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Is Hybrid Work the Future of Work?

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

If you haven’t heard, Apple workers threatened to quit if they’re forced back to the office three days a week. Meanwhile, the New York Post reports that one Google executive, when speaking of the hybrid schedule currently in place, said (allegedly), “We’ll get everyone back to the office eventually. I just don’t want to pick that fight now.”

Perhaps you agree with the Google exec’s sentiment. Yet, the reality remains your employees likely have a similar mindset as Apple’s. It remains to be seen who will win the tech talent’s tug-of-war. But one thing is certain about the future of work: hybrid work will be central to the conversation.

And that’s regardless of whether you decide hybrid work is the future of work at your company.

Work Trends

Gallup’s money is on the tech workers when it comes to the future of work after Covid.

After conducting a hybrid work survey, Gallup predicts “hybrid work schedules will become the norm for most offices.” Currently, about 80% of employees whose jobs can be done remotely are working a fully remote or hybrid schedule, according to a February 2022 Gallup study. According to Gallup’s predictions for the future of work, hybrid work schedules will be adopted by 53% of remote-capable jobs.

hybrid work schedules will be adopted by 53% of remote-capable jobs.

Hybrid Work Challenges

Many companies are understandably resistant to allowing their employees to work remotely indefinitely. These companies cite future of work topics such as loss of culture, decreasing innovation, and an inability to directly supervise employees as reasons for putting the kibosh on employees’ demands to continue working remotely. As a result, many companies adopt a hybrid work schedule because it seems like a compromise.

With a hybrid work from home schedule, companies require employees to come to the office part of the time, usually two or three days a week, and allow employees to work from home on other days. The general thinking is that hybrid work is the best of both worlds. Employees can enjoy a better work-life balance and companies can maintain control over important business standards.

But hybrid work comes with its own minefield of challenges.

Hybrid Work Can Be Costly

When you sent them home in 2020, you may have noticed that some of your employees were consistently having internet or technical issues. Their faces froze during Zoom calls, or their files didn’t transfer as quickly. It became apparent that running a home office came with expenses. Companies with a hybrid work model may have stepped in by subsidizing for faster internet service, more data on cell plans, or basic ergonomic gear. As you bring employees back into the office with a hybrid work model in 2022, you’ll bear the cost for yet another workspace.

Hybrid Work May Nullify the Perk Employees Want Most

Parents, especially, cited the most important reason they love working from home: flexibility. Remote work allows employees to pick their kids up from school or take them to a doctor’s appointment. Except for very young children, many kids don’t require a babysitter as long as mom or dad are in the next room.

Requiring parents to come into the office two or three days a week at set hours nullifies the perks associated with flexibility. Many daycare options don’t price a la carte style and force parents to pay even for days kids aren’t there.

Hybrid Work May Increase Proximity Bias

Proximity bias is the unconscious favoritism leaders show to employees whom they see frequently. As a result, employees who work at home even part of the week may miss out on advancement opportunities. Since women and people of color are more likely to prefer working at home due to family obligations, hybrid work model examples may undo the gains companies have made on diversity.

Hybrid Work Model Tips

Left unchecked, these hybrid work model pros and cons can jeopardize productivity, not to mention your company’s bottom-line. You may be tempted to just throw in the towel on anything other than having your employees back in the office full-time. Be aware, though, that Gallup anticipates that only 23% of remote-capable jobs will be fully on-site. And with only 9% of the workers preferring to work fully on-site, you stand to lose talent to competition that can overcome the challenges of hybrid work.

The following tips can help you crush the challenges that might have you second-guessing hybrid work.

Redefine and Reduce Your Office Space

Don’t force workers into the office to do tasks they can easily do at home. Instead, create purpose and meaning for time spent in the cubicle. Better yet, dismantle the cubicle. Create common areas where employees can work that encourage collaboration.

Make Time for Connections

A feeling of belonging is one of the key indicators for employee engagement. Since employees are spending more worktime at home, carve time in the office for connection. Encourage employees to share their challenges and their wins.

Recognize the Savings of Hybrid Work

Sure, hybrid work creates costs you didn’t have before. But it also creates savings. Global Workplace Analytics estimates that companies save $11,000 per hybrid employee per year. These savings come from increased productivity, lower real estate costs, and lower employee turnover.

Explore Software and Cloud Computing Options

If you’re adopting hybrid or remote work for the long-term, it’s time to rethink your IT solutions. Software and cloud computing options can bring your distanced workforce together more seamlessly. They may also eliminate the need for pricey internet with high data limits. A cloud service can house your large files, reducing the need to transfer data and increasing security.

Be Flexible with Hybrid Work

Be creative with hybrid work schedules. Some parents may prefer putting in shorter hours over four days instead of three if doing so allows them to pick their kids up from school. Employees who live farther from the office may prefer to come in two days a week. Be open to allowing employees to mold a schedule that works for them, within reason.

