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Grow Employer Brand Loyalty, Engage Employees in Continual Improvement

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Taking concepts of brand management and applying them to employee management is an effective strategy for attracting, hiring, and retaining talent. Previously, we’ve covered the concept of “employer brand” and how it relates to “consumer brand”. Today, we’ll look at the concept of “employer brand loyalty” and how an organization can strengthen it by implementing a continual improvement plan that engages employees.

Consumer Brand Loyalty Vs. Employer Brand Loyalty

Simply put, “consumer brand loyalty” is the phenomena wherein consumers choose to exclusively purchase a product or service from one business, or brand , over a long period of time. Sometimes this is because the quality of the product or service is perceived to be better, sometimes it’s because the brand provides an intangible benefit, such as prestige, fashion, righteousness, or a sense of belonging. The bottom line is that the consumer’s purchasing decision is based on factors that are not limited to price ($$$).

Similarly, “employer brand loyalty” describes an employee’s choice to exclusively contract with an employer over a long period of time for reasons beyond salary ($$$). Employee perceptions of the employer also play a significant role in the development of employer brand loyalty. In fact, many of the intangible benefits that convince a consumer to remain loyal to a brand, can be the same reasons why an employee remains loyal to an employer brand–prestige, fashion, righteousness, a sense of belonging.

…the big difference between consumer and employer brand loyalty??

Consumer brand loyalty is based on how the brand treats the consumer. Employees are, themselves, the employer brand, so their loyalty is based on how they treat one another. This means that in addition to gathering feedback from consumers on products or services, businesses must provide opportunities for employees to provide feedback on their experience. The continual improvement process is a perfect chance to do both.

Continual Improvement

Continual improvement is a concept that is understood by most of today’s successful businesses. These businesses know that operating at optimal levels on Day 1 is nearly impossible, and so smart owners plan for continual improvements that will ensure sustained growth and profitability. In improving a consumer brand, this can be illustrated by adding features to a product in order to address customer complaints. For an employer brand, an example could be investing in new technologies to automate tedious tasks and increase process efficiency.

Making informed changes to existing processes in order to increase efficiency in operations is at the heart of continual improvement. But, often times, decision-makers are blind to process inefficiencies that plague daily operations because they are not close enough to the processes. And although process inefficiency may seem of little importance in regard to consumers, it will take a toll on employees. From there, it’s only a matter of time before the low morale of employees begins to impact customers and the consumer brand.

Therefore, it is vital to understand that the strength of employer brand loyalty and consumer brand loyalty are connected; in order to achieve high levels of both, a business must engage customers, as well as employees, in the improvement process. Again, no one expects all operations to hum in the early days of a business. Mistakes are made, unexpected challenges occur, and resources are often limited; however, if lessons are not learned and shared, then those mistakes and setbacks can begin to define an organization and its employer brand–“The people are nice, the product is good, but the place is dysfunctional.”

Gaining The Employee Perspective and Buy-in

It is important to have a plan in place that provides employees with a formal channel through which they can suggest improvements. This can be as simple as a drop box (real or virtual), or it can be a standing topic at department meetings. Regardless of the chosen channel, it must be easy to submit and receive suggestions, and each suggestion should receive a genuine response.

Engaging employees in the improvement of processes is just one way to strengthen employer brand loyalty. Employees can also contribute ideas for improvements to other areas of your business such as workspace, marketing collateral, customer support, communications, and even janitorial service. This is not to say that every decision for improvement must go through the entire organization, but empowered employees who are given a voice, and whose voice is listened to, will be your brand’s most loyal advocates.

5 Steps to Improve Employment Brand Loyalty

  1. Develop a continual improvement plan that engages your employees
  2. Provide a quick and easy way for employees to suggest improvements at anytime and to provide feedback on specific issues
  3. Respond to all suggestions and feedback for improvement with next-steps and a time frame for completion
  4. Upon implementing improvements, recognize the source of the idea and its benefit
  5. Maintain a running log of improvements that can be celebrated at year-end

ExactHire provides hiring technology for small to medium-sized organizations. Our SaaS solutions include HireCentric ATS and OnboardCentric which can streamline your hiring and onboarding processes, while providing an exceptional experience for new employees. To learn more about how you can enhance your hiring process through the use of our software, contact us today!

5 Steps To Assess Employer Brand For Small Biz Owners

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As a leader of a small business, you are likely familiar with the importance of brand as it relates to your business’s profitability and growth. Your consumer brand represents who you are as a business to your customers and prospective customers; this includes how you stand apart from similar businesses, and what your goals are in delivering your product or service. A bad brand is a bad business; where one goes, the other will quickly follow–most business owners understand this.

