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Attracting and retaining top talent today
Explore the diverse values, skill sets and expectations of today’s multi-generational workforce, and get practical tips to tailor your recruitment and retention strategies for optimal results.
Read our summary
When it comes to staffing, Canadian companies currently face unique workforce challenges. With Canada’s
unemployment rate at 5.4%
- a nearly forty-year low - employers are struggling to attract, recruit and retain top talent. Moreover, for the first time in contemporary history, four generations of employees - Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millennials), and the first crop of Generation Z – are now working side-by-side.Given this diverse workforce, what strategies and approaches should HR professionals adopt to successfully attract and retain top young talent?Attracting the younger generations
Generationally, the power dynamic of the hiring process has shifted. Most Millennial and GenZ job seekers feel they ultimately choose their employer, whereas previous generations believed the hiring power resided with the employer. In addition to compensation and benefits, Millennial and GenZ employees strongly value flexibility, company culture, and career development. Moreover, given their familiarity with technology and the Internet, young candidates will extensively research a company before they apply for or accept a position. Therefore, recruiters must adjust their traditional approaches and methods to appeal to these generations. Experts believe that employers should:
- Develop a strong employer brand. The lines between marketing and recruitment continue to blur. The best employer brands are bold, authentic, and accurately depict the employee experience, often by transforming engaged employees into brand ambassadors.
- Streamline and digitize your hiring process. Online job applications are now ubiquitous, so a simplified, candidate-focused experience is crucial. Recruiters should strive to communicate in a timely, personalized way, reduce hurdles to the application process, and seek candidates’ feedback so messaging remains streamlined and on-brand. Optimizing job listings for mobile recruiting is also a must, since more than31.5 million Canadiansare connected to a wireless device, and over70% of all job seekerssearch for employment opportunities on mobile devices.
- Engage on social media. All marketers know that you must go where your target audience is. Social media offers economical, effective opportunities to speak directly to top talent while reinforcing your employer brand. Recruiters should develop an accessible, creative presence on these generations’ preferred social media platforms – established sites such as Twitter and Facebook, or innovative recruitment channels like Snapchat or Instagram. LinkedIn is particularly useful for posting open positions, targeting passive candidates, promoting your employer brand by participating in groups, and connecting (or reconnecting) with members of your network.
Additional tactics include establishing partnerships with educational institutions to build a future candidate pipeline; leveraging technology to track recruiting metrics; and using workforce analytics to support well-informed, timely hiring decisions and develop responsive workforce plans.
You’ve hired a promising candidate. Now what?
Once hired, Millennial and GenZ employees want to feel engaged with their work and company. Key retention factors include opportunities for pay raises and advancement, the chance to do meaningful work, and an extensive benefits package. Given these factors, here are five tips to retain and engage your new young talent:
- Design and implement a strong, structured onboarding process. Supporting and integrating new hires are vital aspects of retention and engagement. Consider making your onboarding process more playful by incorporating elements of gamification, virtual reality and videoconferencing. Ideally, this process is also assisted by technology; younger workers expect technology to be incorporated into the most routine activities. Ultimately, onboarding should bolster your employer brand, familiarize employees before their first day of work, and help forge a bond with the organization.
- Personalize and humanize the “first day” experience. Every generation values relationships; therefore, technology should reinforce, not replace, the human factor. Employers can designate a mentor, greeting team, or go-to resource to ease new hires into their work environment. Adding creativity and fun (first-day lunches, gift baskets, virtual meet-and-greets, etc.) also quickly builds connections and helps dispel the “first day” jitters.
- Introduce/enhance work-life balance programs. Younger workers expect work-life balance at the very outset of their careers; they want to immediately be able to work from home (or a satellite office) or have a flexible schedule. They thrive under work-life balance programs like TELUS’ Work Styles, which have been shown to increase employee retention and engagement, and deliver consistent productivity.
- Prioritize career development. This aspect is crucial given the current skills and labour gaps, and the specific expectations of Millennial and GenZ employees. They seek meaning in their work, and expect employers to deliver continual investments and opportunities to develop their skillsets and personal interests.
- Offer (and seek) constant feedback. Younger workers value mentoring, and their reliance on technology has accustomed them to near-constant feedback and communication. Thus, these generations value frequent, ongoing performance conversations (rather than annual reviews) with supervisors who are relatable and accessible. They also appreciate regular engagement surveys, where they have a voice in creating action plans leading to concrete, positive changes in the workplace.
