How Understanding Employee Sentiment Now Unlocks Your Future Ability to Attract Top Talent

A clear sign that companies are thriving is when they have the ability to successfully attract and onboard the best talent available. This works whether applicants have sought out the company first, or if they have been head-hunted. The end result is what matters: people have seen something in you that has inspired them, and they have accepted your offer to work for them.

While there are many external factors that contribute to why a company may be deemed attractive to work for, there’s also a great deal that employers can do from the inside.

One of these internal initiatives is when employers take the time to understand employee sentiment. This relates to the overall feeling that current employees have about the company they work for, concerning all the nuances that would explain why they are satisfied or unsatisfied with their job. 

So, let’s have a look at how you can utilize employee sentiment analysis to achieve greater heights for your business and your employees, and prove you are a Most Loved Workplace®  top talent would be proud to work for. 

What Is Employee Sentiment and Why Is It Important?

Employee sentiment is the beating heart of a business. It encompasses and is impacted by:

1. Attitudes towards company culture, and how people try to be part of it or actively reject it

2. Employee engagement and willingness to participate 

3. Employee satisfaction, both towards their position and opportunities, but also satisfaction with the people they work with 

4. Mutual feelings of respect between employees and employer

5. Flexibility and commitment to a healthy work-life balance

6. Whether or not there are career development opportunities

7. Feelings of belonging and inclusion 

Source

Keeping your finger on the pulse of workplace sentiment alerts employers to any potential issues that may be emerging. Whilst this is pertinent all year round, it is particularly important during times of stress or a change in usual practices. 

When you’re observant of employee sentiment, you:

1. Give your workers a chance to speak up and be heard, which is vital for boosting morale, as it shows that you care about the opinions of your employees

2. Become aware of your own shortcomings and how best to improve

3. Get real data, accurate data which you can use in your advertising

4. Improve your employee retention rates

How Do You Measure and Analyze Employee Sentiment?

Employee sentiment, in theory, is a collection of qualitative data that is relatively easy to analyze, but difficult to measure. 

Questionnaires, scales, and polls help turn this information into quantitative data that is far easier to collect. Additionally, short-form questions are easier to fill out and mean employees don’t have to take the time out of their day to write essays for the sake of the company. 

Here are a few useful ways you can measure and analyze employee sentiment. Each business operates differently, so a range of choices means you can be sure to find something that works best for you and your workers. 

1. Pulse Surveys

At Most Loved Workplace®, we offer a Pulse Validation survey for you to send to your employees. Our services are anonymous, user-friendly, and quick to complete. Moreover, we can do all of the analysis for you, before we release the top 100 Most Loved Workplaces® in our issue of Newsweek Magazine. 

Upon validation, you’ll have the option to add a badge to your website and incorporate our statistics into your employer branding. First impressions are always important. An official certification provides a fantastic look at what could be on offer for any future employees looking to become part of your business. 

Source

2. eNPS

Your employee net promoter score (eNPS) only asks one question: how likely are you to recommend your employer to a friend? High eNPS scores show that employees value where they work and would encourage other people to work there too. Low scores indicate employees are warning people to stay away. 

3. Online Reviews 

Many websites, such as Glassdoor, Indeed, or LinkedIn allow employees to anonymously or publicly review their employers online. 

When you post a job listing, you may find that a series of stars appear next to the name of your company. Keep an eye on this, as it will be one of the first things job seekers look at when deciding whether or not they wish to submit an application to work for you. 

Source

Anonymity allows people to be a lot more open and expressive. And it’s easy to take the written data and analyze it, since you don’t have to transcribe spoken statements. 

Word spreads fast online, which can be both a blessing and a curse. If you want to keep on top of the latest opinions of your company, be sure to monitor mentions on social media platforms like Twitter. 

4. In-person Interviews

Your human resources (HR) department should be responsible for the happiness and welfare of your employees. If you’re planning on gathering in-person intel about employee sentiment, it needs to be done through your HR with full transparency.

Whilst this isn’t as achievable with larger organizations, it’s a great solution for smaller businesses with only a few employees. It allows workers to feel directly listened to, and can help build a sense of ease and personal connection between employees and employers. 

5. Personalized Sentiment Surveys

If you are looking for longer-form answers that provide more insight than a simple engagement survey, it’s well worth using online templates to design your own, personalized, sentiment survey. 