But what about your employer brand? What is this, and how does it affect the health of your business?

Your employer brand is essentially the same as your consumer brand; however, an employer brand represents who you are as a business to your employees and prospective employees. In other words, your consumer brand makes and fulfills (hopefully) a promise to individuals with the goal of gaining their continued business, and an employer brand makes and fulfills (hopefully) a promise to individuals with the goal of gaining and keeping their talent through employment.

Your Employer Brand Right Now

Though the word “brand” is sometimes cast in a negative light, building a brand is a universal practice for businesses–even if it’s not realized by the business itself. Negative connotations associated with brand likely come to mind when we confuse it with the marketing strategies and tactics used to promote the brand. So putting aside marketing strategies and tactics–logos, slogans, messaging, materials, advertisements, et al.– consider these three questions as a quick and dirty way to assess your employer brand:

(Note: These can be used to assess your consumer brand, too, with a few tweaks.)
  • What is the purpose of our business?
  • How is working at our business different than other businesses with similar purposes?
  • How do people feel about our business before, during, and after working here?

By answering these questions and, more importantly, asking your employees to answer these questions, you will have the building blocks of your employer brand. It is vital that you complete this before creating a strategy to strengthen and grow your brand. If your brand (what you are) is not in alignment with your brand marketing (what you are promising to be), then you will be misleading your job applicants and laying the groundwork for a bad brand image–that means low sales for your business, and low morale/high turnover for your employees.

5 Steps to Assess Your Employer Brand

  1. Develop a brief survey to determine the essence of your current brand using the three questions above
  2. Distribute the survey to all employees and business stakeholders in a way that allows for anonymous responses
  3. Collect and compile the responses to identify common brand perceptions
  4. Identify perceptions that are negative or threatening to your business
  5. Incorporate the assessment insights into a prioritized continual improvement plan

ExactHire provides hiring technology for small to medium-sized organizations. Our SaaS solutions include HireCentric ATS and OnboardCentric which can streamline your hiring and onboarding processes, while providing an exceptional experience for new employees. To learn more about how you can enhance your hiring process through the use of our software, contact us today!

Tapping Your Untapped Audience – Social Media

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Have you checked your Facebook page today? Tweeted? Updated your LinkedIn profile? Chances are you have completed one, two, or all three of those items today. Social media can have a huge influence on both our personal and professional lives, and it can be a great resource to effectively promote our organization as well.

Building a Social Media Presence

Social media offers individuals a way to instantly acquire information and “be in the know” about an organization–its events, news, and culture. If your organization does not have a Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn page, or if those pages are not updated often, it is time to change that.  Here are a few eye opening statistics about social media users.

Facebook:  Facebook currently has approximately 1.35 billion users monthly and is the most most active social media platform in the world. Over 23% of Internet traffic is from Facebook.

Twitter:  There is approximately 284 million monthly active users, and 500 million tweets are sent daily.  Interesting note:  Eighty percent of Twitter’s active users are mobile users.

LinkedIn:  LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 332 million members in over 200 countries and territories. More than four million companies have LinkedIn company pages.

Looking at that data, clearly there are a lot of people in this world using social media. So it makes perfect sense for your organization to be there. But to have a meaningful presence, you must look beyond your immediate network. Do this by exploring who your followers follow, and then connect with them where it makes sense. However, know that once your organization is “liked”, “followed” or “connected”, you are not finished–this is where the road gets exciting!

Maintaining a Social Media Presence

Display your organization’s culture via social media so that viewers can get a solid feel for your work environment, along with learning your organization’s goals. Content updates should radiate excitement and invite curiosity. Regular, relevant updates will keep the Likers liking, the Followers following, and the Connected connected. Occasional or irrelevant updates, will result in an audience that stops listening or disconnects all together. Remember: there is always another organization ready to steal your audience’s attention, and your future talent may be among that audience.

Finding Time to Be Social

If you are concerned about the time it takes to post updates, work closely with your marketing team to see how tasks can be coordinated. Solicit content ideas from the organization as a whole, and of course, identify the types of content that your audience finds meaningful. If your organization is small and your team members wear many hats, look at identifying a team member to coordinate updates, but with the understanding that everyone is responsible for providing ideas, interesting facts and data, and overall enriching content that emphasizes your organization’s mission.