Money and benefits still matter
Despite variations in specific expectations, compensation and benefits still account for
59% of key retention factors
across all generations, and 60% of people
report that employment perks remain a major factor when considering a job offer. As a result, employee retention and engagement strategies should remain forward-thinking with regard to financial motivators. These include (but are not limited to) valued wellness and work-life balance perks like extended health coverage, additional vacation time, mental health/wellness initiatives, loan/tuition assistance, paid top-ups for parental leaves, and onsite daycare or other childcare support. It’s imperative that HR professionals understand the changing values, expectations and needs of Millennial and GenZ job seekers. This understanding will serve as the foundation of finely-tuned recruitment strategies, and ensure a high-performance, harmonious workplace.
Offering a competitive benefit plan
With 54% of Canadian employers planning to invest in digital health solutions over the next five years, is your health plan ready to compete?
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If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that life can change in the blink of an eye. The global coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to find a new normal. From ordering groceries online, to mobile apps that have your favourite coffee waiting for you curb-side– technology has proven indispensable in navigating today’s world.
You have likely investigated technology solutions for your business as well – from cloud-based services to ensure on-going client support, to VPN and other privacy services to support teleworking for your employees.
The healthcare industry is no different. Technology to enable virtual visits with family physicians has exploded onto the scene, and the Canadian private health insurance market is also adopting technologies that offer innovative, value-added services to employers and employees.
Is your health plan ready to compete?
Your employees are your most valuable asset. But attracting and retaining top talent is not always easy.
Today’s tech-savvy employees not only demand a comprehensive health benefit plan – they want the digital services that make benefiting from their plan fast and easy.
Today’s tech-savvy employees not only demand a comprehensive health benefit plan – they want the digital services that make benefiting from their plan fast and easy.
With 54% of Canadian employers planning to invest in digital health solutions over the next five years
, is your health plan ready to compete?Promote wellness – without costing an arm and a leg
Employers are learning the undeniable value of employee health and well-being – both in terms of its impact on the employee’s productivity, but also in the employee’s overall satisfaction with its employer.
One obstacle some employees face in maintaining health is out-of-pocket costs
. Imagine if you could reduce this burden for your employees.It’s possible with direct billing.
- It’s a free service for your employees and it’s already included in your benefit package
- Your employees only pay for the portion of the service not covered by the insurance plan – saving out-of-pocket expenses and the hassle of submitting claims and waiting for payments
Direct billing is making it easier for people to access private healthcare services – an important step towards improving the health of Canadians. Access to the right treatment, at the right time not only improves health outcomes, but also makes for a more efficient and focused workforce for employers.
With lower out-of-pocket expenses, employees are more inclined to keep their appointments, improve their physical condition and thus productivity at work without seriously impacting their personal budget. Completing full treatment cycles improves long-term recovery prognosis, allowing employees to better control future flare-ups, minimize the amount of time in pain, and reduce missed work.
Insurance payment in the 21st century
Today’s consumer expects fast and easy payment options wherever they are, whether through the simple tap of a credit or debit card at the grocery store, or the click of a mouse online. The same is true with health insurance payments.
Market research performed by IPSOS Marketing, on behalf of TELUS Health (2018), found that:
- 50% would consider changing healthcare professionals in order to benefit from direct billing
- 80% believe eClaims would improve their experience at healthcare professionals’ clinics
- Nearly 70% select a healthcare professional according to the portion of the fees they must pay
Whether healthcare is received in-person or virtually, today’s direct billing services allow healthcare professionals to submit claims online on behalf of your employees, helping to minimize financial impact on your employees.
- Enhance the perceived quality of your benefit plan to increase employee engagement
- Demonstrate a progressive culture towards health benefits
- Increase employee satisfaction due to faster payments and fewer out-of-pocket expenses
Getting started is easy – and free!
The eClaims service is already supported by many insurance companies including Canada Life, Manulife and Sun Life, and is offered by more than 60,000 healthcare professionals across Canada.
For many insurers, direct billing is included in their standard benefit plan. The insurance companies that subscribe to the service cover the costs in order to stay competitive as well as to reduce their volume of paper claims and the high costs associated with processing paperwork.
All your employees need to do is ask for it at their next appointment. They can use our
search tool
to see if their healthcare professional already offers eClaims.Rethinking how we work
Explore how HR teams can help define their organization’s “next normal” with input from home-based employees and managers.
Discover how
Provincial governments have entered the early phases of reopening communities, and many organizations are working on their own re-emergence strategies.
With 82% of HR leaders involved in the decisions around the physical workspace
, their teams are tasked with imagining what the next normal looks like for their workplaces.One thing is for certain, we are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic working conditions anytime soon, if ever. Here are some starting points as you think about transitioning remote teams to new realities.