Be Proactive About Employee Recognition

Succumbing to proximity bias is lazy managing. By now, the pandemic and the switch to remote work should have reorientated your leadership to a better style of employee recognition. Your leadership team should be focusing on output rather than comforting, yet hollow, markers such as coming in early or staying late. And being proactive about employee recognition will help employees know you see their efforts, even when they’re working at home.

Hybrid Work Culture

The above tips still don’t address the elephant in the room and the reason most tech CEOs shun remote and hybrid work. The tech giants ushered in the age of corporate culture with their massive complexes and their mod maxims to “don’t be evil.” And while slides and free sushi are questionable benefits, the founders of the digital age were on to something. A strong company culture is profitable.

So how can you have a strong hybrid work culture while answering your employees’ demands for work-life balance?

That’s a trick question because, in fact, it contains part of the answer. By going through all the trouble of adopting a hybrid or remote workplace, you’re demonstrating your commitment to your employees. That, in itself, increases your employees’ commitment to your company. And that mutual commitment strengthens your company’s culture.

But there’re other things you can do to improve your company’s culture in a hybrid work setting. Rethinking what culture in the workplace can be a good start.

An article in Harvard Business Review says this about company culture, “If work is something you do, and not a place you come to, then maybe it’s about time we got rid of the notion that culture sits within the four walls of the office.”

In a way, recognizing that culture isn’t about place helps us define culture better. Suddenly, sushi and slides seem even sillier as the crux of culture comes into focus.

According to Brooke Weddle of McKinsey & Company, culture is “a common set of behaviors, plus the underlying mindsets that shape how people work and interact day to day.”

It’s interesting to note that “place” doesn’t figure into Weddle’s definition of culture. That distinction is even more important as leaders and employees alike grapple with the aftermath of the pandemic. Because whether your workers are in the office or at home, all of us have changed. Covid has made people more purpose driven. There is simply no going back to a pre-pandemic perspective or culture.

Tips to Strengthen Hybrid Workplace Culture

Encourage employees to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. That doesn’t mean employees are driving your business strategy. It means encouraging employees to take ownership and pride in their roles. Encourage independent initiative and creative problem-solving where appropriate.
Involve your employees in the development of your hybrid work model. You may be sold on the swanky new messaging software. But your employees may find it more cumbersome than email or a phone call.
Find opportunities for connection. And leave no stone unturned. Water cooler chats before meetings, bring your pet to the Zoom call, and in-person events will improve your employees’ sense of belonging.
Encourage boundaries. There’s one hybrid work culture con that can create stress for employees. With the office always a few steps away, some employees may start working too much. Create trainings and policies that encourage employees to step away from their home office.

The Future of Hybrid Work Is Here

The trailblazing tech giants may have heralded in the information age and the sanctity of corporate culture. But they may be behind the times if they insist on bringing their employees back to the office. Of course, only time will tell.

For now, we know employees prefer working from home at least part of the time. We also know that many of the challenges that may make you hesitant to embrace the future of a hybrid workplace can be overcome. Most importantly, adopting a hybrid work policy can bring your company’s values into focus. And with that clearer perspective, you can create a stronger culture post-pandemic.

Rather than returning to the way you did things in 2019, use the lessons of these past two-plus years to create a stronger culture that embraces your employees’ shifting priorities.

If you’re wondering how you can recruit in 2022, watch our webinar Post-Pandemic Hiring: Align Recruiting to the New Normal.

Photo by Surface on Unsplash

Job Posting Struggles? 40 Tips to Streamline Your Job Posting Efforts

in Hiring Process/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

What’s the trouble with job posting?

Sometimes, life can only be understood through an 80’s cult classic. Remember Gremlins? All those fiendish little imps devolved from a single sweet and cuddly creature.

The role of HR is much like the movie…stay with me. An HR professional’s responsibilities once centered around advocating for employees in a corporate climate bent on profits. Luckily, many companies came around to the idea that their human capital is their most valuable asset. But with that realization, the HR department’s roles multiplied.

Take job posting, for example. From navigating legions of job sites to promoting your employer brand, even posting entry-level job ads can be a pain in the neck. We’ve got you covered with the following 40 tips to streamline your job posting efforts.

How to Write an Optimized Job Posting

Your job posting has to accomplish quite a bit. It needs to be clear, yet appealing. Optimized for search engines, yet written for humans. Your job description must also communicate your culture and employer brand. As powerful tools for your diversity goals, job postings must reflect your company’s awareness of marginalized groups and inclusion efforts.

Preparation Is Key to Writing a Job Ad

Before you set pen to paper, use these following tips:

Meet with team leaders to update the job description.
Identify the core characteristics of your ideal applicant. Note, focus on values rather than experience or educational requirements, e.g., independent worker or team player, etc.
Now identify the minimum experience and educational requirements for the role. Puffing up your requirements just to avoid sifting through too many applications often has the unintended effect of discouraging marginalized groups from applying. Below, we have tips to help candidates self-qualify to prevent an influx of junk resumes.

