Unveiling the Values Divide: the Hidden Pitfall in Recruitment Marketing - ep 140

You've heard you need to highlight your clinic's values to get responses to your job advertisements, but are your recruitment efforts still falling short despite shouting about your values from the rooftops? If so, maybe it's because you're shouting about the wrong values and you've fallen into the trap of the values disconnect. I'm talking about the very real difference between your client values and your employee values In recruitment marketing. Failing to bridge this gap can lead to a deafening silence to your job advertisements. Stay tuned, because today we uncover the untapped potential of talking about the right values in your job advertisements to hit the mark with your job seekers. Welcome to the Vet Staff Podcast, your go-to guide for navigating the vet recruitment scene and boosting employer brand power. Discover practical strategies for both employers and employees to enhance your personal and clinic brands. Get ready to rock the recruitment market and create an exciting workplace where everyone loves going to work. On Monday mornings. I'm your show host, julie South. Last week we looked at the importance of communicating values to job seekers. We looked at three hypothetical clinics and a vet looking to make their next move. Today we're expanding some more on values. Why? Because they're absolutely critical to not only recruitment success but in creating and empowering workplace culture, as well as employment success and job satisfaction. You see, many clinics believe that once they've identified their values, they've ticked the box for effective recruitment marketing. But here's the frustrating thing, and it's a track lots of people fall into. Having a set of values that resonate with your clients doesn't necessarily guarantee the same alignment with your team, and that's where the challenge lies. Shouting your clients' values from the rooftops won't necessarily work when you're trying to get responses to your job advertisements. Instead, what you'll end up with is a disconnect in values. In the competitive landscape of recruitment, it's not enough to simply identify your clinic's values. You've got to use the right values in the right situation. Many employers make the mistake of assuming that their customer-facing values automatically translate across to their team. However, this misconception and misalignment can lead to significant challenges in recruitment and can hinder your ability to build a high-performing team. Today we're going to look at some of the recruitment relevant values what they look like played out in real life, some questions both employers and employees can ask at job interviews why you'd want to include your values, and then the divide between values that light up your clients and how they might be ho-hum for employees. Let's start off with employer values, the recruitment relevant values. Obviously there are lots and lots of values. I've handpicked just a few here that we hear about at VET staff when we're talking with HR and practice managers. Recruitment relevant values are those values you want to highlight in your recruitment marketing. They're the values that are active in your clinic and, forced by the employer, that make your employees' eyes light up. They're the employer values, the way it is at a clinic from a behaviour perspective. If you think of recruitment relevant values being a two-sided coin, you've got the employer on one side and the employee on the other. Let's look at an employer who values, who considers workforce development as a value. It'll be stated along the lines of investing in the growth and the development of employees through training programs, mentorship and career advancement opportunities. It'll be indicated through the regular provision of training and development opportunities. There'll be clear career paths and performance evaluations that focus on growth. It'll be well-being The physical, mental and emotional well-being of employees is prioritised by offering wellness initiatives, work-life balance support and a safe working environment. It will be indicated through the implementation of wellness programs, flexible work arrangements and regular health and safety assessments. Empowerment These will be the clinics that encourage employees to take ownership of their work, make decisions and contribute ideas. It will be indicated through the delegation of responsibilities, involvement in decision-making processes and recognition of employee initiatives. There could be collaboration, which is all about the fostering of a collaborative work environment where teamwork, open communication and knowledge sharing are valued. This will be indicated through the encouragement of cross-functional collaboration, for example between the vets and the vet nurses. It will be indicated through team building activities and the establishment, possibly, of collaborative tools and platforms. And then, lastly, in my list, we've got innovation, and this is all about cultivating an environment that encourages creativity, experimentation and the pursuit of new ideas and solutions. This will be indicated in clinic through the creation of innovation-focused cultures, allocation of resources for research and development and recognition of innovative contributions. So that's from the employer side of the coin. And now from the employee perspective. Here's what might be important to job seekers, and these are the other side of the recruitment relevant values coin. Let's look at growth and development They're looking for. Employees are looking for the regular provision of training and development opportunities. They're looking for clear career paths and performance evaluations that focus on growth, work-life balance. This is the, or could be, the other side of the employee well-being side, the employee well-being coin. What employees are looking for in work-life balance is the implementation of wellness programs, flexible work arrangements and regular assessments of work-life balance. That's important because work-life balance five, 10 years ago, three years ago, even pre-COVID is different to what it looks like today. Autonomy and