New surveys released through three of CareerBuilder’s niche sites – MiracleWorkers (which caters to healthcare workers), WorkinRetail (serving the retail industry) and Sologig (focused on contract and freelance positions) – reveal the information workers value most on an organization’s social media pages – and what social media moves they despise.

More than 500 workers nationwide in each of the above industries participated. Take a look at the results, and use them to inform your own social media recruitment efforts:

Healthcare

Fifty-three percent of healthcare workers who use social media are interested in seeing information on company social media pages, according to the survey from MiracleWorkers.com.

What healthcare employers should post…

• Job listings on company pages (wanted by 40 percent of healthcare workers)
• Fact sheets or Q&A about the company (26 percent)
• Career paths within the organization (26 percent)
• Employee testimonials (22 percent)
• Something that conveys fun about working for the organization (19 percent)

…and what they should avoid:

• Company communication reads like an ad (a peeve for 35 percent of healthcare workers)
• Failure to respond to submitted questions (33 percent)
• Failure to regularly post information on social media or blog entries (23 percent)
• Filtering or removing social media comments (20 percent)

Retail

Fifty percent of retail workers who use social media are interested in seeing information on company social media pages, according to the survey from WorkInRetail.com.

What retail employers should post…

• Job listings on company pages (wanted by 33 percent of retail workers)
• Facts sheets or Q&A about the company (27 percent)
• Career paths within the organization (27 percent)
• Employee testimonials (18 percent)
• Something that conveys fun about working for the organization (18 percent)
• Pictures of company events (13 percent)
• Videos of a day on the job (13 percent)
• Video of new products and services (13 percent)

…and what they should avoid:         

• Company communication reads like an ad (a peeve for 43 percent of retail workers)
• Failure to respond to submitted questions (38 percent)
• Filtering or removing social media comments (27 percent)
• Failure to regularly post information on social media or blog entries (24 percent)

Information Technology

Fifty-one percent of IT workers who use social media are interested in seeing information on company social media pages, according to a new survey from Sologig.com.

What IT employers should post…

• Job listings on company pages (wanted by 39 percent of IT workers)
• Fact sheets or Q&A about the company (32 percent)
• Career paths within the organization (24 percent)
• Something that conveys fun about working for the organization (21 percent)
• Video of new products and services (17 percent)
• Employee testimonials (16 percent)

…and what they should avoid

• Company communication reads like an ad (a peeve for 53 percent of healthcare workers)
• Failure to respond to submitted questions (32 percent)
• Inconsistency in company messaging in different social media venues (26 percent)
• Failure to regularly post information or blog entries (25 percent)

Employers must lead the social media path
Despite this interest, very few workers on social media (18 percent of IT workers, 12 percent of healthcare workers, and only 9 percent of retail workers) currently use it as a means to research jobs. Representatives from each site say social media users are waiting for companies to take the lead.

“Social media communication is a two-way street,” says Bill Meidell, product director of WorkinRetail.com. “Retailers need to keep their pages active and respond to as many fans and commenters as possible in order to see a positive return on their efforts.”

“IT workers are not only interested in learning about new career opportunities, but willing to refer jobs to friends or people in their professional networks, as well,” adds Jamie Carney, senior product director of Sologig.com. “Forty-one percent will pass job leads along to others, according to the survey, making social media the perfect vehicle for improving a job listing’s reach.”

Rob Morris, product director of MiracleWorkers.com, echoes this sentiment, saying, “The referral process makes social media a great avenue for career information. We found that 30 percent of healthcare workers on social media pass job opportunities to friends or people in their professional networks.”

Do these results surprise you? What industries are you interested in getting this type of info on?

Although the recession has been hard on many industries, the health care industry is one that has managed to thrive. Since the recession’s start, the health care industry has added 631,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and has consistently added headcount each month. CareerBuilder’s annual health care hiring forecast indicates that this hiring momentum will likely continue into 2010. The survey was conducted between November 5 and November 23, 2009, among more than 240 health care employers.

Hiring in 2010

• More than one in five (22 percent) health employers said they plan to increase the number of full-time, permanent employees this year, up from 17 percent last year.

• Ten percent of employers said they had plans to increase the number of part-time employees at their organizations in 2010, in order to help meet demand.

“While most industries struggled with headcount since the start of the recession, health care was and continues to be one of the strongest industries for hiring,” said Jason Ferrara, vice president of corporate marketing for CareerBuilder.

“Forty percent of health care employers, by far the highest among industries we surveyed, have open positions for which they can’t find qualified candidates. This shows that there is high demand for qualified health care workers across a variety of areas; everything from medical assistants to records specialists to nurses.”

Five Health Care Recruitment Trends for 2010

1. Replacing Low-Performing Employees

Health care employers are taking advantage of the current labor pool’s large number of highly qualified candidates to strengthen their work force. Forty-three percent of health care employers say they plan to replace low-performing employees with higher performers in 2010.

What do health care employers really think of their employees’ performance? When asked to grade their current work force, 18 percent rated their employees an “A”, 68 percent a “B”, 13 percent a “C”, and less than one percent a “D” or “F. Whew.

2. More Flexibility

Flexible work options continue to be important to health care employers. Over a third (37 percent) of health care employers said they will provide more flexible work arrangements for employees in 2010, including:

• Alternative schedules (74%) — Employees can come into work early and leave early, or come in later and leave later
• Compressed work weeks (53%) Employees work the same hours, but consolidate work into fewer days
• Telecommuting (40%) — Employees work from home or from another remote location
• Job sharing (12%) — Employees share the same position in a company, each working part of the week
• Summer hours (12%) — Workers enjoy condensed hours during the summer; typically 1/2 days on Fridays

3. Recruitment Tools

As the demand for quality health care employees continues this year, health care employers will leverage a variety of recruitment tools to fill their open positions. But on what are they planning to spend more money, exactly?

• Online recruitment sites — (25%)

• Newspaper classifieds — (20%)

• Career fairs — (18%)

• Social and professional networking sites — (13%)

• Staffing firms and recruiters — (7%)

4. Freelance Workers

Because of the great demand for qualified workers, many health care employers are seeking out freelance or contract health care workers to supplement their needs.  In fact, 34 percent of health care employers are hiring contract or freelance workers in 2010.

5. Green Jobs

“Green jobs” are defined as jobs that contribute significantly to preserving or restoring environmental quality. Being “green” is a rapidly growing movement within the health care industry as companies seek ways to run more efficiently; 10 percent of health care employers plan to add “green” jobs in 2010.
If you missed it, read the full press release here.

This time of year, accidents are just waiting to happen. The most likely to put a dent in your workers’ comp and disability bill? 

Slip and fall accidents.

The causes are easy to spot:

• Icy or snowy sidewalks, steps, etc.
• It’s dark when employees leave, so there’s less viability when employees are heading home, and
• Wet floors — either from the water and mud that gets dragged in on workers’ shoes or from trying to clean salt tracked in from outside walkways.

But preventing these seriously expensive injuries takes some stick-to-itiveness. Here are some ways HR and benefits pros can help make sure they don’t run up high medical bills:

• Make sure someone (preferably your facilities manager) conducts a safety survey regularly, both within and outside your facility to identify hazardous areas
• Have the person any problems immediately, and
• Keep a paper trail of all inspections and corrections to prove your company made a good faith effort to correct hazards — which will help avoid a lawsuit if someone got hurt.