Recruiting and finding quality employees is already hard. It’s even harder when your employees aren’t informed about the business they work for.

Why?

Because informed employees are more likely to speak from a place of confidence when asked talking about your business. And studies show that the most important and influential source of information people rely on when making major decisions is input from friends and family.

Recently, our firm commissioned proprietary research from nationally renowned audience segmentation research firm, AudienceAudit. We wanted to better understand Maine residents’ attitudes about living, working, and playing in our state. 

And we learned a lot.

For example, we learned that the top two catalysts for trying something new is a friend recommending it and a family member recommending. Both were rated twice as influential to the survey participants as advertising and social media postings.

We asked the participants to rank the best features of Maine. While quality of life and recreational activities were at the top of the list, employment opportunities and training were near the bottom.

When asked what needs to improve the most, more than half listed employment opportunities as the top choice.

What does all that mean for recruiting?

Delivering regular updates and sharing what’s going on in your business – and what’s on the horizon – with your employees provides them the education, information, and inspiration to convey when friends and family members when the opportunity presents itself.

When you’re business is looking for talent, having a well informed workforce becomes a channel of influence for potential applicants.