Re:locate magazine | Recruitment | Winning the Wooing War

An increasing number of companies are offering relocation support as a powerful incentive in the recruitment war. We take a look at two organisations who’ve used it to woo workers to undervalued locations.

It’s a typical scenario: you need to employ the very best staff – ambitious and committed professionals, highly motivated and keen to succeed. You’re having to look further and further afield to find the best candidates, sometimes even overseas. Not only are they becoming increasingly difficult to find, but also your competitors are chasing them as well. And, if potential candidates perceive the location of your company as an issue, it can become a major stumbling block even before the selection process has started.

In the case of retail giant Argos, it was definitely a case of ‘forewarned is forearmed’ as far as its recruitment campaign was concerned. The company’s Avebury headquarters are based in Milton Keynes – a city that many people wrongly associate with nothing more exciting than concrete cows. Says Argos HR Manager, Avebury, Sonia Astill: "We commissioned recruitment agencies to find out what factors were deterring potential employees from working with us. When 22% named our location as a problem, we knew it was time to start actively selling the city itself.”

So how does a large company go about essentially ‘re-selling’ its location? Argos turned to outside agencies for help. Roger Juniper is managing director of 360 Degrees Advertising Ltd, a company that’s been handling Argos’s recruitment communications for the past couple of years. “Essentially, we advise companies on marketing jobs as opposed to products,” he says. In Argos’s case, that’s no mean feat – given that the company has around 25,000 permanent employees and around 20,000 temporary ones at Christmas. Says Roger Juniper, “One of our first briefs was to develop an employer brand – and part of that remit is about how the company’s values are communicated in order to attract new talent. We then have to identify target audiences, establish their motivation, look at potential negatives and overcome them.”

With 360 Degrees’ help, so successful has Argos been in doing just that that in November last year, the company was shortlisted for the title of Best Employer Brand at the Personnel Today awards. Sonia Astill says that her task in attracting talent to Avebury was pretty straightforward, “We wanted to open people’s eyes to what Milton Keynes has to offer – great sporting amenities, for example – but also to show them that, when it comes to villages and towns, there is also a great range of options within commutable distance of Avebury.”

With strong branding already in place to complement its recruitment campaign, Argos commissioned Profile Locations to come up with new support material. Three levels of location support: first, a lively website which was aimed at graduate level recruits and young people. This emphasised the pacey lifestyle, good social scene, convenience and low cost housing on offer. Secondly, a recruitment folder was produced to go out to all applicants. Again, this was intended to help dispel any negative perceptions regarding the area – and to sell the huge range of lifestyle options on offer. Upbeat factual information was intended to help widen the recruitment pool. Finally, an extensive location guide covering all the aspects of moving to the area was produced. This laid out the options on every relevant topic, from location to commuting, health to shopping and housing locations – all with plenty of contact details.

Says Sonia Astill, "Profile Locations certainly opened our eyes to the sort of support and information we could provide for potential recruits. Another company we used, Citizen Communications, did so, too. They came up with a unique DVD that showed life in the Avebury office, helping to convey the liveliness of the company as a whole."

With recruitment an ongoing project, Argos says it will be tracking responses to the new area information carefully. “We're confident that these measures will help dispel any negative perceptions about Milton Keynes, will attract plenty of high-calibre new recruits and, as such, will undoubtedly pay off."

Quest International, based in Ashford, Kent, had a different set of challenges to face. As part of the ICI group, Quest is an established blue chip company with plenty of experience of managing internationally mobile staff. “We recruit the best from all over the world,” says international assignments manager, Chris Holtum. “And we’ve fast realised that we have to sell not just the job, but the lifestyle that goes with it, too.”

“Ashford tends to be an area that’s best known as a Eurostar stop and is often seen as Canterbury’s poor relation. However, we’ve worked hard to overcome initial prejudices – we really emphasise our excellent communication links with London, the coast and France. People coming from abroad often arrive with a set of preconceived ideas as to where they want to live, but ultimately they’ll end up somewhere totally different. We use an outside agency to provide an orientation tour of the area and to help with home searches. That not only takes some of the weight off our shoulders as an HR department, but also ensures that the employee receives totally impartial advice. Many of our French employees have happily ended up living on the coast, in the Hythe/Folkestone area. Here they can actually see their home country across the channel, while their TV aerials can pick up French programmes. It all helps them to feel settled in their new job and new home that much more quickly.”

