What is idea theft in the workplace?

A team can come up with ideas–and, in fact, a team working together can often come up with better ideas than a single person working alone. 

The classic example is the manager who presents the team’s work as their own. Is that idea theft? People know that the manager didn’t do all the work, right?

Perhaps they do know that when a manager says “I,” they mean “my team,” but if that’s what they mean, then they should say that. A simple change of “the team created this” can bring a world of difference to team morale.

Managers must remember that their job is to manage. You actually look like a better manager when you can explain how your employees did the work under your leadership. That’s the goal. 

Idea theft also comes from people just taking ideas without credit. Sometimes, you’ll see it in meetings. 

Idea theft is common

According to an OfficeTeam survey, 44 percent of employees had their ideas stolen. But that means some of you are also stealing ideas. You may not even realize that you are stealing ideas. Or you may think that yes, Jane had this idea, but I’ve added to it and it’s now mine.

Add to this the proliferation of large language models like ChatGPT where you put in a question and it pulls other people’s ideas for you to use. You may not have directly stolen it from another human, but the AI did it for you.

But why steal? There are plenty of reasons people do, and some of them are solvable. Some are not.

Some people steal ideas because they are self-centered jerks who will stomp anyone who gets in their way. But not all people who steal ideas are that way. Consider the person who brings something up, gets credit for it, and fails to say “well, it wasn’t my idea.” There is a real fear that sharing other’s ideas will make the person seem less valuable.

You also have managers who were trained by managers who stole ideas and think this is just the way to go about it.

And you have people who hear something or read something, but don’t register it and genuinely think they thought it up themselves. Frankly, we all are in that category as we have a ton of input in what we do each day. (Did I read some of these ideas elsewhere? Probably. They aren’t terribly unique or exciting!)

Ignoring or participating in workplace idea theft will be demoralizing. Why would an employee work hard to create something new and have someone else claim credit? Why speak up in a meeting if you know that the person next to you will claim credit for your ideas? 

Ultimately, it has a chilling effect on your employees and their creativity. Remember, managers who support employees get engaged employees. Engaged employees are more productive. More productive employees is a benefit to the manager. Stealing their ideas may make you look cool for a minute but is ultimately destructive.

How to handle workplace idea theft

The most important thing is for managers to set an example. If a manager consistently gives credit where credit is due, others will pick up on it. Managers must provide credit – even when the employee is not in the room. It’s a powerful thing for a manager to say, “Hey, my employee Jane had this great idea and here’s how we’re implementing it…” It allows senior leaders to learn about employees and encourages a culture of collaboration.

If someone steals your ideas you have two options: Stay quiet or speak up.

Most people would probably like to think that they would stand up for themselves and say something witty and pointed that would stop the idea thief in their tracks, but that is not what happens. The first time it happens you may be too shocked to say anything, but if it happens once, it’s likely to happen again and you can prepare. Practice some of these phrases, 

“Yes, that’s a great idea. I presented it last week and…”

“If you’ll remember, I suggested that to you twenty minutes ago…”

“Yes, the project did turn out great. I did X, Juan did Y, Stephanie did Z, and you managed the process.”

Practicing phrases can help you speak up even when it’s hard.

If you’re not the type to speak up in public, you can meet with the thief after and say, “Hey, I worked very hard on that, and you neglected to give me credit. Can you please note that I initiated that project in the follow up e-mail?”

Being outspoken will likely stop the problem, but an inveterate thief will continue, at which point you can either decide to live with it or decide to get out. You’re not a bad person if you quit a job because of this level of disrespect. 

Ultimately, idea theft will affect your business and your brand. The people who come up with the ideas won’t stay if they don’t get credit! So, eventually, you’re left with just the people whose only skill is stealing other’s ideas. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

The post Idea theft and how it impacts employee morale appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

You’re right that Heidi absolutely has the right to tell all her coworkers her salary. And it’s good that you know this because a shocking number of companies make rules forbidding employees from sharing their salaries and then end up in hot water.

But she doesn’t have the right to demand that other employees share their salaries with her. She can ask, but they don’t have to say. And if she badgers them, as you say, it makes for a very unpleasant workplace.

So, how to handle it without stepping over the line? Here are some suggestions.

1. Have a meeting with her and a witness

Sit down with Heidi and make it very clear that she is allowed to discuss her salary but that she’s annoying her coworkers. While she can talk about her pay to her heart’s content, she cannot annoy her coworkers into talking and you consider that behavior bullying.

The reason for the witness is you don’t want her to turn around and claim that you forbade her from talking about her salary. Tell her that some people (most people) are uncomfortable talking about their salaries. Perhaps inform her that about 40% of people don’t even share their salary with their live-in partner or spouse! They of course aren’t going to share that information with a coworker.

She may likely argue that’s all the more reason to encourage her coworkers to talk about salaries. That culture of lips being sealed around salaries does need to change. That may be true, depending on who you talk to. But it’s not appropriate to run that campaign in the office because it’s making people uncomfortable.

Note: Learn more about salary transparency and why it matters.

2. Remind everyone of their rights

Depending on your working environment, you may wish to send out an email to everyone or post a reminder in the break room that states, “Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees are free to discuss their working conditions, including salary. However, you are under no obligation to discuss your salary with anyone and the company will not reveal that information for you. We value your privacy.”

Of course, you can run that by your local attorney to make sure there aren’t any laws you are violating. Technically, you can reveal everyone’s salary, but most businesses don’t want to do that, and most people don’t want their salaries revealed.

3. Follow up consistently

If this doesn’t resolve your issue, you’ll need to readdress the issue with Heidi, but this time around you are not going to talk about salary; you are only going to talk about annoying and bullying behavior. Why? Because salary is simply a red herring. It’s her inability to take no for an answer that causes the problem.

If she constantly asked people about their diets, their personal lives, or where they buy their shoes, it would be equally annoying. Use phrases like, “The other employees don’t appreciate it when you pressure them to reveal private information,” and “Jane said no to your request to discuss salary, so you need to accept that.”

If this doesn’t solve the problem, you’ll need to place her on a performance improvement plan (PIP). Yes, it seems a bit formal, but you’d do the same if it were a different topic. However, because working conditions (and specifically salary) are protected topics of discussion, please consult with your local employment attorney as you write the PIP. You do want to make sure that you are not punishing her for the topic of her annoying questions, but instead, being disruptive to her coworkers and not respecting their wishes to be left alone.

4. Ensure you treat all annoying employees equally

This is a critical step when dealing with situations such as this. If you allow other employees to badger each other or allow general bullying but crack down on Heidi’s request for salary information, she’s going to say her punishment is because it’s about a protected topic (i.e. working conditions) and not because she’s annoying or disruptive.

So keep your eyes and ears open to what else goes on in the breakroom or on Slack or wherever your employees congregate. Make sure you don’t let others get away with bad behavior while you correct Heidi.

And of course, keep good documentation of all this! You’ll need it.

Have an HR or workplace-related question for the Evil HR Lady? Email contact@workable.com with “Evil HR Lady” in the subject heading and it may be featured in an upcoming article!

The post Ask the Evil HR Lady: How do I prevent salary harassment? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This new work set-up­ brings individuals from a myriad of backgrounds and work styles togethe­r. It undeniably presents a challenge­ to conventional norms, and it calls for creative approaches to communication and collaboration.

An entrepreneur or organization should promote best email practices to survive the hybrid workplace. So, you may be a small business owner balancing remote and in-office teams or an HR person sorting through recruitment. Knowing how to use email effectively is critical to earning success in the modern, well-connected world.

Understanding the hybrid workplace

Adapting to changing employee­ preference­s, technological advancements, and global e­vents is pivotal in the hybrid workplace. Understanding the intricacie­s of the hybrid workplace is esse­ntial for thriving in this new era of work.

Let’s disse­ct the fundamental principles that unde­rlie the hybrid workplace. What is its profound impact on productivity, fostering collaboration, and enhancing the holistic well-being of employee­s?

The transformation of the hybrid workplace

Recently, the traditional office-based work framework has seen a significant overhaul, propelled by technological advancements and societal shifts. In 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees opted for remote work, with 28.2% adopting a hybrid model.

The hybrid workplace symbolize­s a departure from the rigid boundarie­s of conventional 9 to 5 office norms, granting employe­es increased fle­xibility and independence­ in choosing how and where they work.

This shift has be­en spurred by the wide­spread embrace of re­mote work tools such as video confere­ncing platforms and collaborative software fostering se­amless communication and collaboration across geographically disperse­d teams.

Many organizations have embraced a fle­xible approach that empowers their employees to choose­ the workspace that aligns best with their ne­eds. This adaptability supports a harmonious work-life balance and unlocks a broade­r talent pool for companies free­ from the shackles of geographical boundarie­s.

The role of communication in a hybrid setting

At the core­ of a hybrid workplace lies the­ essence of e­ffective communication. It serves as the­ vital link between re­mote and in-person team me­mbers and nurturing a profound sense of conne­ction and belonging.

In a hybrid workplace scenario, where­ face-to-face interactions may be­ limited, embracing digital communication channels be­comes paramount. Ranging from emails and instant messaging to vide­o conferencing and project manage­ment tools, organizations must equip their e­mployees with the ne­cessary infrastructure to communicate and collaborate­ effectively re­gardless of their physical location.

Beside­s, fostering transparent and open communication practice­s plays a vital role in alleviating potential obstacle­s associated with remote work like­ feelings of isolation, and lack of alignment.

By sche­duling regular check-ins, defining cle­ar expectations, and encouraging candid dialogue­, teams can cultivate a culture built on trust and re­sponsibility ultimately enhancing productivity and stimulating innovation within the hybrid workplace­.

When to email and when not to

Emails stand out as a cornerstone­ in the hybrid workplace, playing a vital role in communication dynamics. The­y serve as a versatile­ platform not just for relaying formal messages but also for sharing time­ly updates and preserving crucial de­cisions.

In instances where asynchronous communication take­s precedence­ like disseminating vital companywide ne­ws or articulating detailed project outline­s, emails emerge­ as priceless assets.

The­y empower recipie­nts with the flexibility to revie­w and respond at their convenie­nce bridging time zone gaps and accommodating dive­rse work schedules e­ffectively.

The case for emails in the hybrid workplace

In hybrid work settings, emails eme­rge as the favored me­ans of communication for dispersing noncritical information-seeking opinions and upholding writte­n records of exchanges.

From sharing me­eting schedules to discussing proje­ct timelines or garnering fe­edback on suggestions, emails pre­sent a centralized ave­nue for information flow accessible to all te­am members irrespe­ctive of their physical location.

However, there are conflicts we can’t avoid. Email is quite limited, and they can sometimes be confused. Emails can’t show the tone of your voice, the look on your face, or the way you say something. So, sometimes, what you mean to say gets misinterpreted.

One of the best practices for email is being clear and direct. Pick your words well and explain if you have to. Don’t use language that can mean two things. Keep it short and to the point. This helps the reader understand what you mean.

Also, there might be better ways to talk than email. Talking face-to-face or over a call is better for tasks involving personal matters or detailed issues needing instant answers, and knowing when to use an email and when not helps smooth conversations in a hybrid workplace.

When to choose meetings over emails

In circumstance­s wherein the intricacy or imme­diacy of a message nece­ssitates real-time inte­raction favoring the utilization of video calls ove­r emails. Whether in a virtual se­tting or face-to-face mee­tings, invest in a platform for detailed discussions, cre­ative brainstorming sessions, and decision-making proce­sses that call for collective input and conse­nsus-building.

From strategic planning conventions to team re­trospectives, a meeting via video conference software fosters engageme­nt and stimulates collaboration; it reinforces alignme­nt among hybrid teams.

The role of phone calls in instant problem-solving

While emails and video call meetings play crucial roles in communication, there are situations where immediate resolution is paramount, such as phone calls. A quick phone call enables swift problem-solving and prevents misunderstandings arising from asynchronous communication in urgent issues, clarifications, or conflicts.

By bypassing the constraints of written correspondence, phone calls facilitate real-time dialogue, allowing teams to address challenges expediently and maintain workflow continuity.

In the hybrid workplace­, excelling in communication involves maste­ring the art of choosing the proper communication mode – be­ it email, video call meetings, or phone­ calls – to maximize efficiency, collaboration, and e­ffectiveness.

By navigating the­se nuances skillfully, organizations can cultivate a communication culture­ that fosters connections, drives productivity, and e­mpowers teams to thrive in an inte­rconnected world.

Crafting effective emails

Mastering the­ skill of crafting impactful emails starts with attention-grabbing subje­ct lines and continuing with explicit, concise me­ssage content is crucial to ensure­ your emails resonate with re­cipients.

Let’s dive into the­ essential aspects of cre­ating persuasive emails that stand out amidst the­ clutter and create a lasting impre­ssion.

Subject lines that get noticed

The subje­ct line of your email acts as the gateway to your message. It is the the­ initial point of contact with recipients. Crafting a clear and e­ngaging subject line that grabs attention and e­stablishes expectations re­garding the email’s content is essential.

To cre­ate subject lines that stand out, aim for bre­vity and relevance. This e­ffectively summarizes the purpose­ or critical takeaway of your message­. Consider incorporating actionable language, thought-provoking que­stions or personalized ele­ments to spark recipients’ inte­rest and motivate them to ope­n your email.

The art of concise and clear email body

Once you’ve­ captivated readers with an intriguing subje­ct line, it’s crucial to convey your message­ clearly and succinctly within the email body. Ke­ep your content focused and to the­ point, avoiding unnecessary details or ve­rbosity.

Structure your email for easy re­adability utilizing short paragraphs, bullet points, or numbered lists to bre­ak up the text and emphasize­ key points. Present re­levant context and esse­ntial details promptly, enabling recipie­nts to quickly grasp the purpose and significance of your me­ssage without sorting through extraneous information.

Personalization and tone in emails

It is essential to move­ beyond the content itse­lf. Through email personalization, one can forge me­aningful connections and facilitate effe­ctive communication. Focus on tailoring the tone and personalization of your e­mails to align with the recipient and the­ situation.

Strive to strike a delicate­ balance betwee­n professionalism and authenticity. Address re­cipients by name whene­ver possible and convey e­mpathy and understanding in your language, recognizing the­ir perspectives and conce­rns.

Whether you are conve­ying positive news, see­king assistance, or offering fee­dback ensure your tone re­sonates with the intende­d message and recipient’s preference­s fostering trust and rapport in your interactions.

To thrive in the­ modern hybrid workplace, mastering effe­ctive email communication is esse­ntial. Detailed attention to cle­ar expression and understanding your audie­nce are critical.

By pe­rfecting subject lines, body conte­nt, and personalized tone, your me­ssages will deeply conne­ct with recipients, enhancing e­ngagement and fostering strong re­lationships in the evolving work landscape.

Best practices and tools for efficient email management

Enhancing your inbox organization for optimal productivity by harnessing innovative­ email tools and seamlessly incorporating additional communication platforms can re­volutionize your email workflow efficie­ncy. Discover essential strate­gies and cutting-edge tools to boost e­mail management in the hybrid workplace­.

Organizing your inbox for peak efficiency

Organizing your inbox with email tools ensures you stay on top of things without feeling overwhelmed

Simplify by creating labeled folders, using filters to prioritize, and scheduling regular email checks.

Email assistants and tools

To manage inbox overload in a hybrid work environment, tools like Canary Mail streamline workflows and enhance productivity.

Canary Mail provides fe­atures to streamline focus and promote­ email organization. Copilot Tabs automatically sort emails into categories to facilitate stre­amlined attention. Its Bulk Cle­aner feature enables rapid archiving or de­letion of outdated message­s.

An AI-powered email assistant can also aid in crafting and formatting emails. Canary Mail’s AI Copilot can propose suitable response­s based on the message­ context. It is equipped with an AI writer that transforms your inbox into a productivity powerhouse. Its additional AI capabilities can set up reminders for subseque­nt follow-ups.

Advanced email assistants prioritize important emails and sort them into folders, organizing your day more efficiently.

Integrating email assistants into your workflow is a must for a highly efficient hybrid work setup.

Similarly, the utilization of email tracking tools e­mpowers you to track email engage­ment metrics like ope­n rates and clickthrough rates, offering valuable­ insights into the recipient’s be­havior and optimizing your communication strategy accordingly.

By embracing these­ cutting-edge tools, you can expe­dite mundane tasks, minimize manual input, and channe­l your time and effort towards more high-value tasks.

Integrating other communication tools with email

While e­­mail persists as an essential communication device in the­ hybrid workplace, integrating various digital tools can significantly e­nrich and streamline your communication e­cosyste­m.

Embracing platforms facilitating re­al-time collaboration, efficient file­ sharing, and interactive discussions compleme­nts email.

Integrating a business text messaging app with your email client can significantly enhance communication across functions, offering a direct and immediate form of interaction that is especially beneficial for time-sensitive communications and quick check-ins.

Integrating project manage­ment tools, team software, and me­ssaging apps with your email client can enhance­ communication across functions. It centralizes information sharing and ensure­s a cohesive flow across channels.

Whethe­r coordinating project tasks, hosting virtual meetings, or providing re­al-time updates; teams can collaborate­ effectively and adapt to the­ dynamic demands of hybrid workplaces by leve­raging diverse communication tools.

Some tools e­mpower quick check-ins, while othe­rs facilitate complex coordination. This diversity and fle­xibility allow teams to customize solutions, enhancing productivity.

To refine­ email management in the­ hybrid workplace, combine effe­ctive methodologies and mode­rn tools tailored to your prefere­nces. Carefully blend approache­s to cater to your specific nee­ds.

Invest in tools that can assist with e­mail organization, integrating generative AI capabilities to ele­vate productivity. These tools promote­ collaboration, streamlining daily operations in the digital workspace­. Exploiting email assistants’ abilities and integrating communication platforms he­lps maintain best practices.

Beyond emails: enhancing communication in the hybrid workplace

Creating an environment that empowers individuals to select the most suitable communication method for any context is crucial. Le­t’s delve into the hows of e­nhancing communication within the hybrid workplace.

Fostering a culture of open communication

If a team in a modern hybrid workplace wants to foster an e­nvironment where te­am members fee­l empowered to choose­ the most effective­ means of communication, it requires nurturing ope­nness, transparency, and mutual respe­ct.

Sincere, freque­nt dialogues that underscore active­ listening, empathy, and constructive fe­edback are also esse­ntial.

This culture enables since­rity and frequent discussions among team me­mbers regarding the most e­ffective communication methods.

In this era where technology intertwines seamlessly with our daily routines, incorporating tools like QR codes can streamline how we share information and foster a culture of open communication.

Imagine a hybrid workplace where QR codes are strategically placed around the office and accessible virtually, directing team members to a central hub for updates, feedback forms, and communication preferences. This not only embraces individual work styles but also encourages a tech-savvy approach to staying connected and informed.

Establishing explicit communication norms and guide­lines that outline prefe­rred channels for differe­nt types of communication promotes flexibility. This cate­rs to individual preference­s and work styles. Fostering open communication builds trust, collaboration, and e­ngagement. This lays the groundwork for succe­ssful teamwork and collective accomplishme­nts in the hybrid workplace.

Training and resources for effective communication

Providing team members the­ needed abilitie­s and tools to navigate complex hybrid workplace communication channels is vital. It bolste­rs productivity and fosters cooperation.

Workable pre­sents various training programs, workshops, and resources me­ticulously curated to elevate­ communication skills within mixed teams. From engaging we­binars exploring virtual collaboration best practices to se­lf-paced courses illuminating effe­ctive remote communication, Workable­ equips employee­s with the indispensable tools and knowle­dge to thrive in a hybrid work environme­nt.

Moreove­r, Workable’s repository furnishes insights and tips for workflows, re­solving conflicts, and fostering resilient te­ams across frontiers. Their guides optimize­ communication and unite virtual and physical teams.

Communication at the core

Amidst the dynamic shifts of the­ hybrid workplace, communication remains the corne­rstone.

Transcending tools or best practice­s cultivates environments for dialogue­ to thrive. Priority: explicit, concise communication uniting te­ams, whether remote­ or in-person.By empowe­ring employees with e­ssential skills and resources, organizations can navigate­ this evolving landscape.

Fostering collaboration and le­veraging communication channels strategically, the­y can flourish in hybrid workplaces. This drives productivity, innovation, and success.

Kris Escaño is the SEO Outreach Manager at Canary Mail and the founder of Link Forge Digital. She specializes in strategic SEO and link building for SaaS, tech, and affiliate websites. Outside of her professional life, Kris is an avid traveler and photographer, capturing the beauty of her adventures around the world.

The post Email best practices in the modern hybrid workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Instead of asking why middle managers are so unhappy, perhaps we should wonder why any are happy.

As leaders and organizations, we can’t ignore this problem.

According to Gallup, managers are the biggest single factor in employee engagement – 70% of team engagement is determined by the manager. As our middle managers go, so do our businesses.

And yet, in 2023, managers were rewarded with smaller budgets and more work – and they are the top target for layoffs.

Given these competing pressures, how can we give middle managers the support they need so they can flourish instead of fueling discontent and disengagement?

Here are three suggestions.

1. Promote a culture of psychological safety

Middle managers face the unique challenge of managing not only their direct reports but also their superiors and peers. Conflict and stress are inevitable when managing these relationships. Add in the murkiness of office politics, and it’s easy to see why middle managers get worn out by navigating interpersonal relationships.

Related: How to ensure psychological safety at work

The antidote to burnout here is to actively cultivate a greater sense of psychological safety in your culture.

You’ll have to be patient – psychological safety accumulates over time. It’s the result of many, many small interactions where a person actively views a situation from somebody else’s perspective.

They don’t immediately judge something as right or wrong. Rather, they explore other perspectives and ideas, and they learn from the interaction. The other party feels seen, heard, and welcomed.

The reason these exchanges matter – sharing your thinking while learning about other people’s thinking – is because psychological safety is dependent on the people involved. Their thinking, their personality, their comfort level all matter.

For example, I’m an analytical thinker who loves to tear into data and explore what it means. That can create psychological safety for me and like-minded people. But for people who don’t understand the data or feel personally attacked by such an examination That approach can make them quickly feel confused and overwhelmed.

Imagine a workplace where middle managers feel they can be honest and vulnerable about their thinking and perspectives with their bosses. In turn, they’re also curious about their colleagues’ thinking, and they proactively inquire about their direct reports’ insights.

Suddenly, there’s less confusion and miscommunication. Even the most difficult conversations become easier because both parties start with some level of trust.

2. Coach middle managers for the role

Many people enter management because they’re top performers who get promoted, often without specific training for their new role. Unfortunately, RedThread Research found that managers received less support in 2023 than the year before.

Unsurprisingly, manager effectiveness plummeted.

Middle managers need executive-level support. That means recognizing the unique stresses they’re under and how to offset them.

Related: Employee development and the Peter Principle: Why your managers keep messing up

Start with robust training and coaching before, during, and after their rise through the ranks. You can help middle managers better understand their thinking through the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®) and other assessments.

When they understand how they prefer to think in the workplace, they can be more deliberate and effective in their communication — and develop deeper, more collaborative relationships.

Consider training middle managers in conflict resolution so they’re better prepared to handle difficult situations while managing up, down, and across.

By helping middle managers view workplace conflict as an opportunity for collaboration rather than winner-take-all, they’ll feel less defensive and more engaged.

3. Reexamine their workloads

Even when companies recognize middle managers’ importance to company culture and strategic execution, the result is often more work – without an increase in resources. This expanded scope of work can be overwhelming, leaving little time for self-care and personal development.

Look at your middle managers’ individual responsibilities. Can they reasonably complete their individual work and elevate their teams?

Freeing up your overworked middle managers isn’t easy. That’s where culture comes back into play. Do your middle managers feel they can ask for help with their workloads, or do they fear being labeled as incompetent or lazy? HR leaders need to help middle managers see that speaking up won’t be penalized.

Work with executives to reprioritize middle managers’ individual responsibilities. Some top performers might be better off as more of an individual contributor. Others will need support for redistributing their work down to their reports, across to other teams, or both.

Organizations that train, support, and elevate their middle managers will improve productivity, retention, engagement, and business results. Those who don’t will keep wondering why their managers are so unhappy – and why turnover and brain drain are a constant problem.

Karim Nehdi is CEO at Herrmann, which has helped people at the world’s best-performing organizations bring their Whole Brain® to work for more than 40 years with an evolving suite of assessments, employee engagement, and talent intelligence solutions.

The post Why middle managers are so unhappy – and what you can do appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Additionally, all personal and work-related details of employees are stored securely within the employee information system making it more convenient for managers to quickly access relevant data.

All businesses can benefit from the implementation of the EMS tool in the following ways:

• implementing processes to help companies achieve their business objectives
• assisting managers in keeping track of admin activities
• help improve employee engagement and increase productivity
• assist with vacations and absence management and timekeeping
• help HR managers and organizational leaders track performance reviews of employees
• connect the workforce and create a sustainable hybrid work model

EMS vs. HR software – what’s the difference?

The terminology used in human resources tech can be confusing, but it needn’t be. “Employment Management Software” is a broad term, so you may find it referred to as the following, each of which comes with subtle differences but includes features of employee management:

Human Resources Information System (HRIS)

An HRIS is a tool Human Resources departments use to optimize their operations. It contains all the components necessary to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in managing HR tasks.

Human Capital Management software (HCM)

Focused on employee management, it is designed to help organizations acquire and develop talent and optimize their team performance. Its features can assist with recruiting, onboarding, and assessing employee performance.

Human Resources Management system (HRMS)

A digital platform designed to facilitate and streamline a variety of HR processes. It is there to help organizations keep track of their personnel and the activities carried out by the people management team. In essence, these systems are used to provide complete oversight of an organization’s operations.

For a deeper dive, check out our HRIS vs. HCMS vs. HRM guide!

Related: What is employee management?

Benefits of Employee Management Software

Let’s look at some of the benefits of using employee management software in more detail, but matching their features with goals:

Goal: To optimize internal processes

Why you need to do it: Managing different HR processes can be challenging and time-consuming. EMS eliminates the need to use several tools and helps improve the HR team’s overall efficiency.

Goal: To improve the work climate

Why you need to do it: Timely feedback helps improve the work culture. EMS lets you monitor, evaluate, and provide workers with feedback on their performance.

Goal: To ensure compliance with legal obligations

Why you need to do it: Organizations must adhere to legal and regulatory standards concerning employees and management. EMS tools ensure you remain up-to-date with the HR and labor rules and regulations.

Goal: To ensure employee engagement

Why you need to do it: To improve workplace motivation and increase employee productivity. EMS helps you easily monitor and evaluate employees’ progress, helps employees feel confident and encourages them to develop a good relationship with the organization, and creates an environment that encourages communication.

Goal: To save HR team time

Why you need to do it: Access to employee data helps managers implement strategic decisions and increase workplace productivity quickly. Most systems are cloud-based, which gives employers and HR teams access to the data anywhere. EMS saves time because HR no longer has to wait to make decisions because of a lack of information

Goal: To achieve better data security

Why you need to do it: Reduce the risk of sensitive information being accessed without authority and adhere to data storage regulations. EMS can guarantee your data security with encryption measures.

Goal: Reduce paperwork

Why you need to do it: Introduce more sustainable practices into your organization and streamline processes. EMS can be customized to meet the requirements of each department to reduce paperwork. It also enables the HR department and employees to complete forms online.

Breaking down the different types of employee management software

Here are three types of employee management software:

1. Time and productivity management software

Managers and business leaders need to be able to track the productivity of their employees; this is where time and productivity management software comes in. These systems are designed to measure:

• productive and non-productive hours
• what projects each employee is working on
• any potential signs of wasted time
• other factors of employee efficiency

Such tools offer a great deal of insight into the busiest days for each department and allow managers to recognize when an employee might need to be more productive.

2. HR Management Software

A crucial element in successful employee management is an HR management system. These systems store all employee data and streamline HR operations to enhance decision-making.

These tools provide a comprehensive solution for organizations’ HR tasks, from onboarding staff to managing payroll activities.

In addition, the compliance-driven elements of many HR processes make manual labor time-consuming and expensive; using such systems simplifies this process and helps managers preserve time, resources, and money.

3. Employee collaboration and communication software

For the team to succeed, effective communication is essential. With the proper tools in place, everyone on the team can remain connected and collaborate effectively. By establishing an atmosphere of regular communication, each individual’s tasks can be completed successfully. Along with providing swift communication, many of these systems enable members to exchange data easily.

Next-gen employee management software: talent management tech

HR departments today have a much different challenge than in the past. With many companies embracing diverse demographics of employees, they must be able to keep up with and respond to workers spread across many generations, skill levels, locations, and unique career goals. All while keeping up with the changing times of a fast-paced world where staying connected is paramount.

As a result, there has been an upsurge in demand for highly intelligent, user-friendly, and efficient tools for managing talent resources. These are some features in employee management software that can help HR departments enhance their recruiting efforts.

1. Streamlining the onboarding process

By utilizing a strong Human Resources strategy, companies can ensure the onboarding process of their new hires is effortless and impactful.

With access to a digital hub filled with company culture and aspirations, newcomers can become quickly informed about what is expected from them.

Recruits are granted the ability to virtually get accustomed to job or department details before their first day.

2. Mainstreaming performance management

Moving away from a system that only includes yearly reviews, the performance management process is now incorporating a more continuous feedback loop with a 360-degree approach. This enables employees and managers to provide one another with continual feedback and advice.

Performance monitoring tools monitor what tasks employees work on and how long they spend on each task to determine their productivity.

Automated employee management software reminds a business unit to share reviews or feedback about a colleague’s performance.

3. Personalized learning and teaching

Companies must learn how to tailor both learnability and teachability to maximize success.

Data and feedback loops can greatly help assess a learner’s current skills and interests and match those qualities with individual preferences and company objectives.

Top employee management software providers

1. Workable.com

Elevate your HR operations effortlessly with Workable, an easy-to-use HRIS platform designed to streamline the employee onboarding and management journey. This platform stands out for its blend of customizable features that cater directly to the nuances of HR tasks.

Through Workable, you can set up custom workflows, launch a branded onboarding portal, and leverage automated compliance tools to ensure a smooth transition and management of new hires. It’s all about creating an organized, efficient, and engaging experience for both HR managers and employees alike.

Key features: Customizable workflows, branded onboarding experiences, automated compliance management, company document organization, clear organizational structure, efficient time-off management.

What makes it good:

• Tailored for quickly growing businesses
• Enhanced HR management
• Seamless integration
• Professional and polished experience
• Cost-effective solution
• Comprehensive compliance tools
• Advanced reporting and analytics
• Mobile accessibility for on-the-go management

2. Monday.com

Organize your business operations easily with the help of the cloud-based platform, monday.com. This comprehensive tool provides features to support Human Resources needs, making it ideal for employee management tasks.

From creating collaborative workflows, assigning tasks to keep track of performance indicators, and sending out reminders, you will be able to do all this and more.

Key features: HR templates, onboarding, recruitment pipeline, employee wellbeing, employee development and learning, employee engagement, workflows.

What makes it good:

• Suitable for mid-sized businesses
• It helps you communicate and collaborate easily
• It has powerful reporting and analytics
• Supports multiple integrations
• It’s mobile-enabled
• Offers customizable dashboards
• Offers reports for progress tracking, budget totals, capacity limitations, missed deadline warnings, and more
• It has a user-friendly interface
• It is reasonably priced

3. Gusto

Gusto is a complete HR solution for small businesses, offering an array of features that simplify managing payroll hiring.
It might be best known for its payroll system specifically designed with the needs of smaller companies in mind. This means it takes care of filing all local, state, and federal tax forms on behalf of your company – with electronic signing, faxing, and document storage available within the Gusto dashboard.

Key features: Payroll, contractor payment, benefits administration, time tracking, taxes, compliance.

What makes it good:

• Ideal for first-time and experienced HR administrators
• Includes easy-to-use setup tools, management, and payroll runs
• Offers team management tools, employee engagement features, performance reviews, and time-off management
• Good customer service and support
• Offers personalized solutions
• It has powerful integrations such as QuickBooks

4. Rippling

Rippling’s HR and IT automation features make it a breeze to use. Its intuitive platform and app integration capabilities offer a comprehensive range of tools that both administrators and HR staff will find useful.

Features include applicant tracking, custom hiring workflows, task management, compliance training, and customizable reporting. These are all designed to streamline human resources processes that are time-intensive.

Key features: Onboarding and offboarding, payroll, benefits administration, workflow management, time tracking, security

What makes it good:

• Intuitive and easy-to-use
• Highly customizable
• Easy to automate several HR processes
• It has a mobile app
• It makes the onboarding process simple and quick

5. Paycor

Paycor has designed its human capital management software to simplify businesses’ payroll, talent acquisition, workforce management, and benefits administration processes.

It also provides added value by giving insight into the experiences of employees. Advanced reporting and analytics features make it a good choice for companies keen to explore their data further to make smarter choices.

Small business owners can benefit from the tools that aid with employee engagement, turnover, diversity, and budgeting efforts.

Key features: analytics and reporting, benefits administration, employee surveys, expense management, payroll, workforce management

What makes it good:

• Offers extensive reporting and customizable analytics features
• Analytics data is presented in a helpful visual format
• The web platform and mobile app are user-friendly and easy to navigate
• Integrates well with popular benefits, retirement, background checks, and hiring tools

Choosing the right employee management software for you

Are you in search of the perfect employee management software? There are a few key aspects to consider.

You will need an application that enables quick and easy observation of your workforce.

You must be able to access up-to-date job titles, salary details, skills, contact data, and more. Staff scheduling and PTO is another essential function this system should offer.

Performance review tools, as well as survey services, should be accessible to deliver feedback to employees while monitoring company satisfaction.

Benefits and payroll management need to be accessible within the same platform to avoid any unnecessary duplication of data entry.

Automation options should also be available, so you don’t need to spend extra time managing tasks manually.

Finding what works best for your employees

To find the optimum solution for your organization, consider the size of your team. A large-scale organization may opt for an approach that helps track productivity and performance; in contrast, a smaller firm that relies on highly talented personnel might prefer a management strategy geared toward encouraging creativity and collaboration.

Either way, weighing up the pros and cons of the employee management software requires engagement from all personnel who will ultimately be working with it – that’s how you get buy-in and achieve success.

The post Choosing the best employee management software appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This is not a gossip blog, but I’m intrigued. I do want to know that Her Royal Highness is okay, but I’m also fascinated by the lessons we can learn about corporate communication from this debacle.

Kate Middleton’s Photoshop fail fiasco is a ‘cause for concern’: ‘Everybody is worried about her’ https://t.co/qo3qRC7jLu pic.twitter.com/0NcL0hNk3h

— New York Post (@nypost) March 13, 2024

Yes, companies make the same mistakes the Royals are making all the time. Here we go.

1. Be honest in your messaging

This seems easy to do. In January, the Palace released a statement that HRH had been admitted to the hospital for a planned abdominal surgery.

Frankly, while the public is very nosey, we aren’t entitled to know why she had surgery. Yes, she’s a public figure, but she’s still entitled to medical privacy.

But the dishonesty started here. If the surgery was planned, why did she cancel upcoming events? Those two statements are contradictory.

Now for normal humans, our surgeries may get moved up or pushed out based on the surgeon’s availability, but I doubt the royals have trouble with getting bumped or moved up.

So why not be honest from the beginning? “Her Royal Highness Catherine, Princess of Wales, underwent abdominal surgery and will be recovering until after Easter. She regrets that she won’t be attending upcoming events.”

Lessons for your business

People can see through the misdirections and squishy language used to hide things.

No, you’re not required to tell people confidential information (whether it be health information about your CEO or details about an upcoming merger.

But you need to be honest about what you do say. Otherwise, people will see through it.

Related: Going viral as an employer – for all the wrong reasons

2. Don’t pretty things up

While there will always be rumors about the Royals, what really stirred things up was a picture of Catherine and her children at the palace released for Mother’s Day in the UK. People noticed right away that there was a lot of Photoshop going on in that picture and cried foul.

Blurry hair, meandering zippers—we asked WIRED’s design department to explain the editing errors in Kate Middleton’s controversial Mother’s Day photo. https://t.co/ouIr8RnU3O

— WIRED (@WIRED) March 12, 2024

Now, let’s have a reality check: A ton of the pictures you see on the internet have been photoshopped. If that’s a scandal, let me introduce you to another scandal: Filters, and filters’ close friend, makeup.

So why the problem?

Because this was poorly done and appeared to be more than a few little things to make everyone look like their mother hadn’t just been screaming at them, “If you can just not make a face for 30 seconds, we will be done with this and you can go back to Minecraft.

(Apologies: I’m sure your children, like the Royal children, love taking family pictures, and you’ve never experienced this phenomenon.)

Catherine is recovering from surgery and has been out of the public eye since January, so a Photoshopped picture raised eyebrows and, admittedly, produced some very entertaining social media posts.

Lessons for your business

If you try to tell everyone things are great and fudge numbers and talk about VPs who “left to spend more time with their families”, people know that you’re trying to hide something.

