Winning the Race to Attract Talent Means Tracking Social Media. Sorry, but it Does!

We read a lot about the war for talent across all industries, and utilities face unique challenges related to recruiting and retaining top talent. Roughly half of the energy utility workforce will be retirement eligible within the decade. The upcoming generation of new talent and mid-level managers view employment very differently than our historical recruiting channels operate. Candidates operate in a highly interconnected world of information where data, opinions and reviews share easily across the social media landscape. This new generation of team members and leaders expects to work for a company that reflects their values, and they turn to social media, not the recruiter, to identify for themselves the employers where they will have the best fit.

What's your utility's social reputation? How does it look to new candidates?

A strong social reputation delivers a positive image of your utility as an employer and a contributor to your community. Positive reviews on Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Yelp and other social media channels significantly enhance the utility's recruiting reach to enhance the candidate pool and attract higher quality applicants for critical path positions. Candidates have a higher likelihood of engaging with your HR team and job placements if the utility has a reputation for being a top place to work.

Poor social reputation repels candidates before your recruiting team has a chance to present the job opportunities. Career fairs and college recruiting may develop a resume pool for outreach, but today's candidates will root out negative reviews, media coverage and public perception of the utility long before the first recruiting campaign begins.

A few facts to consider:

• 75% of job seekers consider an employer's brand and reputation before applying for an open position according to LinkedIn

• Glassdoor suggests that 69% of job seekers are more likely to apply to a company with a strong employer brand, which results in a larger pool of higher quality candidates.

• Higher social reputation may lead to lower recruiting and retention costs, as desirable employers with great social reputation increase their chances of keeping top talent from defecting to competitors or other industries.

Start with Glassdoor and Add More Channels

Recruiters and HR teams usually have awareness of the utility's Glassdoor scores, but today's candidates gather impressions from a variety of social media channels. Glassdoor may provide reviews on work@home or hybrid work environments, compensation and office culture, but candidates want to know more about how the community perceives the utility before they apply for a job. Is the Facebook channel filled with customer service complaints that go unanswered? Do customers post complaints about customer service or rates on Yelp? How do Google reviews look against a balance of news stories about the utility?

We strongly encourage utilities to develop a basic dashboard to illustrate and track their social reputation. It's the first step in harnessing the power of social media for recruiting and employee engagement. Glassdoor is a great start, but only a start, as candidates look across all social media channels to develop their opinions. Tap into the social feeds for reviews and the company's own social media channels to monitor and track trends in your utility's reputation, and start to develop a sense of that community's opinion about working for you. Several companies offer affordable solutions to bring those feeds into a dashboard to illustrate the trends and highlight the utility's recruiting strengths and challenges. Adapting to the needs of a future workforce and winning the race to attract talent means changing our tactics and understanding these new candidates on their terms.