How to Write a Job Ad to Attract the Best Candidates

Write a job description that appeals to the qualities you identified in your ideal candidate in step 2. Check out this job ad from Taco Bell that appeals to their ideal employee, while also encouraging others to just keep scrolling.
Include the salary range. The transparency reflects well on your employer brand. You’ll help candidates self-qualify. And including salary ranges helps fight the wage gap for women and minorities.
Purge these terms from your vocabulary: superstar, rock star, anything ninja. These terms are dated and really do nothing to help you connect with the right candidate.
Highlight the benefits of working at your company, from actual benefits to work environment.
Use gender-neutral words.

How to Write a Job Posting Optimized for the Search Engines

Use a clear job title. Don’t create a job title that reads “Receptionist/Administrative Assistant.” Doing so confuses the Google job search engine. Instead use one and sprinkle the other one in the job description.
Search for the job title on the top job sites, such as a Glassdoor job posting. Count how many times the keyword is used in the job description for the top results, not counting the sponsored ads that appear first. Aim to use the keyword at least that many times.
Include the location in both the location field and within the job description.
Pro tip: ExactHire ATS optimizes job postings for you in many way.

Tips for Posting to a Job Board

With countless niche job boards, paid job boards and options for sponsored job postings, keeping it all organized can be a chore. These tips will help tame the digital clutter.

Create a secured document or spreadsheet with links to job sites and your company’s login. You’ll have a quick reference for yourself and also a means to delegate the posting of some jobs.
Group your list of the job sites you use with all open positions at the top. Then create separate groups according to job type, such as paid sites for management positions or niche sites for welding positions.

Creative Job Ad Examples

If you’re still itching to post a job ad for a superstar, we have some tips to help you get creative using the best job posting examples.

Focus on how the role improves the world, even in a seemingly small role. For an online job board example, everyone has experienced a rude or incompetent customer service representative. Turn that experience into a job ad in which the candidate can “be the change he or she wants to see in the world” by speaking to that universal experience.
Take a picture of your team having fun. Then post it and your job ad to your social channel–consider looking at your competitors for other social job posting examples.
Create a humorous compilation of the non-awesome qualities you typically see, and write a job ad that calls out the slackers. Just one of the many job board examples using this technique, a job ad for a server read, “Please do not apply if you need nights off because your band has a gig.”
You can flip the humor around and write creative job ad examples that are really, really honest about why your place of work is awesome. Another server ad read, “looking for someone well-versed in the subtle art of sarcasm.”
Create a video on your branded careers page, but don’t be generic to avoid being the butt of the joke in this recruitment video by Fiverr.

Job Board Posting Software

Don’t have a branded careers site? Oh… yikes. That’s too bad because a branded careers site can do some heavy lifting in your recruiting efforts. It can be the place all the job sites send your candidates, where they can fill out an application or view other open positions at your company. Your branded careers sites can also showcase your company’s culture and highlight your employer brand.

A branded careers site is just one advantage of using applicant tracking software (ATS). An ATS is job board posting software that can help you streamline your job posting efforts and help in other ways too, like:

Post to multiple job boards and social media with just one click. An ATS will remember all your favorite job sites and their passwords.
Access a dashboard that analyzes job ad performance across sites on a single screen. Stop wasting time and money on job sites that don’t perform for your company.
Receive recommendations, tailored to your company, for sponsored job posting and programmatic job advertising. Take the expensive guesswork out of paying for job ads.
Increase candidate conversion with mobile everything. Text messaging, QR codes, or even applying with a phone number, going mobile will streamline your recruiting efforts.
Organize your job candidates. An ATS will sort applicants and push the best to the top of the list.
Master compliance reporting. An ATS will also track all the applicant details and create reports to help you stay compliant.
Use an online employment application linked from your branded careers site (hey, it’s worth repeating).

Tips for Top Job Posting Sites

Most applicants go to top job posting sites Indeed, LinkedIn or Google for Jobs. These tips will help you reach them.

Claim your company page on Indeed, perhaps the best job posting site for employers. This is where former employees and interviewees can leave reviews for your company.
Take advantage of LinkedIn’s premium membership to scout out the best passive candidates and send them an Inmail.
Stagger your job postings across sites to remain on page one of Google for Jobs Search. Google’s job post schema is a search engine that pulls together listings across job sites.
Make sure your company’s LinkedIn page is updated.
Make sure the personal profile of whomever is named as the contact in your job ad is updated in LinkedIn.
Join LinkedIn groups where your ideal candidates are.

Tips to Find Free Job Posting Sites

Recruiting isn’t cheap. SHRM estimates it takes six to nine months of a position’s salary to recruit and onboard a new hire. Save some money using these tips for finding free job posting sites.

Start with LinkedIn and Indeed, both are top job search sites and have options to post jobs for free.
Edit the HTML of your job posting on your website to integrate with Google for Jobs API. Hint: Your ATS provider will do this for you.
Handshake is a free platform to help employers connect with college students at hundreds of schools.
If you’re one of the thousands of companies going remote, check out Hubstaff Talent, a free job board for remote job listings.
Check out local institutions and niche job boards. Universities, high schools, and state employment sites often offer options to post a job for free online.
Post jobs for free on Craigslist.
Use Monster for free job posting.

