Work anniversaries can help you hire better
|
by Rick Joi Rick Joi is the founder of The Workiversary Group and author of the award‑winning book, Inspiring Work Anniversaries. |
What makes your organization special to employees?
How do you communicate that on your careers page, in your job posts, and as part of your hiring process?
Can work anniversaries help you with that communication?
Work anniversaries can play an important role
It’s very hard for a candidate to know if they’ll truly like one job better than another or not. Candidates are making a really big choice that will have a large impact on their life. And, they’re doing it with very limited information.
Humans are designed to trust words far less than concrete “signals”
You can tell candidates that your organization has a great culture and really cares about employees, but anyone can say that. Candidates will be looking for concrete examples that are hard to fake that back up whatever is being said.
Which of the following do you want to credibly signal to candidates?
Here are some things you can signal with various approaches to work anniversaries:
Your retention is better than others in your industry. This is best communicated by regularly posting long-tenured employees’ work anniversaries to your social media accounts. If you actually have stats for your industry’s average attrition compared to yours, you can promote them on your career page and in your job posts, and then you can point candidates to your social media accounts to see for themselves.
Your organization is diverse. Again, this is best communicated through social media. In general, any photographs works, but they can be staged or curated to appear more diverse than an organization really is. If you regularly post everyone’s work anniversary with individual pictures of the employees, or if you post group shots of everyone who celebrated a 5+ year anniversary that year, or anything else where you’re not selecting a sample, then it will credibly show how diverse your organization truly is.
Your organization is financially successful. You can communicate financial success and stability by giving work anniversary gifts that are bigger than expected. Luxury gifts and impressive experiences are the two most typical options.
Your organization values work-life balance. If your organization values work-life balance, then time off associated with work anniversaries is the thing to promote. If this is your organization, you’ll want to be generous with paid time off, so implementing and promoting the sabbatical described in the previous section is the best approach.
Your culture is fun. Fun of course varies based on the audience, but if you do fun lunch outings to celebrate work anniversaries, then promote that. If you give out custom Lego minifigures to each employee that look like them and then give them a block with their number of years of service every work anniversary, then promote that.
Your culture is team-oriented. If your culture is team-oriented, then work anniversaries are best celebrated with an employee’s team. You can then take pictures and post them to social media when congratulating employees on their work anniversaries. These will clearly contrast with the boring pictures of a boss and an employee both looking seriously and holding a framed certificate.
Your culture is meaningful. If your organization has a strong purpose, then it’s best to lean into that purpose during work anniversaries. The work anniversary isn’t a celebration of years past, it’s a celebration of the date the employee and the organization came together to work on that common purpose. When you post work celebrations to social media, you can make this front and center.
What if your organization doesn’t celebrate work anniversaries well?
Of course, if none of the things in that list are true, or if you celebrate work anniversaries with some sort of check-the-box, pick-it-yourself-from-a-catalog approach, then you won’t want to bring up work anniversaries as part of the hiring process.
If those things are true, but your work anniversaries just don’t reflect them, then you can improve your work anniversaries, often for little or no cost! Check out other posts on this blog for guidance, or, if you prefer books over blogs, check out the book Inspiring Work Anniversaries — How to Improve Employee Experience and Strengthen Workplace Culture through the Untapped Power of Work Anniversaries.