Employee experience
In the early months of 2020 about 2.1-million Canadians usually worked from home. By the last week of March,
that number had exploded to 6.8-million or about 40% of the workforce
. Many of the 4.7-million newly-minted remote workers had just days to figure out how to get up and running amidst the chaos of school closures, travel bans and frightening predictions.While this early uncertainty may have settled, organizations need to understand the implications of remote work as a standard operating procedure, both through the lens of the organization and the employees themselves.
Although some employers offer virtual on-demand mental health support, such as
Virtual Care by TELUS Health
, it’s important to understand the reality of your home-based workforce so you can take steps to make it a healthy and sustainable option for as many people as possible.Consider doing some research using online surveys and virtual focus groups to find out what’s really going on. Areas to look at include:
- Engagement
- Productivity
- Mental wellness
- Physical wellness
- Access to information and support, such as anHR contact centre
Focusing on these areas can help you understand the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. At TELUS we used inputs such as these to drive a
32 percent increase in employee engagement
when we redefined our workplace. We also noticed a big improvement in customer satisfaction
. An experienced consultant can help you design an improved employee and customer experience.Manager Experience
During times of uncertainty and change, leaders are key
for maintaining your organization’s performance culture. They will need to draw on a broad skill set to manage productivity, engagement and new routines during what is likely to be a long-term change to how we will work.Considerations for your next normal could include:
- Leadership skill development such as coaching and mentoring
- Career development
- Performance management
- Employee learning and development
- Formal and informal team communications
- Technical skills for using new tools to stay in touch and manage productivity
- Virtual workplace experts who can support managers in this new way of working
HR executives also need to keep an eye on the usual strategic imperatives including succession planning, benefits costs, talent management and workforce planning. With new ways of working, it may be an opportunity to
consider new tools or partners
to support immediate and long-term shifts.Start with basics
The employee and manager experiences will take a bit of time to understand and redefine, but an easy place to get started on next normal planning can be the basics of connectivity. While internet providers, including TELUS, support people working from home with high-speed connections and waived data limits, many remote teams have encountered other issues.
It will be a long time, if ever, before we return to the way we worked just a few months ago, and HR executives have a short window in which to create the vision and the policies that will define their organization’s next normal. With an unprecedented number of people working from home, HR teams need to focus on how they will enable a productive, effective and engaged workforce.
The TELUS Employer Solutions team can help you design and manage your workforce. Our HR experts are ready with the services and technology you need to
enable your virtual workplace
.Why you need a record retention strategy
Get inspired on best practices for document management and compliance by consulting this article and our tip sheet.
Learn more
For many of us in payroll and HR, it sometimes feels like a lot of that paper ends up on our desks and in our filing cabinets. Despite our best intentions to go paperless, there is that little bit of doubt about how to handle compliance requirements for the sensitive records all businesses must keep. This is particularly true for payroll and employment records.
Making matters more confusing, each province and territory has different requirements when it comes to which records must be kept and for how long. It’s no wonder many of us are confused about what we should keep in case information is needed in the future and what we should destroy, to help protect privacy.
So how do we tame the paper monster, create streamlined processes, and still ensure we comply with complex regulations? This is where a record retention policy can help.
How to implement a record retention policy
A record retention policy clearly states which records your organization will keep, where and how they will be stored, and when you will plan to destroy them. Here are three steps to pulling a record retention strategy together.
Step One: Know your obligations.
Employers are regulated by multiple agencies, including Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Revenu Quebec (RQ), along with many pieces of legislation such as the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), provincial employment standards acts, Canada Labour Code, and Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) rules. Work closely with your legal and HR teams to fully understand what you are required by law to keep and for what period of time.
Step Two: Conduct an audit.
Review all the records you are required to keep, and carefully log where each record is located, (whether physically, electronically or both), and when it should be scheduled for destruction.
Step Three: Review your retention schedule regularly.
Compliance rules change, so it’s important to review your record retention policy at least every 18 to 24 months to ensure it is still compliant and efficient.
Tip sheet for great record keeping
A few best practices will help your team stay on top of your record retention policy, even if you don’t yet have a formal one in place.
- Stay organized. Use consistent naming conventions and organize records by date and name. Destroy all records that have no value.
- Make records a priority. It’s never too early to start creating good systems and protocols, but when an audit or claim arises, it may be too late. Don’t put this off!
- Ask questions. Your provincial and federal regulators will be happy to help you understand your compliance obligations. Make sure you work with internal partners, such as legal counsel, HR and senior leaders, and take advantage of training resources offered by the Canadian Payroll Association or your local chapter.
Follow our record retention checklist
- Do you have a formal record retention policy?
- Have you defined how you will name records?
- Are old versions of records archived away from active records?
- Have you reviewed the legislation in each province or territory where you have employees?