Promoting Social Media Offline

Effective promotion of your social media sites is essential for reaching new audiences. Actively promote your pages on your corporate site, but also share your social media sites within your professional and personal networks at conferences, events, meetings, or even volunteer activities–wherever you can reach people in-person and wherever it makes sense.

Promoting Social Media Through ExactHire’s HireCentric ATS

Users of Exacthire’s HireCentric ATS can promote their organization’s social media pages from within our system. When job applicants view the company’s job listings, they can also access social media sites to learn more about the organization and its latest news. If you are a HireCentric user and not currently using this feature, please contact the Support Team to discuss ways promote your social media pages.

Do not let your organization miss out on expanding your audience through the use of social media. Actively update your social media and share your news with the world. People want to hear what is going on within your organization!

And of course, we like to share what is going on at ExactHire, so let’s connect!

Like Us On Facebook

Follow Us On Twitter

Connect With Us On LinkedIn

Follow Our Page On Google+

 
Image credit: Tapped by Mike (contact)

How Can My Jobs Page Better Engage Job Seekers? – Whiteboard [VIDEO]

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If your company is looking for tips on how to increase the number of applications received for job openings, then check out this Whiteboard Chat. In this video, Jeff Hallam offers suggestions on how to streamline your Jobs page to make it easily navigable, and able to engage job seekers to share your career opportunities with others, sign up for future job alerts and easily complete an employment application.

Video Transcript:

Hi, today we are going to talk about how to make your Jobs page more attractive and more engaging for candidates. The reason this is such a big deal is there’s been quite a seismic shift in what’s happening out there in the job landscape over the last couple of years. It wasn’t that long ago that employers could do about anything that they wanted and require about anything that they wanted and people were so desperate for work that they would jump through about any hoop that was put out there in front of them. And that has changed dramatically with the improvement of the economy and with things getting better out there. And candidates, are starting to become a little more demanding and a little more discerning in terms of what they are and aren’t willing to do. So having a page that can actually catch peoples’ eye and get them engaged right out of the gate is often times kind of your ticket to entry to be able to play in that talent game. And so a lot of these are going to be things that you may have thought of before or may have heard of before, but maybe haven’t actually implemented from your end.

So one of the first of those is consistent branding with the rest of your corporate website. So instead of simply putting up a logo and a white page, make sure that the skin of the site, the images that are used, the frames, etc…everything matches up with the rest of what people would see on your corporate website. It makes it appear more natural, it makes it seem like it’s a little bit more a part of your organic site, and again it’s one of those things that can help people feel more confident about what group they’re actually applying for a job with.

And I mentioned images, and skin…no question that every opportunity that you have to inject images, and especially video, into your careers site is always going to be a plus. It catches peoples’ eye, people remember pictures, they remember videos, much more than anything we are going to write out there in terms of words and phrases.

It should go without saying, but maybe and I think this is important, I’m stunned at how often I can go to a page that’s set out there for somebody’s jobs and it’s not clear to me where I can actually find a job opening. So as you design this part of the site, make certain that it’s very clear to someone where they can find your openings so that they don’t have to look around for that. Again, while it may not seem like a big deal, you could lose people very quickly in that process.

This is also a great opportunity to tout any achievements of the organization…you know we were named to the top 10 employers in the region…we grew at a certain exponential percent, etc. Those are all opportunities, along with being able to get some perspective from current employees as to why do they enjoy working here. Those are things that are people, other than you as an HR professional, or as the owner of a company, talking about why this might be a great place to work.

Once someone has navigated to the site and they’ve found a job and they are interested in it, typically they are going to land at and should land at a page that will tell them more about that opportunity so they can determine if they really are a good fit there. This is fairly typical where you would find this…some issues that we sometimes will see that are fairly common. First off, only giving people the option of reading that job description and apply. If they don’t apply, one of the first things you can do now is use mechanisms, whether it’s social media, email or a combination of the two, to give them avenues to stay connected with your organization. Things change. They may like their job and are okay today, and they may hate it two months from now. You may not, this may not be the ideal job for them, but you may have a new job that opens up six months from now that may be perfect for them. So giving them a very simple and easy way to stay connected to you allows them to stay in an environment where once that change occurs there’s a much better likelihood that you will connect with them.

Likewise when you look at the description itself, try very hard even though we’ve been schooled from days gone by that we have to put every single thing about a job in the description, understand that very few candidates are actually going to read that full description. They’re going to look for bullet points, look for keywords and phrases and that’s when you drive whether they think they are qualified and whether they apply or not. So try to crunch that down as much as you can, make it as clear and concise as you can, but make sure you still keep all the relevant information in there about what will this job look like day to day, what are some key skills that somebody needs to have or qualifications to be considered for that opening.

