March Madness for HR: Embrace National Employee Appreciation Day, International Women’s Day, and Spring!

From National Employee Appreciation Day through March Madness (and don’t forget about International Women’s Day), March is a big month for HR. Also, the first day of spring — a welcome shift for many.

Looking ahead in this month’s newsletter, how to approach sociopolitical issues from a PR standpoint, the extra perks of working with a recruiter and how to ensure your job descriptions are truly gender neutral.

How Vocal Should Your Company Be?

With an election year underway, should companies feel pressured to take a stance on sociopolitical issues? This is a heated topic. In the interest of propriety, professionalism and even diversity, “no way” is a pretty good argument.

Then again, according to a recent survey of CHROs by the University of South Carolina, 70% of them plan to keep doing it. Why? Mainly because of pressure from employees, customers and professional associations. (Read more on this)

In particular, female and minority employees state they feel more supported when their employers take a stand for issues they care about. And 42% of the companies surveyed say that have formal criteria in place for such public PR stands.

As a recruiter at KIP Search, more and more, I do hear from job seekers looking to align themselves with companies that share their values, and vocally.

A Perk of Working with a Recruiter

Recruiters like those of us at KIP Search can help you with your hiring in some pretty obvious ways. We have big talent pools to draw from, full-time expertise in the hiring process, and the professional acumen to lead the process from source to hire.

But there’s another big benefit of using a recruiter, and that’s the relationship-building we conduct all the time, over time.

Say you’ve interview someone for a role they weren’t quite right for, but you really liked them. They move on to another position, and you hire someone else for the role. A few years later, they’re thinking about a new job, and you’re hiring for an adjacent role they’d be perfect for. But you’ve forgotten about them, and they haven’t officially started a job search, so they miss your posting. With a recruiter in the mix, it’s much more likely that you’ll get reconnected with the candidate and make it work this time. Recruiters like me keep on top of relationships with talented folks, and we keep them on speed dial.

Are Your Job Descriptions Truly Gender Neutral?

Most people would agree that job descriptions should be gender neutral. But there are a lot of words and phrases you might not think about when crafting a supposedly gender-neutral post.

It’s not just about pronouns, although the very first step you can take it to change all third-person pronouns to “they” or “them.” Certain other words that may seem perfectly harmless are actually “gender-coded,” and various studies have shown that women are less likely to apply for jobs gender-coded for men, and vice versa. Just a few examples:

The words active, aggressive, and decisive are “gender-coded” to favor men.

The words “cheerful, compassionate, and considerate” are “gender coded” to favor women.

(Here’s a whole study on this topic)

Lean into synonyms and consider hiring a recruiter who can help you tap into a more well-rounded talent pool! If you’re ready to make a bold step forward with your recruiting techniques, simply hit “reply” and let’s start talking.