Employees don’t think benefits reflect their needs. Here’s how to fix that.

We’re in uncharted territory.

As you read this, companies are racing to retain talent and attract new hires. We’ve seen so-called “wars for talent” before, but this is a new kind of struggle.

Related: Study finds ‘great reset’ happening among American workers

Employees are searching for the flexibility they’ve come to covet over the last year-and-a-half, and they are likely more mindful than ever of their employers’ impact on their mental health. In fact, in a recent Grant Thornton survey of 1,500 American workers, 79% of the respondents said they want flexibility in when and where they work. Furthermore, 40% of those employees said they will quit if forced to return to the office. When employees were asked about benefits, the findings became even more troubling:

• 47% of people believe that the benefits and rewards they receive are not any more unique than what they could receive from another employer
• 45% say their employer doesn’t understand their needs

All signs point to what we’re calling a “recruitment reckoning,” a time when companies need to evaluate and refine their recruitment, benefits and rewards strategies if they hope to stay competitive amidst a shortage of talent in the market. In other words, if employers hope to come out on top in the future of work, they must take a hard look at their benefits and how they rework them.

Here are five key tips to help you find and retain top talent amidst this new reckoning.

1. Think like a marketer

In April 2020, there were four million open jobs in the U.S. One year later, that figure had more than doubled.

To attract the top talent, organizations must pick one or two workplace attributes they want to own. Offering similar perks as your competitors will not do the trick. Instead, we recommend identifying your unique market differentiators — the things that your competitors can’t match. As mentioned above, nearly half of the employees we recently surveyed don’t think their benefits are distinctive. This gives you an opportunity to refine your offerings and stand out. Human resources professionals need to think like marketers and create a value proposition, with employees and recruits as your customers.

For instance, you should monitor how your competitors are returning to work. As the data above show, people want more flexibility and the option to work from home. Are you offering that? If not, have you considered it? Your goal is to address an unmet need that your competitors can’t replicate.

In many cases, you can’t act unilaterally while shaping something as large as a flexible work policy. But by sharing data like the key stats above, you can help your fellow leaders shape policies that benefit recruitment and retention. If you can’t create an enticing workplace value proposition, your employees may look for other opportunities— and you’ll need to spend more time and money to attract and keep your current employees.

Speaking of which, it’s equally important to understand what your people are thinking and stressing about. To that end, Grant Thornton created an assessment tool that can measure the drivers of stress, i.e. what keeps employees up at night. When we understand these stressors, we can then devise solutions, test them empirically, and design and deliver a better total reward package that addresses the needs of employees.

2. Refine your onboarding

We always recommend a comprehensive training and onboarding experience for new hires. You should also ensure that your training tells employees what makes your organization unique. Now more than ever, communicating your company’s culture and strategy are important.

To accomplish this, review your onboarding process and touchpoints to identify areas of improvement and change. You should also aim to strengthen new hire training content and timing — and re-sync onboarding surveying and analytics.

Finally, organizations should focus on why someone joined their company in the first place and then compare and contrast those reasons to your off-boarding data. In doing so, you can understand more fully why someone is leaving your organization.

There were a number of people onboarded during this pandemic whose sole work experience will have been a pandemic experience. As such, their experience with your company’s culture is going to be starkly different than the experience of those who joined prior to the pandemic. It is critical to expose these recent new hires to other teammates, corporate culture and the values of the organization. For many people, that’s how they learn: by working and observing other people. This, in turn, contributes to growth, career development and advancement. The absence of a strong onboarding program sets the tone for a less-than-ideal work experience.

3. Reward your talent

If you haven’t conducted a pay equity study or analysis recently, now is the time to do so. Communication of this program can be a great way to build trust with employees. This is also an opportunity to develop an understanding of employee needs and preferences, which, in turn, can help your business align benefits investments to changing needs and create savings for the whole company.

Your ultimate goal is to deliver cost-effective benefits and total rewards to your employees. You will likely realize that, most times, there are many rewards that are more desirable than cash in the eyes of your staff.

For example, while consulting a Fortune 100 company on rewards in their Asia operation, we found that employees valued opportunities to work in the company’s other Asian offices. Furthermore, those employees viewed working at the company’s U.S. headquarters as an even greater reward. Had the company not invested in the resources needed to understand their employees’ preferences, they wouldn’t have discovered the rewards their people truly coveted.

To capitalize on non-cash incentives, you must measure employee perceptions of organizational culture and identify the most effective way to invest in a total rewards program. It’s important to note that turnover isn’t always a bad thing; it can bring in fresh ideas and new skills. But unthoughtful turnover — losing talented people you could have retained — is a hindrance on any organization. If you utilize machine learning, as many companies do, you can accurately predict the people who may be most likely to leave. You can then proactively work to retain the individuals at risk of departure, thereby keeping the people who make your business strong.

4. And develop your talent

Many times, employees don’t feel inspired or connected to the big picture and business strategy. This can be a major inhibitor to corporate performance. Similarly, many employees don’t understand performance goals or career growth, which leads to a lack of trust between employee and employer.

To address this, you can develop training for your people leaders centered on team-building and people management strategies. At the same time, you can review your performance management and career development processes and enhance both based on the employee preference insights explained above. Then, you can leverage the insights gleaned from listening and analytics to create a communication messaging plan for HR managers and those in leadership positions.

It’s likely that those insights will reveal a strong desire for career development opportunities and flexibility in work location and hours. But no matter what they reveal, these insights will inform productive conversations with your fellow business leaders.

Lastly, your refined training tactics can help you identify top performers and flight risks. Because when you understand what motivates your people — and what benefits and rewards they seek — you will know what gaps you need to fill to retain your top talent.

5. When necessary, offboard talent the best way possible

As much as we hate to see it, employees do leave on their own accord. But there are steps you can take to mitigate these departures — and learn from them.

First, you should try to minimize inevitable disruption when losing employees. Next, compare and contrast off-boarding drivers to ones identified during onboarding.

The big question should always be, why are they exiting? Behavioral scientist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman documented the “peak–end rule”: people judge an experience at its most intense point and at its end, rather than the total experience. This means that employees pay more attention to how companies manage departures, and that influences their future willingness to return to the company, refer others, influence former colleagues and share their experience on social media. When you ensure your employee departures are as simple and respectful as possible, you can increase your chances of that employee positively influencing others to pursue employment at your company. In our modern era, where negative reviews are often a quick search and a few clicks away, you can never underestimate the importance of positive word-of-mouth.

Lastly, it’s important to usher your departing employees into your alumni network. In 2019, a report by PeoplePath and Cornell University showed that about a third of corporate alumni maintain connections with previous employers as clients, partners, or vendors, and that 15% of new hires come from alumni rehires and referrals. Maintaining relationships after your employees have departed isn’t just the professional thing to do; it clearly benefits your organization.

It’s important to remember that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to recruitment and retention — especially not in today’s rapidly evolving workplace. But by following the guidance above, you and your fellow HR and benefits leaders can develop a thorough understanding of what your employees want and need.

With that understanding, you are well-positioned to thrive amidst this “recruitment reckoning.”

Tim Glowa is principal of human capital services at Grant Thornton LLP and Angela Nalwa is managing director of HR transformation at Grant Thornton LLP.