In today’s competitive environment, attracting, developing, and retaining top procurement talent is crucial for success. Today’s procurement professionals prioritize a sense of purpose and meaning in their work, a positive work-life balance, and a workplace that aligns with their values and offers opportunities for growth and development. The future of staffing and recruiting is quickly evolving against the backdrop of emerging technologies, economic instability, and a shifting workforce mindset.
In this Future of Procurement Talent Insights series, we expand on the concepts set forth in the recently published ProcureAbility’s Five Bold Procurement Predictions for 2030. Throughout this four-part blog series, we focus exclusively on exploring the topics related to forward-looking insights for staffing and recruiting and how these best practices can help with recruiting top talent, hiring the right people, and fuel a procurement organization’s long-term growth.
Attracting Top Procurement Talent:
Key Strategies to Appeal to a New Talent Pool
Differentiating a Firm as the Employer of Choice
To differentiate themselves to candidates, employers need to focus on communicating their company culture, highlighting their innovative benefits packages, commitment to social responsibility, and opportunities for growth and development. Also, to appeal to a new talent pool, organizations must understand what employees look for in a company and tailor their strategies accordingly. By focusing on these areas and effectively communicating them to candidates through their employer brand, the company will stand out among others within supply chain and procurement and attract the top talent needed to succeed. This strategy not only increases the chances of attracting the right candidates, but also ensures long-term retention and a positive work environment. Below are focus areas that have been shown to lead to greater candidate experience and employee retainment.
Employees today are prioritizing factors beyond just financial compensation when seeking an ideal workplace. According to a recent study from Glassdoor4 showed that:
Other elements including opportunities for professional growth and development, and a positive workplace environment with a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion are also significant factors that contribute to a company’s appeal. Highlighting how the company excels in these areas can be effectively done by communicating the hiring firm as the employer of choice.
Communicating a Firm as the Employer of Choice
An employer brand reflects the company’s reputation—it is important to maintain a positive reputation in the marketplace. Seventy-nine percent of job applicants use social media to search for a job: Potential candidates research the company they are applying to online; review sites like Glassdoor can paste a positive or negative image about the company’s reputation and have a significant effect on the employer brand.
Employer branding can also provide cost savings within recruiting. According to a survey by LinkedIn, companies with strong employer brands have a 50% lower cost-per-hire and can hire candidates two times faster than their competitors.6 Notably, companies with poor branding pay their employees 10% more.7
Examples of vehicles through which a firm can build and communicate their brand include:
Finding the Right Procurement Talent Partner
Recruiting top talent in the procurement industry is more important, and competitive, than ever. By personally connecting with the candidates, employers are recruiting and sharing the company’s culture and unique offerings. Communicated in part through employer branding, they can attract talented candidates who share the company’s values, are aligned with their mission, and help the organization succeed.
Finding the right partner in this effort is essential to ensuring the firm stands out among the sea of possibilities for the industry’s top talent. ProcureAbility partners with procurement organizations to help find, recruit, and place high-quality resources—whether the need is for staff augmentation support or direct hire recruitment. We serve as a resource for providing sustainable ways for our clients to improve upon their ability to hire. In part two of ProcureAbility’s ‘Future of Procurement Talent’ Insights series, we will explore how to develop a procurement team by effectively leveraging the unique needs and strengths of a firm’s employees, as well as how to drive collaboration and efficiency to position the organization to be strategic contributors to the business.
References:
Author