Final Tip

Posting job ads can be a bit chaotic. And if you don’t do it right, you risk keeping that chair empty longer than necessary. These tips will help you tame the chaos and organize your job posting efforts. We have one tip that cut the work in half. You ready?

Use an ATS.

Really. It’s the best way to organize and track your job posting efforts. When you use an ATS, you do more than tame the job posting gremlin. You elevate your efforts by harnessing the data that will shorten the time it takes to fill your empty positions.

Ready to learn more? Sign up for a demo of ExactHire today.

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

5 Signs You Need to Automate Your Hiring Process

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

Has your hiring process grown unmanageable? Evolving technology, burgeoning job sites, a shrinking labor pool and the widening skills gap are just a few of the reasons hiring is a lot tougher than it used to be.

If you’re receiving resumes in your email or logging into each job board individually, you’re spending even more time hiring candidates. And, as if hiring wasn’t a towering task already, not hiring effectively can have damaging effects down the road.

If hiring the right candidate has ballooned into an HR headache, streamlining your hiring process may help. In this article, we’ve compiled 5 signs you need to automate your hiring process.

You Don’t Know Your Recruitment Metrics

Understanding your recruitment data is the first step to taming your hiring process. The best applicant tracking systems can help you easily access the most important metrics. Below are some common recruitment metrics you should know:

Time-to-hire is calculated by counting the number of days between a candidate applying for your position and accepting the job. Learn how effective the changes you make to the hiring process really are by benchmarking this number.
Cost-per-hire is the sum of external and internal hiring costs divided by the number of new hires in the same time frame. Your cost per hire may be more useful if you calculate it for type of positions, e.g., you expect to spend more to hire a mid-level manager than you would an entry-level employee.
New hire turnover rate is the percentage at which new employees leave within a given period of time–you can decide what qualifies as “new” based on your organization, but many consider it to be under one year. By looking at how frequently new hires leave and why, you can uncover ways to improve both your hiring and onboarding processes.
Retention rate is the percentage of employees staying with the company over a given time period. Calculate retention rate by dividing the number of employees remaining in the company or department by the total number of employees present at the beginning of the time period being measured.
Job application completion rate can tell you how often job seekers complete your application, and it can reveal whether changes need to be made to your online job application. Reducing the number of abandoned applications (or your applicant drop-off rate) will improve your hiring success.

A hiring process overrun with manual processes is difficult to measure. Automating your hiring process can help you track its effectiveness.

You Need to Reduce Your Time-to-Hire

Time-to-hire varies widely across industries. According to DHI Group, hiring in the health services takes 49 days, while construction industry’s time-to-hire is the shortest at about 12 days. Whether your time-to-hire is longer than your industry’s average, or you just want to shorten it to avoid lost productivity, automating your hiring process can help fill those empty chairs more quickly.

Here are some ways applicant tracking systems can reduce your company’s time-to-hire:

Automate time-consuming tasks. Logging into multiple job sites individually to post the same job is slow work. And it takes even longer if you push tedious tasks like this to the bottom of your list. Post your job opening with a click of a button to multiple sites at once.
Adopt mobile recruiting. You can speed up the application process for your candidates by adopting mobile recruiting methods. A mobile-friendly application brings the candidate to you more quickly. And text messaging avoids voicemail delays. You can further simplify the recruiting process by inviting applicants to apply with their phone number or by using a QR code on print or other display media.
Use programmatic job advertising. Don’t wait for top talent to come to you. Use programmatic job advertising to put your job ad on the same sites your top candidates visit.

You Need to Hire Better Quality Candidates

Your recent new hires have been disappointing. They seemed qualified, but six months on the job and they still seem lost in the software. They interviewed so well, but after their first run-in with a customer, you can see they’re lacking soft skills. Whatever it was that made you hire them turned out to just be a mirage.

Automating your hiring process with an applicant tracking system can help you make better hiring decisions. Here are a few ways automation can help:

See the best candidates first. An applicant tracking system can use your application and the candidate’s resume to rank applicants. The most qualified applicants will go to the top of your list.
Create deal-breaker questions on your application. Willing to work weekends? Certification updated? Reliable transportation? Whatever the dealbreaker, start screening for it right away. An applicant tracking system can automatically filter out candidates with dealbreaker traits.
Use assessment tools. Peel away the polished interview skills and test the resume claims with assessment tools. From people skills to software proficiency, assessment tools can uncover a candidate’s real traits.

You Hire for a High-Turnover Industry

Some industries just have high turnover. Hospitality and retail are notorious for their low retention rates. For some job seekers, these jobs may be seen as steppingstones to higher paying jobs. Even after improving your employer brand and doing what you can to increase engagement, the nature of these jobs means you’re always hiring.

