01 Apr HR Focus: How PR can help you hire and retain the best employees

In HR, we know how important it is to have the best talent feel rewarded, engaged, and part of supporting your organization’s growth. Today we focus on the magic that happens when human resources meets public relations as that’s when we see a true transformation of workplace culture.

For many businesses workplace culture can mean wellness time off, healthy habit campaigns, giving back to the community, and special internal events and rewards. But when HR teams up with PR, we see dramatic change in the way employees are hired and retained through simple efforts.

Here are the top three ways public relations can influence your HR planning for workplace culture and retain your best employees.

1.   Asking employees what they believe in. Many times the simple step of surveying employees is missed when developing community efforts. We often see communications and marketing departments taking the reigns of designing a community outreach program. While this is great for the overall business, it misses out on the opportunity for HR to tap into the causes that current employees truly care about.

Studies show when employees get to support causes they actually care about and are engaged in through their work, they feel happier and stay longer at their job. Why not have HR and PR collaborate on community outreach efforts and make for a solid plan? For more tips on how to do this, read our article here.

2.   Spotlight employees with human interest stories. What we’ve learned time and time again is that everyone has a story. All people experience challenges and triumphs and that is often the thread that brings us together as humans. Conversely, what we find is that often HR isn’t informed enough about employees’ human interest stories and therefore leave opportunities on the table that could truly shine the spotlight not only on your organization, but your employees. We’ve seen amazing stories such as an employee raising funds for their mother who received a life-saving organ donation to an executive leader overcoming a spinal cord injury. Let these stories shine!

This is where management from all departments can help with setting a protocol for people to share their stories and get to know each other on a deeper level. Then HR can pick up the lead and work with marketing on communicating those stories via social media, newsletter, website, and to local media. When an employee is featured in such a significant way, it raises their level of buy-in to the business and again retains them much longer.

3. Celebrate milestones. Typically, when someone in leadership is promoted or receives an award, we hear about the news through business announcements or perhaps even a press release. While every employee’s internal growth simply cannot be turned into a press release, for example, it’s still wise to celebrate milestones for employees who are not at executive leadership levels. These employees are your hard-working life force and simple milestone celebrations can go a long way.

Typical milestone celebrations look like an official announcement along with a photo, a group event celebrating corporate anniversaries or a commemorative gift for major milestones. But what about taking a look at the unique ways PR can help assist with celebrating employee milestones? Could there be an unprecedented time off policy incorporated, a way to give back to the community celebrating the employee’s five-year anniversary by bringing puppies for adoption into the workplace or spending the afternoon at a children’s foster home facility playing board games? These are just some ways to make an employee’s milestone from drab to unforgettable, therefore, again keeping them engaged.

There are many ways HR can capitalize on hiring and retaining the best talent and we hope these top PR strategies help incorporate a new level of engagement among your team.