Now when somebody gets to the point where they are actually ready to apply, again we talked about kind of the shift in the landscape. It’s not any more evident than here where that shift has occurred. So whereas, as recently as two or three years ago, I could require of my candidates a full online application and I would get plenty of applicant flow, that probably is not going to cut it in today’s environment. So, more and more you are seeing organizations make that process a little easier for people. Letting them auto-fill a lot of their application information from their LinkedIn profile. Letting them fill a lot of that information from job sites like Indeed where they can create profiles in advance. Doing those types of things once you’ve gotten to this point in the process now kind of continues to reinforce that perspective you’ve tried to set up up front with those candidates of being a welcoming, cool, neat place to work.

So, when you look at all of this, again, the idea of this is really nothing more than to try to bring to light some core things that you can do that can help make you stand out a little bit more in the eyes and in the minds of people who are out there looking at your career site. And again, doing it this way, making some of these changes and keeping some of these things in mind ultimately can help you as you go through and compete with other organizations in the war for talent.

Holiday Team-Building – 3 Twists

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Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Years Day. Each of these holidays is unique. The first is primarily celebrated in the U.S.–though similar holidays are found around the world. The second began as a Christian holiday, but is now celebrated by people of many faiths. The last one is pretty universal, assuming you follow the gregorian calendar (my favorite calendar by the way).

So for workers across the world, this series of holidays–and others in between–presents the  perfect opportunity to take a break. But time away from the office doesn’t mean that team-building must cease. On the contrary, now is the perfect time to strengthen bonds between co-workers!

Team-Building, Nicely Wrapped

The Gift Exchange

Gift exchanges can go one of two ways. Co-workers are ecstatic at receiving just what they wanted for under $30, or they are disappointed by a less than useful/exciting/thoughtful gift. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Try this variation on the exchange: ask each co-worker to purchase a gift under a certain value that will be placed into a silent auction. Place all these gifts on a large table with a bid sheet and provide each person with “auction dollars” for bidding. These dollars could also be earned/won through another activity like holiday bingo or office trivia.

Caution: Always carefully consider whether re-gifting is a good plan. If it wasn’t good enough for you, make sure you’re not just paying forward that disappointment.

Sweet Team-Building

The Holiday Party

This year, bring the party into the office. A good ‘ol fashion pitch-in lunch on a workday ensures that everyone can participate. Our company plans several of these throughout the year, but for the “Holiday Potluck” we include an optional “Sweet Treat Exchange” as well. Some socializing, a full belly, and a variety of take-home sweets makes for a fantastic team-building day.

Caution: If it’s an after-work party, be careful with holiday cocktails: one too many cups of eggnog could lead to a not-so-happy New Year.

Team-Building to Make a Difference

The Charitable Donation

“‘Tis better to give, than to receive.” Directing dollars away from gift buying and parties, and instead, investing it in a local charity is a powerful way to impact the community. This also underlines the “reason for the season”.

For an even more effective approach, your team can focus on working with one charity throughout the year. Pair the holiday donation with a service day that occurs earlier in the year. This makes for a richer experience and a greater impact than just a one-off donation.

Caution: Be sure that this activity is optional, anonymous, and provides co-workers with an opportunity to vote on the receiving charity. Not all charities will be in alignment with the beliefs and values of all team members.

 

Providing opportunities for social interaction and team-building among co-workers strengthens company culture. A strong culture is also enhanced by hiring people who fit the job and the company. ExactHire provides hiring technology that helps to ensure job fit and supports a strong company culture. Learn more by contacting us today!

 

Image credit: Red Snowflake Gift Tag by tengrrl (contact)

Offboarding Is Just As Important As Onboarding

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Organizations of all sizes continue to hear about the importance of new-employee onboarding as it relates to employee engagement and overall retention. But many have found that the days of tracking all of these functions manually or in a spreadsheet are over. They are looking for better ways to organize the new-hire onboarding process and increasingly are moving toward paperless, interactive solutions to do so.

Once an employee is fully onboarded, most companies then utilize an HR and/or Payroll software solution to manage employees through the duration of their employment.  This is often where things like paid time off, pay increases, and performance reviews are kept. Again, keeping these types of records in a single, automated place streamlines the workflow and helps keep employees happier.