You can make your hiring process more efficient and still have time for other, pressing HR responsibilities by automating these hiring tasks:

Use message templates. Write messages once and send them automatically to applicants. The ATS will fill in the applicant’s name and other details to personalize the message. Save time by letting the ATS automatically send interview requests, rejection letters, and receipt of application confirmations.
Conduct initial interviews by text. An applicant tracking system can make interviewing by text easier and safer. Interviewing by text saves time. And by using an ATS, hiring managers don’t need to use their personal cell numbers, and the text conversation is automatically documented and saved.
Schedule interviews more easily. Sometimes, there’s a bit of back and forth when it comes to interview scheduling. You can automate the interview scheduling process with an applicant tracking system. The system will integrate with your calendar. You can send the candidate multiple choices for interview times. If the candidate needs to reschedule, he can just click on a link in the confirmation email.

Increasing HR Responsibilities Leave Less Time for Manual Processes

Once upon a time, human resource professionals spent most of their time hiring, managing benefits, and increasing workplace safety. Not anymore. Today, companies understand that employees are their most important asset. They know that having a healthy company culture, strong employer brand, and highly engaged employees increases their bottom-line.

Of course, these workplace values make working in human resources more exciting and more rewarding than ever. But the work of developing those workplace assets falls on human resources. If increasing HR responsibilities are leaving you little time to make high quality hiring decisions, then automating your hiring process may help.

There are probably a dozen reasons the hiring process has become unmanageable. If the increasing chaos of the recruitment process leaves you little time for calculating recruitment metrics, much less time to improve them, an applicant tracking system can improve your results. Automating recruitment tasks will leave you time for finding creative solutions to your pressing HR issues.

Are you interested in learning how automating your hiring process with applicant tracking software can improve your recruitment outcomes? Contact ExactHire today.

Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash

Avoid HR Headaches with these 25 Tips

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

The expectations business leaders place upon their human resource departments are increasing. Years ago, the role of HR centered around filing employee paperwork, navigating benefits, and a range of activities meant to avoid compliance fines and lawsuits. Of course, human resource professionals came into their roles with a higher calling: cultivating the company’s human capital, its employees.

The times have caught up with the nobler side of human resources. Even the most profit-focused executive understands the high cost of low retention. And much of the business sector embraces concepts like culture and employer brand after witnessing the tech industry wield them successfully. As a result, business leaders expect much more from their human resource professionals.

Throw in COVID and the ever-increasing labyrinth of laws and regulations, and any HR professional may start measuring their dedication in aspirin. But you needn’t suffer migraines to chase your HR calling. We’ve identified 5 common causes of HR headaches and compiled a list of 25 HR tips to avoid these issues.

Eliminate Workplace Discrimination, Promote Diversity

Elevate your training beyond a blurb in the handbook. Create a comprehensive anti-discrimination training plan using how-to videos and assessments to ensure understanding.
Create additional, in-depth training programs for managers. When a potential HR discrimination issue arises, it will likely be brought to the attention of one of your managers first. Make sure they know how to handle discrimination situations to avoid making the company vulnerable to further legal action.
Address the anti-discrimination HR issues unique to remote workers. Virtual meetings are a fact of work life, whether employees are in the office or at home. Likewise, in the absence of physical proximity, employees rely on email and other forms of communications more often than ever. Make sure your anti-discrimination policies take into consideration the increasingly virtual nature of work.
Avoid claims of hiring discrimination by using applicant tracking software (ATS) to thoroughly log hiring decisions. Keeping an electronic record of interviews, impressions and the reasons behind your hiring decision will protect you in the event of legal action resulting from a hiring decision.
Create a diversity plan in your hiring process. Remove excessive educational or other onerous job requirements. Advertise your job openings to marginalized groups.

Avoid Wage and Hour HR Issues

Take advantage of the training modules in your onboarding software to educate workers about expectations regarding working during off hours. Clarify that they are not allowed to work beyond their scheduled hours without approval, and tell them to approach HR if they feel their manager is pressuring them to perform unpaid work during their off-hours.
Know the wage and hour laws in each state where remote workers or contractors reside. For example, California updated its employment laws regarding the classification of independent contractors. Even one remote worker in a state may make your company liable for franchise taxes or a different standard of workers’ compensation insurance.
Require employees to sign-off on any changes to their time worked or their paycheck. Sometimes payroll mistakes will happen. When they do, provide documentation explaining the error and require the employee to sign it before corrections are implemented.
When hiring, the role should be clearly designated as being exempt or nonexempt. Be consistent with your job descriptions and training for jobs. Utilize your ATS and onboarding software to help keep track of the details. Don’t recreate the wheel every time the chair is empty.
Classify bonuses correctly for nonexempt employees. The overtime rate for your nonexempt employees is “one and one-half times the regular rate at which they are employed.” When you give nonexempt employees bonuses, that bonus amount most likely needs to be calculated into their “regular rate” for overtime calculation.