empowerment They're looking for delegated delegation of responsibilities, involvement in decision-making processes and the recognition of employee initiatives. Collaboration and teamwork They're looking for encouragement of cross-functional collaboration, team building activities and the establishment of collaborative tools and platforms. Innovation and creativity From the employee perspective, they're looking for the creation of an innovation focused culture, the allocation of resources for research and development and recognition of innovative contributions. There's a the differences, the nuance of each is fine, but it's there. It's very fine, it's very nuanced. It is there. So they're the different sides of the same coin. So now what? How might each know whether the other the employer, employee know that the other is living up to their stated values or actually knows how to walk the talk? Here are some questions that each side the employer and the employee can ask the other at job interviews to make sure that each is living true to their claim Or and or they can demonstrate in their advertisements or their CV? These are questions that employees can ask employers. When it comes to workforce development, how do you support employees' professional growth and development? What opportunities do you provide for acquiring new skills or career progression? In other words, what does CPD and CE look like? How do you assess and recognize employees' progress and achievements? In relation to employee well-being, what measures do you have in place to promote a healthy work-life balance? How do you ensure a safe and inclusive work environment for all employees? How do you support employee mental and emotional well-being? Around empowerment how do you encourage and support employee decision-making and autonomy? How are employees involved in important decisions that affect their work? How do you recognize and reward employee initiatives and contributions? In relation to collaboration, how do you foster collaboration among teams and departments From the back to out the front? what communication channels or platforms do you provide to facilitate knowledge sharing? How do you promote a culture of teamwork and open communication? Innovation how do you encourage and support employees in generating new ideas and solutions? Are there dedicated resources or initiatives for exploring and implementing innovative approaches? How are innovative contributions recognised and celebrated at the clinic? Now, the other side of that coin these are questions for employers to ask employees. Around professionalism what does professionalism look like to you? How do you handle conflicts or challenging situations in a professional manner? Continuous learning, cpd, ce. How do you stay informed about industry trends and advancements? How do you actively seek feedback and learning opportunities to improve your performance? Around collaboration what does collaboration look like to you? How do you communicate and share knowledge effectively with your colleagues and peers? How do you support and help your team members achieve their goals For initiative, how do you define initiative? What does it mean to you? What does it look like? Can you provide examples of times when you went beyond your assigned responsibilities to contribute? And lastly, with accountability, how do you ensure that you meet deadlines and deliver high quality work? How do you take responsibility for your actions and learn from your mistakes? How do you actively seek solutions when facing obstacles or setbacks? By asking these questions, both employers and employees can engage in a meaningful recruitment and retention conversation. So this is potential employees, the job interviews or performance reviews catch ups, employee catch ups for employees who are already employed. Each can assess how well their stated values then can align with actions, behaviors and expectations in clinic. Conversations like these promote transparency, accountability and a shared understanding of what expectations are in place. When you've got this happening in your clinic, you'll have a stronger alignment of values between the two parties, between the employer and the employee. If you're a job seeker right now, you might find Episode 73 helpful. Some of the questions I've just mentioned are known as behavioral based questions. To learn how to answer behavior type questions at a job interview, check out the STAR framework. Star, because that's what I talked about in Episode 73. I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes of this episode for you. But why? So? let's go back to values. But why would you want to put your recruitment relevant values out there for all to see? Maybe your competitors might see them? Well, there are plenty of benefits for braving up and publicly stating your clinic's employer values, and here's a quick overview of some of those. Clearly defined recruitment relevant values will provide a shared understanding of your clinic's guiding principles And that results in consistency and alignment in decision making and acceptable behaviors at your place, at your clinic. You'll help employees connect with your clinic's purpose, which will result in higher levels of engagement, usually, hopefully, job satisfaction and retention. These are all good things. These are all things that you want happening. Recruitment relevant values shape your clinic's culture because their behavior relevant. These influence whether a workplace is positive or not, and in turn, they'll attract your dream team future employees who align with those values. And publicly stating your recruitment. Relevant values go a long way to also enhancing your clinic's employer brand image and your reputation, and these showcase your commitment, your clinic's commitment, to ethical conduct, to social responsibility and employee well-being. When you've got shared values between your clinic's employees and your customers, your clients, it can strengthen client loyalty. That's because they're more likely to support clinics that align with their own beliefs and principles. An example of this, albeit outside of veterinary, can be found in the fashion industry. There's a definite