- Are your digital records backed up with a copy stored securely offsite?
- Are your physical records securely stored at your place of business?
- Are your records, physical and digital, stored within Canada?
- Are all of your digital files in readable condition?
- Have you and your vendors discussed how records will be stored and managed?
- Do the vendors who have access to your records require their employees to adhere to a set of strict policies around data security and privacy?
- Do you have regular conversations with your legal and HR teams to ensure everyone is aligned?
- Do you know where to go for updated compliance information?
40 ways to get through year-end with a smile
November to February is a busy time for HR and Payroll. Here are 40 tips to help you put your plan together and have you smiling through year-end.
Read our tips
As the holiday season approaches, many parts of the organization slow down for a bit of a breather before the New Year, but not the Human Resources and Payroll departments. Year-end triggers a flurry of important tasks for HR and Payroll teams. Here’s a quick checklist to help you plan your year-end so you can get through it with confidence.
Put your plan together
- Communicate vacation policies or restrictions so employees and managers can plan ahead.
- Remind employees to check and use their vacation balances.
- Encourage employees to verify and update information such as addresses, and life changes that relate to pay and benefits.
- Review any HR/Payroll regulatory changes that come into effect in the New Year and identify any impact and required revisions to your people policies or collective bargaining agreements.
- Prepare for external regulatory audits by making sure your record retention policies and practices are being followed.
- Complete an internal year-end records audit.
- Prepare for performance discussions and set your team targets and goals for the coming year.
Payroll to-do list
- Review upcoming federal and provincial tax and legislative changes that impact Payroll and develop a change management plan to communicate any changes that will affect staff.
- Download the current year-end resources available through the Canadian Payroll Association (CPA).
- Balance and reconcile all third-party regulatory remittance accounts to prepare for your year-end submissions.
- Review vacation accrual balance reports, and communicate to employees, managers and HR teams.
- Communicate with employees about where and when their T4s and New Year TD1s will be available.
Recruitment readiness
- Confirm your recruitment and training budget for the upcoming year.
- Generate any Human Capital Management (HCM) reports you need for your overall workforce strategy.
- Review upcoming leaves, retirements and new headcount to build your hiring plans.
- Review attrition trends for the previous year, including retention and turnover rates and reasons.
- Take a look at your employer brand – are you showing up competitively versus other employers?
- Review and update your careers website.
- Analyze your applicant tracking – is the system friendly and efficient for both candidates and your recruitment team?
- Clean up old postings on internal and external job boards.
- Work with your hiring managers to update job profiles and descriptions for the coming year and make sure that they stand out against your competition.
Benefits tasks
- Review your experience rating and target loss ratios with your broker or provider.
- Draft questions about benefits plan satisfaction to include in your employee feedback survey.
- Reach out to your coverage provider(s) or broker to see what the current trends are in your industry.
- Communicate enrolment or renewal periods to employees, especially where premiums are impacted.
- If you offer employee choice benefits such as flexible spending accounts or health care spending accounts, be sure you communicate allocation instructions as early as possible.
- Remind employees to use up any balances expiring at year-end and to submit all their receipts by the deadline in your plan contract.
- Evaluate your benefits processes: are employees satisfied with the enrolment and administration tools you offer? Could you offer more personalization to your employees with a flexible benefits plan?
- Generate benefits costing reports to analyze your program and plan for changes in the next year.
- If you offer RRSP plans to your employees, remind them to make their final contributions well ahead of the deadline at the end of February.
- Spend some time reviewing the latest market trends, such as virtual care or new workplace wellness initiatives.
Get strategic
- Review compensation guidelines and industry and market trends to prepare for annual merit increase discussions.
- Put your annual company holiday calendar together early, noting statutory holidays, planned closures and compliance deadlines for the year.
- Review and update all HR policies and communicate your processes for weather-related closures, after all we are in Canada!
- Communicate key deadlines for any mandatory policies or training, such as Respectful Workplace, Ethics and Integrity, etc.
- Review the HR function – could a shared services model help your team be more strategic?
- Gather the people data you will need to retain to for audit and internal requests purposes, including employee data reports, year-end reports and headcount reports.
- Audit and clean your employee data as required. If this is a big job, consider how you might automate it in future.
- Take your teams out for lunch or bring in some holiday treats to recognize them for their hard work.
- Make a hot cup of tea and put your feet up – you deserve it!
Future friendly HR solutions
From everyday support to complex technology solutions, we’re there when you need us. TELUS Employer Solutions provides advanced HR consultancy solutions that let you focus on your core business.
Put our HR expertise to work for you
Have a question or ready to get started? Speak to our specialists.