The Buckinghamshire Business Leaders’ Dinner took place on 19 January 2016 at Cliveden House Hotel, with guest speaker Tiffany St. James, Executive Director of the British Interactive Media Association and former Head of Public Participation (social media) for the UK Government. Tiffany was voted one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Technology, UK 2012 Tech City Insider.

Tiffany’s speech – which we highly recommend you watch in full here - was aimed at businesses of all sizes, with much of her advice as relevant to a small business as it is to larger organisations. You can watch a snapshot of the event here.

‘Millennials’ – which for the purposes of Tiffany’s speech is not a term restricted to people in their teens or twenties – are those who have grown up with the rapid advancement of digital technology and are at home with it in a way that their elders are not. As well as being increasingly socially conscious, they bring knowledge and skills that are new to many organisations, which means they also need to be engaged with in new ways. 

How to reach, recruit and retain those skilled in digital technology?

Reaching the digitally savvy

Work on an attraction strategy: Social media is where this demographic resides, so think of Facebook, Twitter etc. as your jobs pages and carefully consider what your social media output says about your business. Create short engaging videos for your website showing what it’s like to work for you, what the office looks like, even what the kitchen/canteen looks like!

Dedicated digital outreach: Try a Twitter Q&A on the topic of what it’s like to do what you do, whether that’s an engineer, production manager, shop owner, hairdresser etc. You will only attract people with a genuine interest in your line of work and will put in direct contact with potential new employees.

Recruiting the digitally savvy

There is evidence that using social recruitment – i.e. recruiting through social media – leads to lower turnover rates. When you have a personal touch from the beginning, the relationship between employer and employee is that much stronger.

You can also use social media and technology to engage people along the interview process, for instance with interviews on Skype or via video conferencing.

Work on your ‘talent DNA’: who are the types of people you want to engage with and hire? It’s important to have a statement about the principles of your business and attract people towards that.

Use former employees to help recruit your new ones: make your alumni network a part of your LinkedIn group and let them tell how wonderful it was to work for you. These ‘real life’ recommendations will create a positive authentic impression.

Retaining the digitally savvy

Once they are in, how can you help them?

Tiffany identifies four things that companies routinely voted ‘Best to Work For’ do to create loyalty in their employees: Bonding them together by social endeavour (work outings, ‘sports’ days etc.); encouraging them to learn skills unrelated to work; investing in their personal development (creating ‘intrapreneurs’ – developing an entrepreneurial mindset within employees); and creating opportunities for employees to work with charities and give back to the communities in which they live.

Give people the opportunity to lead at whatever level of the company they are at and give them permission to innovate and learn from mistakes. Those in digital technology need to take risks at times in order to create something worthwhile, so let them.

Work to people’s strengths: it is not simply a myth that young people take longer to get going in the morning, their brains are wired differently. Embrace this in order to get the best out of your employees and to create the best environment for them to work in.

This overview merely scratches the surface of Tiffany’s speech, which contains many nuggets of information and advice that will open your eyes to a new way of recruiting and retaining the leaders of the future.

Watch the full speech here >

On the subject of staff engagement, be sure to tune in to the Buckinghamshire Business First radio show on Mix96 next Monday 15 February, which will be on that very topic. Tune it at 7pm, or download the podcast afterwards.

Video Credit: Five on a Bike