Honestly? Honesty is the best policy.

The other option, of course, is to keep your mouth shut and stick with the original message: HRH will be recovering until the end of March, and so here is a picture of the kids on Mother’s Day. Or: here’s a picture of them with their grandmother.

If nothing is changed from your original communication, just stay the course.

3. Rumors are (almost) always worse than reality

Catherine released a statement that she Photoshopped the picture and didn’t do a great job.

Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C

— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) March 11, 2024

Ha, ha, ha.

Then the Palace released a photo of her and Prince William where Catherine could be any person with long dark hair.

So, the rumors are flying. Did she die? Is she stuck with a cat on her lap? Does she have cancer, and her hair all fell out? Did she decide to leave her husband? Did William run off with a mistress?

@casstherockwillson

It’s me, Kate! Everything is fine :) #royalfamily #katemiddleton

♬ Mozart Minuet with violin(815356) – 松本一策

Likely, none of these are true, and Kate – sorry, Catherine – is just still recovering from a major surgery.

But, by changing the original message (you won’t see her again until after Easter) and showing a poorly prettied-up picture, you invite rumors.

Adding a sketchy follow-up picture further fueled the rumors.

Lessons for your business

Stick to the truth. In the absence of information, people make stuff up, and that’s what’s happening here.

People will assume the worst because that’s the most exciting answer. It’s really boring to think, “She’s a 42-year-old woman who had major surgery. She needs time to recover, and she’s recovering.” It’s much more dramatic to think something horrible happened.

Present the truth. Hiding things makes it worse.

You’ll probably never have as much drama in your business as the Royals are having now, but you will have drama.

Trying to hide it and making iffy communication will make it worse.

Want to read more from the Evil HR Lady? Check out her other articles here.

The post The Kate Photoshop fiasco: 3 major lessons for employers appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

HR teams are once again tasked with squeezing water from a rock. We are here to provide some optimizations that could untie the knot and turn challenges into opportunities for your work environment.

Gallup research reveals a compelling narrative: hybrid work setups not only accommodate the preferences of a diverse workforce but also align with improved productivity and employee wellbeing. 

The allure of hybrid work lies in its ability to offer employees control over their work environments, thus enhancing their satisfaction and loyalty to the company​​.

However, a McKinsey report highlighted that 71% of employees who prefer hybrid work are likely to seek other opportunities if it is not available​​. This underscores the urgency for HR professionals and employers to adapt and optimize their hybrid work policies to retain top talent.

Implementing a hybrid work model 

Transitioning to a hybrid work model necessitates a reevaluation of traditional HR practices, especially in organizations that do not utilize a Human Resource Information System (HRIS). 

Key challenges include maintaining seamless communication, ensuring equitable access to resources, fostering a cohesive company culture, and tracking performance across disparate environments.

One of the most significant hurdles is mitigating the sense of isolation among remote employees and ensuring they feel as valued and connected as their in-office counterparts. 

Deloitte’s insights on equitable workplace practices emphasize the need for intentional efforts to create an inclusive environment that transcends physical boundaries​​. This involves redefining the purpose of the office space to accommodate a more flexible, diverse workforce and leveraging real estate strategically to enhance employee experiences​​.

Strategies for effective communication and collaboration

The cornerstone of a successful hybrid work environment is robust communication. Without the luxury of spontaneous face-to-face interactions, HR professionals must champion the use of digital tools and platforms to bridge the gap. 

This includes regular video conferences, instant messaging for real-time collaboration, and digital workspaces to keep everyone aligned on projects and goals.

But technology alone is not enough. Cultivating a culture of open communication and regular check-ins can foster a sense of belonging and team cohesion.

Deloitte’s recommendations extend to creating equitable incentives and experiences, ensuring all employees, regardless of their location, have equal opportunities to contribute and succeed​​. By prioritizing these equitable practices, organizations can navigate the complexities of hybrid work, ensuring a fulfilling and productive experience for all employees.

Performance management in a hybrid setting

Managing performance in a hybrid work environment presents unique challenges. Without the direct oversight possible in a traditional office setting, employers must redefine their approach to monitoring and evaluating employee performance. 

The key is to focus on outcomes rather than activities. This shift requires clear goal-setting, with specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives at the forefront.

Regular feedback loops are crucial. Constructive feedback and timely recognition of achievements can motivate employees and guide their development, regardless of their physical location. 

Employers should leverage performance management tools that allow for continuous assessment and feedback, enabling employees to stay aligned with organizational goals and expectations.

Another aspect is fostering a culture of trust and autonomy. Empowering employees to manage their tasks and time can lead to higher productivity and job satisfaction. 

Trust, once established, acts as the foundation for a successful hybrid work model, encouraging responsibility and accountability among team members.

Bolstering employee engagement and well-being

Employee engagement is vital for maintaining high levels of productivity and retaining talent. In a hybrid model, this means ensuring all employees feel valued and connected to the organization’s mission and culture, regardless of where they work. 

Initiatives to bolster engagement can include virtual team-building activities, opportunities for professional development, and channels for employees to voice their ideas and concerns.

Well-being is another critical consideration. The flexibility of hybrid work can blur the boundaries between personal and professional life, leading to burnout. 

Employers should encourage healthy work-life boundaries and offer support resources, such as mental health days and wellness programs. 

Furthermore, recognizing and accommodating the diverse needs of your workforce can significantly enhance well-being. 

For example, providing flexible hours for caregivers or creating quiet spaces in the office for deep work can make a substantial difference.

Engagement strategies must be inclusive, ensuring remote and office-based employees have equal access to opportunities and support. This can be facilitated through regular surveys to gauge employee sentiment and identify areas for improvement.

Integrating technology and HRIS for hybrid work optimization

The successful integration of technology and HRIS is pivotal in managing a hybrid workforce effectively. These systems can streamline various HR functions, from recruitment and onboarding to performance management and employee engagement. 

An effective HRIS provides a centralized platform for managing employee data, facilitating communication, and supporting decision-making processes with analytics.

When selecting an HRIS, consider features that support hybrid work models, such as mobile accessibility, integration with communication tools, and advanced reporting capabilities. This ensures that employees can access the system from anywhere, fostering a more connected and engaged workforce.

Furthermore, leveraging technology to enhance the employee experience is crucial. This can include creating digital spaces for collaboration, implementing AI for personalized learning and development paths, and using analytics to understand workforce trends and predict future needs. 

By adopting a strategic approach to technology integration, organizations can not only optimize their operations but also create a more adaptable, resilient, and future-ready workforce.

Future-proofing your hybrid work model involves staying informed about advancements in HR technology, understanding the changing dynamics of the workforce, and being proactive in addressing potential challenges.

The post Optimize your hybrid work environments – Here’s how appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In much of our work, you’ll find that 80% of the impact comes from just 20% of your efforts. This so-called Pareto Principle is evident in the software we use daily, such as text editors or spreadsheet tools, where we typically utilize a fraction of the available features.

This phenomenon isn’t limited to software; consider how few buttons you use on your TV remote.

Smart companies leverage this principle by focusing on delivering the valuable 20% to capture 80% of the value, effectively quadrupling productivity.

Read more: Augmented workforce is not the future – it’s happening now

In work, the 80/20 rule often applies when you’re doing something that’s new to you – projects where you can expect surprises to happen. When repeating something, you already know what parts play a role and can focus only on those.

Skills responsible for managing this have been honed and improved in the software industry over the last 30 years. Unpredictable projects tend to be the rule here.

Today, however, more and more commercial, non-profit, and even government organizations are using the same methods in any kind of project, and you can too.

Common misapplication

Be cautious about where you apply the 80/20 principle; it can backfire if not used thoughtfully.

Imagine you are a headhunter looking to fill an executive position and you do a background check on them, looking only at the 20% most obvious spots. Most likely, you will overlook something important with potentially dire consequences for your client.

In other words; as a general rule, you cannot just do the most important 20% of an activity. Your quality will suffer. A spoon that’s only been washed 20% is still dirty, even though the largest pieces of food have been removed.

As a general rule, you cannot just do the most important 20% of an activity. Your quality will suffer. A spoon that’s only been washed 20% is still dirty, even though the largest pieces of food have been removed.

Having experienced such problems with quality, many managers have become cautious and prefer to play it safe by doing 100% everywhere.

Focus on results, not the activities

The secret to harnessing the Pareto Principle lies in focusing on results rather than getting bogged down in activities and processes. It’s the 20% of features of a product that deliver 80% of the value. These features should be implemented well, without compromising quality.

So, how can you identify the different results in your project when it doesn’t have anything to do with creating a product?

To answer this, you need to look at your project from the perspective of the people for whom you are doing it – your stakeholders.

Anything that they could see, use, or that would change their behavior is such a result; we call it a vertical slice of work.

In making food, it’s the cooked dishes. In social media marketing, it’s a written and posted article. In hiring, it’s filling an open position.

Often, it’s as easy as in these examples to identify many vertical slices. Once you do, you can prioritize the most useful ones and work on delivering them within days or weeks. Once you deliver them, you and your team can learn from your stakeholders whether they were that valuable.

And again, you prioritize the next items now with your new knowledge. Deliver, learn, repeat.

Identify the many small results

Often, valuable results in many projects aren’t delivered until the very end. This doesn’t give you space to choose what you think the most valuable 20% of them are. For this, there are several tactics to slice a large deliverable into smaller, but still valuable, ones.

And this isn’t just helping you find the useful 20%. When working with unpredictability, there is one sure way to fail: hoping to deliver the one result in the end that will make your stakeholders happy. Slicing helps you get feedback early and mitigates risk.

How to apply the Pareto principle

Here are a few effective tactics for slicing work into manageable, vertical slices:

1. Defuse the risk

Identify the riskiest parts of your project, then think of a result that, once delivered, would demonstrate that the risk isn’t there.

Example: You aren’t sure whether candidates for a particular position would submit a two-minute application video when invited to.

Instead of waiting for applicants to do it, you find 10 potential candidates and ask them directly to apply. Stay in touch with them if they don’t submit a video, to learn why.

2. Narrow the target

If your project affects a large group of people, try to focus on subgroups first.

Example: Instead of targeting all employers in North America, start with female founder CEOs of companies with less than 25 employees. Then move to a different subgroup.

3. Start with a reduced impact

Instead of striving for the target behavior, identify a behavior on the way to your goal.

Example: Instead of focusing on getting heads of HR departments to procure your hiring services, get them to book a half-hour meeting with you.

Focusing on such results allows you to address all possible surprises head-on, learn about what belongs to the most valuable 20%, and deliver the project piece by piece at the same time.

Anton Skornyavkov is a Certified Scrum Trainer with Scrum Alliance and the managing director of Agile.Coach based in Berlin, Germany. His new book “The Art of Slicing Work” is a real-world, low-jargon guide that teaches the main skill of a successful manager in the 21st century – the ability to master unpredictability.

The post Apply the Pareto principle wisely –  and boost productivity by 4X appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is preboarding?

Preboarding is a crucial early step in the employment journey, bridging the gap between job acceptance and the start of work.

This phase encompasses more than mere formalities; it’s a strategic period where employers and new hires lay the groundwork for a fruitful and engaging professional relationship.

It involves initial introductions, cultural immersion, logistical preparations, and early engagement, setting the tone for the employee’s future in the organization.

Want to learn more about preboarding? Check out our HR Term definition: What is preboarding?

Why is preboarding important?

According to LinkedIn, four out of five newly hired professionals are pent up with worry in the days and weeks before starting a new job. Was it the right choice? What will their job look like? Will they be ready? You can address all of this in the preboarding stage.

Preboarding can help reassure new hires and set them up for success from the very first day. They’ll be happier, more motivated, and more productive as a result. Plus, they’ll stick around for longer. According to Integrated Benefits Institute, 82% of employers saw better employee retention when they had a good onboarding process in place.

And if you don’t get deliver good preboarding or onboarding for your new workers? According to a 2021 Gallup report, only 29% of new hires say they felt fully ready to tackle their new job after their onboarding.

So, it’s clear: there is a correlation between preboarding and new employee success.

Wait, you ask – wasn’t it onboarding? Glad you asked – there’s a very specific difference between the two.

Preboarding vs. onboarding: what’s the difference?

While onboarding integrates a new hire into the company over several weeks or months, preboarding sets expectations and introductions for the new hire to the company.

Think about it this way: preboarding is the stage between the day the candidate signs a new job offer and their first day on the job.

Onboarding starts on that first day going forward. We’ve talked about this elsewhere, including in the 30-60-90 day onboarding framework – download our ebook on that now!

Preboarding in action: a closer look

Preboarding can encompass various activities, including::

• Sending welcome emails and company swag
• Completing essential paperwork
• Introducing the new hire to their team
• Setting up the new hire’s workstation
• Providing logistical details like parking, dress code, and first-day and first-week schedule

Here are three potential real-life preboarding examples:

Example 1: Welcome email and orientation

Scenario: Ayesha, recently hired as a project coordinator, receives a personalized welcome email from her new manager, Luis. The email outlines her first week at Global Tech Solutions, along with access to an online orientation module.

Details: The orientation module contains interactive content about the company’s history, mission, and core values, as well as introductions to key team members.

Impact: Ayesha feels welcomed and gains a solid understanding of the company culture, easing her transition into the team.

Example 2: Remote workstation setup and introduction

Scenario: Carlos, joining as a software developer, receives a shipment containing his work laptop, ergonomic accessories, and secure login details to Global Tech Solutions’ network.

Details: Along with the hardware, Carlos finds clear setup instructions and scheduled virtual IT support to assist him in configuring his home office.

Impact: Carlos appreciates the seamless setup process, which allows him to start exploring company resources and programming environments comfortably from home.

Related: Use VR in onboarding and set your new hires for success – Workable

Example 3: Mentorship and engagement

Scenario: Steve, the new HR executive, is introduced to his mentor, Elena, a senior HR manager, via a video call arranged by the HR department.

Details: Elena shares insights about the company’s HR policies, current projects, and team dynamics. She also schedules regular check-ins and offers guidance on navigating the company’s processes.

Impact: Steve feels supported and confident about his role, benefiting from Elena’s experience and establishing a valuable internal network before his first day.

Best practices in preboarding

There are some best practices in mind when building your preboarding process:

1. Personalize the experience

New hires are literally the new kids in school. It’s a weird and exciting time and they don’t know anyone at work. From customized welcome messages to assigning a mentor, personal touches can make a significant difference.

2. Keep the communication channels open

New hires will have a lot of questions. Don’t leave them in a vacuum. Regular updates and check-ins can alleviate uncertainties and build excitement.

3. Automate administrative tasks

Managing a large number of new hires can be daunting. Streamlining paperwork and formalities through digital platforms not only saves time and resources but also reduces errors and environmental impact​​.

The preboarding promise

Preboarding might often be overshadowed by its more prominent cousin, onboarding, but its impact is undeniable.

It’s a crucial phase that can significantly influence a new hire’s outlook, engagement, and productivity.

In an era where the first impressions count more than ever, preboarding is not just a nice-to-have; it’s a strategic imperative. Your new employees – and your colleagues tasked with improving the bottom line – will thank you.

The post Preboarding: what makes it different from onboarding? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Then, all of a sudden, everything starts clicking!

Today’s adventure involves exploring how I – and many product managers like me – navigate the challenges of prioritizing feature requests.

I like picturing this like I am using a toolkit of run training techniques, making sure our product is always geared up and ready for the race ahead. Just like – as a runner – I carefully plan my training routine for a race, as a product manager I strategically prioritize features to ensure our product is always ready to tackle the challenges ahead.

So, grab your running shoes and let’s take a jog through the world of feature prioritization. It’s like a casual run training in the park, but for products (or any kind of management, really!). Ready? Let’s go!

Related: The court of collaboration: thriving as a product manager

1. Interval training: Addressing immediate needs

In the realm of running, interval training involves alternating between high and low-intensity bursts. Just like the ebb and flow of interval training in my running routine, I tackle urgent user needs in my role as a Product Manager.

Prioritizing features that hold immediate value and are frequently requested feels a lot like the high-energy intervals of a run – where every stride is purposeful.

These features are the equivalent of finding the perfect running route or hitting a personal best during a race. They’re the sprint intervals that move a product manager closer to the finish line of an exceptional user experience.

2. Long runs: strategic vision and comprehensive features

Picture our product development journey as a vibrant landscape, where just like in my favorite running routine, long runs take center stage helping me build endurance and stamina.

As both a Product Manager and an enthusiastic runner, I see these long runs as more than just a training backbone — they’re like the heart and soul of our strategic game plan.

In the world of features, I approach them with the same spirit. Prioritizing isn’t just a tactical move; it’s a commitment to our product’s long-term vision and strategic goals.

These features are the stretches of our development journey, carefully planned and executed to align with our product’s strategy and vision. It’s not just about the run; it’s about the joy of a sustained, successful pace.

3. Hill training: conquering challenges

In running, hill training is essential for building strength and mastering tricky terrain. Similarly, as a PM, I like to approach challenges in a similar way, prioritizing features that tackle complex issues head-on.

Think of these as uphill sprints in our development process — each one not only enhances the product’s capabilities but also helps us overcome obstacles in the competitive landscape.

It’s about building the stamina to navigate the twists and turns, ensuring our product stands strong in the face of challenges.

4. Easy runs: low-effort, high-impact features

Easy runs are not just about covering miles; they play a crucial role in recovery and rejuvenation. It’s important to embrace a comparable strategy in the product management world by prioritizing low-effort, high-impact features.

These carefully chosen additions bring significant value without imposing undue strain on our resources, allowing the team to recover while still making steady progress in moving the product forward.

Think of it like those refreshing pauses during an easy run, where both the body and mind get a chance to recalibrate before tackling the next challenging stretch. These low-effort, high-impact features serve as our rejuvenation phase.

They ensure our development journey remains sustainable, energized, and conducive to long-term success. It’s about recognizing the importance of balance, acknowledging that recovery is just as vital as the strides we take towards progress.

5. Tapers: focusing on refinement

As both a Product Manager and a passionate runner, I see the flow of race preparation reflected in our product development cycles. Just like I’d incorporate tapering to peak before a race, as a Product Manager I like to embrace my own version of “tapers.”

In the running world, tapering involves strategically reducing mileage to optimize performance on race day. Likewise, during our “taper” phases in product management , the team focuses intently on refinement.

It’s a process where we fine-tune existing features, ensure optimal performance, and eliminate any remaining bugs, sculpting our product into a polished and efficient gem.

Just as I’d aim for peak performance at the starting line at a race, our ‘taper’ moments are designed to ensure our product is finely tuned and ready to shine when it matters most.

It’s about hitting the sweet spot, where every stride in development leads to a product that’s not just efficient but truly exceptional.

Product management needs a well-balanced training plan

Just as a successful runner incorporates a variety of training techniques to prepare for a race, product managers strategically prioritize features to keep their product in peak condition.

By embracing intervals for quick wins, planning long runs for sustained success, conquering uphill challenges, focusing on easy runs for efficiency and incorporating tapers for refinement and fine-tuning, we ensure a well-balanced and effective training plan for our product.

So, whether you’re hitting the pavement or the product backlog, remember: every feature prioritized is a step closer to achieving your product management race goals.

Happy running, and may your products always cross the finish line with success!

The post Managing product features and launches: a runner’s training plan appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Besides storage, document management involves various other functions. But which software provider can provide all the features you need at a price you can afford? Check out our comparison of the top document management software providers to find the one that suits you best.

What is a document management system?

A document management system (DMS) is a digital system that’s tasked with the storage, sharing, tracking, and management of files and documents. Specifically in HR, these documents relate to employee information, company policies, and workflows. With the easy accessibility that a DMS provides to authorized personnel, filing cabinets have become obsolete in the HR department.

Why do you need document management software?

Here are some of the benefits of document management software:

It’s safe. No more misplaced documents or files that have fallen victim to coffee spills. Online documents are securely stored behind firewalls, password protection, and data encryption. Plus, you can decide who’s allowed to access the information, adding yet another layer of protection.

It’s efficient. A place for everything and everything in its place. Documents are organized and categorized according to your preferences, making them easy to find and update. The time saved with this function is all the reason you need to install this software.

It grows. The scalability of a DMS means that, as your company expands, so does the system. As a result of this, your workflows and processes won’t change, so no need for new software or training.

It’s accessible. Forget shuffling contracts from one inbox to the next for signatures. The authorized stakeholders receive communication regarding updates instantly and can access documents at will.

It’s paperless. Green initiatives are an integral part of any organization so it’s worth grabbing any opportunity to help the planet. Plus you’ll prevent a whole lot of paper cuts.

What documents can you store?

From onboarding to offboarding, any employee information needs to be safely stored and eventually archived. A DMS will do that for you and more. Here are a few examples of documents you can store:

• Recruitment collateral (marketing videos, social proof, career pages, etc.)
• Hiring and onboarding documentation
• Employee contracts
• Company policies and regulations
• PTO requests, medical and disability records
• Payroll documents
• Benefits administration documents
• Performance reviews and records
• Accident and safety reports
• Learning management paperwork
• Basic and advanced features

Workable’s own document management functionalities are included in its HR software solution – which is already bolstered by a best-in-class recruitment software. This makes it a must-have for many small businesses that may not have the resources to procure a dedicated document management software in addition to other elements of its HR tech stack.

What are the must-haves in document management software?

At its core, document management software should be able to provide the following:

1. Metadata

This allows users to know when a document was uploaded or updated and by whom, providing an automatic paper trail for record-keeping purposes. For some systems, metadata includes extracted text, helping with keyword searches.

2. Integration

If you’re in another app, you should be able to get a document from the DMS, change it, and save the new version back in the DMS without actually leaving the app you’re in.

3. Capture

The DMS should be able to process scanned images of documents. Some may even have optical character recognition software that will convert the images into machine-readable text.

4. Storage

Along with storage, this includes managing the documents, i.e., their location, length of storage, transfer, and destruction.

5. Workflow

The path a document takes through an organization may be created by rules an administrator inputs, ensuring an automatic flow from one department to the next.

6. Collaboration

No more trying to reconcile changes made by various team members. Now, more than one user can work on a single document at the same time. All markups will be recorded and go into the document history.

7. User-friendly interface

You don’t need your staff sitting in hours of training to learn a new system. The interface should be simple to navigate with a dashboard that’s quick and easy to scan.

What are the nice-to-haves in document management software?

Now for the features that it would be great to have:

1. Compliance capabilities

The DMS follows the relevant legislation and regulations to ensure you and your documents are compliant.

2. eSignatures

Electronic signature capabilities are a blessing when it comes to HR. While you can easily use external software for this, all the better if your DMS can provide it.

3. Customized templates

So easy to get through the admin if you just have to fill in the blank spaces. There could be templates for a range of HR functions and regulations.

4. Reporting capabilities

It will analyze your workflows, allowing you to identify molehills before they become mountains and inefficiencies that need streamlining.

5. Automated reminders

Maybe a contract is up or an employee is eligible for certain benefits – it’s near impossible to keep track of it all, no matter the size of your business. These reminders do the checking for you and ensure you remain compliant.

6. Scalability and flexibility

Scalability in document management software is essential for ensuring an organization’s evolving needs are met over time. As businesses grow and workflows become more intricate, the volume and complexity of managed documents increase.

A scalable solution can accommodate this growth, preventing potential system overloads or costly migrations to larger platforms.

Moreover, it provides flexibility in adopting new features and integrations, supporting continual operational enhancements.

A comparison of the top document management softwares

We’ve done our research and narrowed it down to the best document storage software providers out there. They are:

• Zoho WorkDrive
• GoCo
• PandaDoc
• eFileCabinet

Before we get into the specific areas, let’s look at the highlights of each:

What we like

While the majority of DMSs share most basic functions, some stand-out features set the top ones apart. Let’s take a look at some of the best features each of these document management systems has to offer.

Zoho WorkDrive

• Easy file sharing
• Flexible
• Great permissions feature
• Real-time collaboration

GoCo

• Great user interface
• Good support
• Integrates well with payroll system
• Modern design

PandaDoc

• Easily customizable
• Reliable and intuitive
• Helpful eSigning capabilities
• Unlimited documents

eFileCabinet

• Great drag-and-drop functionality
• Easy to replicate folder structures
• Good customer service
• Scanning is a breeze

What we don’t like

It can’t all be good. There has to be a downside to these document management systems. However, being at the top in the list means there are thankfully few negative characteristics.

Zoho WorkDrive

• Limited integrations
• Tends to be slow
• Mobile app needs improvement

GoCo

• Certain functions (e.g. creating a workflow) can be complicated and confusing
• Can be slow at times
• Sometimes difficult to track the status of changes
• System can be rigid

PandaDoc

• Mobile app can be slow
• Latest version has removed the ability to duplicate documents
• Difficulty in saving or retrieving electronic signature
• Becomes costly with simple add-on features

eFileCabinet

• Cannot make bulk changes to files or folders
• Could be more cloud-friendly
• Not intuitive
• Difficult to delete items that have been added

Choosing a DMS: price, usability and support

Now that we have a quick understanding of each at a surface level, let’s see how they measure up against each other in three fundamental categories worth considering: price, user friendliness, and support.

1. Price

Let’s be honest, this is the most important part – how much do you have to spend on a document management system? The options range from monthly or annual subscriptions per user to fees per feature.

Zoho WorkDrive

• Starter – $2/user/month
• Team – $4/user/month
• Business – $8/user/month

GoCo

• Plans start at $5/user/month
• Add on features according to need

PandaDoc

• Essentials – $19/user/month
• Business – $49/user/month
• Enterprise – Request a quote

eFileCabinet

• $1,200 USD/feature/year

2. User-friendliness

Too many software providers take their users’ technical capabilities for granted. The more complex the interface, the more training required which means your employees are spending more time away from work than necessary. See what customers have to say about the top DM softwares.

Zoho WorkDrive

Offers a modern interface with access controls and a built-in office suite.

• “WorkDrive is a very cost-effective cloud storage option that is incredibly user-friendly.” – Pramod P
• “Although it is user-friendly, it sometimes takes too long to navigate and switch between folders.” – Hüseyin A

GoCo

Designed with flexibility and ease of use in mind.

• “Easy to navigate. User-friendly features.” – verified user in logistics and supply chain
• “It can be a very streamlined system. They just need to work out the bugs of it being slow and the glitches but other than that it is user friendly and self explanatory.” – verified user in mental health care

PandaDoc

Offers user-friendly software that streamlines your business processes.

• “Due to its accessibility, it is convenient for the signer and is generally user-friendly.” – verified user in computer & network security
• “With how customizable it is, it can get confusing. The UI could be more friendly and have more explanations.” – verified user in computer software

eFileCabinet

Provides a simple, user-friendly interface that eliminates the learning curve.

• “It’s very user friendly. The training was long but very informative.” – verified user in legal services
• “Very basic but super user friendly” – verified user in electronic manufacturing

3. Customer support

One of the true tests for software providers is post-sales customer support. It needs to go beyond “Have you tried switching it off and on again?”.

This is especially so when learning a new application and you need guidance to navigate unfamiliar territory. And who better to ask if a DMS passes the test than past customers?

Zoho WorkDrive

• “When I need new features, the support team responds very quickly and discusses whether it is a one-time or repetitive job so the focus of the tool stays in place.” – Hiroshi M
• “I needed some assistance, and received no feedback from customer service.” – Lisa P

GoCo

• “Although the support staff are AMAZING, it takes at least 24 hours for them to get back to me.” – Jared B
• “I can’t pull out a report and I have asked tech support and still didn’t get a response from them after 2 weeks.” – Nick A

PandaDoc

• “No phone support. There is not a number to call and that sometimes makes things difficult. You guys have a chat that is quite quick to response so things aren’t that bad but it would be great if the people attending the chat could give you a call when further technical support is required.” – Juan D
• “We have had some instances of down time but the tech support has been very supportive and will get back to you in a timely manner.” – Keisha P

eFileCabinet

• “Things don’t always work in a consistent way and although the support team is very kind and makes every effort to help, they do not always understand why things aren’t working either.” – verified user in chemicals
• “While I love how helpful the customer support is, I didn’t like how often I needed to contact them with regards to EfileCabinet freezing or some small other annoyance.” – verified user in accounting

On-site vs. cloud-based DMS

Even the ‘location’ of your DMS can be factored into your priorities. There are two such ‘locations’ for your DMS – you can either have it on site or you can run it in the cloud. Let’s look at what each means for you.

On-site DMS

• Your data is stored in servers on your company premises.
• You’ll need resources and an IT team to maintain the system.
• Generally best suited to big companies.
• It’s a costly undertaking.
• You’re not reliant on an internet connection to access information.
• Don’t forget to back up your data — not doing so means you’ll lose it all if there’s a glitch.

Cloud-based DMS

• It’s handled by a service provider, using an external data center.
• There’s usually a subscription fee due but that’s about as expensive as it gets as you don’t need hardware or a team to manage it.
• It’s a great solution for users that require remote access or for companies that are growing rapidly.
• However, you will be dependent on an external service provider and a reliable internet connection.

Making a purchase decision on a DMS

You’ve researched an endless number of document management software providers but you still don’t know which one to pick.

Here are a few guidelines to help you make your decision:

1. Figure out what you need

How big is your company? Do you have comprehensive needs or will a basic package do? Are you currently using a DMS and will the new provider be able to transfer the files for you? Start off as simple as possible and add on features as you need them.

2. Assess your processes

By taking a good, hard look at your workflows, you’ll identify the problems that need to be addressed. The document management software you choose will have to provide solutions for these issues.

3. Consider your security and compliance requirements

Ideally, you’d like a DMS that has layers of protection and possesses international security qualifications. Likewise with compliance. You need a DMS that adheres to the relevant rules and regulations and picks up on discrepancies before they become problematic.

4. How much are you willing to spend?

We’d all love to have top-of-the-range stuff but sometimes, it’s just not feasible. If you choose a document management system that promotes scalability, you should be able to add on the nice-to-have features as your business grows. For now, though, you may have to stick to the basics.

Define what features you need most

By pinpointing essential functionalities—such as version control, security protocols, and integration capabilities—organizations can sidestep superfluous features, ensuring cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, a defined feature set aids in gauging the software’s scalability, ensuring it can adapt to evolving business requirements.

In essence, precisely defining features guarantees a tailored, efficient, and future-proof document management solution.

Short-term change to long-term gain

Investing in a document management system is no small matter. It takes time, money, and company-wide cooperation. Your system may be down for days, if not weeks during the conversion to digital, and your staff will miss work to attend training.

However, that being said, installing a DMS in your organization will do wonders for your HR department. Your HR professionals will now have the time to focus on developing your employees to their full potential and driving initiatives to move your company forward.

The post Choosing the best HR document management software: A guide appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What’s going on here? It’s not overt racism – your business is actively recruiting minority candidates. If you can get people on board but not retain them, it’s likely coming from something more subtle: cultural clashes at work.

Cultural differences at work

What do a Black superintendent and a potato-loving Asian have in common? They operate out of the local cultural norms.

Blacks or African Americans make up only 2.4% of the population in Salt Lake City, Utah, so it may not be surprising that the first Black Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Timothy Gadson III, only started in 2021. And the school board suspended him one year later – the same school board that unanimously approved his appointment.

Typically, having the same manager that hires you fire you is a pretty strong defense against illegal discrimination. After all, if the school board didn’t want a Black man in the position, why would they hire one? It can’t be racism – there must be another explanation.

The only school board member who voted to retain Gadson is also Black and said the complaints were “baseless, racially motivated and based on cultural misunderstandings.”

Local news reports claim critics called him loud and intimidating and say he abused his position by hiring other Black workers.

The potato-eating Asian story has a bit more humor: A white employee became upset that an Asian employee ate potatoes in a “sexy” way – biting into them whole. When an investigation showed that she also criticized another Asian employee’s lunch choices, it became clear: This was never about eating potatoes. This was about watching someone do something outside of local cultural norms.

What is culture?

Culture is the “ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.” You don’t generally even notice the culture you grew up in. This is just how things are. Think about it: when you are at a friend’s house at dinner time, does the friend invite you to stay for dinner?

You may be surprised that the answer to that is entirely cultural. Given that you’re not dying of starvation or are impoverished to the point that you can’t feed yourself, inviting someone to stay for dinner varies significantly from culture to culture. In Sweden, your hosts likely won’t offer you a plate of food.

On the other hand, in other countries, your host would feed you and sacrifice their own dinner to ensure you, the guest, get to eat.

This is blowing people’s minds, so as an amateur historian and sociologist I’m going to try to explain this development/ cultural artifact. pic.twitter.com/vNF0MMpMFK

— Honorable Speaker Bobson Dugnutt (@WallySierk) May 29, 2022

Culture impacts every moment of our lives. How we shop, how we eat, how we greet (or don’t greet!) our neighbors on the street, and how loud we speak in public are all part of the culture. And the funny thing is, most people assume that how they do it is how everyone does it until they directly confront a situation outside their cultural bubble.

To help diversity thrive in your organization, you need to recognize the value of culture – which includes knowing when to let things go and when to say: “That’s not how we do things here.”

Have your company culture accept all cultures

The key to accepting other cultures is to separate out what things are essential and what are not important. Ask yourself: Am I making this criticism because it is different or because it is wrong?

• Different: talking loudly and directly
• Wrong: talking rudely

• Different: wearing a hairstyle outside the local cultural norms
• Wrong: not having good hygiene

• Different: wanting to start work at 10 instead of 8
• Wrong: not showing up for meetings on time and wasting people’s time

• Different: having a name that is difficult for native English speakers to pronounce
• Wrong: refusing to learn how to pronounce someone’s name

Making this distinction between different and wrong can help you stop and think before you blurt something out. Eating potatoes with your fingers may seem wrong, but it’s just a cultural difference.

Standardize processes

One of the best ways to limit discrimination based on cultural differences is to set measurable goals for employees and then follow up on those. If you just let managers do whatever they want, you can end up with discriminatory practices that drive people out.

For instance, Textio found that men were likelier to receive feedback solely based on their work, while women received personality feedback. Managers also used different words to describe male and female employees. Can you guess which words were more likely to be associated with women?

• Group 1: brilliant, genius, confident, ambitious
• Group 2: abrasive, challenging, helpful, collaborative

If you guessed Group 1 was men, and Group 2 was women, you’d be right. Why do these words come up in performance appraisals? They are just cultural nightmares, and how does someone respond or change their behavior based on that?

Women are twice as likely to report being described as collaborative and nice. While men are three times more likely to report being described as confident and 3.7 times more likely to report being described as ambitious. https://t.co/Xy3KFcKJRv pic.twitter.com/40Jl3zZ9L8

— Textio (@textio) August 2, 2022

Instead, have all performance appraisals focus on the job and stay away from personality. If a manager feels compelled to comment on an employee’s “abrasive” personality, ask the manager to explain why that is a problem.

If the manager can’t articulate how it causes problems in the office, then it doesn’t go into the appraisal.

Don’t describe – explain

If they can, then the explanation goes in, not the description. For instance, instead of saying, “You are abrasive,” you’d say, “You cut customers off in mid-sentence. Please focus on letting people finish their thoughts before answering.”

An employee can change behavior on the latter because it’s a specific and resolvable example. ‘Abrasive’ is just too general.

This helps you avoid cultural mixups and forces managers to justify their criticisms and praises – it goes both ways. No one would write, “You are a genius” in a performance appraisal. Instead, give details about what the employee did that evokes that impression. You may find out that the person isn’t a genius after all if you can’t identify what they did.

Fixing cultural differences at work is only one step toward making your business a better place for everyone, but it can be a step toward helping to retain and develop underrepresented employees. And that’s good for every business.

The post Cultural differences at work: another challenge for DEI appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Now I report to the HR Director. It’s been a terrible experience, and they have run off two more of my coworkers. I’m overworked, and our HR disrespects TA for some reason. When I bring up my concerns, it’s ignored or gaslighted. I have a meeting with my interim leader next week to discuss this. I’ve always had strong performance reviews and respect from my managers.

I recently shared those performance reviews with them. I’m at a loss here and extremely frustrated. We are supposed to be getting a new TA leader at some point, but in the meantime, it’s such a toxic situation. I’ve updated my resume and will do my best to make things turn out ok where I’m at. I know I’m needed here by the business with the req loads. My hiring managers are great and respect me. Thank you for letting me vent!

There is often conflict between Talent Acquisition and HR. Are they two sides of the same coin or two distinctly different organizations?

Katrina Collier, author of The Robot-Proof Recruiter, asks, “Do you see talent acquisition on the agenda of HR events? Rarely.” If HR doesn’t focus on talent acquisition, can you expect a good synergy in your current reporting relationship? Probably not, but there should be.

Katrina recognizes the need for a close relationship, but there is conflict: “TA should partner closely with HR but, if they’re to be the strategic department they’re evolving into, then they also need to partner closely with the business; marketing, sales, finance and more.”

She’s right, of course. To be successful at your job, you need to work closely with all departments, not just HR. But, for HR to be successful, they need to work closely with all departments as well. They can’t sit in a silo, creating policies and conducting investigations.

