Attracting People & Culture Talent: What Top Candidates Want

Wow Recruitment

People and culture attracts an extraordinary range of talented professionals who are dedicated to improving their workplaces, and making people’s lives easier. As a people-orientated role core to the business, finding the right candidate pays dividends.

But, in such a competitive recruitment market, how do you stand out above the competition and lure the best people and culture talent for yourself? Here’s where to start.

Understand what people and culture professionals love about the job

To promote your workplace as a great opportunity for the best HR talent, we should first understand what they are looking for in their position. Designing a right-fit role and writing exciting job descriptions should be fairly easy from there.

These are some of the top things that people and culture pros love about their work:

1. It creates genuine impact

People get into this kind of human-centric work because it has a very real impact on other people’s lives. Whether they’re helping someone grow their career, mediating disputes, organising new workplace culture and wellness initiatives, or any one of a thousand other tasks, people do it because it makes a difference. And, as we all know, when happy people do good work, it helps achieve very real commercial outcomes for the organisation.

As speaker and HR director Gemma Dale told Sage.com, “[I love] the opportunity to make people’s working lives better, even in a small way.”

Learn more:Enhancing Employee Wellbeing: A Key Driver of Job Satisfaction

2. They love building relationships

People who love people generally enjoy building relationships with their colleagues and industry peers. One of the big perks of the job is getting to know everyone in the company, something that no other person (especially in larger organisations) usually gets to do.

This gives them a chance to build friendships and interact with tons of new people, and to use those relationships to help shape their workplace culture for the better.

3. It’s always changing

HR is an evolving industry, with new processes, business philosophies, research papers and tools coming out each year that affect how things are done. Just one of these many developments can overhaul how a company looks at its people and culture, meaning the job stays variable and interesting over time.

4. There are continuous learning opportunities

People and culture is an entire career track. Professionals who enter this industry can start as relatively inexperienced administrators and work all the way up to senior managerial roles, in any size of business.

That plus the constant change means that there are enormous learning opportunities to be found in people and culture, a fantastic chance for growth for ambitious professionals.

Putting it altogether...

This is a workforce which loves change and seeks out meaningful interactions with people, trying to make a difference in their lives and improve commercial outcomes for the business as a result. It’s a purposeful role available at any level, and in almost any size of organisation, ensuring there’s a lot of opportunities for work. They can usually afford to be picky.

Aspects of your company to promote to attract great HR talent

When finding great people and culture talent, try to lean into what makes the job special. This may require the redesigning of existing HR roles, to emphasise the most important key points. Don’t shy away from change! It could help you get better-quality people.

Consider: Does your business offer any of the following?

1. Highlight great company culture and initiatives

People and culture candidates are on the hunt for companies that adhere to their own values of building great cultures and making people’s lives better. They might look to see if you already have in place a few team culture initiatives, so they’re well worth promoting on your candidate search.

Some common initiatives you might highlight include:

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) policies.
Employee wellness programmes.
Team building activities.
Workplace culture initiatives.
Your team culture generally, i.e. any activities you do together.

Bonus tip: If you don’t have any such initiatives or policies in place right now, you might highlight in your job description that you’re looking for someone to start them.

2. Focus on learning and development opportunities

This is not an industry which will stand still, so it can’t be a role that stands still.

Consider what learning and development pathways you offer to your team, and how this might apply to someone in people and culture. Some policies to think about are:

Upskilling programmes.
Discounts for self-learning.
Peer-to-peer training.
Policies for introducing new tools to the workplace.

3. Embrace flexibility

HR is not a job that requires someone to be on-site all the time, or at least that’s what people and culture professionals are starting to learn. Flexible work (including remote work or flexi-hours) is increasingly desirable – and may be a large factor in determining whether someone is interested in a role or not.

In our previous Job Satisfaction and Wage Trends Report, we noted that 49% of respondents (which included HR professionals) who had no remote days saw no opportunities at their current place of work, and those who disliked their job worked less remotely than those who did.

Bottom line – offering flexible working (to at least some degree) is probably essential for this group of professionals, and could be a competitive advantage over any competitors not offering the same.

4. Focus on purpose

When you’re describing the role online, or to your people and culture recruitment consultant, make sure to focus not just on its key responsibilities (i.e. daily tasks) but the purpose and meaning of the role too. Remember, this is a job that can have real impact, and attracts people for whom meaning is a significant factor.

Some things to think about include:

Promote your company mission, and be proud of it.
Emphasise the impact this role will have on others at the company. You can literally write, “As a People & Culture Advisor at XYZ Co., you will make a real difference to people’s lives.”
Weave in all the aspects we’ve mentioned above as benefits of the role, and indicators that your company lives up to its stated mission. Use these as competitive differentiators.
If you get stuck, focus on outcomes instead of tasks – things that someone will achieve, not just things they will do each day.