But how about when an employee leaves the organization — either voluntarily or involuntarily?  Do you have a definitive process to offboard that person?

Offboarding Defined

Like employee onboarding, employee offboarding will vary significantly from one organization to another.  Along those same lines, because there are a variety of things that must be done/tracked when an employee leaves, there’s a case to be made that automating this process is a good move.

As employees move on from your company, below are some common things that may be part of your offboarding process:

  • Retrieve office keys / entry swipe badge
  • Retrieve company laptop and/or phone
  • Confirm date of last paycheck
  • Provide COBRA information
  • Provide retirement plan options upon termination
  • Conduct exit interview
  • Provide copy of any non-compete or NDA agreements signed by employee
  • Setup auto-forward of the former employee’s corporate email

There certainly are many other things that might fall into this list, but it’s easy to see these are not trivial items.  As with new hire onboarding, you may choose to manage these tasks in a physical checklist or in a spreadsheet.  Likewise, there are solutions emerging to help automate this in the same way as new-hire onboarding.  Whatever methodology you choose, be sure to have a process in place to avoid exposure for your company and to make things as smooth as they can be.

To learn more about how ExactHire can help with your onboarding and offboarding processes visit the resource section of our website or contact us today!

 

Image credit: Delta B-727 (1970’s) by Hunter Desportes (contact)

Indiana Basketball And Hiring – What Can We Learn?

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I live in Indiana, where basketball is king. Whether you attended Indiana University or not (I did not–I’m a proud Butler University Bulldog), IU basketball is a mainstay of conversations throughout the state, especially this time of year.

This year, however, IU basketball is the topic of conversation for the wrong reasons.  Over the past few months, no fewer than 6 of the 13 scholarship players on the IU squad have been arrested or suspended for run-ins with the law…that’s almost 50% of the team!

Naturally, many of the discussions about this among Hoosier fans (don’t ask what a Hoosier is, as even those of us from Indiana aren’t 100% sure!) revolve around how much coach Tom Crean should be held accountable for these incidents.  Regardless of any personal bias one might have for/against Coach Crean, I find myself thinking about the following:

  • He recruited and signed each of these players.
  • They each interact with him on a regular (almost daily) basis.
  • How they perform on the basketball court ultimately determines his success as a coach. 

Sound familiar?  If you’re a business owner or hiring manager, it should.  After all, what do we do in those roles?

  • Recruit talent (i.e., employees).
  • Interact with employees regularly.
  • “Coach” employees to perform at a level that ensures success for the organization.

Given that, let’s look at the IU situation by placing things into a business situation.  Assume that you hire 13 people over the course of a year or so.  Then, assume that those 13 people perform at a fairly average level (if you’ve seen IU basketball over the past year, you know this is a generous statement).  Finally, let’s assume 6 of those 13 people end up arrested or suspended over a period of a few months for various alcohol or drug-related offenses.  As the manager of those people, how likely is that you’d still have your job?

My point here isn’t to pile on as it relates to Tom Crean.  It’s fun to draw these comparisons, as there are some parallels between the roles of a coach and a manager/boss.  But, my overarching point here is how important it is to recruit/hire the right people. 

I know that’s a very simplistic and obvious statement.  “Right” means different things to different organizations.  Talent is clearly important, but it isn’t the only thing.  How well will the person “fit” the organization, the role, the team, etc.?  Will they be a good teammate?  It’s true in sports, but it’s also true in business.

Let me finish my basketball-to-business comparison with two examples relative to IU: the Duke and Kansas basketball programs.  Both programs are run by coaches who  know how to recruit those who “fit” their programs. They also have the respect of their players.  As you get ready to hire for your next opening, be sure to think about what you can learn from Duke or Kansas to more consistently recruit the right people for your team.


ExactHire provides hiring solutions that help organizations find and hire the best talent and the right fit for their company culture. To learn more about how ExactHire can improve your hiring process, contact us today!

Image Credit: Basketball Goal by prettybea (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Test Your Application Through The Applicant’s Eyes

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Finding the right employees can be daunting. Have you ever thought about how equally disheartening it can be to find the right job? I strongly encourage our clients to play the role of job-seeker by searching and applying for open positions at their organization. What they find is often times surprising, but it almost always leads to improvements in their recruiting and hiring processes.

Hiring managers usually do a great job of developing the job description, but they often overlook the application process itself. Having a few applicants who start an application, but then abandon it, is common. But when this trend increases, an organization can benefit from taking a few minutes to go through the application process as a job-seeker would.