You can make these for every aspect of your business, and cater your questions to different teams and departments. This is useful when it comes to new hires who need frequent check-ups to monitor how they’re getting on, and who may be unsure about voicing their concerns until they’ve settled into their role. 

Small sets of open-ended questions delivered regularly (weekly or monthly) help provide frequent updates about how people are feeling. And they take very little time to complete, which is a benefit for everyone involved. 

6. Conduct Exit Interviews

As important as it is to keep an eye on the sentiment of your employees whilst they are working for you, it is equally as important to understand their sentiments and reasonings for leaving. 

According to a survey conducted by LinkedIn, 59% of employees mentioned that their reason for accepting a new job involved access to a stronger career path with better prospects than their previous role. Similarly, 45% of employees reported they left their previous job as they were “concerned about the lack of opportunities for advancement”. 

Source

If this is a common reason for employees handing in their notice, then you can expect a high, continuous turnover in the future if you do not act on it. 

7. Use Natural Language Processing (NLP)

When it comes to analyzing sentiment, it can be an arduous task to perform by hand, especially when dealing with qualitative data. AI technology such as natural language processing can help speed up this process by identifying keywords or phrases in speech and text. These words can be identified and labeled as positive or negative.

This way, you can swiftly analyze entire sentences and pick out where sentiment changes in the dialogue. 

Source

How Does This Help Attract Top Talent?

Everyone wants to know that their employee experience will be a positive one. No one wants to enter an environment where they will be actively unhappy, but it can be difficult to tell what situation a prospective employee is stepping into during the interview process. 

As an employer, it’s your job to advertize your company positively so that you attract talented applicants. But you should also present yourself realistically, and not try to be disingenuous and present your company as something it’s not. Having a good wealth of knowledge from employee sentiment surveys will let you be honest and transparent in your recruitment process. 

Attracting the best candidates possible is no easy feat, as it’s implied that these individuals will:

1. Have prior industry knowledge

2. Understand what works best for them

3. Be looking for professional development

In the wake of the pandemic, many aspects of the workplace which may have seemed like luxuries before have now become commonplace. This includes remote working and more flexible working hours. 

When writing up your job description, be sure to include a list of perks – especially those which your current employees have praised your company for including. These act as brilliant incentives that people will immediately be drawn to on job postings, especially if you can filter listings based on certain keywords. 

There is a difference between employee engagement and employee satisfaction, but both of these factors are encompassed by employee sentiment. Whilst it may outwardly appear that your company is thriving and has dedicated, hard-working team members, an unfortunate reality could be that they are overworked, trying to beat tight deadlines, and their high output comes from a place of desperation. 

Engagement surveys are notoriously unreliable and rarely paint the full picture. Sentiment surveys, however, can cover every aspect of an environment and provide far better information for both employers and new hires alike. 

Designing Your Recruitment Strategy

Once you have compiled all the information you need based on your surveys, you can start acting on it all. 

Here are some of the steps you can take to ensure you are making the most of your employee sentiment analysis. 

• Act swiftly on issues. If you notice negative recurring patterns and common issues, make these your top priority. You can’t attempt to attract new employees without helping current ones and making their work environment an enjoyable place to be. Using important tactics such as design thinking, plan a roadmap that benefits everyone in your company.

• Use employee testimonials. Likewise, if many employees have praised specific areas in particular, you can use these within your hiring process and appeal to the right talent. Whilst many jobs are versatile and appeal to a wide range of people, you still want to try to craft a specific culture that champions DEIB practices (diversity, equality, inclusivity, and belonging). Using direct quotes and testimonials from people inside your company will highlight this. 

• Show how your employees embody your core values. When employees adopt the values of a company, they become far more connected to it, work harder to help it succeed, and are generally happier overall.

Hiring managers have a lot to take into consideration. But if you want to attract the best employees possible, you need to be open with your expectations and the reality of your workplace from the get-go. 

Final Thoughts

Your employees are the driving force of your business. You can’t expect to appeal to new talent if you haven’t acted on the advice and issues of existing employees. 

Employee sentiment analysis gives a perfect opportunity to see how your company is perceived by those who keep it operating. A great external perspective comes from a healthy, happy internal structure. 

Take the time to find or design a sentiment survey that is right for you and your workers. Take the necessary steps to improve the well-being of your employees, then use this updated strategy to make yourself more appealing to highly talented individuals. 

Everyone will thank you for it. In no time at all, you’re sure to find yourself praised as a Most Loved Workplace®.