And, Katrina continues, “Fact is one lot bring in the people, the other lot look after them. So, no matter the structure, they should focus on recruitment and retention. Together. In partnership.”

Right now, you don’t have a partnership – you have tension and conflict.

This may be because of a fundamental difference in how you, an expert in Talent Acquisition, look at recruiting and how your boss, the HR Director, looks at recruiting. That may be creating the toxic environment that you sit in now.

What can you do about this?

I don’t look through the world with rose-colored glasses, so I agree with your decision to start looking for a new job. If you can find something non-toxic, run and never look back.

But, as a recruiter, you know that job hunting can take considerable time. In the meantime, what do you do?

Likely, the HR Director has always been awful, and your previous great boss just ran interference and protected his staff. But it’s no wonder he moved on. Now, with no protection, you’re seeing the conflict.

If the HR Director is a rational person and perhaps just clueless about TA, you can work with this. If they are just a horrible person, keep your head down and send out resumes.

The rest of this answer assumes some rationality on the part of the HR Director.

It’s time to have a sit-down conversation about the problems and the conflicts. Use your TA skills and work on “recruiting” the HR Director to your side.

A proposed solution: People Operations

What is the difference between People Operations and HR? In some companies, nothing. It’s just window dressing. But there should be a difference.

Related: What’s the difference: People operations vs. HR management

Glenn Martin, Founder & Director of the podcast Never Mind The Job Spec, says that People Operations should have a “blend of expertise across TA, HR, Culture, and really have a progressive people-first mindset.”

That’s what you need. And you need to propose it to the HR Director. How can you work together to help everyone accomplish their goals?

This may mean asking the HR Director what you can do to help them. Your goal is to show the director how working together can be a benefit.

Yes, this method sucks. Your boss should look for ways to make your job easier, not the other way around, but sometimes you have to get creative.

Focus on how good recruitment supports retention and engagement – which are probably high priorities for your boss. Helping to relieve their burden may alleviate some of your burdens. Helping build a people operations team instead of joining an HR team may be the trick.

If that doesn’t work, it may be time to step over the HR Director’s head. If that’s the CEO, so be it. If it’s another layer of HR, then don’t wait so long to go there. The TA team has already lost several people. They can’t afford to lose you too. (Don’t let this make you feel guilty if you go – you go if you find something better.) You may have more leverage than you think.

Speaking up about your needs and how it affects the business as a whole, combined with your efforts with the HR Director, can be beneficial to your career and may solve your problem. Or at least alleviate it enough to make it tolerable.

Have an HR or workplace-related question for the Evil HR Lady? Email contact@workable.com with “Evil HR Lady” in the subject heading and it may be featured in an upcoming article!

The post Ask the Evil HR Lady: How to resolve your TA vs. HR conflict appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Is there any way to reduce the political tension in the office?

Yes, and it starts with leadership.

First, it’s vital that you know the facts surrounding Dobbs v. Jackson (the case that overturned Roe v. Wade). Your employees may or may not care about the facts – today, people seem to prefer whatever creative meme appears in their social media feed. But here are the facts.

Dobbs did not outlaw abortion. It returned the decision to the states, so every state is now subject to its own laws.

• Only 5% of people report abortion as their top concern when it comes to voting
• 40% support the Dobbs decision
• 56% oppose the Dobbs decision
• 4% are unsure
• Support swings strongly based on political affiliation
• 88% of Democrats oppose the decision
• 70% of Republicans support the decision
• All 50 states allow abortion when there is a threat to the mother’s health
• There are currently more than 100 bills in various state legislatures – expect change

If your business operates in multiple states, you could have employees with very different situations. But it’s important to consider that even if you operate in the bluest of blue states or the reddest of red states, you likely have people working together from each side.

Now that you know the facts, let’s devise a solution for making things less tense at work.

Treat your employees like kids

This may seem like odd advice, but schools try to teach their teens how to communicate with each other when there is a contentious subject. You can easily transfer the principles that teenagers learn to your business.

Train your employees to remember the following things:

Don’t make it personal. While your employees may have personal experiences with abortion, try to focus on the policy implications rather than the personal ones. You’re mad/happy at what the Supreme Court did, not what your coworker did.

Avoid putting down the other person’s ideas and beliefs. You may have very strong feelings one way or the other, and you may be 100% convinced that your opinion is the right one. People on the other side feel the same way. Assume everyone came to their opinion out of the best of intentions. Never say, “you just want to control women” or “you just want to kill babies.”

Use “I” statements to communicate how you feel, what you think, and what you want or need. “I think that our state should implement X policy because…” is a much better way to approach this than, “you are just trying to [do a terrible thing] by creating this policy.”

Listen to the other point of view. Remind your employees that before they move on in the discussion, they need to be able to restate the other person’s position to their satisfaction. This keeps you from operating on your assumptions and makes you stay in reality. Remember, your coworkers are humans and not just talking points like politicians.

Stay calm. This is the most important thing you can do to keep a conversation. The louder you get, the less people listen to you. If you can’t stay calm, it’s time to exit the conversation.

Tell everyone to get back to work

Employees don’t have the right to discuss politics at work! In fact, with a few exceptions, employees in the private sector don’t have free speech while on the clock. You can tell them to leave the discussion for after work.

This can be a bit harsh, though. Rather than banning the topic, I recommend redirecting them back to the task at hand. “We’re never going to finish this report on wastewater if we keep focusing on politics.”

Remember state and federal laws

While employees don’t have the right to free speech at work, they have the right to be free from discrimination based on religion or lack of religion.. So, you can’t fire or discipline someone who disagrees with your position (or the company’s) if their objections are due to religion – yours or theirs – unless it would cause an undue hardship on the company.

For instance, if your company is one of the many that said they would cover the costs for an out-of-state abortion and your payroll person says it would violate her religious conscience to process the payments for that, you’d have to prove that having someone else do that task would be an undue hardship on the business before you could take negative action.

Likewise, if your company adopts a pro-life stance and wants everyone to stand in a picture proclaiming that your companies support life, you’d have to prove it was an undue hardship to the company to have someone not in the picture if she can argue that this stance is based on your religious beliefs. You can’t punish someone for disagreeing with you based on religion.

Some state laws go further and protect not only religious views but political views as well. For instance, California prohibits discrimination based on political views while North Dakota and Colorado outlaw discrimination against any lawful activity done outside of work. And Louisiana? You can’t discriminate against political views including your employee running for office.

So, if your loud-mouthed employee is leading marches in the street, as long as the march is legal, Colorado and North Dakota employers have to ignore it and ensure there is no retaliation.

If you want to take any disciplinary action against someone because of their views on the Dobbs decision, please consult with a local employment attorney to make sure you aren’t violating the law.

Related: Can we discuss politics or other controversial topics at work?

Set an example

The most important thing here is for HR and other leaders to set an example. If you’re rude, tear people down who disagree with you, or can’t focus on your work, then the rest of the company will follow. If you’re polite, disagree without being disagreeable, and focus on your work, everyone else will follow.

And while abortion is the hot topic right now, the midterm elections are heating up, so setting a good standard for political discussions now will benefit your company through the November elections.

Have an HR or workplace-related question for the Evil HR Lady? Email contact@workable.com with “Evil HR Lady” in the subject heading and it may be featured in an upcoming article!

The post Ask the Evil HR Lady: Workplace tensions after Roe v. Wade overturned appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

• What is workforce planning?
• What is involved in workforce planning?
• How to create a workforce plan

What is workforce planning?

Workforce planning is the people side of planning, but some businesses skip it, thinking that people will just appear when needed. Workforce planning aligns core business goals with people strategy. It makes no sense to plan on a new product launch next year without thinking about R&D, supply chain, and sales staff.

Workforce planning is the tool you use to ensure that alignment.

What is involved in workforce planning?

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) identifies the critical points of workforce planning as follows.

1. Reduce labor costs in favor of workforce deployment and flexibility
2. Identify and respond to changing customer needs
3. Identify relevant strategies for focused people development
4. Target inefficiencies
5. Improve employee retention
6. Improve productivity and quality outputs
7. Improve employees’ work-life balance
8. Make recommendations to deliver strategic value through talent

This article will break down these points and how they apply to your business.

1. Reduce labor costs in favor of workforce deployment and flexibility

Labor is often the highest cost for businesses outside of manufacturing. Some estimates put labor costs at 60% and even 70% of expenses. With these costs, planning to reduce costs while increasing flexibility is critical to continued success.

This isn’t advocating for low-balling employees or providing rotten benefits for employees. It’s about getting the right people in the correct positions. An engaged, competent, happy employee will cost less than an unhappy, unqualified employee. Remember, turnover is expensive as well.

2. Identify and respond to changing customer needs

The classic case study of a company that didn’t respond to customer needs is Kodak. As the king of film, Kodak had digital technology early but decided to focus on film, thinking digital was a fad. It wasn’t, and the company struggled for survival, dropping from a peak of 145,000 employees to 5,000 as of August 2020.

Human resources departments need to be a bit of a fortune-teller to accurately predict workforce needs. Because SHRM doesn’t issue crystal balls, HR needs to work closely with each department to help predict needs and create plans for meeting these. Open communication between HR and each department is critical.

3. Identify relevant strategies for focused people development

The very premise of workforce planning is that business changes, and because business changes, people need to change. Figuring out talent gaps and plans to fill those gaps is a core function of workforce planning.

People development needs to happen before the need exists. Remember, you can go out and search for the “unicorn” candidate to fill a need immediately, but it’s often more manageable if you plan and develop an employee to take care of that specialty skill gap – if you do it right. This can mean training classes, graduate programs, or stretch assignments.

4. Target inefficiencies

If you’ve ever heard “we’ve always done it that way” as an explanation, then you know that the business has inefficiencies that can be rooted out. Good HR will ask; “What should we stop doing?” as well as “What should we do?”. You can find inefficiencies in all areas of the business.

5. Improve employee retention

Turnover is expensive – not only does it take time and money to find, interview, and onboard a new employee, training them can take months. Good HR focuses on retaining employees who have potential. (You shouldn’t retain just to retain – if someone is a toxic employee, giving them more technical skills won’t eliminate their toxicity.) Creating career paths within the company can be an excellent workforce planning tool to aid employee retention.

6. Improve productivity and quality outputs

While managers need to figure out how to improve productivity and quality, HR can provide support. For instance, are there policies and procedures that can increase productivity and quality? What support do employees get for reaching their goals? When HR takes a look at the workforce, they can spot problems that decrease productivity. For instance, an employee who bullies their coworkers can destroy productivity in a department.

HR needs to plan to find, coach, or remove such employees, as well as helping managers find better ways to do things.

7. Improve employees’ work-life balance

Employees are at the center of workforce planning – without employees, all plans are worthless. You can increase your productivity by requiring everyone to work 80-hour weeks, but your turnover will shoot through the roof, and your quality will collapse.

Through making sure that employees have sufficient downtime and are supported at work, your workforce will be a lot more stable.

8. Make recommendations to deliver strategic value through talent

Sometimes managers can undervalue employees – they think if they can get someone cheaper, they should. But, good workforce planning demonstrates that you pay for top skills. While we use the word talent often in HR, you really should think about it in terms of skills. What skills do these employees have that can make a difference in your business?

Remember that treating employees right is a lot easier than trying to squeeze value out of people who are exhausted and burnt out.

How to create a workforce plan

This is more than just figuring out who you need to hire. There are many ways to approach this, but here are four critical elements that will make your workforce planning a success.

1. Understand the company’s mission and goals

Workforce planning doesn’t exist in a vacuum – it needs to support the company’s goals. Are you looking to expand across North America? Well, that’s quite different from a company that is content operating out of a single location.

The company’s mission matters as well. What’s the most important thing to the CEO, shareholders, employees, and customers? Make sure you have that answered before you move to step two.

2. Conduct a present gap analysis

This is a systematic method of understanding the gaps in the organization. What is missing? While workforce planning focuses on the people side of the business, keep in mind that a gap analysis looks at all business areas, not just skills and talent.

People aren’t at their best unless they have the equipment, training, and support they need. This is looking at the situation now. Remember all the points above – you need to look for improvement in all these areas.

3. Project for the future

This involves speaking with company leadership and involving every unit in the business. You’re looking for where the growth will be and where the workforce will shrink. You want to determine what skills the company will need in the coming years, not just now.

4. Conduct a future gap analysis

Knowing what you do about the current employment situation and the business’s goals and projected path, put together what the workforce will need and look at your gaps:

• What do you need to reach these goals?
• Do you need more employees?
• What type of training will your current staff need?
• Can you conduct this training in-house, or do you need people to receive formal training or even degrees?
• Do you have a formal employee training and development company policy in place?

Make sure you look at external trends as well. In 2019, no one would have guessed the massive shift toward remote work, but now, you’d be remiss not to consider where the workforce will be in the future. Will employees continue to work remotely or will they expect to? If so, is your company prepared to support people in other states? Or do you want to limit hiring to your local area, regardless of where they work?

Of course, there are many more things that you can do to plan for your workforce’s future, but these will get you a solid foundation. And, one last note: remember to be flexible. Plans change, and your workforce planning documents need to flex as the world changes as well.

The post What is workforce planning, and why is it important? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here is what you can do to foster a truly inclusive workforce in your organization.

Making workplaces LGBTQ inclusive

Let’s start by looking at the numbers. A Human Rights Campaign survey found that:

• 46% of LGBTQ workers are closeted at work
• Half of non-LGBTQ employees reported there were no openly LGBTQ employees in their company
• 1 in 5 LGBTQ workers have been told or had coworkers imply that they should dress more feminine or masculine (compared with 1 in 24 non-LGBTQ workers)
• 54% of non-LGBTQ workers said that they would be very comfortable working with an LGBTQ coworker; of those who wouldn’t be very comfortable, a majority said it was because they “didn’t want to hear about their coworker’s sex life.”

LGBTQ employees are not comfortable everywhere they work, and there are some misperceptions out there. No one wants or needs to hear about their coworker’s sex life, which shouldn’t even be an issue on the table regardless of preference.

We share five tips on how to make your workplace more LGBTQ inclusive:

1. Speak with your pocketbook, not your rainbow logo

It’s easy to change a logo, put up a flag, or tweet about happy Pride Month. But LinkedIn took a step further and started paying the heads of their affinity groups $10,000 a year for the extra work. This demonstrates their desire to support all diversity groups, including LGBTQ groups.

Nothing says real support and inclusion like cash which recognizes the hard work these employee resource group leaders put in.

2. Be thoughtful about pronouns

This is a hot button issue at work, and you need to tread carefully. For example, look at the following exchange on Twitter:

Katrina Kibben: One of my Pride wishes this year is to ban the phrase “preferred pronouns.” They are not preferred. This isn’t steak or shrimp. It’s a human’s identity.

Dr. “Coach” Dawn Reid #ReidReady: I respect how you feel and I ask if you can consider preference is about a label choice. I.e., My son is non-binary. He has a pref of they/she/he depending on his affect. It’s his pref of a social label in the moment. Not who he is as a person.

Katrina Kibben: Every experience is different. I respect it. For me? My first thought is that your child may be code-switching for their safety (I do it too), not changing pronouns.

Dr. “Coach” Dawn Reid #ReidReady: Agreed. It’s different for each person. Code switching is another topic. We all do that for communication clarity. The original term/use is from linguistics. And that’s not it for them. It’s his preference. We are talking about this now.

In other words, there is no way to get it right. An October 2020 survey by Tallo found that 88% of Gen Z candidates think it’s important for recruiters to ask them their pronouns. But many Baby Boomers and Gen Xers find it offensive to ask their pronouns. This leaves you to guess, but there are some things you can do.

Listen to what people want to do. Respect and use their pronouns. (But it’s not reasonable for an employee to expect everyone to follow regular pronoun changes.) Allow people (but don’t require) to list their pronouns on email signatures and other work-related things.

3. Don’t make assumptions

Does someone look gay? Is that person trans? Whisper, whisper, whisper. This type of thing makes for a very unwelcoming environment for everyone.

Instead, make sure your staff understands employees treat every other employee and client equally across the board. Everyone gets respect. If you allow people to bring personal items to decorate their cubicles, then everyone gets to bring a family picture – regardless of what their family looks like.

Make sure you schedule and provide promotions and perks based on performance and seniority, not the perception that so-and-so needs a bump in pay because his wife just had a baby. If an employee announces the impending birth of a baby, don’t speculate about just how that baby was conceived or carried. Instead, just say, “Congratulations! Let me get you the FMLA paperwork!”

4. Remove bias from your recruiting process.

EPM Scientific gave five tips for reducing bias in hiring. These are:

• Anonymizing resumes in the review process
• Encouraging validated pre-employment testing
• Pre-employment testing, such as work samples, predict job success.
• Encouraging a diverse interview panel and hiring committee
• Challenging bias in recruitment and hiring decisions

All these things help you ensure you hire the person who is best for the job regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or national origin. Letting candidates know you do through these processes helps them feel like they have a chance based on their skills.

5. Educate your leadership on the benefits of diversity

You can only increase LGBTQ candidates when you have a welcoming environment. But, to make a welcoming environment, senior leadership needs to be on board. Presenting the business case for making workplaces LGBTQ inclusive will help.

People who have to hide their identities at work experience more stress. Higher stress results in more days off and an increase in medical costs. It’s saving you money to have a welcoming environment.

Consulting giant McKinsey reported in May 2020 that companies with diverse leadership have higher financial returns than those that don’t. While they looked only at gender and race, it stands to reason that bringing in people with different sexual orientations would bring additional viewpoints that would help the company reach different audiences and support all employees.

Finally – candidates, especially Millennials and Gen Z, want to work for inclusive organizations and leaders. They’ve made that clear. So make sure you let them know what your company is doing to ensure everyone feels comfortable.

The critical point of all this is that everyone deserves a job based on their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Everything else should be irrelevant. This means ensuring that everyone is welcome in your company. A simple concept that goes far.

The post 5 tips on making workplaces LGBTQ inclusive appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Return to office and Delta: 6 tips

1. Pay attention to state laws

The CDC issued guidance that just about everyone – vaccinated or not – should wear a mask when inside where social distancing isn’t possible. But, the CDC’s guidelines are not laws. Your state and local governments decide what the binding rules are for this.

Texas, for instance, has no statewide mask mandate and prohibits local governments from implementing a mask mandate. However, several counties have created mask mandates and are battling against the governor. How do you win in a situation like this?

You can always require more safety measures than the government requires, so you will not be in the wrong to require a mask for your employees and customers in the workplace. So, even if you’re in a state that does not have a mask mandate, you can make one for your employees.

Some states do have mask mandates, such as Oregon’s, which went into effect on Aug. 13. If your business operates across multiple states, you’ll need to pay attention to all state laws to make sure you comply with the mandates in each jurisdiction. This may mean employees in different sites face different rules when returning to office.

2. Consider vaccine mandates

Federal law allows you to require your employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 (as long as you have exceptions for medical and religious reasons). As long as this doesn’t violate state law, you can create a vaccine mandate to help protect your employees.

Read more: Vaccine policies in the workplace

However, keep in mind that you may end up with a disparate impact claim, as vaccination rates are not consistent across racial groups. Black people, for instance, are far less likely to be vaccinated than their White counterparts.

If you’re having trouble recruiting or retaining employees right now (which many businesses are), limiting your applicant pool to fully vaccinated candidates may impede your ability to hire. It’s worth thinking about how your policies impact your business.

In the return to office during Delta, you can provide incentives for employees to vaccinate rather than punishing those who don’t. The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) has said that you can offer a reward as long as it is “noncoercive.” So, yes, you can offer a $500 reward to employees who receive a vaccine against COVID-19.

3. Extend working from home

Rather than implementing mask rules, mandating vaccines, or requiring people to test for COVID regularly, you should extend working from home if possible instead of asking employees to returning to office during Delta. Indeed, not all employees can (or should) work from home, but those who can should continue to do so.

This may be the easiest way to reduce the risk for your employees – even vaccinated employees. People with health concerns are the ones that remain at the highest risk from COVID-19.

If an employee requests to work from home, and there is any way to make that happen, you should strongly consider allowing the employee to do so.

4. Prepare for school shutdowns

Unlike last school year, most schools are open for in-person schooling. This is important for your employees, as they rely on schools not only for education but for babysitting. Last school year, children who were doing online school required a parent at home to monitor and help – which created a difficult situation for many working parents.

However, the Delta Variant seems to spread quickly – more than previous COVID incarnations – which means that just because schools are open today, they may not be tomorrow. That’s doubly so because vaccines for younger children are not yet available, making them more vulnerable to infection. Most likely, you will see individual schools or classes put into quarantine to stop a local outbreak rather than an entire state closing its doors.

If you plan for this, it won’t be a shock when your employees call in because their kids are quarantined and have no childcare. Don’t punish or terminate employees who are stuck in this situation – it should not count as a performance issue if the schools shut down.

Talk with your employees now about plans for dealing with school shutdowns. If you make a plan today, the impact will be less than if you wait until the school boards make a decision.

5. Prepare for angry employees

No matter what decision you make as a business owner, you will not have 100% happy employees. If you mandate vaccines, some employees will quit, or you will have to fire them for not being vaccinated. Some employees may quit if you don’t require vaccines because they don’t feel safe at work.

If you mandate masks for everyone, you may get a revolt from some employees who feel that this is an overreaction. If you don’t mandate masks, you may find other employees complaining that you aren’t doing your best to create a healthy workplace. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

You need to take health and local sentiments into consideration. It’s a balancing act, and what is best for your business may not be best for the business across the street. Who is your clientele? A nursing home should have different requirements than a fast-food restaurant down the road.

You will need to explain your decision to your employees. Consult with a local employment attorney before announcing your policy.

6. Require COVID testing

You can require mandatory COVID-19 tests regularly. Some businesses want unvaccinated employees to pay for these tests as a punishment for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, but this is not a good idea. First of all, free COVID tests are available in all states. Second, if free tests aren’t available in your area, you should pay for them. Employment attorney Jon Hyman explains:

“EEOC guidance strongly suggests that the ADA requires employers to cover the costs of COVID-19 testing. The EEOC’s Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees Under the ADA provides that an employer must pay for all medical exam related costs when an employer requires the examination because the employer reasonably believes the employee poses a ‘direct threat.’”

The only way out of this

Everyone is tired of COVID, and the Delta Variant doesn’t help. But, we’ve either got to get sick or get vaccinated to get done with this. The Delta Variant spreads faster than the original virus, and even vaccinated people can still (occasionally) get sick. However, if you are vaccinated, you’re much more likely to have a mild case.

Whether you decide to mandate vaccines or require masks, encourage your employees to receive the vaccine. The CDC just approved a third dose for people who are immunocompromised. Let your employees know about this as well.

Let’s all work together so that we can end the pandemic and return to the office – and get back to normal life.

The post Return to office and the Delta Variant: How do you manage it? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Sometimes, companies don’t follow “best practices”. They follow “old practices” and don’t think about why.

Here are some old cobweb-covered practices we should remove to improve businesses.

1. ‘What is your current salary?’

This question still appears on job applications, and recruiters still ask it when screening candidates. Several states have outlawed this question, but not everyone has the message.

Someone’s current salary shouldn’t reflect the salary of our new position. Salaries should be based on market rates. When you focus any part of the hiring process on the candidate’s previous salary, you help perpetuate salary inequities.

What you should do instead

Say, “The salary range for this position is $X-$Y, depending on experience. Does that work for you, or will it scare you away?”

2. ‘Sorry, we have a maximum internal raise of 10%.’

You don’t want salaries to run away from you, so many companies have a maximum raise percentage that they will give to internal candidates. It doesn’t matter if the raise doesn’t bring the person into the market rate for the position; companies won’t provide higher raises.

This is what we call penny-wise and pound-foolish. Saving a few dollars by not paying someone the market rate today increases the chance that this person will take their new title and parlay that into a job at your competitor where they are willing to pay the market rate.

What you should do instead

Treat internal candidates the same as you would external candidates regarding salary. Don’t have a maximum salary increase percent. Everyone gets the market rate salary, even if it’s a 50% increase – now that’s a treat that’s much better than a trick!

3. ‘No, that won’t be possible.’

This cobweb hangs over many an HR director’s door. It’s a reflexive response to just about every request someone makes. But the reality is a lot of things are possible, and the default should be an effort to make things happen.

Of course, if something is illegal, the answer stands, but otherwise, finding a solution should be an HR priority.

What you should do instead

Look for a solution. Sure, you can’t double someone’s salary just because they ask, but you can tell them what they need to do to increase their earning power. When someone wants an extra month of vacation, it won’t be possible, but maybe you can find a solution that helps them get what they need–unpaid leave or remote work.

Just banish the reflexive no, like you’d send a vampire back to their coffin.

4. ‘A customer complained, so we have to write you up.’

How some HR people and some company policies treat customer complaints as infallible is a way to undermine morale. The customer is not always right, and treating the customer that way just makes for worse customers.

What you should do instead

Investigate the customer complaint. If the employee followed policy, then no punishment. Suppose the customer was rude, not punished. You should praise employees who follow policy politely, even if the customer doesn’t like it.

Change the procedures if you want a different outcome. Don’t let customer complaints cast a dark shadow over your employees.

5. ‘Congratulations on the promotion! You’re now a manager. Get to work!’

Many people get promoted to management because they are good at day-to-day work. Managing is a very different skill set.

Just assuming your new managers know how to manage is setting them up for failure and their departments for misery.

What you should do instead

Give managers management training! Teach them how to give feedback, how to follow fundamental employment law, how to write an employee review, and how to treat employees fairly.

Yes, that takes work, but the payoff will be fantastic, like a magical transformation from a regular employee to a skilled manager.

Related: Employee development and the Peter Principle: Why your managers keep messing up

6. Marijuana testing for non-safety positions

Of course, employees shouldn’t be high at work, but they shouldn’t be drunk either, and yet you don’t prohibit off-hours drinking. Finding qualified employees is hard enough without eliminating everyone who uses marijuana recreationally.

Sure, if it’s a safety-related job, or there are federal requirements for a drug-free workplace, then keep testing.

What you should do instead

Focus on how employees behave at the office. Don’t worry about their time away from work. You don’t want to turn your workplace into a scary place for them.

Sweep the old stuff out

If you can’t explain why you are doing something, you should probably reconsider doing it. Get rid of those old cobweb-filled practices and replace them with something less spooky.

The post Clean out those HR cobwebs: 6 outdated practices to get rid of appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

But then, PTO isn’t always so easy to navigate, especially when an already approved PTO needs to be reversed by an employer.

This bears the question: can you deny PTO after approval? Let’s dive into this complex issue.

The legal perspective

The legal landscape surrounding PTO is a blend of federal ground rules and state-specific stipulations. The United States, specifically, has no federally mandated PTO minimum, so it follows that the related Fair Labor Standards Act will not support employees if you revoke PTO after approving it.

So, it really falls to the states when it comes to laws around time off management. A pivotal point is the employer’s commitment to the employee once the PTO is approved. That’s the long way of saying: check with local legislation and legal counsel for guidance in this area.

Meanwhile, while the law may offer some leeway, it’s in the moral and cultural implications where this becomes the bone of contention.

When can PTO be denied after approval?

The big question – under what circumstances is it even conceivable (or ethical) to backtrack on PTO? Let’s look at some potential scenarios in which this scenario might occur:

1. Business crises

Maybe something unforeseen happened, and it’s so sudden and needs immediate attention. Maybe there’s a high-profile client visit, a product launch that’s gone awry, or a breakdown in the system requiring urgent work from IT. These are things that don’t wait for Zofia to return from her staycation or allow for Claude to take off at noon on Friday no matter how buttoned-up the team’s processes are.

2. Unavailability of replacements

Some roles are so specialized that finding a substitute, even for a short while, becomes a Herculean task. Or, maybe, there’s a sudden employee departure that leaves a team entirely unavailable until the end of the month – and you’re left twisting in the wind until then.

3. Approval errors

This is where human error enters the scene. A slip in the system or miscommunication can lead to overlapping PTOs that leave the department shorthanded. That’s why it’s crucial to have a reliable software to manage PTO requests and approvals to reduce or even eliminate these problems.

PTO reversal and its impact on morale and trust

Now, reversing PTO after it’s been approved should never be common practice. You should reserve it only for last-gasp situations and stop-gap solutions.

Why? Well, imagine you’re Zofia. You’ve booked an amazing trip to Italy and you’ve been building towards that for months on end. Then you receive a call from your managers that something happened in engineering that puts the company’s existence in balance – and only you can fix it.

OK, legally, you can find ways to do this with Zofia or Claude. But is it really the best thing to do? The fallout of this isn’t just the immediate disappointment but potential long-term mistrust of you as an employer and as a management team. If you can’t keep your [bleep] together, then who’s to say this won’t happen again? That kind of uncertainty can lead to unnecessary stress among employees including Zofia or Claude above.

There are ways to avoid this situation to begin with (more on that below). There are also ways to mitigate the situation – for example, you might allow them to continue with the original plan but invite them to work one or two days during their time off (with recompensation, of course).

But sometimes, the decision is 100% unavoidable. You really do need Zofia to cancel outright. Let’s look at ways you can mitigate the damage that might follow.

How to remedy the damage of PTO reversal

Even when faced with the undeniably tough call of retracting approved PTO, your responsibilities as an employer are manifold. Not only is it crucial to manage the immediate situation, but it’s also essential to ensure that Zofia’s sense of trust isn’t irreparably damaged. Here’s how you can approach it:

1. Compensation for financial losses

Your employee has probably already made arrangements – hotel bookings, flight tickets, or other plans – and those are likely to be non-refundable. Stepping up to cover these expenses (and then some) goes a long way.

2. Offer additional perks

Consider giving them extra time off immediately after said crisis is resolved. Perhaps set up an all-expenses-paid weekend getaway on the company coin or something similar. It’s a tangible way to express gratitude for their flexibility and understanding.

3. Future PTO assurance

Now, this is where you can truly shine. Assure them of a priority status for their next PTO request. Let them choose their dates without the usual red tape, ensuring swift and hassle-free approval. This isn’t just about giving them a rain check; it’s a promise, a pledge of regret and a gesture that underlines their importance to the organization.

It’s important, nevertheless, to recognize that PTO was booked for a reason. It’s not just for fun. Some people have weddings planned. Others have booked a dream holiday. Others are headed home to visit family. Stuff can’t always be moved around.

Meaning: while these steps are reactive measures to manage the fallout, it’s pivotal to delve deeper and understand why such a situation arose in the first place. More often than not, these are symptoms of larger management or communication issues within the organization.

Prevention is better than cure

As the custodian of both business interests and employee well-being, it’s imperative to introspect. Could this situation have been avoided with better workforce planning? Was there a breakdown in communication channels? Or perhaps, it’s an indication that the existing PTO policy needs a revisit.

By proactively addressing these systemic issues and bolstering internal processes, not only do you reduce the likelihood of facing such situations in the future, but you also foster an environment of trust, transparency, and mutual respect. Being proactive rather than reactive can save a lot of headaches. No one wants to reverse PTO – let alone the employee themselves. It’s not a bridge you ever want to cross.

Let’s look at how you can prevent such a scenario.

1. Implement a more robust PTO system

This is about creating an ecosystem where PTO requests, approvals, and changes are transparent and accountable. This ensures that anomalies are caught early on. This can be done with a reliable PTO management software with consistent human oversight.

2. Communicate more openly

Creating a bridge of understanding between teams and their managers is invaluable. Regular check-ins or even casual conversations can preempt many last-minute surprises. You can also bolster a policy with clear backup plans – if Jimmy isn’t immediately available, Agnieszka can provide backup.

3. Establish backup plans ahead of time

On that last point about Jimmy and Agnieszka: cross-training is a word you’d want to consider seriously. Ensuring more than one person is equipped to handle critical roles can be a game-changer.

Deny PTO after approval only as a last resort

This is not kids’ play. You’re working with professionals who have complex personal lives, and you have a clear agreement in place (if not, you should) for PTO. It’s part of the fabric of employment.

Don’t let the small thread of PTO unravel your relationship with your employee. The legal aspect of it is fine and well – but in this case, any legal rights should take a back seat to employee engagement.

As the custodians of workplace culture, it’s upon you, the HR professionals and employers, to manage the denial of pre-approved PTO with extra care, ensuring that even when tough decisions are made, they’re made with empathy and foresight. The Zofias and the Claudes of this world will thank you.

The post Can PTO be denied after approval? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Understanding this concept is crucial to ensuring that employees are compensated accurately and on time, and that the businesses stay compliant with tax regulations.

But it’s not just about compliance; it’s about fostering a work environment where employees feel valued and secure. So, let’s get started!

What is a payroll year?

The payroll year, also referred to as the tax year, is a 12-month duration utilized by employers to determine wages and deductions. It may not always coincide with the calendar year, as it can commence at any time based on the fiscal policies of the company.

Comprehending the payroll year is crucial for precise tax reporting and adherence to regulations. It serves as the basis for our payroll systems and dictates the timeline for our payroll operations throughout the year.

What is a payroll period?

A payroll period is the recurring timeframe in which an employee’s work hours are recorded and paid. It could be weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly. The choice of payroll period can significantly impact your payroll processing, cash flow management, and even employee satisfaction.

It’s not just about when the money hits the bank; it’s about how we manage our resources, plan our budgets, and align our payroll processes with the needs and expectations of our employees.

Types of payroll periods

There are four main types of these periods, each with its own advantages and challenges.

Weekly payroll

Employees are paid 52 times a year. This is common in industries like construction and hospitality, where cash flow is often tight, and employees appreciate the regular income. However, it can be administratively heavy for the HR team.

Bi-weekly

Employees are paid every two weeks, resulting in 26 pay periods a year. This is popular in many industries due to its simplicity and balance between regular payments for employees and manageable workload for HR.

Semi-monthly

Employees are paid twice a month, typically on the 1st and 15th, or the 15th and last day of the month, resulting in 24 pay periods a year. This is common in professional and salaried jobs. It can be easier for budgeting but can cause confusion when pay dates don’t align with the end of the workweek.

Monthly

Employees are paid once a month, resulting in 12 pay periods a year. This is less common due to cash flow challenges for employees, but it’s the easiest for HR in terms of administrative work.

How to choose the best payroll period

Choosing the best period to deposit salaries is a strategic decision that requires careful consideration:

Industry norms

Some industries have standard payroll periods. It’s best to align with these to attract and retain talent. For example, if you’re in the hospitality industry, a weekly payroll might be expected.

Employee preference

Some employees may prefer a certain payroll period based on their financial planning. Regular surveys and open communication can help you understand your employees’ preferences.

Administrative ease

More frequent payroll periods can increase administrative work. Consider your HR capacity when deciding. If you’re a small team, a monthly payroll might be more manageable.

Cash flow

More frequent pay periods can impact your business’s cash flow. Ensure your choice aligns with your financial capabilities. If you’re a startup with tight cash flow, a bi-weekly or monthly payroll might be more suitable.

The most common payroll periods

In the US, bi-weekly payrolls are most common, followed by weekly. This is due to a combination of factors, including industry norms, employee preferences, and administrative ease.

Having employees in multiple states can create complications when it comes to pay periods. This is because some states have shorter pay period requirements while others do not.

As a result, it may be more hassle than it is worth to pay some employees monthly and adjust the pay periods for others based on their respective state laws.

In the UK, monthly payrolls are standard, largely due to tradition and the prevalence of salaried jobs. However, two-week payrolls are also an option.

In Europe, it varies by country, with monthly and weekly being popular. Understanding these trends can help you benchmark your payroll practices and ensure you’re meeting industry standards.

In Australia, payroll cycles vary: Monthly, from the 28th to the 30th of the month; bi-weekly, every second week on any agreed day (usually it is Wednesday or Thursday); bi-monthly, every 15th and 30th.

Finally, in the Asia-Pacific region, the majority of countries/states, accounting for 68%, prefer to follow a monthly payroll schedule to pay their employees.

How many pay periods are included in a year?

Check how many work weeks are included in a year:

• Weekly: 52 weeks
• Bi-weekly: 26 or 27 weeks
• Semi-monthly: approximately 24.3 weeks
• Monthly: approximately 12.2 weeks

Remember, these numbers can vary slightly due to leap years and the specific start/end dates of your payroll year. It’s important to keep track of these variations to ensure accurate payroll processing and tax reporting.

Adapting to payroll trends

As HR professionals, we must stay ahead of trends. Automation, outsourcing, and real-time payments are just a few trends shaping our industry. Embrace these changes, invest in continuous learning, and adapt your practices to stay relevant and valuable.

It’s not just about keeping up with the times; it’s about leading the way and setting the standard for excellence in payroll management.

Understanding years and periods is fundamental to our roles as HR professionals and SMB employers.

By choosing the right period for our organizations and staying abreast of payroll trends, we can ensure our teams are paid accurately and on time, and our businesses remain compliant and competitive.

But more than that, we can contribute to a work environment where employees feel valued, secure, and engaged.

