Companies face intense competition for top talent.
For many companies today, finding and retaining top talent is critical in order to meet business goals. For small or medium-sized technology companies, recruiting to plan can be especially difficult since larger, better-known brands are able to offer incredible benefits and perks.
To even the playing field, companies today are focusing on building their employer brand and crafting a narrative that highlights the strength of their organizational culture so prospective employees know that they have something great to offer.
For Wonolo, Great Place to Work® Certification is at the heart of their employer branding initiative.
The Challenge – Insufficient Applicant Pipeline to Support Exponential Growth
When Katie Evans-Reber, Head of People at Wonolo, joined the 250-person company, the applicant pipeline was beginning to run dry. Without a strong talent pool to pick from, management was concerned about being able to support the company’s exponential growth.
Katie knew that to build the necessary pipeline, she needed to focus on Wonolo’s employer brand.
Thankfully, the company was well-positioned to focus on employer branding. The organization had almost no attrition and morale was high.
People practices, like all company stand-ups, were in place to help employees feel connected to each other and focused on a shared vision. Allowing employees to work from home on Fridays provided them with a much-needed respite from commuting and meetings.
In other words, employees loved working for Wonolo and it was time to spread the word.
The Solution – Creating an Employer Brand with Great Place to Work Certification
Katie’s previous employer was a Great Place to Work-Certified™ company and she had seen, first-hand the positive effect of Certification on the company’s recruiting program. She also regularly looked at the companies on the Best Workplaces in Technology™ list and knew Wonolo would be in great company there.
Katie took the lead administering the Trust Index© employee survey and completing the Culture Brief™, the only two steps necessary for Certification. With 99% of employees responding that Wonolo is a great place to work, the company was Certified.
Wonolo celebrated its Certification internally and externally. Katie explains, “We partied as a company to recognize the hard work that goes into having a great culture. And then we focused on telling the world and building our employer brand. We did a press release. We wrote blog posts. We used the Celebration Kit and digital badge that Great Place to Work provides to help drive publicity, adding the badge to LinkedIn, our careers page and all social channels.”
The effort paid off. Wonolo added 10,000 followers on Instagram after the posts and immediately saw an increase in job submissions. Almost 27% of applicants now mention Great Place to Work when applying for jobs, a metric that is tracked closely to prove ROI, same as all other marketing channels.
“Having the Great Place to Work Certification badge on both our LinkedIn and our careers page has shown absolute ROI in terms of top of funnel. It's something that our recruiters have added to their pitch.
"When we talk about why we want to be a great place to work, it's a very easy segue into our culture and our values and how we think about building Wonolo for the long term. We are a company that's there for its people.”
Retention & Improved People Practices are Additional Benefits of Certification
In addition to the influx of new, qualified job applicants into the funnel, Katie acknowledges that Certification has had additional benefits. She says, “I know that our continued focus on culture, and having it recognized by Great Place to Work has had an impact on staff retention and makes our customers proud to do business with us.”
And, she says that the Certification process inspired the company to take a closer look at its people practices and codify its policies around things like family leave and business travel, to ensure the company is offering competitive benefits and perks.
She says, “Certification gave us the excuse to sit down and think about our practices to ensure we’re doing everything we can to stay competitive by being the greatest place to work we can be.”