Avoid HR issues and Turnover by being Proactive

Use your onboarding software to create employee training plans for each position. Rather than relying on the same onboarding process for every new hire, tailor your onboarding plan for each position. Include training modules as well as peer training.
Create a career development plan for employees. 65% of employees expect their employers to provide resources for continued learning. You can increase engagement and reduce turnover by supporting your employees’ career development goals.
Create a mentorship program. Pair current leaders with your star employees to form a mentorship program. Upskilling your current workforce is less costly and more effective than hiring new employees. Current employees who show potential but lack training already understand the company, its culture and its mission.
Consider sponsoring employees for paid certifications and workshops.
Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach by conducting a performance analysis to pinpoint the source of performance issues. Employee surveys, accident reports, customer feedback and other tools can help you determine if the problem is specific to an employee, a manager or the entire team. They can also help you uncover company-wide inefficiencies that contribute to performance issues.

Avoid Employee Conflict

Encourage inter-departmental communication early. During your onboarding process, assign new hires to work in different departments for a day. They’ll learn how their role affects the company, and they’ll form working relationships with their colleagues.
Respect personality differences and adjust for employee strengths. Often, a perceived weakness is masking a corresponding strength. An introvert struggling in a team setting may excel if given the opportunity to work independently. Use personality tests and strength-based assessments to ensure everyone can thrive in their role.
Foster team relationships with company-sponsored events. Whether it’s a company-wide baseball game or a smaller outing to a comedy club with the team, give employees a chance to get to know their colleagues beyond their work role.
Incorporate relationship-building and social needs into your onboarding process. Get new hires off to a great start by encouraging workplace friendships. Ask your new hire to write a short biography, including information such as hobbies or pets. Post this biography in a prominent place on the company intranet. Assign a peer buddy to each new hire to help them learn the company’s culture and unwritten rules, and schedule lunches with team members.
Reexamine your incentive and rewards program. Make sure to revise employee incentives that may encourage too much competition and create conflict.

Improve Your HR Recruitment Results

Use an ATS to automate repetitive tasks such as posting to multiple job sites, texting candidates and tracking progress. By doing so, you’ll have more time for creating a strategy that improves your hiring process.
Harness the power of data. Your ATS can tell you important information, such as your time-to-hire ratio, drop off rate, how long it takes applicants to complete an application and more. You can use your ATS to find out where you can make improvements in your process.
Implement an employee referral program. Employee referrals result in more new hires than any other method. And they tend to stay with the company longer.
Use a team approach to make better hiring decisions and avoid unconscious bias.
Make it easy to attract top talent by developing your employer brand.

Take the Headache Out of Human Resources

The causes behind the most common HR issues are increasingly complex. Discrimination, once confined to the office, can now happen across great distances. And greater social awareness is bringing a wider range of claims to the courts. Wage and hour laws, always notoriously complex, can be downright perplexing when it comes to remote workers.

Training has become a key expectation from top talent. Employee conflict, which affects your productivity and culture, is even more damaging in the tight post-Covid labor market. There are a lot of factors that support the current labor shortage and the Great Resignation phenomenon we are experiencing. Unfortunately, neither are going to change in the near term.

Without a doubt, a career in human resources can be a wild ride. On the one hand, you’ve got a pile of new laws and regulations to decipher and an executive team demanding more metrics. On the other hand, you get to help people reach their potential and assist them when they need support along their work journey. If you want to reclaim part of your workday and throw away your aspirin bottle, I suggest you work with companies that are truly interested in partnering with you and your success versus just selling you software.

If you are ready for real help from real people, check out our applicant tracking system and onboarding software. Contact us today to find out more.

Photo by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash

Hiring with QR Codes

in Workforce Management/by Nancy Meyer, SHRM-CP

If you’ve been dining out or picking up food to go, it’s likely you have seen or used a QR code to access your menu or even pay a bill. Want to share feedback on an experience? Often, the participant will access a QR code to provide input on a topic. What are QR codes you might ask?

What is a QR Code?

Invented in 1994, QR (Quick Response) codes are matrix barcode readable optic labels…or more simply, those black line patterned squares we see on receipts, papers, billboards and a multitude of other areas. (Even Super Bowl commercials for that matter!) Upon scanning a QR code with a mobile device, a designated webpage will open in the viewer’s browser.

QR codes are not new, but they are a bit newer to mainstream use. They provide contactless convenience to communicate essential information to the reader via a mobile device. Those nifty square shapes of lines are rising in popularity due to our increasing need for mobile communication, especially since the onset of the pandemic.

No matter the industry, there are ways to incorporate the use of QR codes. Let’s talk about the area where we, HR Professionals, may need extra support now–recruiting and hiring.

Hiring with QR Codes

Companies are short staffed and desperately seeking interested, qualified applicants to fill their job openings. How can a company promote its brand and fantastic job opportunities with limited time and space? By hiring with QR codes!

Hiring with QR codes–or using them in your recruitment process–can be the catalyst that amplifies your applicant volume. An employer using QR codes can quickly disseminate valuable content to job seekers, reaching audiences that it might not have connected with otherwise. Plus, they present your organization as modern and tech savvy–which helps your employer brand.

How and Where to Use QR Codes for Hiring

Not sure how or where to use a QR code for hiring? Here are some helpful strategies and tips to incorporate QR codes into your recruiting and hiring processes.