Is time off always paid?

Time off can be paid or unpaid, depending on an employer’s policies and the specific circumstances surrounding the leave. Paid time off (PTO) refers to days or periods when an employee is not required to work but still receives their regular salary or wage.

This can include vacation days, holidays, sick leave, and personal days, among others.

The provision of PTO varies widely among companies and may be determined by factors such as the length of employment, job position, and local labor laws.

The post How many weeks are there in a payroll year? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

New hires want meaningful communication with the company. Coming through the door they’re looking for “organized, relevant and well-timed content,” according to a 2014 BambooHR survey. They also want to feel useful fast and see a company fully prepared for their arrival.

What is onboarding and why is it important? A new hire onboarding checklist is vital in ensuring you don’t miss anything. It will help you prepare for the new hire’s arrival and support them as they settle into a new environment. Part of this onboarding new hire checklist can be sent to the new hire in advance serving as an outline for their first day activities.

Meanwhile: in a world where remote work is becoming a norm, it’s also important to fine-tune your remote onboarding strategy. This remote onboarding FAQ guide will answer many of your questions. This comprehensive step-by-step guide on how to build a new employee onboarding process will help you as well – and learn from real-life employers why a standardized remote onboarding process is crucial for success.

The following steps can be used as a guide to building your new hire checklist:

1. Welcome the new hire before the first day

Onboarding doesn’t start when an employee first sets foot in the office. After they accept your offer, they need to be aware of the basics before their first day (where to go, whom to ask for, dress code etc.) and feel they’re expected eagerly. Send them a welcome letter as an HR department and as a supervisor.

2. Send an onboarding package

You’ll want every new hire to know the company’s mission, culture and policies. But burying them in paperwork on the first day isn’t the way to go. If you have a detailed and impressive employee handbook like Disqus culture book, you want to give the new employee enough time to study it. Send them an “onboarding package” including the handbook, mission statement and any other important documents. A good idea would be to send welcoming items such as a T-shirt with the company logo (Workable does).

3. Set up the new hire’s environment

Having a new hire wait around while their workstation is set up isn’t a good use of your time or theirs. Sitting in a cramped space for lack of better options is equally unpleasant. Prepare the new hire’s desk near their team with all equipment necessary well in advance. Aim for some bonus points by decorating it and placing a welcome card from all staff on it. Their digital environment should also be prepared with ready-to-use corporate e-mails, passwords, software licences etc.

4. Coordinate with other staff

A number of people need to know about the new hire’s arrival; reception, first and foremost, so awkward situations can be avoided. You can announce the start date to the team or department and advise them on how to welcome their new colleague. Payroll and personnel should update their database early on. Remember also that many new hires prefer their supervisor to take them through all or part of the onboarding process so they can start building a working relationship.

5. Start the day

So, the start date has arrived. The new hire was welcomed warmly and directed to their desk where they were left to familiarize with their surroundings and try out their equipment. Signing some paperwork can’t be avoided but try to keep it to a bare minimum. So far so good but don’t leave them alone for too long. Schedule breakfast or coffee break and introduce them to their team and other staff. If they are in a leadership position, it’d be a good idea to briefly present their qualifications and experience to their subordinates.

6. Discuss the position

This is a very important part of onboarding. New hires site “different work than expected” as one of their top reasons for leaving. Make sure you explain the job description thoroughly and answer all questions about the role. Don’t forget to ask the new hire about their own goals and expectations.

7. Discuss the company

New employees will hopefully have reviewed your policies already. Give them a brief summary of important points and answer any questions. Talk about perks and benefits explaining the procedures and their own responsibilities. Present the organizational chart and indicate who to ask for what (e.g. the office manager for office supplies). Giving them access to a directory with names and photos of the staff can be a great help.

8. Company walkthrough

Showing new hires around the company is a great way to promote a feeling of familiarity. Don’t just show them spaces, tell them how to use office equipment, how to lock/unlock doors and where to go for lunch. It’s important they know the premises and move freely among the many offices, desks and corridors.

9. Lunch

Lunchtime is an important point in the new hire’s first day. Don’t leave them to eat on their own! Schedule lunch with the team at a specific time and help them become better acquainted.

10. Assign them a simple task

Almost three quarters of new hires believe on-the-job training is the most important reason to stay in a new job. Assigning them some work from day one will ease them into their duties and will create an opportunity for meaningful feedback and coaching. Don’t limit this on their first day, be ready to mentor them continuously.

11. Let them stay in the shadows

Arranging for a new hire to shadow other staff can be done during the course of the first couple of weeks. It serves a dual purpose. First, they’ll find it easier to socialize with their colleagues as they’ll get to know them better one on one. Second, it will give them hands-on experience in how the company operates and what the expectations of each position are. Shadowing the team especially may give them insight on how their supervisor leads their subordinates.

12. Assign a “buddy”

New employees will have questions on their first day. Having a specific person to go to is a great help for a new hire. Choose the most suitable person for this, someone who has been in the company some time, with a pleasant personality and reliable enough to dedicate the time needed to their “mentee”.

13. Create an extended roadmap

No matter how well it starts, the onboarding process is usually short-lived. One in six new hires leave within the first week but you aren’t safe from new hire turnover even after six months. The first 45 days especially are considered an important milestone. Set clear goals for the first months and arrange for systematic coaching. Communicate the roadmap to the employee so they will know what to expect. Don’t neglect to sit down with them and discuss their progress frequently.

Remember to provide the new hire with a checklist for their first days. Steps 5 to 13 can be adjusted to address the new employee and give them details about what they will be doing and with whom. Give them the means to come onboard prepared and excited.

Onboarding a new intern? This intern onboarding checklist will get you started.

The post Onboarding: the new hire checklist appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

That’s right. Signatures in the digital medium.

But first, the burning question: what is e-signature software?

E-signature software is a digital solution that enables you to affix your signature to documents electronically. It provides an efficient and secure method of handling documentation – without needing to navigate the cumbersome in-person requirements, fax machines and paperwork of yesteryear.

The e-signature concept has matured over the years since its inception in the late 20th century. Now, with advanced technology and the shift towards remote and distributed work patterns, e-signature software is more than just a modern replacement for ink-and-paper signatures.

It’s an essential component of a digital-first strategy and is widely adopted by businesses across various industries – with North American businesses expected to lead the way with 35% of global market share by 2023, and other regions rapidly catching up.

Now, let’s go into details about how e-signature software works, the various types of software available, and the benefits of having it in your business. You’ll also learn how to choose the right e-signature software for your needs.

You’ll ultimately gain a comprehensive understanding of e-signature software and why it’s a critical tool for your business or personal transactions.

First, let’s understand how e-signature software works and what types are available in the marketplace.

How e-signature software works

E-signature software simplifies the process of signing and validating digital documents. Its primary function is to facilitate the electronic replication of your signature on digital files, making the endorsement of documents faster and more convenient.

Here’s how e-signature software typically works for you:

Document Preparation: You upload a document to the e-signature platform. It could be a contract, a form, an agreement, or any other type of document that requires a signature.

Signature Request: You specify the individuals who need to sign the document and send them a request via email. The platform generates a unique, secure link for each recipient.

Signing: The recipients click the link, open the document, and electronically sign it within the platform. They can use a pre-designed e-signature, draw their own, or type their name, depending on the software’s capabilities.

Verification & Storage: Once signed, the platform verifies the signature and securely stores the document. You, the sender, will receive a notification once all signatures are in place.

This process varies somewhat between different software providers, but the core functionalities are consistent across the board. It’s a more efficient and secure alternative to the traditional way of signing and managing documents.

Different types of e-signature software

There are several types of e-signature software available on the market, all with their own features, advantages, and limitations. The three primary categories of e-signature softwares are:

Basic e-signature tools: These are simple tools that allow for the creation and addition of a signature to a document. They typically lack advanced features like audit trails or integration capabilities. Examples in this category include DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, and Acrobat Sign.

Integrated e-signature software: These tools come with additional features like CRM or document management system integrations, which are beneficial for businesses looking for a more comprehensive solution. Workable, PandaDoc, SignNow, and the business & enterprise versions of Acrobat Sign fall into this category.

Specialized e-signature platforms: These software platforms are designed to meet specific industry needs, such as real estate or legal services, where unique compliance standards and document types exist. Notarize, dotloop, and Secured Signing are leaders in this area.

When choosing the right software for your needs, consider the nature and scope of your operations, the volume of documents you handle, and the level of security and compliance required.

Now, we’ll delve into how e-signature software can be utilized in various settings.

Applications of e-signature software

Really, there are two main uses for e-signature software: professional/business and personal.

1. Business applications

Business operations can gain immensely from the adoption of e-signature software. Here are some typical uses:

Contracts and agreements: E-signature software makes the signing of contracts and agreements swift and straightforward, saving businesses the time and resources usually spent on physically signing and sending documents.

Human resources: From offer letters to policy acknowledgments, HR departments often need a secure and efficient way of getting signatures from employees. E-signature software provides a solution for these needs.

Sales and marketing: Sales contracts and marketing agreements can be signed and processed rapidly with e-signature software, accelerating sales cycles and improving customer experiences.

Legal documents: Legal teams can use e-signature software to sign and store important legal documents securely, ensuring compliance and accessibility.

2. Personal use

On a personal level, e-signature software can be used to sign various types of documents electronically, including:

Tax Documents: Filing tax returns can be made easier and more secure with e-signature software.

Lease/rental agreements: Whether you’re renting a car or leasing an apartment, e-signature software allows for quick, convenient signing.

Personal contracts: Any form of personal contract, from loan agreements to freelance work contracts, can be signed using e-signature software.

Next up, we’ll explore the benefits of e-signature software.

Benefits of e-signature software

There are many different benefits to using e-signature software in place of traditional signing processes.

1. It’s more efficient

E-signature software increases the speed at which documents are signed and exchanged, thereby improving workflow efficiency. The software eliminates the need for printing, signing, scanning, or mailing paper documents, thereby reducing delays and manual errors.

2. It saves on cost

Think about the costs associated with traditional paper-based signatures: the paper itself, ink, mailing, and storage. E-signature software significantly reduces these expenses. Furthermore, by expediting workflows, it indirectly contributes to cost-savings by freeing up time that can be used for other productive activities.

3. It’s more secure and compliant

E-signature software comes with robust security features such as encryption and access controls, ensuring that your documents are kept safe. Additionally, it can provide detailed audit trails, which are crucial for compliance and legal validity.

4. It’s easier to use

Whether you’re working from home, on vacation, or on a business trip, as long as you have internet access, you can sign or send documents for signature. This convenience isn’t limited to a particular industry; anyone can take advantage of it.

5. It’s better for the environment

By reducing the use of paper, e-signature software is an environmentally friendly solution. It’s a simple and effective way for your business to contribute to sustainability efforts.

Now let’s take a look at how to choose the right e-signature software for your needs.

Choosing the right e-signature software

As always when shopping for new tools or products, there are several factors to consider when selecting the right e-signature software.

1. User-friendliness

A good e-signature software should be easy to use and navigate, both for you and for the people signing your documents. A software with a user-friendly interface reduces the learning curve and increases efficiency.

2. Security

As mentioned earlier, security is paramount when dealing with sensitive documents. Ensure that the e-signature software you choose has robust security features like encryption, two-factor authentication, and secure storage options.

3. Integration

If you’re using other business software like CRM or document management systems, consider an e-signature software that integrates with these platforms. It simplifies your workflow and allows for more seamless operations.

4. Customization

Look for software that allows you to customize the signing process to fit your needs. This could include custom branding, adjustable signature fields, or tailored notifications.

5. Pricing

E-signature software comes at various price points, usually based on features, number of users, and the number of documents signed per month. Choose one that fits your budget but also meets your needs effectively.

6. Customer Support

Consider software providers that offer reliable customer support. It can prove invaluable when you’re faced with technical issues or have questions about the software.

Choosing the right e-signature software is an essential step in optimizing your document signing process. By considering these factors, you’ll be able to select a solution that best fits your needs. I hope you found this guide helpful as you embark on your journey to adopting e-signature software.

E-signing into the future

Remember, adopting e-signature software isn’t just about changing how you sign documents. It’s not even an evolution – it’s ultimately about stepping into a more efficient, secure, and eco-friendly future.

Interested in how Workable’s own e-signing tools can help you in HR? Check it out for yourself.

The post E-signature software: all the things you need to know appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

1. How can I train & empower our managers to manage their teams remotely?
2. How can we keep employees accountable and productive?
3. What are creative ways to maintain team morale, relationships and cohesion?
4. In-person companies are able to have social events and happy hours. How do you replicate this digitally?
5. How can you create a meaningful buddy system?
6. How can we train hands-on, direct-care, or field workers remotely?
7. I work for a school system and many of our employees are not tech-savvy. Have you put together trainings for employees like this on how to use video conferencing softwares and how to be creative with technology?
8. How do you find the right balance in over-communication and make sure important things don’t get lost in the noise?
9. What software do you use/recommend for remote working? (communication, conferencing, team recognition?)
10. If you had a friend who was going to move their business remote and they’re going to open their laptop at 9 a.m. tomorrow, what is the one piece of advice that you would give them?

1. How can I train & empower our managers to manage their teams remotely?

One of the biggest challenges of managing remotely is the relative isolation that a manager may feel from their team. There are logistical challenges in getting synced and on the same page. These can easily be overcome using technology and regular communications to maximize the connections and “team spirit” within a squad.

There are several ways you can help your managers succeed when their teams are remote working:

Utilize technology

Darko Jacimovic, co-founder of e-learning company Whattobecome.com, pointed to technologies that enabled his colleagues to overcome the physical remoteness between colleagues, mentioning Slack and Hubstaff as tools he uses to ensure teams are aligned and productive.

Hope Weatherford, Head of Talent Attraction at InVision, highlighted the power of video technology in maintaining connections. While it’s not a perfect substitute for in-person interaction, Hope says it’s still key to successful communication in a remote working environment:

Regular check-ins

If possible, set up regular checkins with your teammates at the same time every day or when it works best for you. These do not need to have specific agendas – you can save those for other, more targeted meetings. The purpose of this check-in is for colleagues to have an opportunity to give general updates on work projects, share ideas for future undertakings, talk at length about campaigns, or even just engage in regular chit-chats. Many colleagues within a team sync naturally as they’re desk neighbors or have a coffee break together – this is your way of making sure that energy continues in a virtual environment. Workable’s marketing department started doing this as soon as the company shifted to a fully remote working environment and it’s worked very well.

Ensure everyone is accessible – even at the top level

Melissa Bruno, VP Head of People at Stack Overflow, encourages the concept of a weekly “virtual gathering” where even the top person in the company participates to talk about business as a whole:

“We actually do fireside chats where our CEO comes up on a weekly basis and we talk about the business and we all record each other. And we actually have different people who come in and talk about different pieces of the business.”

Also, work gets busy and managers need a bit of a nudge at times. If your boss is reaching out to you to see how you’re doing, that overcomes the physical separation in a powerful way, as Melissa says:

Communicate early and communicate often

Because you can’t simply walk up to your team and update them on something crucial at work, you have to be more diligent in using every virtual channel available to you – be it chat programs, email, even a quick recorded video that you share with the team as recommended by Smartbug Media founder and CEO Ryan Malone.

Ryan also notes that this communication outreach doesn’t have to be only professional. You’re both humans – it’s important to nurture that relationship. He admits that it can be “awkward” to reach out and dedicated time to that, but it’s still beneficial to open the channels and say, ‘Hey, I haven’t talked to you in two weeks. How are you?’. You just have to make it happen.’

Make sure your team knows you’re available

Ensure your calendar has regular 1-1s and team meetings each week, giving each team member the opportunity to sync with the team and meet with you one on one. Think of it as the virtual version of the “open door policy”.

Remember, it’s not about whether or not you can get the work done. It’s about making sure your team is fully accessible and your managers are available to them – and it takes a few proactive steps to ensure this continues to happen in a fully virtual environment.

2. How can we keep employees accountable and productive?

The easy way would be to introduce a productivity software that requires employees to clock in and clock out throughout the day so you can monitor how much they’re spending in work. While useful for workers who are paid by the hour or for contracted workers, it’s not an optimal setup for your full-time employees. If you’ve trained them well, and you’ve shown them that you value them, they will respond in kind.

A few tips for you to ensure accountability and productivity:

Results-based approach

Be clear to your employees that it doesn’t matter where, how, or what time they’re doing the work – the emphasis is on the results. If you’re looking for X project to be delivered by a specific date, simply specify that, and be confident in their ability to do it. Empower your teams to create their own ideal environment – be it time of day, location of work, surrounding scenery, accompanying music, etc. – in which they can thrive.

Train your employees to succeed independently

The best time to ensure an employee base that can succeed independently without intensive direction or micromanagement is in the hiring process, when you’re vetting their ability to work in ambiguous and remote environments – Smartbug Media founder and CEO Ryan Malone has that down to a T.

The second-best time is to train your existing workers to operate in that kind of remote working environment. Empower them to take steps without needing extra direction. Do this by communicating clearly to employees that you’re fully confident in their ability to do the job. Also, remember to include incentives for the best performers and stage regular “celebrations” where everyone gets a chance to be recognized for their contribution in front of the entire company. That’s a powerful motivator when people realize they can have their time in the limelight for something they’ve done well.

Regular check-ins

Instead of the “clock-in” approach, do the “check-in” approach. Check- in regularly with your staff, not to show them that you’re monitoring them but to keep that connection strong. The questions you ask can make a lot of difference, i.e. “How’s that project coming along? Can I do anything to help?” as opposed to “Will that project be ready for Monday?” Your staff knows Monday is the deadline – don’t talk down to them about that but show confidence and support.

Even as a CEO, Ryan at Smartbug makes sure he does that with people in his company:

“I personally call everybody at our company over a period of time to just say, what can we do to make [it] healthier? What does your roadmap look like here? And is there a path to see it? Because you don’t have that office kind of chatter that you typically see.”

3. What are creative ways to maintain team morale, relationships and cohesion?

Maintaining that all-important team morale is more challenging when you don’t get to see your team every day, because you’re missing out on the crucial nuances. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible – here are some tips to make it happen:

Be aware of the non-verbal signs

Hope Weatherford, Head of Talent Attraction at InVision, highlighted in response to question #1 the importance of video to catch the non-verbal cues. Ryan Malone, CEO and founder at Smartbug Media, agrees that those important nuances are harder to see when you can’t just walk by someone’s office:

“When somebody gets on camera during the work day, you know they have their game face on, but you don’t know what’s really going on,” he says. “In fact, we had an employee who had a death in the family like an hour before a call and when she got on the phone call, she was completely buttoned up. But you had no idea, if you were in the office you would have seen that and said you need to go home. Like you do not need to go on this call.”

So, it’s crucial to be aware that there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. If your colleague walks into the office space with hunched shoulders and a sunken face, you know something’s up. Sometimes you just have to reach out with regular, personal check-ins and be actively observant of their current mood.

Don’t do texting/email if you can do video

While texting and emailing have their place in a work environment, there’s a tendency to resort to those even more often in a remote working environment because you just can’t shout over to your coworker about something in the moment. Hope at InVision urges video even in those quick one-off interactions, saying the technology shouldn’t be reserved just for meetings.

Ryan at Smartbug Media agrees, and says this is even more so for a manager when it comes to announcements and updates.

“If they’re going to do an announcement, do an announcement on camera and don’t script it,” he says. “Just let it rip, because when your team sees your own emotion, your own kind of non-verbal cues on your face, I think it’s really, really impactful to them. And it comes across really cold, if in a remote environment as a leader, you just send out email announcements all day. It’s a tiny little change. It’s actually easier than writing a big old email. And it’s really impactful.”

Be clever with your resources

Hired’s Head of Customer Success, Will Alexander, says we have the opportunity to be clever and innovative in boosting team morale in a virtual environment – and shares his own real-life examples:

Stage regular meetups

Melissa Bruno, VP Head of People at Stack Overflow, admits that you can’t always replace those in-person interactions and gatherings virtually, but it can be done to some degree. She suggests breaking your company into regional teams to have virtual meetups – even with a budget::

Make it more personable

Ryan points out the importance of personal interaction even during those formal blocks in a workday set aside for meetings. As he says, in a virtual environment, “you miss out on that five minutes before a conference call where everybody is sitting at a conference table chatting about whatever.”

So, Ryan says “I always encourage people to take some piece of a call that they have with a client or with themselves and just shoot the breeze because that’s how relationships are made and if it’s all business, you miss that opportunity.”

Remember the ‘well-being check-in’ as well

Ryan also adds that it’s important to do a ‘well-being check-in’ – not for work purposes, but for making sure everyone’s doing OK within a team. Not only does it send the message to your team that you’ve got their back, but it’s also about looking after your employees to make sure they’re happy and healthy:

Technology may not be an ideal substitute for authentic human interaction, but when you set the stage for people to willingly participate – and help them overcome their tech hurdles – you may see a high level of engagement within your company.

4. In-person companies are able to have social events and happy hours. How do you replicate this digitally?

It’s definitely hard to have a ‘happy hour’ when everyone’s in a different location. However, Will at Hired has made it work at his organization. In his team’s ‘remote’ happy hours, they gather weekly in Zoom after work is done for the day:

“Everybody’s got their drinks together and everyone’s having a conversation. It’s a different sense of connection, because people are in their homes.

He notes there’s another kind of connection happening that doesn’t actually happen in the physical workplace:

“You’re dialed into the actual homes of your colleagues. […] And they’re preparing their dinner and their partner’s walking by, and we’re grabbing them and asking some questions. And [one colleague] has been showing us how to make particular drinks, and what’s she’s been cooking and stuff. And so, yeah, I actually find that more connection-driving than you could argue even in person.”

Hope Weatherford, Head of Talent Attraction at InVision, takes a similar approach, with a weekly ‘fun day’ free of the burden of an agenda. This, she says, can boost connections both between colleagues and with management:

You can also set up virtual ‘drop-in’ meeting rooms and online chat rooms. Have a chat channel titled ‘Cabin Feverrr’ – as Workable’s own employees have done. Distribute “happy hour gift cards” – i.e. $10 at the local supermarket to spend on something to consume during this time.

These events can also be gamified. There are numerous apps out there that support virtual games with participants tuning in from different locations. You can also stage competitions for best work-from-home environment, best ‘work companion’ (a pet, toy, kid, etc.), and more. Make it fun for everyone.

5. How can you create a meaningful buddy system?”

Touchpoints are as crucial in a remote working environment as they are in a physical work environment. Feeling socially distant from your colleagues is commonplace when someone’s a new kid on the block – that’s the importance of having a buddy system in place so they don’t feel so far removed from work social circles.

It becomes even more crucial in a remote setting. When everyone’s fully remote from one another, you need to replicate every part of a normal buddy or mentor system in the workplace. Those in the onboarding buddy or mentor system will touch base at regular times throughout the week – whether it’s dedicated meetings or going for lunch/coffee together. These can easily be set up remotely, bearing in mind that face-to-face interaction through video isn’t ideal but still very beneficial.

Do it the “mentor” way. Set lesser experienced/new workers with the more experienced. Don’t do them within departments – do them across departments and emphasize confidentiality “safe space” throughout.

6. How can we train hands-on, direct-care, or field workers remotely?

Regardless of the reason for it, there are many solutions for when you’re working remotely in a relatively normal situation and wondering how you might train new hires.

Get boots on the ground

When you’re setting up shop in a new location – whether you’re entering a new market, expanding, or opening an additional outlet – have at least a couple of employees native to that location who can be tasked with training new hires on site. When we reached out to organizations on their recommendations for successfully opening up business in a new location, hiring local talent was one of the most popular tips. It applies here as well.

Build a ‘training team’

A common strategy adopted by companies is to have a ‘mobile training team’ who travels to locations to train new hires and existing employees. The concept is widely utilized in the military, but has been adopted by businesses who have many workers in the field or are aggressively expanding to new areas. These training teams can be ‘trained’ at headquarters, and then carry their knowledge and expertise with them to multiple locations for team-building purposes.

7. I work for a school system and many of our employees are not tech-savvy. Have you put together trainings for employees like this on how to use video conferencing softwares and how to be creative with technology?

According to Melissa Bruno, VP Head of People at Stack Overflow, it’s critical to have an educational system in place to make sure everyone is well informed on how to use that technology and tapping into the willingness of people to learn. She also recommends appointing two or three highly motivated employees as tech ‘champions’ to help rally their colleagues:

8. How do you find the right balance in over-communication and make sure important things don’t get lost in the noise?

Think of it the same way you would in a normal workplace setting. If you simply get an all-in email from HR or from the company at large communicating various things every week, that usually doesn’t have a lot of impact, especially if sent out at a frequent cadence. What carries a lot of power, instead, is what Ryan at Smartbug Media suggests above: record yourself, warts and all, talking about the ‘important things’ and put that in an email or a chat channel. Better yet – do it live, pulling everyone together into a virtual room.

You aren’t necessarily holding meetings that could be an email. That challenge doesn’t change if you’re working remotely. Emails, text messages, phone calls, video check-ins, 1-1s – they all have their part in workplace communications. A good manager should know when to bring all hands on deck for important messages and when a quick note to the team will suffice.

Hope Weatherford, Head of Talent Attraction at InVision, notes that every company will have a different threshold around how much is too much in terms of communication. If you’re finding your messages lost in the ‘noise’, you can switch things up a bit – and be creative and engaging at some point in your messaging to maximize the response:

9. What software do you use/recommend for remote working (i.e. communication, conferencing, team recognition)?

There are hundreds of tech tools out there – we have our own extensive list of the best tools that can get you operating in a fully remote fashion, broken down by function and purpose.

Hope Weatherford, Head of Talent Attraction at InVision, notes that it’s important not to get stuck in one software to get most of your work done. Keep it variable and interesting, and monitor what’s working and what’s not. She explains:

“Use your messaging, Slack, G Chat, whatever it is that you’re using, use that along with maybe a video. Right? […] Don’t overcomplicate it. Just do a quick video and look at [your] email. And if you don’t feel like something’s working, don’t be afraid to change that in the middle, and really think about how things are communicating.”

Primarily, look at what your team already does, and see how that work can be continued at a high level using a tool from our above-mentioned list. And keep monitoring the efficiency of that tool – not just for the tool’s capabilities, but the way in which your team is using it to excel in their projects.

10. If you had a friend who was going to move their business remote and they’re going to open their laptop at 9 a.m. tomorrow, what is the one piece of advice that you would give them?

It’s a hard thing to do, moving your entire operation to a fully remote working environment. It’s easy to think that not everything can be done fully virtually – but as the saying goes, there really is an app for everything. And It’s been done before – as proven by those who’ve been there and done that.

When your teams open up that laptop at 9 a.m. on their first day of remote work, Hope Weatherford, Head of Talent Attraction at InVision, says it’s important to remind them to go easy on themselves:

“Give yourself a little bit of grace. You’re not going to be perfect at everything. You’re going to have some things that go amazingly well, and then you’re going to have some areas where you can learn from, and just make sure and give yourself grace. And don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Ryan Malone, founder and CEO at Smartbug Media, is more succinct:

“Trust people and don’t over-analyze things.”

Finally, Melissa Bruno, VP Head of People at Stack Overflow, builds on that element of trust and having faith in things to work out:

“I would say trust that every interaction, that comes with good intent and that everybody wants you to succeed and that everybody wants the company to succeed, that intention piece where if you make a mistake, it’s really not a big deal. What Hope talked about, don’t take yourself too seriously. Because at the end of the day, we’re all in it together.”

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What is talent management?

Talent management is an HR strategy that aims to develop and retain high-performing employees.

Mind the word ‘strategy’ in the talent management definition above. Talent management is not a one-off effort; it’s an ongoing process that puts people first so that they can achieve business goals. And as a strategy, it requires the involvement of everyone inside the company:

• Line managers, who identify potential and training needs and coach their team members day to day.
• HR, which organizes trainings, compiles data around turnover rates, and analyzes skill gaps.
• Senior management, which promotes a learning culture and supports employee development initiatives, including career path planning and internal promotions.

Talent management strategies in action

Now that you can understand the importance of talent management, it’s time to get more practical. What is talent management on a day-to-day basis? While this differs from organization to organization, here are the main themes to consider when shaping your own talent management strategy:

Design career paths and promote from within

Employees value opportunities for career advancement (often, they’d pick a promotion over a salary increase). And while you might not be able to promote everyone, a mindset of continuous learning can make a difference. Employees will develop themselves and your teams will benefit from their newly acquired skills.

Foster a productive and equal workplace

To reach business goals, you need people. And people need resources, procedures and tools to perform their tasks. Make sure to give them what they really need and not what you think they need. For example, ask them to research and recommend new software that will make their working lives easier. Also, implement policies that give all employees equal opportunities to speak up when they face issues on the job and give them the chance to participate in challenging multi-team projects.

Recognize and reward employees’ achievements

Look beyond typical compensation plans and performance bonuses. Think of additional ways to thank your employees for their hard work and provide perks that will keep them happy in the workplace. You can use employee satisfaction surveys to learn what kind of rewards and benefits are most meaningful to them. Be sure to keep these as inclusive as possible to accommodate the diversity within your teams.

Build talent pipelines

That’s even if you don’t need them now. In a competitive job market, being able to quickly fill your open seats with the best people is a huge advantage. When you’re proactively sourcing and building relationships with potential candidates, you close hires faster and equip your teams with new employees who can contribute to your overall business goals.

How do you know, though, which talent management strategies to prioritize and how do you decide on the specific processes you will apply?

It’s all in the numbers

The way you manage employees is unique to your company, because your goals and needs are also unique. That’s why before you make any strategic decisions, you should track key HR metrics that give you a sense of where you stand right now compared to where you’d like to lead your company.

Here are some metrics to help you build your talent management strategy:

• Employee turnover: If you want to have high-performing employees, you need to develop their skills. And if you develop their skills, they’re more likely to stay longer with your company. But first, you should know where you stand. Calculate your turnover rates and gather quantitative data, as well. For example:
  • When do most of your employees leave? Is it within their first two months at work? Then, maybe you should rethink your selection and onboarding processes. Otherwise, if employees usually quit after having worked with your company for several years, you should consider creating new career paths and offering more opportunities for internal mobility.
  • Why do most of your employees leave? Exit interviews can help you collect this kind of information. Based on what you learn, change your regular procedures and introduce perks and benefits that will boost employee satisfaction in the future.
• Time to full productivity: No one expects new hires to complete their tasks perfectly and on their own from day one. But, did you know that it takes eight months on average to get to this point? Of course, it depends on the company, the role and the level of experience of the employee. When you spot, though, that your company’s average time to productivity is longer than it should be, you can redesign your onboarding and training activities to get your new hires up to speed more quickly. This way, employees will be able to contribute to the team sooner and they’ll also get more satisfied with themselves as they’ll see their results of their work.
• ROI of training: Employee training is a big part of talent management, but this doesn’t mean that all trainings are useful. It can also be expensive, but that doesn’t mean you should always pick what costs less. Compare how much you spend on training with what your company earns. In other words, measure the effectiveness of your training and development plans. How do you do this?
  • Set specific goals before the training. What do you want employees to learn? (e.g. soft skills vs. technical knowledge) How will this impact their performance? (e.g. “After being trained on X software, salespeople will be able to contact twice as many customers on a weekly basis.”)
  • Experiment with various learning methods. For some people, interactive lessons work best, while other prefer to learn at their own pace through an online course. Others, still, prefer in-person seminars or classes.
  • Measure the outcomes. Discuss with trainees. Was this training useful to them? What did they learn that they’ll incorporate in their work? Use this feedback to organize future trainings that will be meaningful without hurting your budget.
• Performance indicators: The ultimate goal of talent management is to increase overall employee performance. So it goes without saying that you should measure employee productivity over time. No matter how you structure your performance reviews (e.g. quarterly vs. annual, etc.), check the performance of both individuals and teams. For example, you can check how many of your employees in one department:
  • exceed expectations,
  • meet expectations, or,
  • are below expectations.

Low scores could be an indicator that you might have to implement new management techniques or that you should provide further training to some employees. But, don’t use performance metrics in isolation. Think of other factors that could impact employee performance. For example, if a team consists of many new members, it’s natural that it will take employees some time to fully onboard before they reach their individual and team goals.

What does the future hold for talent management?

Don’t expect to reinvent the wheel. There are no secret recipes or mind-blowing tricks on how to manage and retain talent. Neither will technological advancements (call me AI) change everything we knew so far. Talent management lies in the basic, yet everlasting, idea that if you want to work with high-performing employees you need to build a healthy work environment and help people grow inside your company.

Surely, new labor regulations, socio-economic changes and workplace trends impact the way you (should) treat employees. Consider, the need for talent management for the examples below:

• Politics and how they affect employment. With Brexit being one of the most prominent examples, you might need to come up with new strategies to navigate a potential skills shortage.
• The agility of working. Teams are embracing the agile methodology which creates the need for a more flexible work environment, in general, by replacing silos with cross-functional teams and open communication lines.
• Diversity and inclusion initiatives. This goes far beyond gender or race discrimination. Intersectionality in the workplace (i.e. overlapping biases) is a major priority for HR teams that want to treat all employees fairly.

As a final note, remember that a good talent management process begins with talent acquisition. You shouldn’t just think how to best manage your employees; you also need to make sure you’re bringing the right people on board.

More Talent Management resources:

• VP Talent Management job description
• VP Talent Management interview questions
• FAQ guide: Talent Acquisition vs. Talent Management vs. Human Resources
• How to build a talent pipeline management strategy

The post What is Talent Management in HR? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Here are some frequently asked questions about HR, Talent Acquisition vs. Talent Management:

• What are the disciplines of Human Resource Management?
• How do you define talent?
• What is Talent Management?
• What is Talent Acquisition?
• Why is Talent Management important?
• Why is Talent Acquisition important?
• What does a Talent Management team do?
• What does a Talent Acquisition team do?
• Are HR and Talent Management two independent operations?
• What role does HR play in shaping a Talent Management strategy?
• How can I build a Talent Acquisition team?
• Who is in charge of Talent Management at a company?
• How do I apply a Talent Acquisition strategy?
• How do I apply a Talent Management strategy?
• What is the difference between Talent Management and Human Resource Management?
• What’s the difference between Talent Acquisition and Recruiting?
• What’s the difference between Talent Management and Talent Acquisition?
• What’s more important: Talent Management or Talent Acquisition?

What are the disciplines of Human Resource Management?

Human Resource Management (or HRM) relates to how companies manage employees, from recruitment to retention. The main disciplines of Human Resource Management are:

• Talent Acquisition/Recruiting
• Total Rewards/Compensation and Benefits
• Talent Management/Performance Management

Depending on company size and goals, businesses may choose to focus on some or all of these disciplines. Human Resources departments can be structured so that small internal teams focus on one field (e.g. training and development) instead of all HR employees handling every aspect of HR.

How do you define talent?

The word “talent” is often used to label good job candidates. But its meaning is subjective, vague and imprecise. Instead of using talent as a qualification in your hiring process, focus on assessing measurable skills and values. Start by conducting a skills gap analysis to identify your hiring needs.

Once you perform an analysis, write a skills-based job description and create a structured interview process. Then, simulate real world job tasks with assignments during your interview. Follow these steps to hire the most skilled applicant for the job.

Related: Structured interview questions: Tips and examples for hiring

What is Talent Management?

Talent Management is the ongoing process of developing and retaining employees throughout a company. Talent Management professionals:

• Coach high-potential employees
• Deliver employee training programs
• Build hiring and succession plans
• Mentor, reward and promote employees

What is Talent Acquisition?

Talent Acquisition is the process of attracting and hiring skilled employees to fulfill a company’s business needs. Talent Acquisition professionals:

• Build a strong employer brand to attract the right candidates
• Proactively build applicant pipelines to meet current and future business needs
• Maintain relationships with past candidates for future opportunities
• Strategically source potential hires from diverse backgrounds

Why is Talent Management important?

Talent Management helps companies engage employees and prevent turnover. With successful Talent Management strategies, companies:

• Identify internal candidates to fill key positions
• Increase retention rates through employee career-pathing
• Boost morale to keep employees motivated
• Coach and develop employees to help them achieve their full potential

Why is Talent Acquisition important?

Talent Acquisition helps companies build workplaces with skilled employees who drive successful businesses. With good Talent Acquisition strategies, companies:

• Transform recruiting from an as-needed function to a proactive hiring function
• Create candidate pipelines for future staffing needs
• Recruit diverse employees by sourcing candidates from various backgrounds
• Hire people who have the agility to grow beyond their role

What does a Talent Management team do?

Talent Management teams develop new and current employees’ skills, making sure they align with their company’s organizational structure and overall goals. They:

• Onboard new hires by scheduling first-day tasks and check-ins
• Conduct skills gap analyses and schedule training programs
• Design their company’s organizational structure and define each position’s responsibilities
• Prepare succession plans for future hiring needs

What does a Talent Acquisition team do?