move lately right now, currently for consumers to support those clothing brands that aren't made in sweatshops in China and India, so that's another reason why you want to put it out there. Values also serve as a framework for decision making. They ensure that actions and choices align with the clinic's core principles and your long term vision, and clearly stating your values helps attract top people who not only possess the necessary skills but also resonate with your clinic's culture and values. They'll foster trust and transparency within the clinic and among stakeholders. Stakeholders are employees, the owners, suppliers and clients, as it demonstrates your commitment to upholding those values. Values guide ethical behaviour and help ensure compliance with legal and regulatory standards. They'll mitigate legal risks and promote a responsible business environment. And then number 10, reason number 10 is that values prioritise employee wellbeing, and these create a supportive work environment, which is good. They'll enhance physical, mental and emotional health on your team, which is all good. This all leads to clinic and professional sustainability. Right, with those out of the way, now let's look at the perception that job seekers could have about clinics that don't have any stated values or clear values, and or some of the reasons that clinics don't have any recruitment relevant values. If you don't have them, you'll likely be perceived as not having a clearly defined goal and or purpose. You'll lack clarity and alignment. You could be seeing as just being vanilla. You'll be bland. You'll be the same as every other clinic That may be, just maybe you don't care. Some clinics just don't prioritise the importance of having a good culture and or they fail to recognise its impact on employee engagement and the overall clinics success. If leaders don't prioritise or model the desired values, then it totally undermines the importance of having them in the clinic to start with. It could raise the question of what else don't they worry about? So you know it's all again tied in with transparency. Clinics also that avoid publicly stating values may come across, may be perceived as being fearful of being held accountable for not living up to those values. We don't say it, we don't have to do it, and when you're up to your neck and alligators like some clinics are right now with the current staffing shortages, lots of clinics are being reactive, not proactive. When everything is about the here and now, it's easy to overlook the importance of installing long term values. So you could be. It could be a focus on short term results only, which means that you could end up wherever you end up, because you don't know where you're going, because you've got no values to get you there. It could also be that clinics are simply unaware of the benefits and the impact that publicly stating values can have. So if you are trying to attract somebody who whose values are right up there and you don't have them, you may dismiss the mark with that person. It could be a resistance to change and clinics may be hesitant to adopt and communicate values that require shifts in mindset or behavior. If a clinic lacks a genuine commitment to its stated values. It also may choose not to communicate them publicly to a via appear start, again to avoid appear being inauthentic. There could be competitive concerns Clinics in highly competitive situations, like we are right now, with veterinary professional shortages. They may prioritize other aspects of their business and perceive publicly stated values as a potential vulnerability that the clinic down the road will copy their values. So that might be another reason why a clinic might not put them out there. There could also be a lack of strategic focus and a clinic may again, like I've mentioned before, just overlook the importance of defining and communicating values as part of their overall business strategy. Okay, so your clinic has stated values, but you're still not getting the results. And you understand the difference between employer and employee side, but you might not be getting the results that you want from your job advertisements. Hopefully by now you see that clinics aren't sorry, the values aren't a one-size-fits-all thing, that even though you've worked through your clinic's values, you might not have worked through them from the recruitment retention lens, maybe, just maybe, the values that you're espousing are your client-facing your client-facing values, not those that you uphold as an employer. They are two completely different beasts. So now let's have a look at how they are different. So what we're looking at here now is the consumer versus the employee-employer facing values. The audience is different. Consumer-facing values primarily target external stakeholders, such as your clients or your customers and the general public. These values reflect what your clinic stands for, its mission and how it aims to serve its customers or its clients. On the other hand, employee-facing values are designed to engage and inspire internal stakeholders, your employees, by shaping your clinic's culture, your behavior or the people's behavior and the work environment. Let's use competitive pricing as an example. Now, this might be expressed as get the best deals and competitive prices on our veterinary services. We strive to offer affordable options without compromising quality. So, as you can see, that's a consumer-facing value, because consumers, your clients, might think that competitive pricing is for them, that it attracts, that they're attracted to a vet clinic that is into competitive pricing. Obviously, it may not translate directly as an employee value. Most veterinary professionals would probably prioritize values such as patient care, professional development and a supportive work environment. While competitive pricing is important for attracting customers, it doesn't necessarily address the intrinsic motivations and the aspirations of your employees. Consumer-facing values are typically communicated through marketing and branding efforts to create a positive perception and establish a connection with your clients. They're