With an Applicant Tracking System like HireCentric, you can create a ‘dummy’ account to serve as your test applicant. Some of my co-workers create pseudo-profiles using names of celebrities that include quirky and funny answers to education and employment history questions. You can do the same, or keep it boring, and name your test applicant ‘Company TestAccount’, holding applicant answers to a similar standard.

Concerns may arise about reporting criteria or skewing your data for REAL applicants. It is important that you develop a standard for answering those EEOC and source questions. We suggest choosing the option “I do not wish to answer” for the EEOC and VEVRAA questions; and we always choose the company website as the source. As a best-practice, we also put a note in the applicant record identifying it as a test account, change the status to not qualified, and archive our mock application when testing for clients.

Testing your application process is a best practice, and it can have a huge impact on improving the quality of your new hires. You want the job-seekers to find your open position, apply for it, and be excited about the prospect of working at your company.

Test Your Application – 3 Considerations

Now that you have the basics, and you are ready to test your application, here are a few of the top things to consider when testing the process as a job seeker:

How easy is it to find your job listing?

Most job boards will list jobs by the date they were posted, but most applicants will land on your open position by filtering for keywords and location. Make sure that you are using a multitude of keywords that apply to both the open position and your company. By using specific terminology, you can reduce the number of clicks it takes to land on your open position.

How long does it take to complete the application?

Consider not only how long it takes to complete the application, but what are the implications that arise from an application being too short or too long? If you have a short application, you might find that you receive way too many unqualified applicants. Alternately, if the application is too long, you may find that ideal candidates are abandoning the application. Testing the application to understand how much time you are asking candidates to commit is imperative.

If you find that your application is extensive, but that all points are necessary, it may be time to consider a 2-Step application. This feature makes the initial screening short for applicants and allows you to invite only qualified applicants to complete the second application step.

Are you creeped out by the questions on the application?

Test your application so you can see the process as an applicant sees it. You may find out that some of your questions are throwing red flags to the applicant–like asking for social security numbers. Maybe you are asking for an over-abundance of essay questions. Or, you may just discover that you are asking questions in a confusing fashion.

 

Download our hiring process questions guide

Visit ExactHire’s Resource Page to download a tip sheet with more specific examples of how to test your application and improve the applicant experience. To learn more about our HireCentric Applicant Tracking System, contact us today!

 

Image credit: Job Application 2 by T Hart (contact)

New Mom Motivations – Increase Employee Happiness

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I have a new daughter, and she is amazing! I love having a baby in the house again. My two sons are six and eight, full of energy, and involved in everything. But having an infant in the house has reminded me to slow down and enjoy life a little bit more.

Although my husband and I are often sleep deprived, we’ve learned to appreciate the quiet times and enjoy the first smiles, snuggles, pretty dresses, and bows. It’s safe to say that being home and having the opportunity to enjoy all of this is motivating to me.

And my company knows it.

Motivate Your Employees

What Makes Your People Tick?

A successful company knows what makes people tick. People are driven in many different ways. Compensation is important, but it’s not everything. Companies need managers who know what it is that makes their teams happy and what motivates them to help the organization succeed.

I work for a company that believes in a work-life balance and provides flexibility to work from home and to change schedules if necessary. Two years ago, I preferred to arrive after 9:00 AM because I didn’t need to rush out at 5:00 PM (and because I wasn’t a morning person). Today, I arrive at work early so that I can be back home by late afternoon. I am motivated to be as efficient as possible at work so that I can be home to help my boys with homework, make dinner, and have time to hold my baby girl. I am telling you this to illustrate how employee priorities and motivations can change as they reach different stages in life.

Knowing more about what motivates your employees will also help you learn to manage them over the course of their employment within your organization. From the very beginning–as part of the hiring process–companies can utilize cognitive and behavioral assessments to determine whether an applicant is a good fit for both the position and the organization. Later on, you can use these assessment results to help manage and motivate the employee.

Maximize Employee Happiness

It’s About People

For long-term success, the happiness of your employees should matter the most in your organization. Be sure to assess new hires for job fit, get to know your team and what makes them happy through informal conversations, and use company social activities and events to to strengthen relationships. You will find that happy employees lead to greater work efficiency, and the work environment is more enjoyable for everyone.

 

How will you keep your employees happy so that you can retain the best team?

Learn more about applicant assessments tools and other people-pleasing HR Technology at ExactHire.com. Contact us today!

Image credit: mother&child01 by David Bleasdale (contact)