Talent Acquisition teams identify, attract and hire high-potential people. They:

• Work with hiring managers and executives to forecast staffing needs
• Improve the recruitment process by conducting candidate experience surveys
• Host or participate in recruitment events to grow their network of potential hires
• Source potential candidates to fill their talent pipelines through social media and Boolean searches using Google or other methods.

Are HR and Talent Management two independent operations?

Talent Management is a function within HR, and HR attracts, selects, onboards, trains and evaluates employees. Talent Management comes into play as teams grow, when it becomes crucial to decrease turnover rates, retain employees and engage them to achieve bigger goals.

Effective Talent Management begins with a strong HR department. Likewise, a carefully planned Talent Management strategy can help you develop talent pipelines to facilitate HR department operations.

What role does HR play in shaping a Talent Management strategy?

Both HR and Talent Management teams work together to train and develop employees. The HR department designs and implements policies that facilitate employee training and internal promotions, so that the Talent Management team is able to create development plans for staff members.

Managing talent effectively means being able to identify training needs and build succession plans. HR compiles key data that helps inform Talent Management (e.g. performance reviews, employee relations and exit interviews.) Working together, Talent Management and HR teams help employees develop within their careers.

How can I build a Talent Acquisition team?

Structure your Talent Acquisition team based on your company’s size and needs. Team members should be familiar with recruiting practices and also have excellent networking skills to build relationships with potential candidates online and offline.

Your Talent Acquisition team could include:

• Talent Acquisition Managers / Recruiting Managers
• Talent Acquisition / Recruiting Specialists (senior and junior)
• Sourcers
• Recruiting Coordinators

Who is in charge of Talent Management at a company?

Everyone is. While HR roles are responsible for designing career paths and organizing training programs, a Talent Management strategy requires company-wide participation. Team leaders should identify high-potential employees and address their training needs. Also, upper management should promote a learning culture throughout the company. Then, it’s the Talent Management team’s job (consisting of HR Generalists and Training Coordinators) to develop employees.

How do I apply a Talent Acquisition strategy?

Plan your Talent Acquisition strategy around your goals. Consider your organization’s long-term needs. If you want to attract people with fresh ideas and perspectives, consider building internship programs for recent college graduates and entry-level employees. If you want to recruit more diverse teams, use blind hiring techniques. Keep in mind that nurturing relationships with potential hires takes time. The people you attract and recruit play an important part in your company’s future, so start your sourcing by participating in relevant networking events and interacting with passive candidates online.

How do I apply a Talent Management strategy?

Talent Management is not based on one-time seminars or annual performance reviews. It is systematic employee development that requires company-wide participation. To apply Talent Management strategies successfully, you should:

• Analyze what employees need to know to get promoted or take on more responsibilities
• Conduct skills gap analyses to identify employee training needs
• Implement regular feedback sessions to recognize employees’ achievements
• Train managers on motivation techniques and performance evaluation methods to better engage employees

What is the difference between Talent Management and Human Resource Management?

Talent Management is a distinct function of Human Resource Management. HRM’s objective is to hire the right people and manage them effectively through thoughtful policies and procedures. Talent Management focuses on ways to develop employees by mapping out career paths and training programs.

What’s the difference between Talent Acquisition and Recruiting?

Both Talent Acquisition and Recruiting professionals aim to find and hire qualified employees. A recruiter’s job begins with a vacancy, and involves sourcing, screening and interviewing skilled candidates. A Talent Acquisition team, however, takes a more proactive approach. They improve the company’s employer brand and network to recruit potential candidates. They also build pipelines to reduce time-to-hire and increase quality of hire for open roles.

Related: How to be a great recruiter

What’s the difference between Talent Acquisition and Talent Management?

First comes Talent Acquisition, then comes Talent Management. Talent Acquisition is about hiring candidates with the right skills and potential to evolve at your company. Talent Management is what follows after a candidate is hired. It involves training and developing current employees, keeping them satisfied and engaged and preparing them to take on more challenging responsibilities.

What’s more important: Talent Management or Talent Acquisition?

You can’t have one without the other. Talent Acquisition is the process of attracting and hiring qualified people. Talent Management is how you develop and retain these skilled hires. If you attract and hire good employees but don’t invest in their development, you won’t be able to retain them or unleash their potential. Alternatively, if you want to create a training culture and build successful career paths, you need to start by recruiting skilled hires who are eager to learn and grow. So, it’s best to use both Talent Management and Talent Acquisition techniques in your HR strategy to hire and develop your employees.

The post Talent Acquisition vs. Talent Management vs. HR: A primer appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

With talks around diversity and inclusion gaining solid ground in the business world, psychological safety has become part of the lexicon for company and thought leaders who try to define what a healthy workplace is. But is psychological safety at work solely a parameter for boosting inclusivity and employee wellbeing, and updating your people operations strategy? Actually, it’s much more than that.

Let’s go back to 2012, when Google initiated the Aristotle project, an internal research to explore what makes an effective team. The emphasis of the research was not on professional skills and team members’ expertise, but rather on group dynamics, personality traits and emotional intelligence. And guess what – psychological safety was one of the top results.

What is psychological safety in work teams?

Before diving into the pure assets of psychological safety at work let’s have a look at its definition. According to Harvard professor Amy Edmondson, psychological safety creates a team climate where people are encouraged to take risks fearlessly and nurtures mutual trust, support and respect. As a result, employees don’t feel the need to censor themselves before talking and are not afraid to speak up.

In this video, Amy Edmondson – Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School – describes Google’s findings on team effectiveness and the crucial role of psychological safety:

Why is psychological safety important in the workplace?

Apart from improving team effectiveness as shown in Google’s project, here are some other benefits of psychological safety at work:

1. It increases employee retention: According to the 2019 People Management Report, employees who felt psychologically safe in their team were less likely to quit their jobs. After all, why leave an organization or a team where you feel accountable, valued and safe even when you make mistakes? This is excellent news, as employee turnover is a huge pain point for businesses, with high costs both in cash flow and productivity, as well as in replacing someone who leaves.

2. It fosters inclusion and empathy: A psychologically safe environment acts like a protective shield for diverse workforces – it allows all people to flourish equally no matter what their background, race or color is. There is room for everyone to express their unique ideas. The outcome – constructive feedback replaces judgment and positivity outweighs negativity.

3. It boosts creativity and innovation: Imagine a brainstorming session where people second-guessed every idea before speaking it out. This would destroy the ideation process and hinder innovation.

In brainstorming, there is no such thing as a bad or wrong idea – the point is, everyone feels empowered to bring everything to the table without fear of repercussion. Without opening things up to this kind of risk-taking, teams may hinder creative energy.

4. It nurtures employee wellbeing: When employees regularly censor themselves before talking and are afraid to open up in difficult times, stress levels can hit red. And if they are a part of an extroverted team, this pattern can become even more overwhelming. When psychological safety is reinforced, people can feel more true to themselves, bringing their true selves to work and spend more relaxed and therefore creative days at the office.

5. It improves organizational performance: Research has shown that companies who actively establish psychological safety see increased revenue due to product and customer satisfaction. Employees who feel psychologically safe are the biggest brand ambassadors the company can employ, and this positively impacts customer experience, too.

Knowing all this, fostering psychological safety in your workplace should be your top priority. If you don’t know where to start, we’ve gathered some good practices for you.

Psychological safety at work – tips for leaders

Before you start implementing the tips below, try to understand the current level of psychological safety in your team. Do your employees share their ideas openly during meetings? Do your teammates approach you to talk about difficult topics? Try to gain insight into what goes well and where there is room for improvement, and think of how these tips could help your team feel psychologically safe and ready to open up.

Keep in mind that in order to improve your team’s psychological safety, you should first understand your own flaws and accept that you’re vulnerable – this will be the starting point of your journey.

Tip 1: Listen first, speak second

One of the main tools in effective communication is active listening. This means focusing your full energy on what the other person is telling you. To actively listen to your colleagues, shift all your attention to them and allow them the space to unfold their thinking.

Don’t rush to answer if something feels complex and overwhelming – take your time. This way you show them that what they said matters and deserves your full attention. Follow the same pattern during free-riding dialogues – listen, think, and then respond.

Tip 2: Seek for feedback

Use your 1:1 meetings to discuss in depth about how your teammates feel about the way you work and what they would like to improve. They might have input on operational changes that would help the team work more efficiently. Talk to your colleagues and use these personal meetings to understand what type of personality they have and what their needs are.

For instance, you identify a more introverted employee in your team. Don’t put them in the center of attention to “wake them up”. It’s wiser to discuss with them how they would feel more comfortable to contribute to meetings, e.g. note-taking. Try to understand in which area they would flourish based on their unique traits and communication style.

You can also conduct an internal survey to track down those elements and see how safe your employees feel. Include questions such as:

• Do you feel like you can speak up when something is wrong with the team?
• Do you feel like your input is valued equally compared to that of your teammates?

Finally ask employees to make suggestions (e.g. in the form of an open-ended question) on how you could improve your team’s psychological safety to make sure you head in the right direction.

Tip 3: Beware of double bind communication

According to English anthropologist and social scientist Gregory Bateson, double bind communication is when the speaker sends conflicting or inconsistent verbal or non-verbal signals to the listener. In an organization, there is nothing more confusing than receiving conflicting messages, especially from those you report to, such as your manager. That’s why you should be mindful of what you say and promise to employees. If your words and deeds don’t correlate or are inconsistent over time, your team will likely get frustrated and disengaged.

Here is an example: A manager encourages their employees to reach out to them for questions or for help, but in reality they are hardly ever available and don’t respond regularly to emails and messages. This sends confusing messages and can make employees feel less accountable. When their worries and questions are not addressed, they might even feel responsible for this reaction – or actually, the absence of it.

Tip 4: Be available

Continuing on the same mode, if you want your team to feel psychologically safe, make yourself available and make sure your team knows it. This, of course, doesn’t mean that you should interrupt meetings to answer a phone call or feel obliged to have prepared answers for everyone. But it does mean keeping that metaphorical door open to your office.

You also want to schedule regular 1:1 meetings and encourage employees to share their concerns with you. Plus, you can inform them about your exact availability and how they can reach out to you. It could be at certain hours or at a set time each week, via Slack or email – think of what suits you and your team needs best.

Tip 5: Adopt a growth mindset

If employees perceive mistakes as failure, they’re more likely to feel stressed and psychologically unsafe at work. However, if you label mistakes as opportunities for growth – as Bill Gates is reported to have said –, a whole new perspective lies ahead, which is positively challenging.

To nurture that growth mindset, always praise employees for their effort, not just for the results they bring. Setting the right goals will help you, for instance, focus on career development goals and train your employees in new skills. When measuring success solely through numbers, employee wellbeing and psychological safety take a hit.

Tips for sustaining psychological safety in distributed teams

How easy is it to monitor psychological safety in remote teams, especially in those operating in different time zones? Well, the same tips apply here – but virtually. Technology will help you be there for your teams with the use of tools that enable communication. Then you can adapt the practices above to a virtual environment. More specifically:

• Pick the right tools: Apart from an e-conferencing solution such as Zoom or Google Meet, choose tools that enable conversations, comments and note-taking. This way, everyone will have access to the same resources and will be able to contribute their ideas or suggestions for projects.
• Spend equal time with everyone: As mentioned earlier, it’s important to have 1:1 meetings with all teammates to get to know them on a deeper level. When people work from remote workplaces, you cannot stop by someone’s desk to say hello or spot a teammate who is left out.

Isolation is more likely in a remote work environment – to ensure this doesn’t happen, ping your colleagues regularly for a friendly chat and schedule happy hours when everyone can jump in and spend fun time together.

• Get everyone on the same page: Keep big announcements and goal-setting for team meetings and avoid discussing them beforehand individually. Otherwise your teammates might feel threatened and lose trust in your vision and collective goals if they realize that others got word before they did.

If you’re new to the remote-first working setup, this guide can help you get started.

Psychological safety – it’s a learning curve

The road to psychological safety is not a straight one; a leader has to deal with their own flaws and emotions to empathize with others and that’s not an easy task. But as you can see it’s worth the struggle. Open up, allow yourself to be vulnerable and accept that you don’t always have to say the last word – this will empower your teammates, make them feel safer and happier, and more productive over time.

The post How to ensure psychological safety at work appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Common performance reviews are mostly ineffective: they stress employees, overload managers and yield questionable results. Many companies are abandoning the annual performance review altogether. If you’re not ready to abolish annual reviews, enhance your process by remodeling your performance management practices.

How to build an effective performance review process:

Introduce useful employee evaluation techniques

Managers often evaluate their team members using numeric rating scales or their own overall impressions. These approaches can give way to biases and may not provide enough detailed feedback to help employees develop. Introduce useful techniques that can make giving feedback easier:

• Critical incidents: With critical incidents reviews, managers keep logs with instances when employees did exceptional work or made serious mistakes. This technique helps managers remember significant events so they can justify their employee performance evaluations with detailed examples.

• Performance measurements: Measurements are useful in quantifying an employee’s work. Discuss what metrics make sense for each team. For example, sales teams may use the number of successful sales calls per week as a possible metric in an employee performance review.

• Detailed rating scales: Consider using behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) where every point of the scale is accurately defined to avoid inconsistent employee evaluations (e.g. a score of five on a five-point scale can mean a customer support representative “answers all customer questions quickly and accurately, with minimum supervision.”) Also, behavioral observation scales (BOS) help track how often employees exhibit a certain behavior (e.g. resolving customer complaints in a timely manner on a daily basis.)

Complement formal performance reviews with frequent feedback

Building your performance review process around employee development (e.g. regular feedback and constant coaching) can be better for employee morale and productivity. This way, employee performance reviews shift focus: instead of being dreaded end-of-year processes, they become a non-threatening tool to help employees improve. In frequent 1:1 meetings, managers and team members can address issues immediately, instead of waiting to air them at an annual review.

With constant feedback, consider:

• Too many meetings can be impractical. Opt for short, weekly or bi-weekly meetings.

• An open-door culture is important. Employees want to be heard. If their manager isn’t accessible, frequent meetings may not yield the best results.

Take advantage of technology

Performance reviews can be time-consuming for managers. Technology can save time and streamline the process:

• Project management tools, like Asana and Trello, help with task and goal monitoring.

• Performance review software, like Small Improvements and Spidergap, can help you keep all assessments in one place and review them more easily.

• Instant feedback apps, like Impraise and TINYpulse, are becoming more popular. Managers and employees can provide or access evaluations at any time.

Encourage management by performance objectives

Managers who lead by objectives work with their team members to help them set clear goals, whether abstract (e.g. improve presentation skills) or quantifiable (e.g. deliver X presentations in the first quarter.) Performance appraisals revolve around which objectives were or weren’t accomplished, and how they can be met in the future. Managers who want to employ this method:

• Ask for their team members’ input. Employees feel like they don’t have a say in their work if managers set their goals for them.

• Align an individual employee’s goals with team and organizational goals. Employees should know how their work adds value to their company’s business.

• Set high but attainable goals. Setting unrealistic goals can demoralize employees, while setting the bar too low can make their job feel purposeless. Use the SMART method (Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic, Time-bound) when setting goals.

Teach managers to give meaningful employee feedback

Most employees dislike negative feedback – even those who want to learn and grow. But, delivering a negative review can have positive results, if done correctly. Managers can arrange a meeting with their team members to discuss performance, and they can make the most of those discussions if they:

• Open with positive feedback to set the tone of their meeting and help their employees relax.

• Avoid inflating or downplaying problems and focus on corrective actions.

• Back their reviews up with evidence. If they have given a low rating to an employee for a specific skill, they should explain why.

• Ask team members for their suggestions on how to improve their own performance, and use their input to create a development plan.

• Discuss plans to enhance team members’ strengths.

A performance appraisal process shouldn’t be one-sided. Show your employees you want to invest in their success by focusing the performance review process on improvement and growth. Making employees feel valued strengthens morale and engagement, and boosts your company’s success in the long term.

The post How to upgrade your employee performance review process appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Yet, teams can’t rely on the ‘feeling’ that they’re doing well. They need tangible data to evaluate that feeling and guide corrective actions. Measuring performance factors can help you know where your team stands.

How should you measure employee performance?

During employee performance reviews, there are three main questions to ask:

• Does this team member produce what they’re supposed to produce? (aka, are they effective?)
• Does this team member use resources well? (aka, are they efficient?)
• Does this team member take actions to improve themselves and their environment? (aka, are they learning and improving?)

There are dozens of factors to measure when trying to answer these three questions. Here are a few important ones to consider:

Are your employees effective?

Productivity & quality

Productivity is one of the most common factors used in performance appraisals. It indicates employees’ output in a specific amount of time. For example, X employee:

• wrote Y blog posts in a month
• produced Y product units in an hour
• made Y sales calls in a week
• answered Y customer support tickets in a day

Those calculations are a good start. But, they don’t tell the whole story. Quality is the most important aspect of performance. To measure quality, you could think of ways to assess how effective each employee’s output is. For example:

• How many of their sales calls resulted in actual sales?
• How many of their customer support complaints were solved?
• What percentage of their blog posts resulted in customer leads?

Also, you can measure quality from a more negative perspective:

• What percentage of their customer complaints were passed on to others to solve?
• What percentage of their sales calls proved unsuccessful?

It’s best to make these performance review calculations regularly. Then, you can share the numbers with your employees and discuss them. This gives employees the chance to improve regularly, rather than once a year.

Employee performance goals and objectives

Especially when goals are more about quality, ‘management by objectives’ works well. Using this employee performance measurement technique means you should sit down with your team members and set goals. Setting goals through a conversation allows team members to have more of a say in their job, which will make them more likely to give it their all.

Team member goals could be abstract (e.g. improve communication skills) or specific (e.g. achieve certain quotas). Personal goals should always tie into higher organizational goals, so employees know how their work contributes to the entire company. Employees should also know how you monitor their work towards these goals. That way, they’ll have a better understanding of your expectations.

Using a ‘management by objectives’ approach makes assessing team members’ performance a lot easier:

• What percentage of critical objectives did they meet?
• What percentage of main/secondary tasks did they complete?
• What percentage of goals did they abandon/found unattainable?

Answering these questions will give you an accurate measurement of an employee’s performance. These performance measurements will also help you set future goals. Weekly 1:1 meetings with team members are a good way to keep on top of performance goals. They can help teams keep their goals current and ‘catch’ problems early.

How to measure employee effectiveness

Attendance

Measuring attendance doesn’t always make sense. If you’re a results-driven team, counting minutes or sick days might be a waste of time. Measuring attendance makes sense for time- and location-sensitive roles. If you have customer inquiries flooding in, you expect your customer support reps to be available. If they’re not, your response time and customer experience may suffer.

Example attendance measurements are:

• Percentage of days employees checked-in late
• How frequently (and how long) employees are absent
• Percentage of contracted working time lost due to absence (crude absence rate, usually measured for the entire team)

Time management

Time management is a desirable skill in most positions. Employees need to divide their time effectively across their projects. You can measure their time-management skills by calculating the percentage of missed deadlines, turnaround time or how quickly they complete tasks. Tools like Asana, Jira, Podio and Trello can help.

You don’t need to calculate these factors on a monthly performance review basis. Sometimes quarterly or twice a year is enough. But, if you notice a team member working slower than usual, you can do something before they start missing important deadlines.

How to measure employee improvement

Training

Companies usually measure the number of training programs or sessions that employees attended per year. But, it’d be useful to measure the results of those training opportunities during a performance review. Do employees use what they learned? You measure this by comparing their performance rating in one skill before and after relevant training. If an employee’s recent performance metrics are 10% higher than they were previously, it’s a good indication that their training was effective.

Initiative & innovation

Both are difficult performance metrics to measure. Innovation can come in many forms. Employees might demonstrate their innovation in subtle ways (like making small suggestions to improve work processes). Or they may make grander gestures, like suggesting how to restructure a key project. Initiative could range from working without supervision to solving conflicts. Someone who always has fresh and exciting ideas can’t escape your attention. But, it’s also important to track small improvements that everyone on your team makes.

Measuring initiative and innovation doesn’t necessarily need quantifiable data. As a 2011 Harvard Business Review article argues, numbers can’t capture all that matters in employee performance. Sometimes, managers can rely on qualitative data (like examples of cases when their team members took initiative). If managers find their memory lacking, they can ask employees to recount a recent initiative or innovative action they’re proud of.

How to make the most out of employee performance reviews

A 2015 global talent management survey conducted by Willis Towers Watson consultancy firm shows that less than half of employers thought their employee evaluation systems were effective. A small percentage of employers are even thinking of eliminating employee performance reviews, according to the same survey.

So, how do you make the most of performance measurements? Team leaders could try this rubric when dealing with employee performance:

• Measure a small number of important factors. For example, for a customer support team, you could measure one or two quality factors (like what percentage of complaints they solved) and regular attendance. Then, you can measure employee goals three or four times a year.

• Create your own formulas. Companies and teams often have individual needs. For example, Jeff Haden, a contributing editor in Inc., explains how his team had to create an adjusted formula to measure productivity. Their previous formula didn’t allow comparisons between teams to decide which one was doing better.

• Keep company-wide KPIs in mind. For example, if your company claims customer satisfaction KPIs are its first priority, you should measure these metrics on a team level too.

• Revise your measurements. Sometimes, factors you chose to measure prove less valuable than expected. Don’t be afraid to shift away from performance metrics that don’t make sense for your company. For example, imagine that a manager measures the weekly amount of sales calls their team makes as a performance indicator. If they notice that their team focuses on making as many calls as possible without caring about quality, then maybe it’s time to shift towards a more meaningful measurement.

• Communicate results to your team. Your team needs to know what you’re measuring so they can focus on what’s important. They should also know what your intentions are: could their performance review cost them their job (e.g. through forced ranking) or will you use it to help them improve? It’d be best if you used regular measurements as a means to give feedback to employees. Regular ‘informal check-ins’ and employee coaching can have positive business results.

• See performance evaluation as a daily priority. Annual performance reviews are on their way out. Growing teams can opt for frequent feedback: quarterly, monthly or even weekly. Not all factors have to be measured constantly. But, some (e.g. number of customer inquiries that went unanswered) make more sense in the short-term so you can make improvements quickly.

• Try 360-feedback. Often, team leaders need input from other employees to help them assess their team members’ performance. If you choose to track factors like helpfulness and values, feedback from peers can be invaluable.

• Opt for the right tools. There are plenty team collaboration tools that could help you. You could also use complete performance review platforms like PeopleGoal, Small Improvements and Trackstar to monitor goals.

Continually measuring performance can be a tough task but it’s the most effective way to build productive teams.

The post What to measure in employee performance reviews appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We can no longer afford to ignore this opportunity to put big data into action.

We agree on the What and Why. Now — and for the foreseeable future — it’s about the How.

Armed with ample data and science on human behavior, we can thoughtfully design work experiences that fit today’s employees through clear, dedicated systems that preserve culture and wellbeing.

By integrating these nine dimensions into talent acquisition, onboarding, retention, performance rewards and values — to name a few — we can shift our mindset on what is truly possible in the modern era of work.

What is ‘culture’?

From a behavior analyst’s point of view, we know that we cannot change or measure what we cannot define. A first priority is to understand what exactly we mean when we use this term.

Culture is defined in terms of the environment in which an individual or group of individuals behaves, and the experiences that shape these behaviors over time. The environment includes policies, practices, daily experiences and leaders to ground-level employees.

How it’s created

For example, if a company states that it values wellbeing but does not allow employees to use their vacation time, this creates tension, confusion, stress and resentment. It also shifts the culture from what was originally told to employees and new hires (i.e., company values wellbeing) to what is experienced (i.e., the company does not, in fact, value wellbeing).

This leads to resignations, lost productivity and even an increase in lawsuits from employees. Research shows that employees who feel valued and cared for choose mediation over arbitration.

Culture is fluid

Group behavior shifts from one month, one hire, one merger to the next, which is known as behavior drift. Because these shifts are normal, it is imperative that companies are designed to hold culture and wellbeing strategies in place, with purpose, just as they approach business strategies, performance metrics and the like.

With these guiding categories in place, HR teams and leaders are exponentially better equipped to create and maintain cultures of care.

The Nine Dimensions of Culture

Let’s start by looking at the nine dimensions of workplace culture as defined by W3RKWELL:

1. Leadership

There exists a giant interpersonal gap between leaders and employees due to hierarchy, knowledge gaps, and archaic narratives about where leaders actually operate.

According to research from Stanford University, one of the top 10 variables that negatively affects employee wellbeing is perceived unfair decision-making at the top. Younger generations are demanding leaders who care about people and planet over (or as much as) profit.

“Strength” is experiencing a critical renaissance, changing ever so slowly from command-and-control to empathy, compassion and showing emotion.

In today’s world, leaders are no longer hidden away in ivory towers, protected by privacy and anonymity. Leaders are more visible than ever, and so are their actions, opinions and leadership moves.

Younger generations want to work for people to whom they can relate. They want to feel cared for, especially after a tumultuous few years of global strife and anxiety. Period.

Leadership Starter Checklist

• Are transparent systems in place to ensure that everyone, especially leadership, is held accountable for their actions?
• Do hiring and promotion metrics visibly outline qualifications for leadership roles, and do those metrics include measurable acts of empathy, value-alignment and service to others?
• Has your company developed systems to remove those who exhibit toxic or unethical behaviors in zero-tolerance moves?

Behavior trickles down – good, bad and ugly. By putting formal procedures into place, you can better ensure that future leaders will possess the values and behaviors employees want and need, instead of repeating ineffective, harmful behaviors from years past.

2. Autonomy

With office life disrupted during the pandemic, numerous studies took place to determine the extent to which productivity was affected while people were solely working from home. While remote work does possess its own set of distractions, these studies did not show a significant decline in performance.

In fact, some research showed the opposite, and it is hypothesized that control is the answer.

The Stanford research on wellbeing above also cites “lack of autonomy” as a top factor affecting employee health, which was confirmed with soaring societal stress when people were forced back into the office. Other research shows that increases in job strain were mediated with additional autonomy and control over task completion.

When we question whether remote or office work is best, the answer has more to do with work flexibility. The location matters less than the autonomy within those environments. If we are asking employees to be creative, work hard and find flow, we must create uninterrupted time and space for them to do so.

Essentially, the environment must support the behaviors we are encouraging.

Autonomy Starter Checklist

• Do remote or hybrid models allow employees the authority and freedom (also wellbeing influencers) to make choices about what environments produce optimal work?
• Has your company embedded behavioral nudges to keep employees asking “what do I need to create my best outcomes?”.
• Have moves been made to normalize away or OOO messages for employees doing focused work to avoid attention-crushing disruptions, reduce stress and increase the quality and quantity of work?

Organizations can take a hint from the Copenhagen company, Krukow, who designed a client’s office furniture to be lifted to the ceiling at 6 pm every day, or the dozens of companies currently experimenting with a four-day work week (current research is supportive).

Resource for additional information: Deep Work by Cal Newport

3. Performance and Growth

According to research from 2018, 86% of employees don’t feel trained to fluency in the jobs they’ve been hired to do. Moreover, if company culture does not adequately train its people, employees can face stressful lose-lose punishment contingencies.

This means that they receive negative feedback for jobs they were not adequately trained to perform in the first place, and the environment may also signal that with mistakes comes punishment. Employees then do what all humans do — they stay under the radar, avoid speaking up and continue to fail to meet expectations.

Many companies lack objective competency models and metrics for promotions that consider all skills, attitudes and responsibilities employees will face when performing their current role, or moving into their next role.

This adds a component of confusion to how, exactly, employees are to succeed. Failure to grow and succeed, or basic inertia, becomes one more stressful, though avoidable, variable to workplace culture.

Poor training and little opportunity for development then becomes a retention issue, as growth is consistently ranked as highly desired within the millennial and Gen Z workforce. Moreover, a sense of mastery at work has been correlated with positive health outcomes.

Performance and Growth Starter Checklist

• Has your company embedded science-supported learning strategies into training and development programs?
• Are employees are not only aware of and exposed to information, but can they demonstrate working with fluency — defined as accuracy plus speed minus hesitation?
• Are company pipelines in place to train and promote individuals or groups based on future roles (some organizations begin these pipelines the first week of onboarding)?

Fluency is shown to increase an individual’s feelings of competence and value, and can ensure your employees are under less stress at work. This model also integrates with performance issues. If employees have been trained to fluency but still struggle to meet goals or complete tasks, you can be more certain that the employee is experiencing a performance deficit (i.e., motivation issue or life challenges outside of work) rather than a skill deficit (i.e., being motivated but unable to carry out tasks at expectation).

4. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

This dimension has sub-dimensions – legal, moral, organizational and societal – that go beyond the scope of this article, but this is one of the most necessary and critical in the wake of the BLM movement, #MeToo, abortion rights and the rise of Asian hate crimes during the pandemic. In addition, the LGBTQ+ community has greatly contributed to the conversation of the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The last few years have unapologetically and energetically brought to light the harmful implicit bias, racism, sexism and homophobia that still exists in the workplace, despite larger acceptance and encouragement from parts of society.

According to a recent Bloomberg article, “the vast majority (86%) of employees feel people at their organization are not heard fairly or equally — and nearly half (47%) say that underrepresented voices remain undervalued by employers.”.

Paired with tokenism, an event in which a minority individual feels responsible for representing their entire group, this has serious health effects. According to an article in Health, tokenism and other forms of exclusion lead to high levels of stress, anxiety and depression.

Research tells us diversity, equity and inclusion leads to greater connection, morale, creativity, problem-solving and health, among other benefits – even for companies’ bottom lines. Millennials and Gen Z employees, along with many of their older peers, are looking for companies with diverse boards and workforces.

Companies must design mindful hiring practices, and reward systems and culture to honor this equitable evolution.

Related: Time for a DEI action plan: We’ll help you get there

DEI Starter Checklist

• Does your company avoid making assumptive, cringe-worthy decisions on how to honor diversity in your company and instead create spaces for open, honest communication?
• Are the viewpoints and experiences of diverse employees honored in meetings through asking, learning and understanding? What is done with this information?
• Are spaces available to source opinions and gather viewpoints on the work experiences, suggestions, unique barriers and cultural practices of diverse employees?

Have all teams – HR to finance to operations- educated on sensitive, respectful approaches to all groups represented at the company?

If your company is struggling for a starting point, consider a network dedicated to how the work environment may be modified for differently-abled or neurodiverse individuals, or how Black or LGBTQ+ individuals prefer to celebrate dedicated holidays like Juneteenth or Pride month.

5. Social Impact

More than 70% of millennials want their employers to focus on supporting societal or environmental issues.

As Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, stated in a past annual letter, “Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers and the communities in which they operate”. Purpose and meaning, along with mission-centered impact that serves the greater good, have been positively correlated with engagement and positive emotions at work.

Social Impact Starter Checklist

• Do employers work with leadership to gain information on truthful, active charitable contributions, volunteer days, service-oriented projects or company-wide preservation projects?
• Does the company contribute in some way to people or planet, such as using compostable utensils or partnerships with climate change organizations?
• If these efforts exist, are they mentioned during interviews? Are opportunities for involvement present in marketing, on social media, etc?

Belonging and connection (additional wellbeing influencers) are fostered here as well, contributing to employee loyalty and happiness.

6. Risk for burnout

This previously cloudy phenomena is now clearly defined in three components: physical exhaustion, performance decline and cynicism.

Behaviors that lead to burnout include working longer hours than desired for weeks or months, working outside expected working hours, failing to use entire allotted PTO, missing personal commitments to meet work expectations, and not taking advantage of flexible work arrangements (presumably because the environment demands an in-office hustle culture despite the lack of evidence supporting this).

This year, 63% of employees and 73% of C-suite executives said their companies do not allow time to disconnect or take their entire earned vacation time. This works against what we know to be true about retaining and preserving the wellbeing and performance of a company’s most precious resource — it’s people.

Burnout Starter Checklist

• Do the vast majority of employees take their full earned vacation time? If not, might there be underlying punishment contingencies that prevent people from doing so, such as the fear they will be perceived as less dedicated?
• Are systems in place that measure and immediately address burnout, such as a weekly survey? Consider: what is done with this information?
• When an employee experiences a significant level of one, two or all three burnout components, are they directly served and supported in a systematic, predictable way?

The typical reaction to these benefits – that employees will unnecessarily take advantage of them – has not been proven true in the research. In fact, it is mostly shown that employees who have access to these types of wellbeing supports perform better and remain at the company for longer than those who do not.

Research from Project Time Off also showed that the majority of people who earn promotions take at least 10 days of vacation a year, surpassing their peers who do not get promoted.

7. Authenticity and Psychological Safety

Psychological safety has soared to the top of company culture discussions as we more closely discuss harmful leadership behaviors, authenticity and workplace mental health.

Employees are showing up in droves to share that they do not feel safe at work due to harassment or a toxic work culture. When we synthesize this anecdotal data, the bottom line is clear: the modern workplace must embrace and encourage feelings of safety, belonging and acceptance.

This has become a zero-tolerance issue driven by younger generations who have a high sense of justice, and seemingly avoided by older generations who entered the workforce with a more staunch boundary between personal and professional.

Authenticity and Psychological Safety Starter Checklist

• Are visible efforts made to identify and remove narcissistic leaders and/or end overt and covert cultures of bullying and exclusion?
• Does the company represent and include all individuals represented at the company (i.e., pronouns, gender, sexual orientation, etc)?
• Do explicit company messaging and practices exist around psychological safety, including content from the experiences of current employees, and is this included during the interview and onboarding process?

This piece of culture is important to get right from the beginning, as it is extremely difficult to rebuild trust once employees feel insecure in their work culture.

8. Stress

This is an obvious category in regards to organizational culture and employee wellbeing. However, the numbers are shocking.

73% of employees regularly experience psychological symptoms caused by stress. Companies spend more than $300 billion per year on healthcare and work days as a result of workplace stress.

In a recent Deloitte study, nearly 70% of C-Suite executives are considering leaving their jobs for one that better supports their wellbeing. According to a Gallup report, 85% of employees state they are not engaged or actively disengaged at work.

Stress Starter Checklist

• Does the daily environment make modifications to reduce unnecessary stress (e.g., scheduled break times, nixing signs of hustle culture, open space in the day to take advantage of company benefits)?
• Does the company place the burden of stress management solely on the shoulders of employees (e.g., asking people to spend valuable time and effort on ameliorating the pressures their own workplaces have evoked)?
• Is the company riddled with chaos and unrealistic expectations, expecting employees to “just keep up”?

The pandemic era has undoubtedly propelled stress and anxiety to historic levels. However, this has provided a silver lining opportunity for companies to make meaningful moves, showing employees they are seen, heard and cared for.

9. Meaningful Relationships and Connection

Despite most post-pandemic studies showing the decline of mental and physical health across industries, the same or complementary studies show that we grossly overestimate how everyone else is doing.

The belief that “personal is not professional” is unfortunately still holding strong among leaders and managers, and many feel ill-equipped or hesitant to truly connect, receive and listen to one another while at work.

However, research shows that when leaders encourage and embrace the emotions each of us inherently possess, it can lead to improved team relationships and connection.

The longest-running study on health and happiness, the Harvard Adult study, consistently shows that meaningful relationships (i.e., quality, not quantity) is the single biggest predictor of health and happiness as we get older.

Meaningful Relationships and Connection Starter Checklist

• Is guidance provided to help managers and leaders feel comfortable showing empathy, vulnerability and compassion in daily behaviors, while also preserving their boundaries?
• Are top leaders present beyond yearly retreats or annual meetings?
• Is there space set aside for employees at all levels to truly connect, beyond Zoom happy hours or other outside-work events?

Consider what it would mean for your people to be more genuinely connected. Go deeper into what truly beings us together. Creating connection does not necessarily mean spending resources on retreats and events, it simply means relaxing into the new way of work and valuing it instead of siloing our human sides away — while we all fake a professional smile.

Build a healthy workplace culture

Culture is complex but, as we can see, not impossible to tackle. A strong purpose and dedicated team on the front end is very likely to lead to effective, sustainable, even profitable results in the long-term. We simply have to be willing to take what we know, and use it.

For more information on how to measure the nine dimensions of culture, visit W3RKWELL’s website.

Gianna Biscontini is a behavior scientist, lifestyle design coach, author and founder of the cultural analytics company, W3RKWELL.

The post 9 types of workplace culture: evolve your company mindset appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is asynchronous communication?

In the modern workplace, whether that’s remote or not, asynchronous communication means that there is a time lag in response between the sender and the recipient, be that another colleague or customer. This is the main difference between asynchronous vs. synchronous communication, with the latter involving in person meetings, live chatting or video conferencing.

Briefly, in asynchronous communication terms, if you want to ask your colleague a question about an ongoing project, you won’t address it to them right away, even when you’re at the same office, but you’ll leave them a message so that they respond on their own time.

We’ve all practiced asynchronous collaboration at work, more or less, and tech tools have played a huge part in this. Emails, messaging apps (Slack, Hipchat, etc.), shared documents in cloud-based platforms (G-Suite) where employees can collaborate and reply are common asynchronous communication examples, among many more.