Print Media – Printing flyers for distribution or posting in high-traffic areas? If so, then add a QR code so viewers can scan to learn more about your job listings. Motivate job seekers to apply by providing instant information!
Signage – Look around, and you’ll see a large number of signs exclaiming “Now Hiring!” Competition is fierce, so include a QR code on your signage to standout and compete with other companies that are vying for the same job seekers. Interested job seekers who are not ready to walk inside and apply can scan the QR code to access your company’s job info. They then can choose to apply immediately or at their convenience.
Business Cards – While networking face to face has been altered due to COVID-19, it still exists. Employees with personal business cards can add QR codes. If your organization prints general recruitment cards, add a QR code linked to your company’s “Career Opportunities” webpage.
Workroom posters and flyers – Just like using print media for an external audience, workroom flyers are a great way to target an often overlooked talent pool–current employees. Current employees offer knowledge of company culture and goals–and can often jump the “new hire learning curve”. Post flyers with QR codes in break rooms to promote vacancies and show your company’s commitment to internal growth.
Transportation – Take your message wherever you go by adding a QR code to your company vehicle via car wraps. It’s company mobility with a mobile message.
Receipts – Hospitality, service, and retail industry leaders, in particular, take note. The next time a receipt is provided to your customers, make sure a QR code to your job openings is included at the bottom. Your loyal customers might become your best employees!

Better Hiring with QR Codes

QR codes provide a tremendous amount of data with a quick, simple scan. This helps employers track the effectiveness of recruitment marketing strategies, like print and other display content. And it simplifies the application process by giving job seekers the power to conveniently apply on mobile devices, giving them a way to “apply on the fly”.

QR codes communicate directly to audiences–safely, quickly and thoroughly. As HR professionals, we seek to make the applicant experience impactful, timely, and accessible. Hiring with QR codes helps you achieve this and much more!

ExactHire ATS makes it easy for employers to deploy QR Codes in the hiring process, contact us today to learn more.

6 Signs Your Onboarding Process Needs Improvement

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

How’s your employee onboarding process? Many companies are eager for their new hires to be off and running in their new roles. After all, that empty chair costs the company money in terms of lost productivity and hiring costs. It takes, on average, 42 days to find a new employee. And hiring a new employee costs $4,000, on average.

But if you think the work of hiring new employees ends with their first day, you’re missing an opportunity to improve every aspect of your business. Onboarding new employees effectively improves employee engagement, increases the new hire’s productivity, and contributes to a positive company culture that creates a cohesive team.

Revamping your onboarding process can solve a surprising number of seemingly unrelated problems. This article touches upon 6 signs your onboarding process needs improvement.

Your New Hire Time-to-Productivity Exceeds Six Months

One survey found that new hires take a year or longer to be fully productive at 30% of companies. And while those companies wait for new hire’s to become productive, their colleagues get overburdened with filling in the productivity gaps.

In reality, a comprehensive onboarding process can bring most new hire’s up to speed within three months, or six months for mid-level positions. Creating an onboarding process checklist that includes training modules and digital access to important documents will help new hires learn vital information independently.

You’ll always know how far new hire’s have progressed in their training. And coworkers won’t be saddled with training the basics in addition to their own responsibilities.

You See New Hires Leaving Before Their First-Year Anniversary

If you’re losing a significant number of new hires before their first-year anniversary, you need a better onboarding process.

The Work Institute’s 2020 Retention Report found that nearly 40% of new hire’s left the company within their first year. Of those, 2 out of 3 leave within the first six months. The reasons these new hires leave vary, but include work environment, well-being, career development and other reasons that can be avoided with a thoughtful onboarding process.

A welcoming onboarding process that takes into account the new hire’s needs and career goals will help stem the tide of exiting employees. Include items on your onboarding checklist that insert the new hire into your company’s fabric. Make one of those items a goal-setting session, where the new hire can express their professional aspirations and explore ways your company can support them. After setting meaningful goals, there should be a mutually agreed upon plan to check in at regular intervals. In this way, the new hire can see how the company is invested in their development.

Your Employee Engagement Survey Reveals Unhappy Workers

Having an engaged workforce improves several business outcomes, including customer ratings, product quality and safety measures. Overall, engagement makes your company more profitable.

Engagement is almost always connected with an employer meeting a new hire’s expectations. Your employee onboarding process, along with your hiring process, is critical to setting expectations for new hires. And so it’s not only important to provide a welcoming, fun, and comfortable experience, it’s important provide the new hire with honest, realistic expectations of what success looks like in their role.

When you create an onboarding checklist and training schedule tailored to each position, you help new hires know exactly what is expected of them. Additionally, things like making sure that new hires have all their equipment on day one, or asking for their feedback on their onboarding experience, will set the stage for a highly engaged, long-term employee.

Need more proof of how employee onboarding impacts employee engagement? Gallup developed a survey with 12 “yes” or “no” questions to measure engagement. All 12 areas of engagement could be directly linked to onboarding and the new hire’s early employment experience.

New Hires Quit, Citing Poor Company Culture

Company culture is another one of those employee experience items that have a big impact on your company’s success. According to this article in MIT Sloan Management Review, employees leaving during the Great Resignation cite a toxic culture as the most common reason.

