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As recently as a year ago, many employers had serious recruitment concerns around the “Great Resignation,” the period between March 2021 and June 2023 when quitting reached a record high. During this era of high attrition, a hot job market meant disengaged workers could easily find another job to more effectively support their career goals. As a result, recruiters had access to a large pool of candidates who were actively searching for a new role. 

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 400,000 fewer people quit their jobs in April 2024 than in January 2023, initiating the era of the “Great Stay.” Counterintuitively, because fewer employees are leaving, employers have a smaller pool of candidates actively searching for jobs. As a result, recruiters are now targeting candidates who may be content in their current job or apprehensive about making a move in today’s business landscape. 

For small businesses, the Great Stay is especially relevant, as they compete with larger organizations for top talent. Convincing any employee to resign from a position they know and like is a difficult task. By leveraging their employer branding, small businesses can elevate their appeal to recruit high-quality candidates during the Great Stay and engage and retain their current team.  

In order to evaluate and boost their employer brand, small businesses should prioritize several areas. 

Candidate experience 

The candidate experience is a critical element of engaging top applicants from the first interaction with your business. With most of the recruitment process now taking place online, you should conduct a digital brand assessment to ensure your digital employer brand is successfully aligning with your organization’s objectives, values and culture. 

The Harvard Business Review has found a poor employer brand could result in businesses paying 10 percent more per hire on average to entice candidates to accept their offer.

Online reviews are an important component of this assessment, since many applicants read online reviews on popular platforms before applying to or accepting a job. So are your company website and social media accounts, which will influence applicants’ understanding of your reputation and employer brand identity. 

Post-digital brand assessment, you may find it useful to solicit testimonials from current employees who are satisfied in their roles. You can then leverage these testimonials to improve the candidate experiences by providing positive yet candid insights into daily life within your organization. Testimonials can be featured on your company careers page as well as on social media. 

Lastly, monitoring, identifying and responding to negative reviews on job posting platforms is an effective way to maintain a company’s reputation and mitigate the impact of negative reviews. Rather than ignoring negative feedback, show you care about addressing their concerns. Prospective employees will see diplomatic engagement as a reassuring sign that you will value their feedback, even if it is not what you hoped. 

Compensation and benefits 

As always, a robust compensation and benefit package is essential to hiring during the Great Stay. LinkedIn data has shown that compensation remains the most important factor that job applicants notice in a job post. 

To distinguish yourself from competitors, your hiring team may find it helpful to offer compensation packages that are set at or even slightly above the going market rate. Rather than using this tactic for a one-time offer, consider building it into your overall compensation philosophy. Benefits such as generous employer-sponsored health insurance, performance pay, and retirement plans will also draw in high performers who may not otherwise want to leave their jobs. Remote and hybrid work can also be a major attractor for the top candidates who can have the biggest impact on the success of your business. 

Learning and development 

Top-performing employees want growth opportunities through learning and development programs. The Harvard Business Review has researched the relationship between employer reputation and recruitment and found that professional development pathways are one of the top three factors associated with a positive employer reputation.  

High-quality L&D programs will allow employees to gain new skills and create a culture of engaged learning. Upskilling programs deserve special focus for their capacity to improve internal mobility, helping entry-level employees achieve more senior roles. 

Employers can also reap the benefits of a more highly skilled workforce, as less than a third said they felt very confident their employees had the skills they needed to drive organizational success in our Insperity 2024 Business Outlook Survey.

During the Great Stay, your employer brand could be the defining factor determining the success of your hiring strategy. When you invest in your employer brand, you can gain a competitive advantage to boost performance and improve your results.  

Mark Berry is a senior human resources consultant with Insperity, a leading provider of human resources offering the most comprehensive suite of scalable HR solutions available in the marketplace. For more information about Insperity, call 800-465-3800 or visit www.insperity.com.

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