Now that we’ve explained what asynchronous communication is, let’s turn our attention to “why” we’re talking about it. When done properly, the benefits of asynchronous communication are plentiful and can boost both your performance and productivity – and your teammates’, too.

The assets of asynchronous communication

Have you ever found it difficult to concentrate on your daily job duties after being interrupted by an unexpected casual chit-chat about a project your colleague is working on? It’s fine if this happens sometimes because mutual support and camaraderie is a critical part of being a team. But what if it interferes with your productivity?

Recent research has shown that we live in a more collaborative era; we schedule our working day around meetings, Slack conversations and emails with our colleagues and sometimes these events could take up 80% of a full working day. This can be detrimental to our performance; technically we spend more time hopping from one meeting to another or replying to messages than focusing solely and mindfully on our tasks.

But with asynchronous work we can tackle this issue and spend more time resolving tasks with extra attention and care. The key benefits are many:

More productivity

In workplaces where asynchronous collaboration is reinforced and enabled with technology, productivity is higher. People can follow their agenda and complete daily tasks more easily when they are able respond to their colleagues’ requests based on bandwidth or set up time slots throughout the week to prepare feedback for specific projects. Plus, by focusing their attention on one task at a time they have a more detailed look and bring in better results.

Less stress

Switching from one project to another throughout the day and being unable to stick to your own agenda can also be stressful. You probably can recall a time when you struggled in meeting an important deadline and a colleague asked you for a favor. It can be difficult to prioritize what is more urgent in such circumstances or reject your teammate’s call for help.

With asynchronous communication you allow yourself – or your employees – to put all energy into what you do each time and have better control over your workload, so there is no reason to overstress.

Higher quality

When you go through a request at your own pace you can concentrate on details and process things in greater depth. When exchanging information in the form of a conversation instead, you don’t really have the time to inspect all problem aspects. By documenting details on a work matter to receive feedback from your colleagues step by step, you get and give a better review and more constructive input. This type of documentation helps the whole team equally and results in greater output.

Better talent

When you have embraced an asynchronous collaboration culture it’s easier to attract a wider talent pool around the globe for jobs that do not require colleagues to physically be in the same location. Employees are able to collaborate effectively from different time zones, buildings, or offices in an asynchronous way so place and time zone no longer limit your access to great talent.

Asynchronous collaboration best practices

Asynchronous communication sounds like the real deal, but how can you introduce it to your business and team operations effectively? Here are some good practices to start with:

1. Sync with an asynchronous mindset

If your employees are not used to such a working style, train them to do so. Empower them to own their agenda and workload and emphasize that no one will judge them if they take their time to respond to a request. Define what type of enquiries should be perceived as urgent by teammates on a general or per-project basis. This way employees will have clearer expectations and will be able to prioritize tasks more efficiently.

2. Set clear deadlines

If your employees or teammates operate in different time zones, make collaboration equally easy for everyone. Avoid scheduling meetings over time or reaching out to colleagues for feedback before the end of their working day. Encourage your employees to share transparently how they like to work and when they prefer to operate collaboratively throughout the day.

3. Introduce the right tools

Whether that’s your project management tool or your ATS search for platforms whose functionality better enable asynchronous communication and collaboration, with effective documentation, filing and options like comment sharing and tagging. For example, with Workable, once you’ve screened candidates and move on to the selection phase, you can share comments and tag your teammates inside the platform so that they get back to you when it’s convenient to them.

4. Organize your notes and feedback

To make asynchronous collaboration successful, you have to find ways to provide effective notes and feedback to avoid back and forths in communication and time delays on important deadlines. Plus, going through a task in-depth in order to give clarifications or feedback will probably give you a new perspective and enable you to resolve or address it more quickly than expected.

5. Create/update troubleshooting guidelines

Not all of your employees will be able to fix operational tech issues that come up the same way. Make sure to build some guides with steps and solutions to some common technical problems (e.g. internet connectivity, security, etc.) and help employees concentrate on their day-to-day work.

Remember, not all meetings could be emails…

It seems that the benefits outweigh the losses for both organizations and individuals, but keep in mind that asynchronous communication is not the cure to all problems. Sometimes, you still have to meet in person or virtually with your team to address and solve complex issues. When you figure out that you spend lots of time trying to fix a problem over email or texts, sometimes it’s better to schedule a call or a meeting with your team and tackle it right on the spot.

Also, some processes such as brainstorming gain extra value from get-togethers. One idea builds on another and collectively leads to better results. Plus, meeting with your teammates on a regular basis helps you understand each other’s working habits, lifestyle and interests and enables you to build stronger relationships with them. That’s not easily replicated through asynchronous messaging.

When it comes to sharing some laughs and creating happy memories with your teammates, nothing beats the live version of it all.

So if you’re in the hunt for new applications and tips to manage remote teams successfully or to collaborate effectively with your teammates globally, asynchronous communication is probably your thing. There’s going to be a trial-and-error phase, and that’s OK. You won’t figure out everything immediately.

For starters, ask your employees and teammates for feedback and remind them that they do not have to send it straight away but respond based on their own bandwidth. Now that your employees are given the opportunity to think through their responses, the answers you do get – whether later in the day or tomorrow or next week – may surprise you with their insightfulness and creativity.

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Conducting exit interviews can generate positive changes within your organization. You get an insight into the reasons for your employees’ resignations. Then, by analyzing your findings after an effective exit interview, you can reduce your employee turnover rate.

For example, if a lot of your employees mention that their duties didn’t match their original expectations, you might want to consider changing your job descriptions and your onboarding sessions. Seeing top-performers leave feeling unmotivated is a sign you should adopt retention programs and offer your employees more opportunities to develop. Exit interviews can also give you a sneak peek of competition benchmarks. Employees who leave you for competitors could help you learn where you stand with salaries and other benefits.

Here are some tips on how to conduct an effective exit interview that offers you food for thought.

1. Choose your interview format

Giving your departing employees a questionnaire to fill out could be less time-consuming and help avoid some uncomfortable discussions. However, conducting a face-to-face exit interview has some benefits:

• You show that you care about your employees’ opinions by dedicating time to listen to what they have to say.
• You get the chance to have a less structured conversation that could result in unexpected feedback. (Feedback that a standardized questionnaire wouldn’t be able to provide.)
• You can end things on a personal, positive note.

Keep in mind, though, that your exit interview won’t succeed if people feel forced to participate. Offer them an alternative like a questionnaire or a phone interview after they leave, if that makes them more comfortable.

There are many tools to help collect and analyze employee separation data. You can use tools like Culture Amp, E-exit interview, Beyond Feedback and Grapevine to customize your questions and spot trends.

2. Choose your interviewer

The person who’s most familiar with your employee’s work is their direct supervisor. But it’s best if someone else conducts the exit interview. If people are leaving because of their manager, they probably won’t say so if their manager does their exit interview. They may also keep quiet to get a good reference.

An HR team member usually is the best option, because they can focus on role-specific issues and complaints or suggestions for the organization as a whole. Some companies choose to have external consultants perform exit interviews. Former employees might feel more comfortable talking to an unbiased ‘outsider,’ but this tactic could also seem impersonal and cold.

3. Decide what to ask

Prepare your interview questions. Although you don’t want to make the exit interview look scripted, make sure you cover important topics before your employee leaves. Don’t forget to promise confidentiality and try to keep a casual and friendly tone to let the conversation flow.

Here are some effective exit interview questions to consider:

• Please describe your general feelings about working here. If possible, please tell us what caused you to leave.
• What did you enjoy most about working here?
• If you could change three things, what would they be?
• How do you feel you were treated by your supervisor and your coworkers?
• How well do you believe your work was recognized and appreciated?
• Do you feel you were given adequate training and assistance?
• Are there things you wish you had known earlier?
• Do you think your work was aligned with your personal goals?
• What could be done to make this company a better place to work?

4. Decide what not to ask

Here are some tricky questions you should probably avoid.

Are you willing to reconsider and stay? Could we do anything to make you stay?

Exit interviews are not the time to ask your employee to reconsider their resignation. Your purpose is to learn about their perspective.

Why didn’t you like working here?

When employees quit, you may feel shocked, hurt, angry or relieved. However, for the sake of your employer brand, it’s not always appropriate to make them aware of these emotions.

More positive alternative questions are: “What things in particular would you change about this job?” or “What would your suggestions be to improve our workplace?”

What were the worst things you had to deal with?

Too much focus on the negative will ruin the atmosphere and might make your employee run to the exit door faster. Instead, ask some questions about good practices and positive things. They can show you what you’re doing right.

Do you think there’s someone else who should leave instead of you?

While you want to get feedback on management and employee relationships, you shouldn’t let things get too personal. If your former employees have bad experiences or grievances to disclose, give them space to mention them. But you don’t want to actively initiate a blame game. So, avoid questions targeted at specific people or issues.

How to avoid dishonesty during exit interviews

There are many reasons that could keep your former employees from being completely honest during exit interviews. Here are some guidelines for keeping everyone honest:

Keep things positive

There’s rarely a need for drama. Thank employees for their contribution, acknowledge their work and wish them luck.

Don’t waste time

Many employees would argue that there’s no point in having an exit interview since it’s too late and nothing is going to change. But showing that you actually listen to your departing employees could help your reputation.

Don’t offer too little too late

An exit interview shouldn’t be the first time employees are asked how they feel about working for you. If you want to make the exit interview process count, you should incorporate a constructive feedback culture among your employees from day one. Have frequent formal and informal discussions with your employees. That way, you’re more likely to get honest, constructive feedback when employees leave. Relying on exit interviews alone is like only reading the last page of a book; it simply doesn’t make any sense without the rest of the story.

The post How to conduct an effective exit interview appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Dive in and start building the perfect blueprint tailored to your unique challenges – your future star performers will thank you.

Related: Build a high-performing sales team: your comprehensive guide

Let’s start with common sales team organization structures and org charts for each:

1. Functional sales team structure

A software company has a sales team that is divided into three main functions: lead generation, account executives, and customer success.

The lead generation team is responsible for finding and qualifying potential customers, the account executives are responsible for closing deals, and the customer success team is responsible for onboarding and retaining customers.

2. Geographic sales team structure

A multinational pharmaceutical company has divided its sales team based on geographic regions: North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Each regional team is responsible for all sales activities within its assigned region, allowing them to cater to the specific needs and regulations of their respective markets.

3. Market-based sales team structure

A financial services company has different sales teams for each of its market segments: individual investors, small businesses, and institutional clients.

Each team understands the unique needs and challenges of its specific market segment.

4. Product sales team structure

A large tech company with multiple product lines, such as laptops, smartphones, and software services, has separate sales teams for each product line.

Each team specializes in understanding and selling its specific product.

5. Hybrid sales team structure

A large consumer goods company uses a hybrid structure. It has a geographic structure for its field sales team, with different teams responsible for different regions.

It also has a product-based structure for its inside sales team, with different teams specializing in different product categories.

6. Account-based sales team structure

A B2B software company that sells high-value enterprise solutions has an account-based sales structure.

Each sales team is assigned a set of key accounts that they are responsible for managing and growing.

7. Channel sales team structure

A manufacturing company sells its products through a network of distributors and retailers.

It has a channel sales team that is responsible for managing these partner relationships, providing them with product training, and supporting their sales efforts.

8. Customer success sales team structure

A SaaS company has a sales team that focuses on acquiring new customers and a customer success team that focuses on retaining and growing existing accounts.

The sales team works on bringing in new business, while the customer success team ensures that existing customers are satisfied and identifies opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.

Different team building plans to think about

Regardless of which organizational structure you follow above, there will be different scenarios for you to consider when building your sales team. Some of these are longer-term, others are quick and nearly off-the-cuff.

Related: Build a sales team with ChatGPT – with prompt examples

Let’s start with a potential scenario, variables to consider, and what the sales team organizational structure might include for each of these. Consider bundling one or more of the following scenarios into your overall sales team structure to align your sales system with overall business strategies.

Scenario 1: you are just getting started

Variables:

• Limited resources
• Small customer base
• Need to establish market presence

Organizational structure:

• Startup sales lead: Multi-tasker who handles account management and some admin tasks
• Generalist sales reps: Team members who handle everything from lead generation to closing deals
• Customer success associate: Focuses on onboarding and retaining the initial customer base

Scenario 2: you have landed a new funding round and you’re looking to grow

Variables:

• Sudden influx of resources
• Aggressive expansion plans
• High growth targets.

Organizational structure:

• Growth manager: Specializes in scaling businesses and managing large teams
• Recruitment specialist: Fast-tracks hiring of new team members
• Sales reps by tier: Separated into junior and senior reps, each focusing on different customer segments
• Sales analyst: Uses data analytics to optimize sales strategies

Scenario 3: you’ve got a new product in place and you’re looking to push it

Variables:

• Newly launched product
• Need for market adoption
• Focus on product-specific sales

Organizational structure:

• Product sales manager: Specializes in the new product and its market positioning
• Product evangelists: Focus on storytelling and explaining the product’s USP
• Cross-selling sales reps: Leveraging existing customer base to introduce the new product
• Technical support: On-call for product-specific inquiries and demonstrations

Scenario 4: you’re facing high attrition rates

Variables:

• High turnover
• Low morale
• Dissatisfied employees

Organizational structure:

• Team lead: Responsible for morale and personal development
• Retention specialist: Focused on employee engagement
• Sales reps: Generalists with rotation across different accounts to prevent burnout

Scenario 5: you’re transitioning to remote work

Variables:

• Remote work
• Need for smoother communication
• Need for streamlined coordination

Organizational structure:

• Remote team manager: Oversees remote operations
• Communication liaison: Ensures effective communication and project tracking
• Sales reps: Allocated to regions/time zones for customer convenience

Scenario 6: you’re entering a new market

Variables:

• Unknown market dynamics and consumer behavior

Organizational structure:

• Market specialist: Expert in the new market’s nuances
• Cultural advisor: Provides cultural training and guidance
• Localized sales reps: Hired from the local market for authentic engagement

Scenario 7: you have a seasonal business

Variables:

• Fluctuating sales depending on the season or time of year

Organizational structure:

• Seasonal team lead: Oversees seasonal hires and operations
• Stock analyst: Focuses on inventory and demand prediction
• Temporary sales reps: Hired for peak season, focus on short-term goals

Scenario 8: you’re facing stiff competition

Variables:

• Increased competition affecting sales and market share
• Sudden ascent of a new presence in the marketplace

Organizational structure:

• Strategy lead: Focuses on competitive tactics and market analysis
• Product evangelist: Specializes in the USP and brand storytelling
• Sales reps: Special training in negotiation and advanced selling techniques

Time to start building

Building a sales team isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Depending on your company’s unique circumstances, goals, and challenges, your organizational structure should adapt and evolve.

Whether you’re just breaking ground, scaling rapidly with new funding, launching a product, or grappling with issues like high attrition and remote work, the right setup can be a game-changer. It aligns your resources and focuses your efforts, serving as the backbone of your sales strategy.

Remember, an effective sales team is not just about the number of people but about putting the right people in the right roles. These eight scenarios offer a versatile blueprint for assembling a sales team that’s not just built for the present, but also adaptable for the future.

The post 8 sales team structure models – plus scenarios to build them out appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Now more than ever, you’re going to need the best and brightest working for you and by your side if you want a sales team that can succeed in the age of AI.

In this respect, ChatGPT can potentially be a godsend for you. ChatGPT and other generative AI tools can automate and enhance many of your existing sales processes, so you can spend more time and energy thinking of ways to close more leads, get more customers, and drive growth.

A strong sales team is the backbone of any successful business. ChatGPT can help you strategically build a better sales team that’s stronger, smarter, and more efficient than ever.

In this tutorial, we’ll offer some ways you can use ChatGPT to build a sales team – one that’s forward-thinking, adaptable, and innovative.

1. Recruiting top sales talent

Half the battle in building a sales team is finding the right people.

B2B sales is a notoriously competitive industry, and not everyone is cut out for it. Being good at sales requires a blend of strategic thinking, adaptability, resilience, and determination to meet goals and overcome challenges, and a fierce ambition coupled with the ethical integrity to keep it in check.

Finding the right mix of all those qualities is rare. Using ChatGPT in your recruitment process can not only help expedite your sales team recruitment but can make it easier for you to find the best sales reps.

Using ChatGPT for job description writing

There is a fine art to making a good job description. It’s about striking the right balance between outlining the key responsibilities of the role, attracting the right candidates, and sparking their interest in the position.

When you tell it your needs and requirements of the sales reps you’re looking for, ChatGPT can create compelling job descriptions. ChatGPT can tailor the job description to the role,

Give ChatGPT a clear outline of the responsibilities of the role, your company culture, and your expectations in the position, and ChatGPT can make a job description that helps you find the right candidates for your sales team.

You can also use it in conjunction with Workable’s AI job description generator to create something that’s more personalized and aligned with your business goals.

Example prompt: “Write a job description for a Sales Manager position focusing on B2B SaaS sales.”

Screening resumes with ChatGPT

Sales is also an oversaturated field, and sales hiring teams often have to sort through a mountain of resumes and cover letters before they arrive at a candidate who’s worth talking to.

With ChatGPT’s help, you can dig through all the filler resumes and unqualified applicants and find the star candidates who can be a true asset to your team.

ChatGPT can quickly analyze resumes, summarize key qualifications and work experiences, and help you gauge whether a candidate is a good fit for the role.

Example prompt: “Analyze the following resume and summarize the key qualifications for a Sales Executive role.”

2. Streamlining team onboarding

Finding rockstars to hire for your sales team is one thing, but you also need to onboard them and get them up to speed with how you do things before they can start making money for you.

Your sales onboarding process lays the foundation for your new hire’s success and helps them get started on the right foot.
ChatGPT is useful here as well because it can optimize and streamline your onboarding experience and get your recruits on their phones and in the field as soon as possible.

Creating onboarding guides with ChatGPT

An onboarding guide helps your new sales reps to understand your company policies, sales tools, and tech stack, and immerse themselves in your company culture. They can start on day 1 already feeling as though they’re a part of the team.

Give ChatGPT a structured outline for your onboarding, and it can create detailed content for an onboarding guide that tells the new hire everything they need to know.

Example prompt: “Create an onboarding guide for new sales team members, including company policies, sales tools, and team culture.”

Automating FAQ responses

The new hires on your sales team will naturally have a lot of questions as they get their feet wet and learn the lay of the land.
Giving them immediate and consistent answers will help things go smoothly all around – both for them and for you.

You can program ChatGPT to field common questions and offer guidance and support where it is needed. That can be explaining your key performance indicators, or outlining your company values.

Example prompt: “Generate a response to a common question from new hires for an entry-level sales rep position: ‘What are the key performance metrics for sales representatives at our company?’”

3. Enhancing sales training

Training your new team will enable them for their future success and give them the skills, knowledge, and know-how to excel on your sales team.

You can use ChatGPT to enhance your training, nurture your new talent, and help them stay prepared for modern sales challenges they’ll encounter on the job.

Developing sales scripts with ChatGPT

Persuasive sales scripts help to guide the conversation in a way that earns the lead’s trust and allows things to flow naturally.

ChatGPT can generate persuasive sales scripts and templates tailored to specific products, audiences, or real-world scenarios.

Your sales reps can use these scripts as a starting point when interacting with potential customers.

When you give ChatGPT context and objectives to follow, it can make sales scripts that align perfectly with your sales goals.

Example prompt: “Write a sales script for introducing our latest product to potential clients. The product is called ‘X’, its core benefits and features are ‘Y’, and it’s made by company ‘Z’.”

Creating role-playing scenarios for training

There is no better teacher than experience. Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes.

ChatGPT can create realistic role-playing situations emulating hypothetical scenarios that the reps and executives on your sales team might encounter in the real world.

These scenarios might include anything from negotiating deals to relationship building. Playing through these scenarios in a controlled setting can help your reps hone essential skills before trying them out on real customers. With them, your sales reps can practice handling rejection and keeping the conversation going.

Example prompt: “Design a role-playing scenario for training sales representatives in handling objections. The scenario should involve a potential client objecting to the price of our latest product, and the sales representative must use value-based selling techniques to overcome the objection.”

4. Sales prospecting and lead generation

In the world of sales, the name of the game is finding leads.

Finding potential clients and engaging with them with a personalized, conversational approach to outreach between success and failure when it comes to building a sales pipeline.

ChatGPT offers you some unique opportunities here when it comes to optimizing your sales process.

Generating personalized outreach emails with ChatGPT

Striking a balance between personalization and scalability is a common one in sales and marketing. Here, ChatGPT can be the key to making a personal outreach email that’s scalable.

If you tell it your client’s industry, needs, and interests, ChatGPT can create engaging emails that get your lead’s attention, invite a response from them, and convince them to purchase from you. Then, you can repeat this process no matter how many times you do it, be it hundreds or thousands.

Example prompt: “Compose a personalized email to a potential client in the B2B SaaS industry, expressing interest in their business needs and highlighting our product’s ability to streamline their sales process.”

Brainstorming sales strategies with ChatGPT

Innovation is what drives success in sales. Making cutting-edge strategies that speak right to the heart of your customer’s wants and needs is what separates an exceptional salesperson from a mediocre one.

For this reason, sales managers are always looking for fresh new ideas and practical strategies to reach their customers. ChatGPT can be very useful in this creative and strategizing process.

Give ChatGPT insights into your target markets, your competitors, and your business goals, and ChatGPT can brainstorm a list of creative and effective sales strategies. You can then take the strategies it comes up with and adapt them to your needs.

Example prompt: “Generate a list of 10 innovative sales strategies for targeting the healthcare industry, focusing on our product’s ability to enhance patient engagement and streamline administrative tasks.”

5. Sales performance analysis and feedback

Sales performance analysis lets you know that whatever you’re doing is working.

Having the right insights shows you what needs improvement, what’s doing well, and how individual team members are progressing.

ChatGPT has valuable tools to enhance your performance analysis and cut right to the heart of the information you need to drive your sales team’s success.

Automating sales performance reports with ChatGPT

You can use ChatGPT to create a standardized sales performance template to highlight key metrics such as revenue growth, conversion rates, customer satisfaction, sales rep achievements, and areas for improvement.

That automation can help ensure consistent reporting that allows you as the sales manager to track the progress of your reps over time.

Example prompt: “Create a monthly sales performance report template focusing on key metrics such as conversion rates, revenue growth, top-performing products, and areas for improvement.”

Providing constructive feedback through ChatGPT

Feedback provides an opportunity for growth, but it has to be delivered with care, empathy, and precision.

You can use ChatGPT to draft constructive feedback emails that are clear, supportive, and actionable. You can tell your sales rep what they’re doing well, and give them suggestions for future development.

Outline specific areas of success and improvement, and ChatGPT can help you deliver feedback that encourages growth.

Example prompt: “Write a feedback email to a sales representative who exceeded quarterly targets but struggled with customer engagement, highlighting areas of improvement and success, and providing actionable steps to enhance customer relationships.”

6. Integrating ChatGPT with existing sales tools

Your team doesn’t just include your sales reps, but the digital tools you use to be good at your jobs as well.

Sales teams rely on various tools as a part of their technology stack, like their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and sales enablement platforms. Integrating ChatGPT with these existing tools can unlock whole other levels of efficiency.

ChatGPT-4 comes with a Plugin Store that lets it integrate with many popular sales and marketing tools such as Zapier, and others for specific marketing and sales use cases like personalized outreach and sales prospecting.

You can also ask for ChatGPT’s help in integrating with other sales tools in your tech stack using your API key.

Example prompt: “Describe the process of integrating ChatGPT with Salesforce for automated data entry, including the necessary API connections, data mapping, and testing procedures.”

Ethical considerations and best practices

Using ChatGPT and AI tools can be so helpful for building your sales team that you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.

With that said, this technology is still very new and comes with several ethical considerations that should be addressed before implementing it.

Here are a few considerations to keep in mind to ensure responsible and ethical use:

Transparency and accountability

Clearly communicate with your team and customers how and why you use AI in your sales process. Implement ways to keep yourself accountable with regular audits and reviews.

Bias and fairness

Be on the lookout for any potential biases that can arise from the training data or algorithms. Make sure that the decisions the AI makes are fair and don’t discriminate against particular groups.

Ethical guidelines and training

Create and keep ethical guidelines for using AI in sales. Provide training to your sales teams on responsible AI practices, including understanding its potential for bias, ethical considerations of AI technology, and how to use these tools appropriately.

ChatGPT can help you create the best sales team – if you know how to use it

ChatGPT and generative AI technology represent a watershed moment in how businesses approach sales team building.

The potential of this technology is still being explored and is largely untapped. Whether it’s enhancing customer interactions, automating data entry, or providing valuable insights, using ChatGPT to build your core sales team can give you an edge over your competitors who are still just dabbling with it. Explore, experiment, and find out for yourself what it can do!

The post Build a sales team with ChatGPT – with prompt examples appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

With layoffs happening across the spectrum – especially in the tech space, most recently with Microsoft announcing 11,000 layoffs and Alphabet (Google) letting go of 12,000 – it’s a question many employers are asking.

In short – no employer likes to go through a period of layoffs. It’s worse for those affected – they come into work one fair Monday morning, and are brought into HR and given their walking papers, and they’re back home in time for lunch but without a job. It can be a real blow to anyone’s ego and confidence.

Those being let go will talk among their peers; those who remain will be wondering how they can carry on or if they’re next on the chopping block. It’s your duty to support them as an employer. Empathy can only go so far.

There’s no “good” way to conduct layoffs, but there are ways in which you can ease the damage it’ll cause for both those who were let go and those who are remaining.

Here are 8 ways in which you can best support your workers after letting them go:

1. Offer severance pay and benefits

When you lay off a worker, you’re basically cutting a core means of survival via their income and benefits. Offering severance pay and benefits to your laid-off workers is a common strategy for many companies – with some severance packages extending to a full year or more.

Severance can be a single lump sum payment, extended health insurance coverage, or ongoing paychecks for a set period as above. Some companies even guarantee pay up to the point the laid-off employee secures a new job.

And Google itself offered a healthy severance package in its round of layoffs, as CEO Sundar Pichai described in an open letter to employees – in short, the package includes 16 weeks of pay plus two for every additional year at Google, plus full 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time, and six months of healthcare, job placement, and immigration services to those affected in the US.

2. Connect them with outplacement services

Outplacement services are designed to support laid-off employees in finding new employment. These services typically include career counseling, resume writing, and job search assistance. Some companies may even provide outplacement services on-site, which can be more convenient for your employees.

The owner of product review site GadNets.com, Andre Flynn, champions this approach.

“Offering an outplacement service that helps a departing employee transition to a new job or career is a critical component that ought to be included in mass layoffs,” Andre says.

“The majority of the time, outplacement services guarantee a cordial breakup of a working relationship and can be financially and emotionally advantageous for all parties.”

You can likewise provide your laid-off workers with job search resources including job boards, career counseling services, headhunters, job fairs, and more.

Be sure to package all this information beforehand and encourage them to take advantage so they can land on their feet as quickly as possible.

3. Be honest and transparent

When your employees – both past and present – can see the reasoning behind layoffs, it does help. Be honest and transparent about why you’re letting them go, and what steps you’ve taken to mitigate the situation.

This not only alleviates negative feelings and helps protect your company’s reputation in the long run, it also builds trust and understanding among your remaining employees.

Ryan Dunn, the founder and owner of the online custom sticker/apparel venture Custom Stickers, implemented the practice of OBM (Open Book Management) from the beginning, and this has helped in the case of layoffs.

“Every employee kept track of the company’s finances and how to keep up the score. During the financial crisis faced after inflation and due to fewer funding sources, tough decisions had to be taken, like laying off employees,” Ryan explains.

“This matter was discussed […] directly with the employees as they kept track of the finances. Some agreed to be laid off while others accepted a deduction in salary. Laid-off employees were given generous severance pay and the process helped in maintaining the reputation of the company.”

Former HR professional Emily Chipman of Rusman Consulting Solutions also spoke to the value of transparency when layoffs happened at her workplace in the Arizona government in 2007.

“They clearly and succinctly walked through every single step they had taken, how they came to the conclusion that there would have to be layoffs, what options they had considered and weighed, who they had counseled with, etc.,” Emily says.

“The Auditor General spoke with heart, compassion, and yet was succinct and clear in sharing what they were legally required to do, what the budget would allow, and all of the options they had tried to consider to save people’s jobs.”

4. Support their mental health and well-being

Job loss is regularly listed alongside breakups and loss of a loved one in lists of the most stressful life events. Not only does it put people in a financially difficult position, the “rejection” aspect of it can be debilitating for many people.

Providing mental health and well-being support to your employees in the form of counseling services, support groups, gym memberships, and even apps can help alleviate the stress and anxiety of being laid off and help employees move forward to their next chapter with greater confidence and ease.

This also applies to those who are still at your company – they’ve lost their friends and colleagues and may be feeling uncertain about their own professional future with you. This can be mentally challenging when they have work to do. They’ll need your support here as well.

5. Keep in touch

Keeping in touch with your former employees sends a powerful message to them – it tells them that you care about their well-being and that you have valued their contributions to your company.

Inform them of any job opportunities that may come up in your industry or even in your own company in the future, check in regularly with them to see if there’s any way you can help them get back on their feet, and ultimately, make it clear that you are available and accessible as an employer.

6. Give professional references

Layoffs don’t happen due to performance issues. So, it makes sense to give those employees references when they apply for new jobs. Explain to them that you’re willing and able to do that for them as needed, whether it’s in the form of a phone call or a letter, to highlight your former employee’s skills and accomplishments with you.

Not only does this help them get ahead more quickly when being evaluated for a new opportunity, it also reflects well on your company as a supportive and responsible employer that values people.

7. Introduce them to job training programs

Sometimes layoffs happen because of redundancy in an industry or a skill set – in which case, a former employee may need to develop new skills and certifications to stay relevant and competitive in the talent market.

You can support them here by arranging job training or education programs to increase their employability, help them find new jobs in related fields or even transition to new industries. Another aspect of this is identifying existing transferable skills that prove valuable in a new position in a different field – for instance, a journalist’s refined skills in story ideation, interviewing, researching and storytelling can apply to a new career in content marketing.

8. Build networking opportunities

You can also support your laid-off employees by arranging events or online platforms where they can connect with other professionals in their field. Everyone knows someone, so to speak.

It’s no accident that those let go post announcements of their newfound availability on LinkedIn and team managers also share details of their laid-off team members to support them in their next venture.

You can do something similar as an employer, and even encourage and train your managers and executives to create similar announcements to distribute via their own networks.

Support your people

Ideally, you don’t want to have to lay off employees. But, sometimes, you have to to survive as a business. It’s the nature of the beast.

As an employer, there are many ways in which you can tame that beast, and reduce the damage being done not only for your company but also for those you’ve just let go.

The post Layoffs: how to support your workers after letting them go appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) can mitigate the difficulties of HR and finance collaboration. Thanks to technology, you can unite HR and finance strategies to drive better collaborations, processes, and solutions.

Common challenges of HR and finance collaborations

HR and finance are two departments that, historically, don’t see eye-to-eye.

HR recognizes employees as valuable business investments. Strategies focus on improving intangible assets like skills and experiences. Finance, on the other hand, tends to see employees as an expense and is laser-focused on the value of quantifiable assets.

These differing ideologies push the two teams into departmental silos, where their strategies, solutions, systems, and sources all exist in isolation. This can result in conflict, data inaccuracies, and a host of other issues when the two teams need to collaborate.

But collaborate they must.

Whether it’s to optimize your recruitment budget or streamline your payroll, HR and finance need to come together. Modern businesses are quickly learning that collaboration between the two enhances strategic decision-making across both departments.

But to achieve this harmony, you need AI.

How AI can facilitate better HR-finance collaboration

AI can improve the collaborative capabilities of HR and finance in three key ways.

1. Data integration and analysis

Siloed HR and finance data is vulnerable to data inconsistency, duplication, and human error. These risks slow down productivity, increase the risk of oversights, and cause teams to miss out on valuable opportunities.

An AI-powered enterprise resource planning (ERP) system captures and unifies HR and finance data in real-time alongside all your other department-specific information. With enhanced visibility, dispersed teams can access consistent data and analyze it to make collaborative and mutually-beneficial decisions.

So, for example, finance will always know when a new worker is added to the payroll or if an employee’s benefits change. This ensures the accuracy of financial budgeting and planning.

2. Automated reporting and forecasting

Your business needs to do more than keep up with the latest trends – it must anticipate them. Automated reporting and forecasting deliver swift access to data and analytics that can be used to power critical financial decisions.

Finance teams need employee data to make these decisions. This is where AI comes in. Automated reporting and forecasting tools use artificial intelligence to pull disparate data. This is then consolidated into customizable financial reports, which consist of easy-to-interpret visualizations, charts, etc.

Essentially, this enables finance teams to generate forecasts on demand. And, thanks to ongoing data streams, finance teams can quickly and confidently update forecasts in response to any changes.

3. Streamlined compliance and risk management

Both HR and finance handle sensitive company and employee data that needs to be protected under data protection laws and regulations. Inefficient data-sharing processes between HR and finance can result in costly repercussions.

Additionally, teams need to abide by labor laws and tax regulations, whether this be in the UK or state labor laws in the US. For businesses with employees in different cities or countries, this can get complicated very quickly.

With so many rules and regulations to adhere to, companies are turning to AI. The best cloud-based AI technologies have compliance built into their core and utilize a stack of security features that strengthen risk management.

AI applications in HR-finance collaboration

So, what does the application of AI in HR-finance collaboration look like? Here are a few examples.

1. Payroll and benefits management

HR needs to pay employees their wages and benefits accurately, on time, and in alignment with tax and employment laws. Without AI, it can be difficult to achieve the financial visibility and operational reliability needed to eliminate human error.

Any discrepancies that arise from human error, duplication, or the like can have serious consequences. This is why payroll software has become the standard for streamlining payroll and benefits management.

HR and payroll software automates payroll and benefits operations. As well as producing accurate, on-time payslips for employees, it also stores historical and current payroll data for quick analysis. This means HR and finance can make data-informed financial decisions regarding future salary and benefits offerings.

Plus, if you do business in the UK, you can even utilize natively HMRC-compliant payroll software to make sure compliance with the latest tax legislation.

2. Budgeting and financial planning

Employees are your most vital asset, which naturally means they’re one of your most costly expenses. It’s essential HR and finance teams work together to balance employee recruitment, salaries, and benefits with sustainable business profitability.

As recruitment costs climb, budgeting and financial planning need to be a joint effort right from day one of recruiting.

Luckily, recruitment software can optimize the hiring process to meet the goals of both HR and finance. This creates better candidate experiences, speeds up the hiring process, and secures the best talent in the right places. By doing so, HR can drive down cost-per-hire.

Salaries and benefits are also a common point of contention. Currently, benefits cost employers 32.9% of total employee compensation. HR teams who offer extravagant benefits like tuition reimbursement or cash bonuses without comprehensive financial budgeting and planning can land themselves in hot water.

But AI-powered accounting software can unite HR and finance. Thanks to features like detailed financial reporting and cash flow visualizations, the two can collaborate to make informed recruitment, salary, and benefits decisions.

3. Fraud detection and prevention

Every department needs to be able to defend against fraud attempts, but because HR and finance teams are privileged users with access to secure systems and sensitive data, insider threats are a bigger risk.

Not convinced it will happen to you? Well, 60% of businesses have experienced at least one insider attack in the last year according to a Gurucul study. Whether they occur due to maliciousness or negligence, insider threats are a pressing concern.

Fortunately, accounting, HR, and payroll systems all come with in-built security features that, when fortified by ERP, harden your fraud defense. This includes things like audit tracking, user access restrictions, and real-time alerts.

As well as deterring and quickly identifying malicious insider attacks, AI can prevent negligence from causing catastrophic data breaches that lead to external fraud.

Align your teams – and tech – for success

When HR and finance work together, they can achieve their aligned goal to maximize capital. But to do this effectively, they need the right resources.

AI-powered technologies unite disparate systems and facilitate cross-department communications. HR and finance can use them to automate and streamline data integration and analysis, ultimately powering better hiring, payroll, budgeting, and forecasting strategies.

Want to connect HR and finance? Use AI today.

The post Can AI help HR and finance collaborate more smoothly? appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

In this blog post, you can find the skeleton of a diversity and inclusion training program that you can use with adjustments within your company.

And to sort things out, we gathered practices you can execute in three different levels:

1. Personal level
2. Team level
3. Company-wide level

Bonus fact: Did you know that employee turnover is lower in diverse environments?

1. Make diversity and inclusion training personal

First and foremost, to be inclusive, each of us has to understand in depth what diversity means, both cognitively – i.e. what it is – and emotionally – i.e. how does a person feel when discriminated against. Once this is clear, employees could kick off their journey of self-reflection.

Let the lesson begin

Start diversity and inclusion training by setting up an educational course for employees. This can be either a pre-designed course or even some slides put together in a video.

