HR Insights Blog

The world has changed significantly in the last few decades. When I was a kid, all of my extended family were in Canada, 5 time zones away. To catch up on news, we would write monthly letters, or twice a year my grandparents actually recorded messages on reel-to reel audio cassette tapes for us to listen to, that took about two weeks to arrive by mail. The idea of companies working in real-time across far greater time zones than that was unimaginable. However, in the last decade, this has become the norm, and at Top Employers, we are seeing this grow each year.

It has become increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd when offering newly developed products and services, which has made corporate culture an essential element of success. Analyses conducted worldwide by the Top Employers Institute show that cultural and organisational changes have become some of the main priorities for HR elements of global companies. It has also been observed that communication is the keystone to implement these changes successfully.

Our certification programme results reveals a 12% growth for sustainable practices and environmental certifications. Of the 79% of companies participating in CSR programs, 56% choose sustainable suppliers and 48% require training programs for employees and stakeholders. This also means more involvement and active participation by top managers, rather than more traditional charitable activities.

How exactly do Top Employers deploy their powers of seduction? Career sites, social networks, internal recruitment…? Since recruiting is one of the top priorities of Top Employers, they use a varied range of tactics to first inform, then convince, and finally secure “top talent”. It is essential for them to get a jump on their potential rivals by inventing the most effective forms of message content. Here is the proof….

Social networks encourage more transparent communication, meaning that consumers are more critical and better informed. Furthermore, younger generations entering the professional world are attaching more and more importance to the values of the companies for which they work and the general public is committed to ending unethical behaviour.

Since September 1st 2014, the term ''burn out'' was officially recognized in Belgian employment legislation. Mechelen Belgium, September 3rd - Since an amendment was announced in which employers are required to take measures against burnout among their employees, not a day passes without this hot topic showing up in an article somewhere. Since September 1st, the new legislation has become fact. How have Belgian Top Employers handled burnout among their employees prior to and since the new legislation?

Look it up in a dictionary and you will find ''Engage: Occupy or attract (someone's interest or attention). Participate or become involved in". A lovely word. A fantastic idea. A dream for many businesses. A reality of everyday life for others. But above all, a goal to keep in mind if you want your company to be healthy and fit.

Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is defined by what you offer your employees. A well-defined career path, a prime location, excellent primary benefits, and so forth. What do your employees get from you in return for their time, their efforts and their engagement?

In building a strong employer brand that is more than just a label, the first question to be answered is: ‘Do HR and Executive Management really create the conditions within the organisation that will attract, engage and retain top talent?’ The second question would be: ‘How can we positively influence the perception of these conditions among talent within as well as outside the company?’ To answer these questions HR could learn from marketing by adopting HR market analytics, which can provide insights to managing talent in a structured way.

While challenges abound for any company extending its reach into Africa, The Top Employers Africa 2014 Certification Programme shows that HR plays a vital role in bridging gaps and ensuring that both business and employee needs are met. The Top Employers Africa 2014 Certification results published today shows that leading employers in Africa continue to invest heavily in developing their people and that this is a key part of their growth strategy on the continent.

By investing in their Employer Brand, Top Employers invest in engaging and recruiting happy people. Stimulating happiness is not a soft relict from the seventies, but turns out to be one of the key indicators for high performing companies.

Social media is becoming more and more pervasive and has already been entrenched as a tool for external marketing. But what about internal communication? New research shows it might be groundbreaking there as well.

Diversity management has been consolidated as a strategic priority for Human Resources of the Top Employers in Spain, in Europe and all over the world. In fact, in our country the percentage of certified companies in which key performance indicators on this matter are reported to executive management has gone from 59% in 2013 to 69% this year. Besides this, the number of organizations that have diversity as one of their specific responsibilities is growing.

Best in class organisations around the globe are redefining their development programmes to adapt themselves to globalisation, emerging communication technologies and growing specialisation.

A research conducted by the Top Employers Institute on more than 500 companies across Europe shows that Dutch companies have a very extensive application process. Dutch employers, in half of the cases use IQ tests and role playing during the interview, while in the rest of Europe this occurs less often.