often expressed in a client or a customer-centric language, like I've just talked about before competitive pricing, and they emphasize benefits and outcomes. Employee-facing values, on the other hand, can be communicated through, or may be communicated through, internal communication channels like your Slack group, like your WhatsApp group, like your Messenger, your Facebook Messenger group, whatever your intranet, whatever you've got, as well as your employee handbooks, there may be posters on the staff-only areas of your clinics where customers don't get to visit your lunchroom. Perhaps The language used is more focused on the organizational context and it could include specific behaviors and expectations for employees. Consumer-facing values are often broad and encompassing. They reflect the business's, your clinic's overall mission and your clinic's commitment to your clients. They highlight the clinic's products, services and how they differentiate from competitors. Employee-facing values, while aligned with the broader organizational context, their organizational values, may focus more specifically on the expectations, the behaviors and the principles that guide your team's actions within the workplace. Employee-facing values may place a stronger emphasis on fostering a positive work culture, employee well-being and professional growth. They aim to create an environment where your team feels valued, engaged, supportive and psychologically safe. Consumer-facing values, while indirectly influenced by the clinic's culture, tend to emphasize excellent healthcare, high skills and advanced equipment, while delivering value to your clients. Consumer-facing values are often aligned with the values and expectations of that target market, depending on whether you're a small animal clinic, a mixed or a large. The Target market, for example, could be pet owners, lifestyle block owners, farmers and or horse lovers. I'm sure you get what that target means. They reflect what animal owners seek from the clinic in terms of quality health care, customer or client service, sustainability, social responsibility and other factors that are important to each target audience. Employee-facing values, while not 100% disconnected from client expectations, may also include additional aspects that focus on their wellbeing and their development, on employee wellbeing and development, on their work-life balance, on diversity and inclusion and other internal factors that are relevant to your team. Whilst there can be an overlap into connectedness between consumer-facing and employee-facing values, the specific nuances and emphasis may vary. Both sets of values contribute to the overall identity and the reputation of your clinic, but cater to different stakeholders, to different interested parties. You need to address each respective needs and expectations, each stakeholders, so internal or external. Once you have identified, there's a lot to do, yes, or a lot to take in. Once you have identified that the values that represent your clinic as an employer those that are recruitment relevant it's time to spread the word and attract great job applicants through your recruitment marketing efforts. One long-lasting, immediate and effective way to do this is by creating a business profile at vetclinicjobscom, which is our brand new platform designed to help good vet clinic employers shine online and connect with job seekers. If you've got a dedicated careers website, then you'll also emphasise them there as well, because we understand what matters to veterinary professionals when they're considering potential employers and that they go to veterinary job boards to look for jobs. We've provided a special place on vetclinicjobscom job board for clinics to share their recruitment-relevant employer values. Creating a profile for your clinic is easy and there's a free option available, but I recommend that you consider a premium listing if you want to highlight your clinic's values. You can also advertise your job vacancies for free. The more information that you include about your clinic that's important to potential employees, the better your recruitment marketing will be. Vetclinicjobscom is recruitment reimagined. It makes it simple for job seekers to learn about a clinic as an employer while searching for jobs, all in one convenient place. So please visit vetclinicjobscom today and create your clinic's employer profile for free. It's a great way to showcase what makes your clinic stand out and shine online as an employer so that you can attract the motivated professionals that you want to join your team. I hope you've found all of this helpful. Remember that values are important, and shouting about your clinic's consumer-facing values isn't going to get you the results that you want or deserve from your recruitment marketing. You need to make sure that you're shouting about the right type of values, your recruitment relevant values, to avoid the values disconnect in your job advertisements. If you've got any questions, please feel free to get hold of me. My contact details can be found wherever you're listening to this podcast Coming up next week we have Dr Meg Irvine of VetLife Skills sharing her wisdom on in-clinic communication to help vets and nurses work in jobs that they're excited about going to on Monday mornings. To make sure you don't miss that episode, make sure you've hit that follow button on your podcast app of choice so the VetStuff podcast automatically appears in your feed. Until then, this is Julie South signing off and inviting you to shine bright online and go out there and be the most fantabulous version of you you can be. Thank you for listening right to the very end. I appreciate that. Take care, god bless. The VetStuff podcast is proudly powered by VetClinicJobscom, the new and innovative global job board reimagining veterinary recruitment, connecting veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online. Vetclinicjobscom is your go-to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vet clinics power up their employer branding game. Visit vetclinicjobscom today to find vet clinics that shine online, so veterinary professionals can find them. Vetclinicjobscom.