Friendly reminder: No one likes to be forced to do anything they don’t want to do or they’re not comfortable doing. Be mindful of that. Try to use a friendly tone, simple and clear language and most importantly, make this training optional.

For this course, you can set goals and choose strategies that work for you, aiming to develop a holistic approach to D&I. You can use multiple media to address the matter and even prepare a questionnaire for a quick comprehension check afterwards.

Cognitive goals:

• Learn definitions: What is diversity? Inclusion? What are the different types of diversity? What are unconscious biases and what types are there?
• Get familiar with facts and stats: Anti-discrimination laws, and survey findings around D&I.

Emotional goals:

• Develop empathy: How discriminative actions affect people?
• Share stories through videos: Social experiments, TEDx talks.
• Initiate self-reflection: Ask optional questions and collect data anonymously. Questions could be, for example:
  • Have you ever witnessed an incident where discrimination or prejudice took place? Explain.
  • Have you ever been victimized or felt like a victim of discrimination? Explain.
  • Have you ever wronged someone – or felt like you did – due to unconscious biases? Elaborate.

It is also important to clarify in the invitation email that diversity and inclusion training is not an evaluation and it is not going to be used against any employee in a harmful way. Don’t forget to reassure your colleagues that all data collected and shared will be anonymous during the whole process.

In short: this is a safe space designed for educational purposes, and nothing beyond that.

Be inclusive

After an employee completes the first educational part, express your availability and interest in a personal open conversation with anyone who is willing and interested. Keeping your door wide open to everyone – whether they have completed the training or not – , is, in fact, an inclusive practice in itself.

When an employee enters your space, you should immediately grab the only and most powerful weapon needed: The ability to listen. Be it feedback, thoughts or even a personal experience, remember that everyone deserves to be heard and you should not only give this opportunity to your peers, but also encourage them to speak up – again, making sure they understand they’re speaking in a safe space.

You can also keep in mind the following questions to warm up the conversation:

• How was your experience of the course?
• What did you like the most/least?
• Do you have any thoughts or feelings to share?

And although it’s good to be prepared and have a plan for your conversation, it’s not a panacea. Open conversations are far different from interviews or work meetings – although it’s good to have a set of questions ready in a pinch to keep the conversation going, take care not to control the interaction.

Just grab a cup of coffee with your coworker and listen.

2. Work with teams

Once you have completed the first level of diversity and inclusion training, you can then proceed to group learning practices; During this stage, the main focus is on increasing awareness and empathy with interactive games or exercises, and discussions.

Get-ready tips:

• Set SMART goals and metrics to build an evaluation form to fill out after each session (e.g. # of participants who shared personal story, # of participants who did not talk).
• If possible, build groups of 5-6 people from these forms, preferably with diverse backgrounds (gender, race, role seniority, etc.).
• Find a quiet place where you can all form a circle with your chairs.
• Select 1-2 quick icebreaker games to loosen up any potential tension and build an environment of trust.

Note: In these practices you can start by moderating the group as the facilitator of the exercise – but as people start to loosen up and participate further, you can gradually give the controls to other people, who have already experienced and are able to lead the way.

Storytelling

Set the scene:

• Arrange chairs in a circle around a box and encourage everyone to take a seat.
• Explain that each team member will have to draw a random card from this box that they should read only when their turn is up.
• Ask for a volunteer to read the index of the card.

On each card is an anecdote about an incident in which discrimination occurred. In other words, it’s a story.

A quick side note: Storytelling is one of the most powerful techniques in adult learning and, in this case, the perfect tool to help identify discriminatory behaviors and craft inclusive consciousness.

Did you know? Three in five of us have at least witnessed or experienced discrimination firsthand.

Write down – in your own words, changing names and any other identifiable factors – some of the stories you collected anonymously via questionnaire in the previous phase. You can also add incognito stories of friends, family, or famous people who have shared their own stories, keeping in mind they need to remain unidentifiable. You can even share your own personal experience.

After each member reads the story out loud, ask this person, and afterwards the whole group, to express an emotion or thought in response to the story. Ask them: – “How do you feel about this story? Why?” In some cases, you can let a conversation flow freely from there. There may be some interesting revelations.

When those who want to share their card with others have done so, thank everybody for joining in the session and express your availability and willingness to hear and discuss more if someone wishes.

When you’re left alone, fill out the evaluation form you have prepared.

Note: Try to choose stories showing different types of discrimination (gender, age, background, etc.) in different environment (workplace, university etc.). Be careful not to expose any employee, employer or institution. What we are interested in is understanding what diversity is and what it looks like in real life, so as to promote inclusion.

3. Build an open culture

Even though companies can benefit from diversity and inclusion training programs, it is essential to understand that training alone is not enough. Workplace diversity requires an open culture which not only operates under the guidelines of EEO, but also includes daily practices and activities oriented indirectly towards inclusion.

Let’s take a look at some of these.

Time to play

Who said playing is only for children?

Gamified activities boost employee performance, encourage belonging, and when it comes to training, increase motivation levels.

What you can do is find or make some quizzes with simple online tools and spread the fun across random generated teams throughout your company. You can also adapt those quizzes to your specific needs and make them either for:

• Fun (e.g. trivia quiz game)
• Training (e.g. product-related)
• Educational (e.g. D&I)

Blind coffee date

What more brings people close together than sharing a cup of coffee? When it comes to larger corporate environments, you can arrange so as every employee gets the chance to socialize with everyone within the company. And when we say everyone, we mean everyone – even the CEO.

Online tools that integrate with Slack offer the opportunity to randomly pair people for blind coffee dates. This practice facilitates employee bonding, builds new working relationships, provides a basis for exchanging ideas, and encourages more interaction between colleagues of different backgrounds.

Let ’em talk

Each year on May 21, actively recognize UN’s World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development:

• Let minority groups or even individuals organize lectures and share their stories or experiences with the rest of the world (or even your company)
• Invite Diversity & inclusion experts and psychologists to provide support and guidelines for recognizing discrimination and suggesting what to do in these situations
• Organize open conversations based on employees’ preferences gathered from prior polls

Work can also be school

An inclusive workplace isn’t just about numbers ‘proving’ the diversity among employees. It’s a mindset, or better yet, an active realization and appreciation that each and every one of us is unique. And although we reminisce about our years as students, that does not mean that we have stopped learning and evolving.

In fact, workplaces too are part of our education and it is time to focus on investing more on developing our humanitarian aspect and building a more diverse environment. It may be that you and your colleagues will benefit as well – and your employer, too.

The post Diversity and inclusion training: How to apply it in the workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This call to action can and does trickle down to you in HR. The impact in the workplace is multifold. Office spaces are a hotbed for contamination – whether it’s due to sealed ventilation systems, open-office environments, employees going on work trips and coming into contact with others on a regular basis, and so on.

But guess what? Not everyone realizes this. “While 62.6% of office workers are concerned about COVID-19, it’s also interesting to see that only 41% feel their office will be a hotbed of infection,” says Gabrielle Ayala, principal of Propeller Insights.

However, it’s an inevitability: as the coronavirus crisis continues to grow, your colleagues in your organization – and even your CEO – will be turning to you for direction and support.

This is your time to step up and show that you’ve got this. You need to take leadership in HR and implement a quick coronavirus HR response. It’s also essential to your company’s overall health.

“Perhaps [office worker] awareness and sensitivity to this public health concern will drive proactive measures to keep the virus from entering their work environment,” Ayala continues. “More than 50% say they believe the COVID-19 outbreak will lead to more companies adopting a virtual office environment and are also in favor of using preventative measures [such as face masks], at the office.”

To help you with coronavirus HR response planning, we’ve pulled together the key takeaways on what you need to know and how you can act to build out your own response in your workplace.

1. Stay compliant

First of all, compliance is key. Sure, you’re fine if you address this as a company looking to take care of employees, but as Katie Clarey warns in HR Dive, businesses need to take careful steps to avoid the slippery slope to discrimination. It’s commonly understood that the virus originated in Wuhan, China, and that can lead to dangerous assumptions about people of Chinese origin – a clear rights violation.

Better to be safe in your communications and language, and address actions rather than people – for instance, you can say: if you’ve been to China in the last XX days, then we recommend working from home for a specified number of days as a precaution.

If you’re not sure what to implement, you can look at two federal laws that protect workers in the US: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The key is to not overreact as that could become a compliance issue.

2. Scale your response

Cathy Reisenwitz, head of content at Clockwise, a San Francisco-based calendar SaaS company, told us about three scenarios that their CEO Matt Martin presented during an all-hands meeting:

Level 1: Where we are now

• Wash hands
• Stay home if feeling “off”
• No international travel, etc.

Level 2: If the virus hits around 1,000 people in the area

• No more office visitors
• Cut down on travel to breakout areas
• Plan commutes to outside rush hour, etc.

Level 3: If the virus hits around 5,000 people in the area

• Mandatory work from home across company, etc.

Cryptocurrency trading website Coinbase has publicly released their communications outreach, including a clearly set-out plan for actions in response to specified triggers and benchmarks (at the bottom of the document). Its strategy is similar to that of Clockwise, plus restrictions on meal delivery and contingency plans for managers and teams.

It’s a good idea to outline all this in one place so everyone has the same information and they know what to expect in the short and long term. Having a scaled response plan in place also avoids having to bring out all the stops at once – which could induce unneeded panic in your workforce.

3. Adapt WFH and sick policies

The option to work from home is a common perk offered by businesses. This option can be an especially pertinent tool now. If you don’t yet have a WFH policy, you might want to build one out. Colleagues can also be reminded of the company’s sick-day policy – and especially, the option to work from home if you’re feeling OK to work but not quite well enough to come into the office.

Twitter and Square – among many others – are doing it already. A widely circulated memo from Microsoft has set down clear guidelines for working from home along with other essential information:

David Reischer, CEO of the legal advisory website Legaladvice.com in New York City, is encouraging some of his sales teams to start working from home as a precautionary measure, acknowledging the inevitable spread of COVID-19 in NYC’s large and very transient population.

“We would rather our workers start thinking about the idea of working from home now so that they can transition before the eventuality of the coronavirus arrives,” David told us.

“I think we will be ready when coronavirus becomes more widespread in NYC because of our early preparations.“

Andrew Discolli, HR editor of career service The Corporate Con/noisseur, emphasized loosening up existing WFH policy:

“I would recommend that all employers institute levels of flexibility across their workforce. This means allowing employees to work from home or utilize sick days as needed and in a manner that will maintain the health and level headedness of all staff.”

Simon Hansen, founder of a website dedicated to home brewing and winemaking called Homebrew Advice, adjusted the required hours put in by his colleagues:

“We now have lesser work hours in order to make sure that everyone gets the right amount of rest in order to recharge and strengthen our immune systems.”

Even country governments have stepped in to advise work from home. Authorities in Japan have advised companies to allow working from home to stem the spread of the virus, normally taboo in this notoriously work-conservative culture. Japan has already shut down their schools, followed by Italy, and WFH flexibility will be helpful to parents who have no other option but to stay home with their children.

Meanwhile, HR expert Suzanne Lucas advises taking a good look at your sick leave policy, because an overly regimented system can actually contribute to the outbreak rather than help contain it. She suggests opening up the allowed number of sick days, allowing for greater flexibility, and dumping the “doctor’s note” requirement.

4. Reduce or eliminate travel

A Reservations.com survey found that 43% of those surveyed would definitely cancel an international business trip, and 63% would “probably, very probably, or definitely would cancel” any business trip whether domestic or abroad.

Many employees travel – be it to sales pitches, meetings, other offices, conferences, what have you. Right now, with the emphasis on cutting back on travel, there’s likely to be understandable anxiety around business-trip planning within your workforce. Make it easy on your employees. Don’t put them in the difficult position of having to make that decision for themselves. Put in a clear policy with clear black-and-white decision-making protocols and stick to it.

The same can apply to personal travel either by the colleague in question or someone in their immediate family. The above survey finds that 66% say they’re not likely to cancel a vacation – which heightens the importance of clear policy.

Many companies are doing it. Take it to the next level by outlining clear scenarios, such as the following, to help your colleagues decide:

Scenario 1: I went to Lombardy for work on February 17.
Scenario 2: I’m planning a trip to China in mid-March. It’s for a sale that will be huge for our company.
Scenario 3: My spouse is coming back from a trip to Singapore.
Scenario 4: I booked a trip to visit my family in Tokyo in March. This was months in the planning.

A potential answer to any of these scenarios could be: “Contact your manager and be prepared to work from home for two full weeks on return. No entry to our offices or meeting with colleagues in person until after that.” You’ll also want to include information about absolutely necessary travel tips that apply regardless of whether the trip is for business or pleasure.

Andrew at the Corporate Con/noisseur has adjusted travel policy in his own company: “Unless approved by senior management, all non-essential travel to any location is currently on pause.”

And what if your company’s survival depends on travel? Lauren McAdams, HR manager and recruiter at ResumeCompanion attested to that:

“Our office has a number of employees who regularly travel to China and Taiwan for business trips. While most of these employees haven’t been abroad in the past 15 days, we still want to be as safe as possible. As a result, we’ve requested that anyone who’s recently flown abroad work from home for the following week while they self quarantine.”

5. Enable your employees

Many colleagues – and people in general – will be frustrated with their existing health support system wherever they are. For example, this recent Twitter stream from a physical therapist in Seattle who exhibits all the symptoms of COVID-19 – as of March 5, it was retweeted more than 120,000 times. As she tells it, she’s had to navigate the frustrating bureaucracy of the US healthcare system to not much avail.

You can enable your employees with clear and empathetic messaging on WFH and sick leave (as in #3 above) and allowing for greater flexibility in options and better enable them to seek out healthcare in a situation such as mentioned above. It will go a long way in showing your employees that you care about them.

6. Equip your employees

“The unknown is so much more frightening than the known,” says Canadian medical historian Heather MacDougall in the National Post on the heightened worldwide response to the crisis.

Nothing quells fears better than information. Educate your workforce on what they specifically can do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to themselves or others, and you’ll assuage much of the potential panic. It helps to know that this is not an entirely uncontrollable situation.

For instance, encourage vigorous washing of hands. Buy hand sanitizer for every desk. Have a handful of thermometers at the ready (but being sure they’re not shared once used). Share updated information in regular memos via email, online chat channels, and notices posted in prominent locations online and around the office (e.g. the aforementioned Coinbase document).

Atilio Spaccarotella, CEO of travel insurance firm Rene Health in California, told us that at Rene, “we are following the WHO’s guidelines of practicing good respiratory hygiene, like sneezing or coughing into a flexed elbow [the ‘Dracula cough’] and washing your hands regularly with either alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water.”

7. Keep your office (even) cleaner

Adam Povlitz, president and CEO of commercial office cleaning service Anago Cleaning Systems offered some best practices on maintaining a clean office space, citing his company’s focus on healthy workspaces around the world – which will help you in your own office sanitation initiatives (as well as those of your employees):

• Read the label of your cleaning supplies so you know what’s in them.
• Check the websites – many cleaning supply companies are updating their sites with information specific to COVID-19.
• Know your cleaning supplies – hydrogen peroxide with a dilution ratio of 7% or more will kill the virus. Most household cleaners are 3%, so you’ll need commercial-grade materials.
• Disinfect and wait. All disinfectants take time to take effect, i.e. left on the surface for a period of time. Spraying and wiping will have no effect. And do not use bleach.
• Time parameters also apply to:
  • Washing hands: 20 seconds or more using soap and water.
  • Alcohol-based hand sanitizer: rub solution in for 30 seconds and even up to 2 minutes to be effective.

You’ll especially want to maintain high sanitation in a sealed office space or an open-office environment or, obviously, both. “Open office spaces are among the worst for COVID-19, particularly if they are sealed office spaces without open ventilation and the air is just recirculated within the building,” says E Hanh Le, M.D., senior director of medical affairs at Healthline.

People are understandably nervous about this – a Bospar survey finds that 50.6% of Americans are worried because they work in an open office.

8. Educate yourself

The aforementioned Bospar survey finds: “A majority of Americans (52%) say the media is overhyping the coronavirus and 60.9% believe the media can help ease fears about the coronavirus by educating members of the public about how they could fight the spread of the disease.”

Andrew at the Corporate Con/noisseur says as much:

“Day-to-day, there appears to be a level of confusion and fear throughout our offices. Our primary concern and focus is on the health and well-being of our employees.“

Since you’re in HR, many people in your company will be turning to you for advice and answers. What you can do to help them is brush up on your real knowledge of the virus, how it spreads, where it’s spreading to, and so on. That way you can sift through the online noise and know what’s real and what’s just hype.

Some pages to get you started:

• US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Coronavirus
• World Health Organization Q&A
• World Health Organization public advice
• World Health Organization Coronavirus homepage

9. Tech is your friend

Companies worldwide are understandably nervous about impact on the bottom line in a shutdown scenario. But technology can help you do business as usual – it can continue in a virtual environment.

Computer viruses notwithstanding, it’s impossible to contract sickness via the Internet – so meetings and presentations can still happen via video tools such as Google Hangouts or Microsoft Zoom. Communications can take place via online chat channels and email. Legally sensitive documents can be, at the very minimum, faxed (yes – fax is still a thing). There are also phones, of course.

Bospar’s survey finds that this is understood and expected: “51.4% believe viruses like COVID-19 and the flu will lead to companies adopting virtual offices.”

Michael Alexis, CEO of Teambuilding, talked about how his company launched a new wing of the business in less than 24 hours – enabling team building activities that can be facilitated virtually via online calls. “The expectation is more people will be working remotely, and still need ways to connect and bond,” he says.

Even your own work in recruitment can benefit from technology here. Numerous companies – including Amazon, Facebook, VSCO, Twitter and more – are utilizing video interview tools for candidate interviews.

10. Everyone calm it down

Finally, whatever the level of the situation, panic will not help matters. Staying calm is essential, and because you’re leading the information brigade in your coronavirus HR response, it’s up to you to ensure that everyone feels relatively confident and informed – and safe.

Andrew of The Corporate Con/noisseur, says: “We are looking to remain calm and ensure that our employees have access to the supplies and information they need. Keeping calm and understanding the guidelines of the CDC are our best bet.”

Many notable companies are even going fully transparent with their internal communications and policies in response to the virus. If you want to see what they’ve got, more than 100 company policies have been collected in this crowdsourced Google doc.

People are scared and unsure of what’s going on. This is your chance to help quell those worries with clear policy and clear directives, step by step, with full transparency and uniform messaging and implementation. Your employees – and management – will be grateful.

The post Your coronavirus HR response plan: 10 things to know appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

What is the purpose of having an employee handbook?

Your handbook’s content and level of detail depends on how you intend to use it. An employee handbook may be a repository of all your policies or a way to welcome new hires.

Using your handbook to guide new hires is a good idea. Melissa Escobar-Franco, Workable’s HR Manager in Boston, says:

“An employee handbook gives new hires tangible information to help them settle into their new jobs. It’s a consistent message on who we are, how we function and what we expect from our employees.”

Without the help of a handbook, it may take employees time to grasp a company’s culture and organization. In 2012, game development company Valve released a handbook for new hires to explain its organizational structure:

A good way to approach creating your handbook is to keep it focused on welcoming new hires and providing only the information they need (e.g. summaries and statements.) You could keep detailed documents of your policies in an intranet, a HR information system (e.g. BambooHR or Namely) or a shared folder.

What to include in an employee handbook

An effective employee handbook includes:

• Your company’s mission, vision and an overview of its culture.
• Guidelines for employee conduct.
• Details on legal aspects of employment.
• Summaries of perks and benefits.
• Descriptions of company processes.

Craft an outline with these elements in mind. Here’s a possible outline with some examples for each section:

Decide what policies to include based on your specific needs. Provide only short summaries of complicated topics (e.g. benefits) and link or refer to full policy documents. In general, avoid overloading your handbook with prohibitions. Make it more attractive by adding a personal touch like a letter from a senior leader. Here’s an example from the employee handbook of Agnes Scott College:

If you are creating a longer and more complete version of your handbook, explain legal issues too (e.g. at-will employment or worker’s compensation.)

As your company grows and laws change, you may need to address new topics. Communicate your plan to revise and update your handbook (annual or mid-year reviews are useful.) Put a process in place to share every significant change through bulletins, newsletters or other means.

Mind the presentation

An unattractive, complicated document risks remaining permanently on employees’ “to-read” list. Take some time to think about your format, layout and audience.

• Printed booklets are concrete, but they are also harder to update and demand reprinting and redistributing when something changes. Even then, a creative approach goes a long way. For example, e-commerce company Zappos created an employee handbook in the form of a comic book. Zappos reframed its policies as stories and ultimately made them easier to read and remember.
• Digitized books or interactive web pages capture people’s attention and make it easy to link to other resources. Software company Basecamp’s brand new handbook on GitHub is a notable example:

This approach helps Basecamp update its handbook easily through GitHub and get direct feedback. It also adds to their employer brand, as passive candidates, interns and newly hired employees can get insight on how the company works right from the source.

Not all companies make handbooks that create a buzz. But, they can craft effective handbooks with the right design. If you don’t have an internal design team, consider hiring a freelancer. Add pictures, schemes and even videos, when possible, to make your handbook engaging.

Use clear and attractive language

Employee handbooks should not read like business contracts or legal documents. To encourage employees to read and remember your messages, use language to your advantage. Here are a few tips:

• Focus on the positives. Even when you are indicating a prohibition (e.g. no smoking indoors) explain why it’s important and how it adds value to your company as a whole. Keep your language welcoming and instructional, rather than authoritative.
• Speak to your audience. Avoid using passive voice or addressing abstract entities (e.g. “the employee.”) Use “you” and “we” to make your handbook more personable and accessible.
• Add humor when possible. Your handbook isn’t meant to be hilarious, but adding a few humorous lines (or pictures) will make it more pleasant to read. Disqus calls its handbook a “Culture Book.” It is written in an amusing manner throughout:

• Use a tone that matches your culture. Your handbook’s tone mirrors everyday work life at your company. A consultancy firm with strict professional standards will probably write its handbook in a professional, formal tone. Conversely, tech companies might use a more casual tone.
• Keep it short and simple. Use as few words as possible and avoid jargon, technical terms and complicated words.

Employee handbooks are multi-purpose tools. Use them to inform employees about your company’s values and clear confusion on important topics. When you are done writing, ask your attorney to inspect your handbook for legality. And listen to employee feedback to ensure your policies make sense.

The post How to write an employee handbook appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Far too many companies, especially small businesses, neglect to get the basics down in writing early enough. There’s a tendency to believe that “our company doesn’t need them” and that spoken instructions will suffice.

As soon as a company starts growing the limits of this approach become obvious. Putting company policies down in writing makes them official. Employees know what the company takes seriously and how they can keep up-to-date with their rights and responsibilities. People work better when they know where they stand.

No-one wants to focus on the negative but disputes can and will arise. Having the ground rules established in the clearest and simplest terms helps to limit the damage when they do. And in the instance that disputes lead to court, written policies can be essential in ensuring a swift and fair outcome.

It’s not all (or even primarily) about firefighting though. Having the beginnings of a company handbook can help you explain to current and future hires what’s special about your company — as the games company Valve have done so well. Still not sure where to get started? Here’s five company policies that you should put in writing today.

Workplace Health and Safety

Provisions for occupational safety are a necessity for everyone who owns or runs a business. It’s imperative that your employees work within a healthy and safe workplace. Accidents and unsafe conditions can land you in court. If you also count the damage to reputation and loss of faith from employees, complacency when it comes to safety may be the biggest mistake you’ll ever make. A written policy shows that you take the matter seriously. This is about more than a few fire extinguishers. A workplace safety policy will help you to think systematically.

Equal Opportunity Policy

Being an equal opportunity employer is mandated by law in most countries. This equal opportunity policy prohibits any company from discriminating against employees or job applicants on the basis of a “protected characteristic” (gender, age, race etc.). It is fundamental for non-discrimination, anti-harassment, workplace violence and diversity policies. It can also help your business for two reasons: first, it expands the pool of people from which to choose the best applicant for any job and secondly, it creates a fair environment for employees to co-exist, work and thrive in. Putting it in writing will send the message to everyone that equal opportunity is a reality at your company.

Employee Code of Conduct Policy

All employers have expectations from their employees and a straightforward code of conduct can make this clear. Communicating these expectations clearly is a prerequisite for compliance. Even if an employee has the best of intentions and even if some things are simple enough to be expected (like completing job duties), misunderstandings may still occur. One way to keep them to a minimum is to have a written code of conduct that will include important elements like attendance or even use of social media. Rules must be clear and accessible. Employees can consult them whenever they are unsure of what constitutes acceptable behavior. It also means that when someone’s employment has to be terminated there’s a proper record in place.

Leave of Absence Policy

For various reasons ranging from health issues to vacation plans, employees may occasionally require to be absent from work. Whether it is mandated by law or not, it is always advantageous to let your employees know beforehand what benefits you offer. Different kinds of leave (sick leave, Paid Time Off, maternity leave, parental leave etc.) are separate entities and may require different treatment. Having all this in writing, alongside rules that are necessary to regulate leave taking, is the only way to adequately inform employees.

Employee Disciplinary Action Policy

Occasionally problems will arise at work and dealing with them is much easier with a clear disciplinary policy in place. Employees must know how and under what circumstances they will be disciplined. A standardized step-by-step process will help you ensure fair and appropriate treatment, even if you don’t formally disclose the entire procedure. It will also show that you are an employer who does not tolerate serious violations but also values remedial actions in the case of minor offences. Take care though to consult a lawyer to ensure that the procedures you have in place are lawful.

Workable also offers a broad range of additional company policy templates that you can customize for your own company.

The post The 5 company policies you need to have in writing appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

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If you haven’t operated in a remote fashion before and you find it difficult to imagine and designate it, you could kick off by asking these questions:

What makes for a great team culture in a “remote world”? Is it flexibility in working hours and work-life balance? Is it allowing employees to own their workload and act independently?

If you’re in Jasmine’s shoes and you’re searching for ways to build a remote work culture that boosts employee morale and inspires staff to get out of bed in the morning, here are some useful tips to get started.

Remote work culture – tips for HR and business leaders

Whether you’re going partially or fully remotely, first and foremost, you need to craft a good plan. You can start by meeting with your company’s executives and managers to figure out how they imagine this new era to be. If you feel lost, check what your peers are up to; you can look at what other companies are doing and what their executives are saying. When you reach your conclusion, it’s time to think of how you will communicate it with your employees before moving to implementation (e.g. updating the employee handbook, revisit benefits, etc.).

Remember to take it slowly; even when you have too little time – the physical contact restrictions of COVID-19 forced many companies to go remotely at a glance – you need to gradually move towards your end goal: a thriving remote culture.

1. Reimagine your vision and mission

As a good builder, you need to start from the foundations; the company’s vision and mission. Now that remote work is in the game, your employer branding will benefit from a tweak. You can brush it up and reconstruct it by prioritizing the new values you’d like to embrace. Flexibility, adaptability, agility are some of them; no, they’re not just trendy buzzwords, but rather, your main assets to succeed in the remote workplace.

Update your content

Once you’ve spotted these new values, it’s time to sprinkle those throughout your careers page, company description, and overall messaging. If cool office perks – e.g. food supplies, play room – and a more relaxed office life were your “thing”, try to transfer these to the home-office life. For example, you could emphasize your priority to work-life balance, flexible work schedules and discounts for local supermarkets or restaurants and food chains.

The more you work on this new work framework, the more suitable candidates you’ll attract. People who seek remote work opportunities or employees who are familiar with this work arrangement will be able to tell if your culture is supportive and well-structured for that environment.

Remember, proving yourself as a good remote employer is an ongoing process; make sure what you’re saying in your employer branding is compatible with what you’re doing and you’re willing to do. Otherwise you might lose valuable employee points, and those are hard to reclaim.

2. Bridge the new communication gaps

In distributed teams it’s common to have people that operate from different places and across time zones, which means that you only have a few precious hours overlapping with your colleague or manager throughout the day. How can you overcome this communication barrier and work together effectively? First off, you can reinforce asynchronous communication skills in your teams.

Emphasizing asynchronous communication will enable everyone to work based on their workload and availability. When employees receive a colleague’s request, they can process it based on their bandwidth – different rules could apply for urgent matters. Also, employees communicate a lot through writing in a remote environment; so if you need feedback on a project you provide full notes to your teammates and inform them about all the steps you’ve been through.

Bonus: recent research has shown that asynchronous communication has a positive impact on both productivity and performance, so by designing your remote work culture to that direction, both employees and business will benefit in the long run.

Provide the right communication tools

You’re not going to succeed in asynchronous collaboration by yourselves; tech will stand by your side. Find the right collaboration tools that will enable your team to communicate effectively in writing and that enable personal and team organization. To make the right choice, figure out what your business priorities are and search for the appropriate digital tools and platforms that will cover them. For example:

• For project management: Trello, Jira, etc.
• For cloud storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.
• For HRIS: BambooHR, Namely, etc.
• For onboarding: Rippling, ClickBoarding, etc.
• For training: TalentLMS, Confluence, etc.
• For timezone management: TimeZone.io

In remote-first companies writing is a huge contributor to tracking or understanding feedback and notes. Not everyone excels in that skill though; to improve in that area, you could offer employees a short training when onboarding them on how to describe their projects efficiently and provide structured feedback.

3.  Redesign your onboarding process

Remote onboarding is a bit different compared to in-office; a common company practice to onboard new remote employees is bringing them to the office for one or two weeks so that they get familiar with the operational processes, who does what, how problems are usually addressed – and to whom.

But what if the company is fully remote and in-office onboarding isn’t an option? For starters, you can craft a remote employee onboarding checklist; try to follow the same steps you would at the office but in a virtual way and find solutions for those steps you cannot easily replicate remotely. For example, now that the IT administrator will not be around to help new employees set up their tech gear, create a clear step-by-step guide to help new employees prepare their equipment sufficiently. You can hand them over guidelines and be available for questions – be sure to include a troubleshooting section!

Fortunately, there are tools that can help you with HR paperwork. Search for an HRIS and an onboarding platform (see the list above) that suit your needs the most and you won’t have to worry about bureaucracy too much when setting a new employee up with payroll, benefits, and the like.

Finally, it’s harder to showcase the company culture to new remote employees. They’ll get hints from everywhere – how you talk during meetings, how responsive you’re in Slack – but they won’t be able to demystify your culture sufficiently. Make it easier for them; build a thorough employee handbook and help them learn your culture’s ins and outs, and set up a regular touchpoint for colleagues new and old to connect – and themes don’t necessarily have to be work-related, either. Which brings us to:

Make it social

How can you replicate the human connection and natural vibes that surface among teammates online? Firstly, if you’re onboarding multiple members at the same time, train them together and create the environment of a hub; they can turn to each other if they have a question or share some thoughts with their peers.

Also, you can introduce buddy systems to help new employees navigate safely through uncertainty. Set some free time slots for virtual face-to-face meetings so that they can easily reach out to you if something pops up. Be supportive and act as an ally; remember how you felt when you were a newbie and see how you could help.

Meetings in the form of a support group can be powerful as well. You can set up a “managerial meeting” to work through pain points related to managing down and managing up. You can also set up groups for working parents who can share tips and tricks on how to navigate life as a full-time mom or dad. Be proactive – set up those meetings and inform the full company that anyone is welcome, and emphasize that these are safe spaces, in the sense that nothing that’s talked about goes outside of these meetings, not even to you.

4. Schedule regular meetings and get-togethers

Live meetings and conferences can still be in your and your employees’ weekly agenda. With platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom, you can tune in with your teammates from anywhere in the world to discuss your projects in-depth or resolve complex issues that arise. If you’re a team leader make sure to spend time with teammates individually and as a team to discuss openly about projects and other work-related issues.

But when working asynchronously or holding virtual meetings solely for business matters, how will employees nurture that extra human bond often gained from a coffee or lunch break together? They still can – encourage them to take those breaks the digital way. They could invite teammates and hop on a coffee break and chat when they feel like it.

Keep it fun

Organizing big events and retreats makes a huge difference with distributed teams. Whether that’s a fun day out or a four-day retreat in a beautiful location, it will improve your team’s bonding and collaboration.

In this video SmartBug CEO Ryan Malone describes the annual summit they organize as a remote-first company and how that boosts their employer brand:

It would also be nice to offer a social committee budget for each individual team for dinners (for example, when onboarding a new team member) or to attend fun activities together. It will boost the team’s morale and cohesion in more ways than you could imagine.

5. Invest in leadership

To thrive as a remote work employer, you should revisit your attitude towards several outdated work practices – for example working 9 to 5. Is that possible for someone operating from home with several distractions throughout the day? Or is it even necessary now? To tackle these challenges start top-down; train your managers first.

If you spot managers being uncomfortable with employees who work remotely, try to explore why. Are they afraid that employees are unproductive just because employees aren’t readily visible sitting at their office desk? As Ryan at SmartBug says, “it’s not really just trust – it’s more like an unfounded fear that something’s not getting done.”

That’s brilliantly parodied in this old Bud Light video:

Instead of having a culture that encourages this sort of “steaming coffee cup” solution from employees, train management on a more result-oriented and asynchronous approach that allows employees to own their workload and learning pace. This then makes it irrelevant whether or not an employee is ‘present’ at their work – you’re now emphasizing output and delivery regardless of location and time.

Again, open communication is key; be available to employees and allow them to reach out to you when they want. One challenge of distributed teams that practice asynchronous collaboration is that you might believe that your manager or your colleague is unavailable and might avoid talking to them, even when you’re in serious trouble. To prevent such conflicts, set clear expectations for such matters beforehand.

One more tip: Encourage managers to have regular check-ins with their teammates, whether that’s a standup or a 1-1 meeting and being empathetic and open-ended in their outreach to them. Be there for your employees and they will be more likely to be there for you, too.

Adopt a growth mindset

In distributed teams with asynchronous communication as the main collaboration style, employees often have to deal with urgent matters independently and resolve complex issues alone. To prompt agility and adaptability – the conditional requirements to thrive in uncertainty – you first have to cultivate a growth mindset and empower employees to see problems as challenges and learning opportunities, not threats.

If leaders endorse a competitive environment that limits this mindset, employees will overstress when they struggle to complete a task – or fail in the process. Since challenges and other types of surprises are common in the workplace, this might trigger anxieties and lead to fatigue or burnout. Instead, having a learning and growth narrative to rely on will boost employee wellbeing and morale.

6. Embrace diversity and inclusion

How can you transfer diversity and inclusion strategies in the virtual workplace? Besides taking active measures to remove unconscious biases in the selection phase, you’ll have to find ways to make your remote workplace as inclusive as you can. Start by showing trust and respect to each employee’s different personality and strengths. For example, some will be more extroverted and talkative during meetings and others will be more introverted, staying silent and writing down their feedback when the meeting has ended.

Operating remotely means that there is going to be backstage that you won’t be able to notice. You can easily spot an employee who always eats isolated in the sitting area but you won’t easily notice who is left out or even mocked online.

To avoid these issues, ask your employees about their experience and their needs; how do they get along with their team? Do they feel like they can ping you when something is wrong? You could also run a survey to understand how inclusive your workplace is, how employees perceive it and what alterations they would suggest.

Promote psychological safety

Do you recall a time when something unfair had happened to you at work but found it really hard to open up about it? It happens to many of us and with the majority of interactions fully online you might never be able to observe a teammate’s disappointed face if they are unwilling to talk it through.

That’s why it’s important to allow your employees to speak up; as long as a comment or opinion is politely and respectfully put, it’s accountable. Feeling that your voice is heard, even when your input is hard to consume, is the only means to have authentic and honest communication. Make sure managers know how to listen to all voices equally – even when their direct reports have only negative things to say.

One step at a time…

It’s no small undertaking. When switching to a remote workplace, there’s a lot to take into consideration. Remember, the culture shift won’t happen overnight. Don’t try to tackle everything at once. Build your plan and take it one step at a time. When everything is settled and results start to show on successful projects and, above all, on people’s relaxed faces during online meetings, you’ll feel proud and cheerful.

So, Jasmine, you’re absolutely right. A carefully built-out plan to facilitate a healthy remote work culture is a huge step in the right direction when you’re switching to virtual operations for the first time.

Final kind reminder: always hunt for your employees’ feedback.

The post How to build a remote work culture from scratch appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Facing new workplace stressors

First of all, let’s see how the pandemic stress affects us both mentally and physically:

According to the video, with COVID-19 spreading around the world, “flight or fight” responses have gradually messed with our brains. Pandemic stress increases fatigue and affects our concentration, planning and decision-making. At the same time, each one of us must adhere to the precautionary measures our employer has introduced to face this crisis, including remote work and physical distancing, which have disrupted our routine.

Remote work

Based on Workable’s recent New World of Work survey on how businesses reacted to this crisis, nearly 60% of respondents said that their businesses went partially or fully remote when the pandemic started. Organizations had to quickly adjust their operations to serve remote work and employees on their behalf to adapt to this new work fashion efficiently.

