Logistics will have to execute the perfect formula to show, through employer branding, the new face of the logistics sector and thus become more attractive to potential talent.
The logistics sector is undergoing a major transformation. E-commerce continues to grow, and this is accompanied by the need to hire professionals who are prepared to adapt to it. But attracting these profiles has become a great challenge. A problem that is based on the image of the sector, whose professional profiles were, until recently, discredited. But this is over, logistics and the professionals needed to carry it out efficiently are increasingly valued. To solve this image problem, it will be necessary to show the new face of logistics and make potential professionals aware that, nowadays, the sector allows working in multidisciplinary, international, agile and competitive environments.
Logistics companies have realised the overall value of attracting and retaining human talent for the brand and the impact it has on the costumer experience. That is why for some time now there has been an emphasis on so-called "inbound recruiting". This concept is based on attracting candidates who actively connect with your brand, or who are actively looking for a job, or who are open to new challenges and opportunities. This is, in short, bringing "inbound marketing" to the world of human resources and talent acquisition. In other words, attracting the candidate, making them fall in love and hiring them, to turn them into an added value for the consumer and for the brand itself.
Implementing employer branding to attract and retain talent
The sector faces an image that needs to be improved and made attractive. Logistics profiles, a priori, are often associated with poor working conditions, i.e. they are unattractive to potential employees. If we talk about young people, the potential future talents, 7% do not want to work in the logistics or transport sector so as not to damage their image.
Applying employer branding will be essential to optimise our way of attracting talent. Breaking with the preconceived and outdated ideas of the sector that swarm in our society will be essential to be attractive as a company. Logistics positions are often seen as low paid, with little opportunity to build a solid career, and are often associated with harsh working conditions and unattractive careers.
Therefore, we need to create a plan to change the lens through which potential talent looks at us. Erasing these ideas and showing new, positive ones about the sector (in terms of prestige, working conditions and salary) will be essential. But how do we get the new image of the sector across to potential talent?
Creating a company profile on LinkedIn allows you to showcase your employer branding to all the talent (both active and passive) on the network. This professional social network not only allows you to publish job offers and make them visible to a huge number of candidates (25 million users in 2008 and 500 million users in the world in 2018), but also allows you, through the comments that your employees can make on their profiles, to make your "employer brand" visible.
It must be taken into account that, when applying for a job offer, candidates, beforehand, inform themselves about the company. Now they do not only look at the salary, but also at many other variables such as the company's environment, the work philosophy, the opinions of the employees, etc. In short, the employee's dream company should have: flexible working hours, internal training, the possibility of promotion. In other words, it should offer not only an economic salary, but also an "emotional salary".
In-house training and competitive salary, decisive factors for talent
One of the variables mentioned above, internal training, is one of the most decisive. A differential advantage over other companies in the sector, as a pole of attraction for talent, is to offer training programmes that enable the professional growth of talent. If attention is not paid to the professional development of employees, talent will probably not remain long enough to recover the investment made in it, or talent will not even "knock on the door" of the company.
It is impossible to attract or retain talent if one of the main incentives for a worker, such as salary, is not competitive. Taking care of the worker is also giving them what they deserve and, if we take care of this factor, we will be able to attract the most interesting profiles for the logistics sector. In addition, to retain the talent that is already part of our workforce, it will be essential to review and update their salary conditions and social benefits to remain attractive compared to other companies.
By 2030, 75% of the workforce will be millennials. This generation has a series of values and attributes that it is advisable to take into account when setting talent recruitment strategies. This generation, although it is also important for them that the salary is in line with their training and role, they value other aspects more related to emotional salary and "work-life balance". In other words, everything that makes it possible to achieve a balance between professional and personal life. Only by introducing policies that take care of employees will we be able to attract them and add value to the company.
In order to reach them, however, it will first be necessary to increase the visibility of logistics activity. We will have to show the world how many interrelationships the logistics sector has with other business areas. In other words, showing that logistics is an art that is open to a mix of interdepartmental activities will attract and retain the multi-faceted, talented and prepared professionals that our sector needs.
New skilled profiles, essential for good logistics
The logistics sector will continue on the path of growth in 2021, a year in which the demand for professionals with greater knowledge and skills in digital competencies will increase, as well as the strengthening and development of the increasingly critical 'soft skills' of workers to prevail in adverse situations.
In an era in which there is constant talk of profiles that are disappearing and others that are emerging under the protection of new technologies, new professionals have emerged in the sector. These profiles are directly linked to the application of new technologies to logistics, especially in relation to specialists in inbound logistics, outbound logistics, as well as data management professionals, engineers and logistics management technicians.
Operations managers, sales planners, business intelligence experts and data engineers are becoming increasingly essential in logistics focused on digitisation. In order to overcome the demands brought about by eCommerce, it will be essential to have a group of qualified professionals at all levels, with technological skills, capable of having an analytical and strategic vision based on process improvement.
In short, in order to attract these talents, logistics will have to undergo an image wash that looks to the future, and not only be, but demonstrate, the quality jobs that the logistics sector currently offers.
