social media content is essential and crucial to attract young candidates,” said Josue Trejos, Manager of Employment Branding at Sitel Group. “They spend so much time on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that it becomes nigh impossible to reach them in any other way.”
Trejos pointed out that Sitel tries to reference trendy, contemporary topics to better engage with people on social media, as well as sharing real testimonials from similar-age employees, as they place great value in real and authentic content.
2 – Find a Way to Leverage Technology
Many BPOs are already using next-gen tools, such as chatbots, for client campaigns, but they can also be used successfully as recruitment tools, especially when combined with the social media channel.
“Atento uses bot technology to quickly respond to social media inquiries and directly engage with potential candidates, because a clear understandable path to employment is critical,” said Patricia Granados, Atento’s Nearshore HR Director.
Getting a bit more technical, iQor is using targeting algorithms across its social channels to filter and pinpoint top potential candidates.
“Hyper geo-targeting allows us to segment social recruits in each of our locations and create lookalike audiences to optimize the applicant to hire ratio, performance, and overall cost per applicant,” said Mason Argiropoulos, iQor’s Chief HR Officer.
If the budget is available, then technology can be invaluable when recruiting for larger campaigns, particularly when there are hundreds of applicants to sift through. This efficiency is also key when engaging with young candidates, as they are highly acclimatized to fast, almost instantaneous responses.
3 – Invest Internally to Drive More Referrals
As well as investing in technology, pouring funds into your existing employee base can be useful in driving referrals – one of the top methods for many BPOs in attracting young talent.
“iQor’s number one talent source is referrals from existing employees,” said Argiropoulos. “We’ve made it incredibly easy for our employees to submit a digital referral – and get handsomely rewarded. To date, we’ve paid US$9.5 million in referrals across the globe to our growing employee base.”
Even without monetary rewards, a drive to create buzz through internal marketing can also be a useful method for increasing referrals.
“In our US nearshore accounts we invest in promoting ourselves, both externally and internally, as a Great Place to Work, motivating our own population to feed our database with referrals,” said Granados from Atento.
4 – Make Changes to Suit Dynamic Young Lifestyles
Whatever business you run, young people will be more interested in joining if their workplace is as engaging as what they might choose to do in their free time.
TaskUs, a BPO provider with US founders, introduced cosy offices, bean bags, bring-your-pet-to-work days, happy hours, comprehensive HMO coverage for LGBTQ employees, 120-day maternity leave, onsite dietitians, wellness coaches, MMA fighting sessions, fitness challenges, and a company-wide sugar ban.
The result? A 22% attrition rate and a 63% Employee Net Promoter Score on employee satisfaction.
“Our most important competitive advantage is our employee-centric and values-driven culture. It is a bedrock on which everything else is built. It has set the tone of how we operate and do business as a company,” said Bryce Maddock, CEO of TaskUs.
Granados from Atento also pointed out that increasing the flexibility of their operations to accommodate school and life schedules has been a successful path to recruiting more young people.
5 – Introduce Potential Candidates to your Brand
Before hiring your new young team members, it can be useful to give them exposure to your brand, or the brand of your clients, to give them a taste of what life is like at the company.
“Once people arrive at our facilities, the first thing we do is share with them a motivational video to show how we care for our people,” said Alexandra Martínez, HR Manager at Outsourcing SA. “We talk about our training and development programs to show the opportunities they can have to learn and grow in our organization. We also share the care program where we explain kindness, counseling, and spiritual activities, in addition to introductions to people in our organization that can describe their career paths. After this, young people are motivated to continue with our selection process.”
The more you can communicate to candidates before they join the company, the more they will be interested in joining.
What tips do you have for attracting young talent? Have any of these approaches worked for you? Let us know in the comments.
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