Moving to a new job can seem daunting. But relocation support can give you the means to turn this potential nightmare into a positive selling point, giving you and your company that critical competitive edge and elevating your company to the position of employer of choice.

Many companies offer relocation support once they have made an appointment, but it is far more beneficial to address the location issue at the very start of the recruitment process. You can then continue to provide information and support at every stage of the recruitment process, right up to the actual move. This way, you'll generate more interest in your company and the positions you have to offer, enabling you to generate more quality applications and making better appointments. It is vital to offer the right information and support at the right time, so bear in mind that the recruitment process comprises five crucial stages.

You can’t afford to turn any prospective candidates away, so make sure your pool of applicants is as wide as possible. From the very start it is important to address any location issues and give the applicant the confidence to apply. This should be the case regardless of where the job is and where the applicant is currently based – whether they’re in London and looking at a job in Newcastle, or in South Africa and looking at a job in London. Most companies now use the career section of their website as an intrinsic part of their recruitment advertising campaign. Ensure you make the best use of this powerful tool to promote the benefits of your locations and to overcome any perceived negatives. Potential candidates will soon be completing the online application form if you can reassure them at this early stage that moving to join your organisation isn’t going to be a problem, in fact – quite the reverse – it could be a positive advantage. Thanks to advances in technology, you can commission online area guides from the professionals for your specific locations, and even have them branded and designed to match your web structure. This will enable the applicant to move smoothly from, say, the career section of your website to the location information area. Here, they'll be able to discover the range of lifestyle opportunities – city living, country or urban convenience – to be found within an easy commute of your office sites.

Don’t forget the obvious: make sure you promote the relocation package in all your recruitment advertising. It’s a valuable incentive and gives you an important plus in the ‘best employer’ stake.

The application stage provides an ideal opportunity, not only to promote your company's strengths, but also to push the bigger picture. You can paint a picture of the kind of enviable lifestyle your employees lead. For example, you offer a great place to work and this is a great area to live in. If the shopping is good, the schools are fantastic, the countryside is superb, housing is really competitively priced and there are enviable sports facilities, do make sure you tell your candidates all about them. If you think applicants may have preconceived misconceptions about the area it's vital to ensure that these can be overcome via the information you provide, or people simply won’t apply. Remember that your candidates won’t actually be living in your industrial park, so find the positives about the neighbouring areas and highlight those instead.

Nowadays candidates expect the best companies to value the work-life balance and offer family-friendly polices, so ensure you tell them about the relocation assistance on offer, not just to reassure them but as a means of enhancing your own brand image and reputation.

Having generated more and better quality applications you can really start to promote your company values. This is the time to start offering more detailed location information and access to the relocation support on offer to successful candidates. For instance, you could arrange for candidates to be shown round the area by a local destination service provider – access to an independent local expert will allay any concerns about the area. If there are issues regarding children’s education or a partner’s career, nip these in the bud. Arranging a conversation with an education counsellor via the telephone at this stage is a sound investment to ensure that the application is pursued.

The stage between the offer being made and its being accepted is a critical one. Not only will the candidate need to make a big personal career decision, they also need to consider seriously their family’s future and well-being. At this stage doubts can start to set in and, for the applicant, staying put can seem the easier and safer option. If the spouse or partner is not on board, it is all too easy for lack of enthusiasm for the relocation move to be used as an excuse not to accept the job.

No doubt you will pull out all the stops to make the employment package attractive, so be sure to do the same for the lifestyle package. As an increasing number of peripheral issues come into the frame, a one-to-one Support Line will give you a unique advantage. Offer this support not only to the recruit but to their partner, who will have a powerful part to play in the decision-making process at this stage. Answer any questions and offer reassurance about the location and associated relocation issues. Make sure the recruit understands that everything possible will be done to make the move to the new area as smooth and stress-free as possible. At this stage, provide plenty of in-depth information so recruits can start to focus on the areas in which they want to live. Area guides in printed format or online will tangibly help the candidate to accept your job offer with confidence.

© 2007. Article taken from pages 8-11 of the spring 2005 edition of Re:locate magazine, published by Profile Locations, Spray Hill, Hastings Road, Lamberhurst, Kent TN3 8JB. All rights reserved. This publication (or any part thereof) may not be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of Profile Locations. Profile Locations accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein.