The Great Resignation. The Great Reshuffle. The Great Realignment. The Great and Terrible Oz. Whatever you call it, leaders are feeling it. 

Nothing is more important to an organization’s success than its people. My work with Leading Edge is all about that necessity, and I’ve been involved in countless conversations with talent professionals asking questions like: “How can I step up my recruiting in this environment? What does a job posting need to say to attract the right people? Where should I post this job to get a diverse pool of candidates?” In this “buyer’s market” for jobs, if we think about the job as a product, many of us focus on our sales pitch. 

It’s important to get our pitch right. But what if the problem is less with the pitch than the product? What would happen if we worried less about the job postings and more about changing the jobs?

It’s easy to assume that a job is static. You need a director of development. You need a volunteer coordinator. You need a finance associate. Those are the functions needed to get the work done. What can we change about that?

A lot, actually. Think about the job as an experience. People work for pay and benefits, but they also want to feel personal satisfaction while doing good work. How will the employee spend their time? Are the expectations exciting and achievable? Who will they work with? How will the job interface with the rest of their life? 

By focusing on the employee experience, we can make jobs more attractive. The details will vary by organization and job, but here are three ideas to get you started.

1. Enable tangible daily progress. In a 2021 survey of over 11,000 employees at 221 nonprofit organizations, Leading Edge found that employees saying that “most days I feel that am making progress with my work” was one of the factors most strongly correlated with their wanting to continue working at an organization. So the opportunity to see tangible daily progress is both an effective retention strategy and a way to make jobs more attractive in the first place. To support employees in making daily progress, managers need to know what they want and ask for it explicitly. Re-work is the worst work, and the best way to avoid it is to make sure that goals, expectations, timelines, and priorities are clear. Managers can also define the work in collaboration with the employee, which will enhance understanding and buy-in; constantly identify and remove unnecessary bottlenecks and barriers; and celebrate employees’ achievements with colleagues. 

2. Offer more flexibility. Offering more choices about both the time and place of work can make a job opening more appealing. While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced employers to offer more flexibility of place (many remote workers are thrilled to be done with commutes), flexibility of time remains a sticking point. This is understandable; there are excellent reasons to have core working hours in which team members are available for collaboration. But without eliminating core hours, can we expand flexibility of time? What if the core collaboration hours took up significantly less time than the traditional “9 to 5,” with the understanding that employees will still produce the work they need to do during other hours they choose? 

Of course, not every employer can embrace full flexibility for all positions. Many roles require people to be in a certain place and follow a certain schedule. When that is the case, it’s helpful to have a clear schedule set in advance; flexibility should benefit employees, not make their expectations unpredictable.

3. Allow for more connection and belonging. Yes, people want autonomy and flexibility. But people also want to be part of a team. According to the Leading Edge survey mentioned above, another factor most strongly correlated with employees wanting to stay at an organization was agreeing with the statement: “I feel like I belong at my organization.”

Belonging is about connection, respect, positivity, and inclusion, among other things. Whether people’s workflow is highly individual or highly collaborative, organizations can do a lot to keep people connected with colleagues. Schedule time for connection within and across departments, even when there isn’t a clear deliverable to produce from those connections. Trust that interaction for its own sake will ultimately enhance the work and help people thrive.

But opportunities for connection aren’t enough. Biases, discrimination, and negativity can poison social connection in the workplace. Creating a supportive culture is difficult and complex, and requires intense, ongoing effort and prioritization from organizational leaders, including robust and tangible DEI work.

These three ways of rethinking how our jobs are structured can help with recruitment—but they can also do more. When jobs are more appealing because they’re actually a better experience, that will improve the employee experience and the mission-oriented outcome at your nonprofit. If you’re willing to be bold in listening to your team and changing what it’s like to work in your workplace, your organization can reap gains in recruitment, retention, development, morale, culture, and, ultimately, social impact. You might even like your own job better, too. 

Amy Born is chief strategy officer at Leading Edge.