This added complexity to their lives; not only did employees lose their daily routine and structure, some also faced new types of challenges, such as parenting and working simultaneously or working overtime because work-life boundaries were difficult to establish.

According to a recent research by Telus International, not everyone thrives in this remote work setting; more specifically, four out five of respondents in the United States said that it’s difficult to ‘switch off’ after work, and more than half requested a mental health day since they started working from home as a result of the pandemic.

Physical and social distancing

Working conditions were and still are equally challenging for employees who continued operating onsite, but in different ways. Commuting became stressful as people had to avoid crowded places. At work, in most cases, they had to alter how they operated. Mandatory mask use, regular sanitization and physical distancing measures in shared spaces became mandatory as part of COVID-19 company policies.

Let’s not forget how hectic life became for healthcare professionals who had to fight on the front lines for our society’s health and put their own lives at stake in the process. In other sectors, people had to level up their game, for example, the food or supply chain sectors, and recruit certain roles en masse (e.g. delivery, online customer service) to keep up with the pandemic’s urgency.

Unfortunately, as you know, numerous businesses around the world were forced to resort to layoffs due to unresolveable financial struggles. As a consequence, the rise of unemployment inflamed job insecurity and distress.

Loss of normalcy

Stress and anxiety are not the only emotions we’ve experienced this year. There’s also anger and sadness for everything we were forced to leave behind – our regular daily routine, our work friends, our hobbies, and for the worst, our jobs.

These uncomfortable emotions and uncertainty about the future make us imagine the worst-case scenarios. Being bombarded by negative news every day and unable to control all of our life aspects in such an inhospitable environment, it’s difficult to bounce back and see the positive side. This experience translates into collective grief.

People face the different stages of grief, such as denial and depression, at their own individual paces. And of course, when having to deal with overwhelmingly negative and unprecedented emotions and at the same time continue being productive and creative at work, that’s exhausting.

According to Telus International research mentioned earlier, 80% of remote workers said they would quit their job for a new one that focuses more on employee mental health. Plus, based on another source 50% of millennials and 75% of Gen Zers have left a job due to mental health reasons. As you understand, not having a mental health support system in place can hurt your business in terms of employee turnover, productivity and all those other important metrics.

Workplace stress management: What can your business do?

So how could your business support employee wellbeing in these uncertain times? First of all, you need to fully understand how stressful these times are and accept each employee’s feelings as they are. There’s no room for judgement and negative labeling right now. Compassion and healing should be our primary standpoints.

These simple practices will help you build a workplace stress management plan or improve your existing one.

1. Revisit company policies and benefits

Before starting off, it’s important to think about your current approach to employee mental health. Do you have an employee mental health policy in place? Do you foster a culture of psychological safety and trust when it comes to mental health issues? These questions will help you plan the right initiatives going forward, for example, updating your COVID-19, mental health and remote work policies.

Offering a flexible working hour scheme is essential these days. Many employees are facing various challenges while working from home, especially those who have to take care of family members such as parents. This has put extra weight on their shoulders. Give them the chance to organize their schedule as they wish and allow them some time off during the day to decompress.

As for benefits, if you don’t have data on how successful your existing mental health perks are, you can run a quick employee survey to see what’s already working and what you could improve based on employee needs. For instance, in these weird pandemic days, people might need different types of perks than usual, to accommodate physical distancing measures – so, instead of gym memberships or free office lunches, you could provide virtual yoga classes and restaurants tickets to staff.

Here are a few more benefits that can promote workplace stress management in these strange times:

• Extended sick leaves during the pandemic
• Mental health days
• Access to mental health counseling services
• Online yoga and exercise sessions

2. Provide stress management educational resources

To back up the above and show to employees that their wellbeing matters to you, you could share tips and resources to help them structure their day in an efficient way. For instance, you could send WFH tips or offer free subscriptions to mindfulness meditation apps, such as Headspace or Calm, for stress relief.

If you find a helpful video or article online don’t hesitate to share it with staff through an email. This video from The School of Life is a great example:

Also, you can organize a virtual stress management workshop with mental health counsellors on a company level to educate employees on basic stress management techniques.

By inviting the whole workforce to those initiatives, you’ll show them how important their mental health and wellbeing is for you and that you take action to support them. It’s not just a cool perk or performative practice, but rather a dedicated business priority.

3. Foster a psychologically safe and inclusive culture

Not all employees will communicate their stress issues with their teammates and managers. Even though the level of mental health stigma has dropped in recent years, some people are still afraid of admitting their mental struggles, with a fear of being judged.

But when stressed people suppress their feelings, they may experience a mental breakdown or physical problems. To prevent this, build an inclusive work culture that celebrates everyone’s unique personality with compassion and kindness. Encourage employees to discuss their concerns with their teammates openly and accept their discomfort without trying to fix it – remember that providing a safe space for someone to express is one of the best remedies to cope with stress.

Plus, this year, a new type of stigma surfaced because of the pandemic, towards people with COVID-19 symptoms such as coughing. Over the past few months reactions towards people who feel physically poorly are sometimes suspicious and judgemental. Some people overreact if they sense that somebody has neglected the COVID-19 policies and rules, and or course, are afraid of getting infected themselves.

As an organization, you need to prevent those behaviors and attitudes from entering your work environment: write your COVID-19 company policy and all your related communications with staff in a comprehensive and most importantly empathetic way, emphasizing on employee safety. We shouldn’t treat COVID-19 patients as enemies – we’re literally all in this together.

4. Schedule fun and social time

The abrupt shift to remote work and social-distancing measures led to isolation, both physically and emotionally. Employees cannot socialize as much as they used to with their teammates at the moment, and rely solely on virtual communication to catch up with their work friends and team. Being physically siloed has a negative impact for many and doesn’t allow them to let off some steam, as they would naturally do in a shared working environment, during a coffee break or lunch.

That’s why you should encourage your employees to hop on non-work relevant coffee meetings and chit-chat exactly as they would in the office. You can also organize virtual game activities, such as quizzes, and allow employees to stay bonded and active in these crucial times, in order to release our negative energy.

What a time to be alive…

“Anxiety takes away all the commas and full stops we need to make sense of ourselves,” writes Matt Haig, author and mental health advocate in his book Reasons to Stay Alive. Undoubtedly, this quote is relevant now more than ever. Keeping your spirits up in such an inhospitable setting is a hard job with uncertainty hovering around as a scary ghost.

But keep in mind that overcoming drawbacks is a prerequisite to building resilience. No matter how hard it is to picture this right now, life will get better sooner or later and time will do the rest of the healing. Let’s keep on visualizing this very day.

The post Why you should prioritize workplace stress management during the pandemic appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Common workplace communication barriers in remote teams

What makes it difficult to communicate efficiently when we work across different locations – especially when you’re in different time zones? First of all, if you’re operating in this fashion for the first time, the first challenge is in that transition itself. You need to find new ways to deliver clear messages across the company.

Tech plays a huge part in this change – we’re trying to solve these new barriers with collaboration and communication tools. Those tools are starting to dominate our work lives. We use them to control our projects, and onboard and train employees more than we used to. But can tech fix all daily issues that we encounter in terms of communication when we’re not in the same workplace? There are a few things missing in the distributed work world:

Absence of non-verbal cues

A huge part of human communication and interaction results from non-verbal signs between us. When you spend time with a person in the same physical space, you “read” them better. You also self-organize and coordinate with them through mirroring – the process of synchronizing with people we connect with organically – especially when you’re driven by similar goals.

So, when meeting people solely online, most of these elements don’t surface as naturally as they would in the workplace. You’re not always aware or even perceptive of how a coworker feels or what they’re up to, if they don’t openly communicate their feelings and emotions. For example, someone could log into an e-meeting with their game face on for the entire time, and then resume in a totally different work mode after the meeting is over.

Tech constraints

Yes, tech is obviously a major asset to remote work – and some may say, the only way – but it can add complexity to our daily work lives. For example, when you use a tech tool for the first time, you need time and resources to be able to fully capitalize on its capacities and seamlessly incorporate it into your daily workflow.

Plus, when working remotely, your daily productivity depends on your own internet provider; if something gets messed up, for example, connection is lost for a while or you face more complex technical issues, not all troubleshooting guidelines will prove to be handy. Worse, that can happen in the middle of an important meeting with a prospect or when you’re up against a deadline.

Time differences

Things can become even more complicated when your team functions across different time zones and have just a few hours where your respective work days overlap. In many cases, you can’t just reach out to a teammate when an urgent problem occurs; you have to wait until they are back online in order to sync.

When dealing with crucial or time-sensitive projects, this whole setup can be tricky. Sometimes, to fix an issue as quickly as you can, you want to be able to sit down with your team in the meeting room and work together for a few hours to resolve it; for distributed teams this is not an option at your disposal.

So what are the risks?

When you don’t have standard communication channels and protocols set up across your organization and teams, there can be negative consequences on your business. Here’s why:

1. It affects clarity: When exchanging one-way messages with employees and teammates asynchronously, you can fail in setting the right expectations and proper goals – especially when crucial information gets lost in translation. Information can be conflicting and this can hurt team collaboration in the long run.
2. It reduces employee satisfaction: All these hiccups in everyday communication create a frustrating environment without clear boundaries and structure. If employees feel that they’re not being heard or that the messages they receive are confusing, they might lose their trust in the employer and may even neglect opportunities to sync with their teammates. What does this mean? Lower team morale and, eventually, reduced collaboration.
3. It hurts company goals/results: All of the above contribute to reduced effort and eventually impact results. When teams fail to exchange appropriate information, set the right goals and resolve problems, all these will eventually affect your business’s bottom line through cumbersome processes, delays in resolving issues, and misaligned goals.

So should you, the Head of Talent, give up trying? Definitely not. There’s a lot team leaders can do to help communication for distributed teams get on the right track.

How to improve workplace communication in distributed teams

First off, to find the ideal communication styles that will suit your team best, you’ll enter a trial-and-error phase. Fortunately, there are certain practices you can start with and prepare for success:

1. Get the right tools

To easily connect with employees in different places you need to provide them with easy-to-use tech tools that enable collaboration and communication. The good news is that most of us are already familiar at least with some of these platforms as we’ve been using them for years in the company office as well. For instance:

• Email communication – e.g. Gmail, Outlook
• Live chatting – e.g. Slack, Microsoft Team
• Virtual meetings – e.g. Google Hangouts, Zoom
• Shared Documents – e.g. Google Workspace, Office 365
• Shared Storage – e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox
• Project Management – e.g. Trello, Jira

Before choosing the best tools for your team, analyze business and employee needs and consider how employees could exchange information with the least possible disruption. Whether that’s through written notes or by jumping on a quick video call, offer them the chance to connect as they wish with a complete set of collaboration tools. An extra tip: Consider purchasing easy-to-use – and to learn – solutions that ideally integrate with other tech platforms.

This list is not extensive. You can find more solutions in this “Best tech tools for the virtual workplace” tutorial.

2. Set the tone

Having the right tools is not enough to achieve optimal communication in remote teams. It’s important to share some good practices and get employees on the same page on what effective communication looks like in your business. For example, you could train them on how to use each tool appropriately, whether to send an email or a meeting invite for instance, and what information to keep in each platform.

These guidelines will be life-saving especially when onboarding new employees. According to a Workable survey, virtual onboarding and training are big pain points for employers and communication hiccups can make them even worse. With tech solutions such as learning software (e.g. TalentLMS) you can structure the essential training for the new hires and onboard them successfully.

Another example would be to create a checklist on how to provide effective written feedback on ongoing projects. If they follow the guidelines but there is still confusion, they can set up a video call to inspect the problem in-depth.

3. Practice asynchronous collaboration

If you have distributed teams across different time zones, an asynchronous communication style will be the best fit for you. In asynchronous collaboration environments, employees are not expected to reply directly to requests – except if they are considered urgent. They can examine requests and projects on their own time as long as they respect deadlines and serve business goals. Employees usually organize their tasks in a way that they can review them flexibly.

So how can you ensure top-notch communication in asynchronous terms? Most importantly, you make your availability clear to your colleagues. If everyone knows each others’ official working hours it’s easier to coordinate. Use tools that enable note-taking and editing.

Remote working employees should be as precise as possible when providing feedback, because their teammates won’t always be able to reach out to them for clarification. The more detailed they are, the better the outcome.

4. Capitalize on synchronous meetings

Of course live chats and meetings will still be an important part of the game. Managers with employees should “fully synchronize” regularly to move ideas further or resolve complex problems. During these meetings, set a clear agenda. Don’t forget to plan regular 1:1 meetings with your teammates, as well; that’s when you really get to know them and you can identify potential blockers.

Plus, during 1:1 meetings, you have an opportunity to really check in with your teammate or direct report. Not only can you get synced on that individual’s work processes, you can also get a stronger sense of how they’re doing. This is their opportunity – and yours, too – to remove the “game face” and communicate at a deeper level.

5. Train your managers

The communication transformation needs to happen top-down: If line managers and C-suite leaders set the example, employees will follow. Encourage leaders to discuss with their teams how they prefer to exchange feedback and how to conduct tactical and non-intrusive check-ins. If they follow this process and show trust in their employees, they won’t fall into the trap of micromanaging.

A manager should spend time with all teammates equally. You can set creative reminders to follow up with employees often, as Melissa Bruno from Stack Overflow recommends:

Adopting an inclusive leadership style also helps communication at work flourish. Inclusive leaders create psychologically safe environments where employees are not afraid to share every idea and concerns openly. This is a huge deal breaker for effective communication. It means that people don’t have second thoughts and they’re united in a culture of trust.

With frequent updates and check-ins, followed by structured team processes and a culture of trust you can maintain psychological safety in the virtual work world.

6. Remember to have fun

It’s not all business; sometimes it’s also fun and games. And for distributed teams where everyone is siloed and camaraderie is more difficult to develop behind a screen, it’s important to come together and socialize. Work should not always be at the core of those gatherings – you can organize virtual quizzes or have casual chit-chats instead.

It’s also worth organizing a company retreat every year – employees relax, teams bond outside “virtual borders”, and their morale and engagement gets a boost. Ryan Malone from SmartBug Media explains why these annual get-togethers are valuable:

Those social meetings will help understand how employees behave in a “live set-up” and you’ll be able to decode their reactions faster and connect better with them going forward.

We get it – effective communication has always been a persistent priority for many businesses; more so in remote workplaces. These days, with teams functioning from places all around the world and our pure dependence on technology, it becomes even more complicated and it’s OK to feel lost at times. But if you follow those tips and tricks, you’re open to feedback, and you continue to refine the process, you’ll make it work.

The post Effective workplace communication: 6 tips for distributed teams appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

The one thing you need to know: HR and hiring managers are playing for the same team. To win the war for talent, both parties must work in tandem with one another.

Here are four ways to improve the working relationship between HR and hiring managers.

1. Clearly define roles, responsibilities, and expectations

Imagine playing on a sports team where there were no rules, no assigned positions, and no expectations. The result would be chaos and probably a lot of injuries!

Yet, when it comes to recruitment, many companies lack clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and expectations for their hiring team, which hurts their ability to find the right players for their company.

Decide who will be responsible for each step of the recruitment process. For example, will HR develop the job description, or will this be done by the hiring manager? Is it okay for a hiring manager to interview candidates prior to HR or must they wait? How long does the recruiter anticipate it will take to fill a particular position and have they communicated this to the hiring manager?

2. Turn your entire team into a recruiting machine

Many managers are given hiring responsibility without much direction. They mistakenly believe it’s HR’s job to deliver suitable candidates to them on a silver platter. That’s not how things work in the real world.

According to SHRM, the national averages across all industries and employer sizes tend to fluctuate between 40-60 open requisitions per recruiter at any one time. That’s an unmanageable workload for even a top recruiter, which is why hiring managers must step up and partner with HR on their hiring needs.

Companies must train all managers on how to attract and hire employees and give them the power to do so. Managers will be prepared to take the lead and relieve some of the pressure recruiters are experiencing.

3. Double down on communication between HR and hiring managers

When it’s been a while since you’ve heard from someone you tend to think you’re no longer a priority. This happens a lot in the world of recruiting.

Take the case of a hiring manager who turns in a requisition and waits patiently for a response. The recruiter may be working diligently on filling this role; however, the manager has no idea this is happening. Or the recruiter, who sends a batch of resumes to the hiring manager, who takes weeks to respond.

Companies should have systems in place that require both parties to check in with one another every step of the way. The recruiter should keep the hiring manager informed of obstacles that may be preventing them from delivering candidates and the hiring manager should be providing timely feedback so the recruiter can fine-tune their search.

4. Be direct and honest with each other

Why is it that so many people have a difficult time being truthful with one another? Rather than begin what may be an uncomfortable conversation, they choose to remain silent. Their silence quickly turns into resentment.

It’s best to be clear and direct with one another. If you feel a recruiter is treating you like a second-class citizen, let them know. You might say something like, “I’m feeling like my requisitions aren’t getting the attention they deserve. What can I do to help you fill these positions faster?”

HR professionals feeling frustrated by a hiring manager’s lack of urgency could say, “We’ve found that there’s a greater chance of filling a job when we’re able to move a candidate through the process in under two weeks. How can I better serve you? When sending resumes, if I don’t hear from you prior, do you want me to follow up with you within 48 hours?”

It’s easy to forget that you are both working together towards the same goal. Remember that by following these four tips – and repair that disconnect.

Roberta Matuson, The Talent Maximizer® and President of Matuson Consulting, helps world-class organizations like General Motors, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and Microsoft hire and retain world-class talent. Roberta is the author of six books on talent and leadership, including the newly released, Can We Talk? Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work, and Evergreen Talent. Sign up to receive her free newsletter, The Talent Maximizer®. Follow her on Twitter.

The post The big disconnect: 4 ways HR can best partner with hiring managers appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

This is the intriguing challenge that George Zikos, Senior Director of Workable’s Technical Operations team (TechOps), confronted.

With his team’s KPI targets plateauing and expectations remaining high, George embarked on a journey of introspection and process optimization. Let’s see how George and the team uncovered and addressed hidden challenges to not only boost their performance but also to ensure that this well-performing team remained engaged and motivated.

The problems

There were many issues that George and his team recognized, which needed to be resolved:

1. KPIs have plateaued

TechOps is a well established team that has been performing well. Their KPI targets had steadily improved over the years but had recently plateaued. Targets were still being hit which masked a hidden challenge: they were no longer improving.

2. The impediment of overlapping metrics

One issue was the blurred accountability caused by sharing a Jira board with other teams. It made isolating TechOp’s specific impact difficult, particularly for metrics like ‘average resolution days,’ which also involved other teams like Support.

3. Increasing expectations

With a tenure of 2.5 to four years for the team and six years for George himself, expectations of continued performance improvement were high, even factoring in a recent reduction in team size when a departing employee wasn’t replaced.

4. The need for challenging work

With experience comes the risk of stagnation and complacency, especially when the goals at hand are no longer as challenging as before. A highly skilled team needs motivating work to remain engaged.

The goals

Goals are crucial for success – you can’t build solutions without knowing what you’re aiming to do in the end. George’s goals were as follows:

1. Improve performance

Identify processes which can be optimized to improve the team’s performance against its top level KPIs.

2. Motivate the team

Change the team’s perspective, have them focus on something new and challenging to reinvigorate and motivate them.

The method

With clarity around the problems, George was able to get to work on building solutions. These included:

1. Unearth hidden inefficiencies through process audit

George took a detailed look at his team’s work, analyzing hundreds of Jira cards, reading all the comments and tracking the flow of tickets from one team to another.

This very manual, laborious work to understand the work of his team and the processes involved was the key to unlocking improvements in performance.

His deep dive unveiled a hidden inefficiency: frequent back-and-forths between his team and others were causing delays in ticket resolutions.

2. Identifying new, more granular metrics

To quantify this inefficiency, George identified two new metrics that seemed apt: “Tickets Resolved on First Response” (TRFR) and “Median Time to Acknowledge” (MTA) that a ticket was being worked on.

“Having identified where there was an area for improvement, I supplemented my own thoughts with some online research, reading many articles on the metrics other Ops and DevOps teams use to drive performance,” George explains.

3. Tracking the new metrics

George collaborated with IT to set up additional reporting in Jira to track these new metrics, creating a new benchmarking system.

He adds: “Without this reporting, I wouldn’t be able to see that the changes we made were really valuable at all. Jira didn’t have what I needed out of the box so having IT to help was essential.”

4. Bringing the team onboard

George shared these two new metrics with the team, which interestingly resulted in a quick rise in TRFR performance, from 58% to 62%. George put this increase in TRFR performance down to the team simply being aware of this metric, saying;

“We’ve been a team for a while now,” says George. “The team understands that when a metric is being tracked it has some importance, even though I said it was not the priority right now. Knowing that, I believe they ‘self-adjusted’ to optimize it and we saw results straight away.”

MTA did not see an immediate improvement in this way, so more work would be required to make an impact.

5. Setting goals based on new insights

George set a new target of 4 hours for MTA, down from the 5-hour median which was observed during the benchmarking period.

Four hours was chosen as it aligned to how the team splits their day half between Ops tickets and the other half on Labb tickets.
TRFR, despite its improving trend, was only set to be monitored for the rest of 2023 with a goal of maintaining the current level until the 2024 scorecards.

6. Implementation and results

To aid the team in meeting the new MTA target, George knew he would need to focus the team on certain cards instead of simply expecting the team to magically improve speed everywhere.

To that end, George implemented a Zapier automation to send Slack notifications only for new High-Priority and Approvals tickets, excluding the less time-sensitive tickets. This avoided creating too much notification noise for the team but meant the most important tickets could be addressed as quickly as possible. Previously, the team would have to check Jira periodically for any new tickets.

This brought impressive improvements in MTA, dropping from 5 hours to 3.62 hours, with June even hitting an impressive 2.93 hours.

Outcome

TechOps have not only seen improvements in the new metrics but have validated that improving those metrics drives improvements in top level metrics.

Those top level KPIs, which had previously plateaued and seemed impossible to move, improved by 5% in H1 2023.
What makes that improvement even more impressive is how it was accomplished by a smaller team (6 down from 7).

Lessons learned and future goals

George puts it very simply: “Never settle, there is always room for improvement.”

TechOp’s journey underlines the power of detailed analysis and continuous monitoring, even when performance seems satisfactory. The key lesson here is the value of curiosity and persistence; even when performance is good, less apparent problems can still be unearthed and addressed to drive significant improvements.

The team’s next step is to ensure the team maintains the new MTA targets, keeps TRFR consistent, while also working to improve a newly identified metric – the Velocity of Labb Stories.

The post Case study: how Workable’s TechOps optimized its processes appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

Improve employee relations, raise retention rates, inspire employee performance, and create a positive work environment by investing time and effort into talent management.

What is human resource management?

Human resource management (HRM) is the practice of hiring, training, compensating, managing, and retaining the employees of an organization. To put it more simply, HRM is people management.

Every aspect of the strategic planning, decision-making, and work involved with building and maintaining a team of employees is part of personnel management.

Learn the language of human resources:

• HR terms: the plain-spoken glossary
• HR terms: get context, clarity, and insight
• What is human resources (HR)?
• HR Terms: the most extensive HR glossary

How does human resource management work?

Human resource management isn’t limited to the work of the HR department. While it’s true that HR professionals are often in charge of hiring, onboarding, managing employee benefits and compensation, overseeing company policy, and other administrative tasks, team leaders and managers also have responsibilities that can be defined as human resource management.

Employee training, professional development, performance management, and even inspiring and motivating employees, all fall under the definition of HRM.

Check out the following resources to help streamline your hiring process:

• Top 5 human resources (HR) email template examples
• The top 10 questions asked in the HR interview

The importance of human resource management

The basics of HRM ensure that your organization has employees, but a well-developed strategy enhances the employee experience and reflects the core values of your organization.

When implemented thoroughly and thoughtfully, human resource management can increase employee engagement and improve your brand’s reputation, which also makes it easier to attract top talent.

Read more about why human resource management is important:

• Crisis management in the workplace: the role of HR
• How to assess human resource skills
• Key HR metrics: The most important metrics you should track
• Auditing to improve the HR workflow
• Why HR for startups is a good thing
• How to write a recruitment policy

Objectives of human resource management

The main goal of human resource management is to fulfill staffing needs while creating and maintaining a positive work environment for employees. Additional objectives of HRM include:

• Optimizing organizational behavior
• Achieving organizational goals
• Creating a positive work culture
• Implementing training and development
• Supporting employee empowerment
• Improving retention
• Complying with employment law

HRM career opportunities and requirements

HRM positions are ideal for organized, detail-oriented people who enjoy helping others and coordinating solutions to administrative and personal problems.

Examples of human resource management careers include:

• Human resources manager
• Human resources assistant
• HR analyst
• HR consultant
• Benefits manager
• Benefits administrator
• Payroll specialist
• Compensation specialist
• Training manager
• Training coordinator
• HRIS specialist
• Employee relations manager
• Recruiter
• Labor relations specialist
• Leadership coach
• Talent acquisition manager
• Internship coordinator
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist

Entry-level HR positions often require a bachelor’s degree, with a focus of study that relates to human resources, business, or accounting and finance for jobs that involve compensation.

An MBA or a master’s degree and certifications from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) or the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI) can be helpful for landing leadership or management positions in HRM.

Learn more about human resource management careers:

• How to succeed as a HR leader: forget ‘best practices’
• Hiring skills you should have if you’re in HR
• Hiring an HR manager for the first time – A complete how-to guide

What is the difference between HR and HRM?

How are human resources and human resource management different from one another? Human resources is part of the broader scope of human resource management, but the two terms are not synonymous.

Human resources is the department that deals with the tasks and resources associated with hiring, compensation, and administration of employees.

Human resources management is the practice of implementing principles of management to effectively organize and optimize employees of an organization.

Read more about related human resources terms:

• What’s the difference? – a guide outlining common terms and the differences between each
• People operations vs. HR management

Skills and responsibilities of an HR manager

Human resource managers oversee staffing and work with executives to make strategic decisions to create sustainable change to improve the employee experience within their organization. Skills and requirements to be an HR manager include:

• Degree in Human Resources or related field
• Previous experience as HR Manager or other HR Executive
• Experience with HR systems, databases, and metrics
• In-depth knowledge of labor law and HR best practices
• Detail-oriented with excellent communication and interpersonal skills

The responsibilities of an HR manager may include:

• Overseeing the talent acquisition process, from recruiting to training
• Working with executives to align talent management to the organization’s objectives
• Managing the daily workflow of the Human Resources department
• Analyzing trends in compensation and benefits
• Coordinating professional development and growth initiatives for staff
• Handling performance reviews, disciplinary issues, and terminations
• Ensuring compliance with local, state, and federal labor laws and regulations

Read more about HR skills:

• The most important HR skills and how to master them

How to become a Human Resources Manager

Starting a career as a Human Resources Manager often requires a Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field and prior professional experience in a human resource management position.

HRM tools & software

Since HRM covers such a broad range of relevant positions and objectives, there is a wide variety of tools and software available to streamline the process. A Human Resources Information System (HRIS) can help make managing people, policies, and procedures more simple. HRIS solutions make it easier to record and analyze information such as applicant tracking, onboarding, payroll, and performance management.

Human Management Resource Systems (HMRS) perform similar functions to HRIS solutions, but also include features about more qualitative information about the performance and engagement of employees.

Discover additional resources to streamline HRM:

• HR Toolkit: resources to support the full HR lifecycle
• HR tools & calculators
• How to write an employee handbook
• 21 HR tools designed for growing companies
• Recruiting budget: HR planning tips and examples

Human resource management trends

The most significant shift in recent human resource management trends involves a new emphasis on benefits and work/life balance. Offering a healthcare plan and the occasional birthday cake in the breakroom doesn’t cut it in today’s competitive job market.

Company culture and the employee experience matter more to potential applicants than 401k matches, in many cases. Consequently, organizations are staying competitive by offering perks that improve an employee’s quality of life, such as remote work opportunities, four day work weeks, flexible working hours, and generous (or unlimited) PTO.

HRM is about more than filling positions — it has evolved into creating a work environment where employees feel valued, supported, and empowered to be their best personal and professional selves.

• HR statistics and trends: Demystifying 2020
• The future of HR: what does it hold for recruiters?
• Josh Bersin’s recruiting and HR trends for the future

The post Human resource management: the ultimate guide to HRM appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

We’ve collected 10 of these new AI-related jobs for you, with short descriptions for each.

Many of these cool openings can be found on the Workable Job Board, where we’ve linked some opportunities for you to dive right into the AI job market for insights whether you’re an employer or a jobseeker.

1. Prompt Engineer

As AI technologies become more sophisticated, there’s a rising demand for professionals who can fine-tune the way we communicate with AI systems. This is the role of a Prompt Engineer, who can craft effective prompts that not only assist with AI training but also deliver the desired results.

Successful prompt engineering involves understanding the nuances of specific AI models and crafting prompts accordingly. This role doesn’t necessarily require a computer science degree, but it does require creativity and a mastery of language.

Teams that a Prompt Engineer might work with include product development, AI training, and customer experience teams. The current advertised pay rates for a Prompt Engineer can range from $250,000 to $335,000 per year.

2. AI Trainer

The AI Trainer‘s role has emerged in response to the growing use of generative AI systems in industries such as customer service. The AI Trainer assists the AI platform in learning about the business and fine-tuning its responses to sound more human.

The aim is not to replace human interaction but to enhance the AI’s ability to interact with the world. This role does not necessarily involve direct interaction with customers but focuses on aiding the AI system.

Potential areas of work for an AI Trainer include customer service, AI development, and quality assurance teams.

3. AI Auditor

With the rise of AI applications, the need for accuracy and fairness has become paramount. The AI Auditor‘s role is to ensure the AI’s output is not only interesting and useful but also unbiased and accurate.

Their work involves identifying and mitigating any biases in the AI systems, a task that’s increasingly becoming a legal requirement in some jurisdictions.

AI Auditors might work closely with data science, legal compliance, and AI development teams to ensure the highest ethical standards are upheld.

4. AI Ethicist / Ethics Expert

AI Ethicists are responsible for ensuring that AI is used in a safe and ethical manner. They work on reducing bias and increasing fairness in algorithmic systems, a critical need as AI technology becomes more pervasive.

They’re tasked with ensuring the responsible and ethical use of generative AI.

Teams that AI Ethicists might collaborate with include legal, AI development, and diversity and inclusion teams. Their demand is high in the market right now, as ethical AI grows in the overall conversation.

5. Machine Manager

As AI extends beyond text-based interactions to controlling hardware and systems, Machine Managers are needed to oversee AI-operated hardware and systems.

Given the complex nature of the work, this role usually requires a computer science degree and experience in the field where the AI is being used.

Machine Managers could work closely with AI development, operations, and hardware maintenance teams. The pay for this role can vary, with top salaries ranging to as high as $251,000 a year.

6. Data Detective

In the wake of the data explosion triggered by AI systems, Data Detectives are professionals who analyze and interpret this vast amount of data effectively.

The work of a Data Detective involves using statistical and machine learning techniques to identify patterns and insights within the data, which are crucial components in the development of accurate and efficient AI models.

Data Detectives might work with data science, AI development, and business intelligence teams.

7. Cybersecurity Analyst

The increased use of AI also introduces novel threats, necessitating the role of the Cybersecurity Analyst.

These professionals protect against AI-driven cyberattacks, requiring a blend of technical expertise, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.

Cybersecurity Analysts must be capable of navigating the complex intersection between AI technology and cybersecurity principles. Teams that a Cybersecurity Analyst might collaborate with include IT security, risk management, and AI development teams.

8. AI Business Strategist

With more companies adopting AI, there’s a need for professionals who can align AI strategies with business goals and objectives.

The AI Business Strategist is such a professional, possessing a deep understanding of both AI technology and business strategy. They can analyze a company’s existing operations, identify areas where AI can be effectively applied, and develop a strategic plan.

AI Business Strategists might work with executive leadership, business development, and AI development teams.

9. Data Broker

Data Brokers are professionals who manage the vast quantities of data produced by AI systems. They are tasked with cleaning, organizing, and interpreting this data, converting it from raw form into actionable insights.

This role requires a strong understanding of data structures and data analysis techniques, as well as the ability to translate these insights into terms that decision-makers within an organization can understand.

Potential areas of work for a Data Broker could include data analysis, business intelligence, and AI development teams.

10. AI Explainer

AI Explainers serve a critical role in demystifying complex AI technologies for individuals and organizations that may not have extensive technical knowledge. They translate the intricacies of AI systems into understandable terms, aiding people in comprehending how AI operates and how it can be advantageous for them.

This role requires strong communication skills, a deep understanding of AI technologies, and the ability to relate these concepts in a non-technical manner. AI Explainers might collaborate with education, public relations, and AI development teams.

This is just the beginning

By turning the AI disruption into an opportunity, we can not only create jobs but also ensure that AI develops in a way that is ethical, transparent, and beneficial to all.

Whether you’re hiring in the space, transitioning to new roles, or just someone with a keen interest in AI, these roles offer fascinating insights into the cutting edge of the transformative technology.

Check the Workable Job Board for AI-related job opportunities if you’re looking, or for an idea of what other companies are hiring for if you’re planning your own workforce.

The post 10 new jobs created with AI in the workplace appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.

A recruitment policy is a statement on how you hire. It outlines your company’s preferred hiring practices and promotes consistency within your employee recruiting process.

To begin crafting your recruitment policy, answer these three questions:

• Philosophy. What is your hiring philosophy?
• Procedures. What are your recruitment procedures?
• Standards. What are your standards for the hiring process?

Use these three elements to structure your policy to give hiring teams a head start with their recruiting.

Share your philosophy

At the beginning of your policy, set the tone for how you approach recruiting. Your opening statements express your company’s unique perspective. You could mention:

• An action you feel strongly about that ties into your culture (for example, refusing to offer unpaid internships.)

• An idea you’re committed to and how you adopt it (for example, using blind hiring to increase diversity.)

• The employer brand you are aiming to build (for example, offering training programs to promote a culture of learning.)

You could also answer practical questions like:

• What are you looking for in candidates? Are there certain values you want all hires to have? For example, Google summarizes the qualities it looks for in future employees with a simple statement:

• Who undertakes which tasks? For example, recruiters post job ads and conduct screening calls, while hiring managers conduct second-round and final-round interviews.

• Where should hiring teams look for candidates? What’s the preferred source-of-hire mix among job boards, sourcing, referrals, recruiting agencies and campus recruiting?

• How much flexibility do recruiters and hiring managers have? Are they obliged to follow this policy’s instructions or can they choose which rules to follow?

• What are your main recruiting tools? For example, state whether you use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to streamline your hiring. Choose the right ATS to ensure that employees actually use it.

Outline the procedure

This section is the main body of your recruitment and selection policy. Although it’s best to leave room to adjust between different roles, recommend a series of hiring stages as a reference. Add other necessary information too.

• Describe the pre-hiring stages. If hiring managers need to get their open job approved before they advertise, let them know who they should contact. Distinguish between internal and external hiring and offer guidelines for when each is appropriate. Instruct hiring managers to create a list of job-related criteria to evaluate candidates.

• Outline the standard hiring process. Mention the hiring phases for different types of roles (e.g. entry-level or senior positions.) For example, you may want each candidate to clear a background check before being hired. And screening calls help disqualify candidates in all positions.

• Mention effective tools and methods. A recruitment process needs support from the right tools, methods and techniques. For example, explain structured interviews or group interviews and for which roles they are most worthwhile. State whether you recommend panel or 1:1 interviews.

• Clarify details. For example, what’s your policy on flying in candidates for interviews? Is there a minimum amount of time that a job ad must be advertised before you can proceed with the hiring process? You may also indicate which former employees should be considered for rehire.

If all these points turn out to be too much for one policy, consider breaking them into parts. For example, you could dedicate different policies to explain parts of each hiring stage (e.g. craft a separate background check policy.)

Set the standards

Highlight legal and equality requirements. Here are a few important ones:

• Equal employment opportunity (EEO.) Craft an effective EEO statement and instruct recruiters to always include it in job ads. You could also train hiring teams on legal requirements or illegal questions to avoid asking in interviews.

• Hiring biases. When hiring, unconscious biases may disadvantage protected groups and cause companies to miss out on quality candidates. Offer tips on how to combat biases. Encourage using structured interviews, which help mitigate biases, and set guidelines for training hiring managers on different interview techniques.

• Data protection. Refer to your data protection policy and how it applies to your recruiting. Remind employees that they should keep candidate data and their job applications confidential throughout the hiring process.

• Candidate experience. Candidate experience shapes your employer brand and helps you attract great candidates. Here are a few things to address in your recruitment policy to improve your candidate experience:

Your recruiting policy helps employees hire consistently and ensures candidates take part in a well-organized, fair process. Establish your recruiting philosophy, procedures and standards in a way that offers useful advice to hiring managers and recruiters and an excellent experience to all of your candidates.

The post How to write a recruitment policy appeared first on Recruiting Resources: How to Recruit and Hire Better.