In today’s job market, new hires will judge company culture fairly quickly and leave if they are unsatisfied–there’s no sense wasting time working for an organization where they feel unappreciated, used, or uncomfortable. The employer will only receive the benefit of the doubt for a short time.

The elements of a toxic culture vary, but they are easily sniffed out early–during the onboarding process. Employees may feel that management is disrespectful. Or they may witness unethical behavior. Essentially, anything that has a negative impact on your employee’s onboarding experience will be seen as proof of a poor company culture.

So onboarding is a golden opportunity to take the reins and steer your new hires and your company culture in a positive direction. Use your onboarding checklist to introduce your company’s mission and values to your new hire. Educate your new employee on your company’s history. And tie your new hire’s role the company’s larger purpose.

You Play Moderator Too Often When Employees Don’t Get Along

Constantly bickering employees are the result of a poor company culture. The whole team suffers when employees don’t get along. The negative energy impacts everyone, engagement plummets, and the drama can escalate to sabotage that hurts a company’s bottom line.

Onboarding employees effectively means introducing employees to their colleagues as well as the company. You can set the foundation for friendly and respectful relationships during the onboarding process. Without a formalized, purposeful onboarding process–one that supports a clearly defined company culture–employees are left to create their own culture, which is a lost opportunity to build trust and respect of leadership.

So it’s critical to effectively introduce a new hire to all areas–and all people–of a company. For example, part of your onboarding process could include sending new hires to work one day in each department. Doing so will help prevent the creation of silos that often lead to misunderstandings, which in turn can develop into organizational disfunction.

Gallup’s research shows that having a best friend at work increases productivity and reduces turnover. So it’s wise to use the onboarding process to help your new hires develop friendships. Doing so will not only increase your team’s harmony, but also improve retention.

You can jumpstart your hire’s new friendships by adding a few simple steps to the onboarding checklist. Assign a workplace buddy to help the new hire acclimate to the unspoken rules of the office. Have the new hire fill out a questionnaire or write a short bio to post on the company’s intranet. Host a monthly lunch to bring new hire’s together.

You Worry About HR Compliance and Risk Management

A regulatory fine costs businesses an average of about $30,000. Much of a company’s regulatory burden is HR related. Failing to maintain employee documentation or thoroughly track hiring decisions can land your company in hot water with a government agency.

Poor record-keeping can also leave you vulnerable to a lawsuit. If an applicant files a discrimination lawsuit, are you confident you’ll be able to find all the documentation surrounding your hiring decision? If your onboarding process checklist doesn’t include important safety trainings, you could be liable for significant damages if an employee injures himself.

Your risks are far greater if your onboarding process doesn’t include digitized paperwork with varying degrees of password protected security. And if the risks of sloppy organization of HR-related paperwork isn’t keeping you up at night, it should.

How to Improve Employee Onboarding

A comprehensive employee onboarding checklist that considers the employee’s needs as well as the company’s will solve a host of HR related issues. Start by analyzing various company-wide problems that develop among employees and teams. Issues such as low engagement and poor workplace culture contribute to poor retention and stunted profits.

Studies show time and time again that creating a workplace culture that contributes to your employees’ overall well-being will improve your company’s success. Higher retention, fewer safety-related incidents, better product quality, and improved innovation are the byproducts of happy employees.

Your onboarding efforts set the stage for your employees’ engagement. The more effort you put into your new hire’s development during that crucial first year, the less you’ll ultimately spend on your hiring efforts.

Take your onboarding to the next level with onboarding software. Doing so, you’ll automate much of the tedious record-keeping associated with hiring. The checklists, training modules and role assignments will keep your onboarding process on track. Most importantly, you’ll free up your time for implementing creative onboarding ideas.

Are you ready to take your onboarding process to the next level? Contact ExactHire today.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

If you’re a company that can’t address and handle remote working, you need to build remote workplace strategy.

If you’re not, your competition will…and it’s going to hurt you.

VIDEO: Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

TRANSCRIPT: Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

With the onset of COVID, lots of employers were forced to allow employees to work from home. And at first, I don’t think they really liked it very much. They were having trouble finding a decent space to work in their new home–and if there were two people at the house working, they were fighting for the quiet time they needed to handle the zoom call.

But as time wore on, employees started to like it–much to everybody’s surprise, including mine.

But for most industries today, it’s hard to find a person if you’re not offering some type of remote work in your job ads.

Remote Work Employee Perspective

Only 37 percent of employees want to work in an office full-time…37 percent. And about 23 percent are saying that they’d even take a pay cut if you let them work from home or work remotely part of the time because it adds so much to their lives.

From an employee perspective, they reduce their commute time significantly–that could be 20 minutes a day could be a couple hours a day that really adds to to their usable life during the day, and it’s pretty important. They lowered their commuting costs three to five thousand dollars a year, their child care cost probably went down somewhere between 500 and 1400 a month. This was kind of like getting a tax-free raise.

But this isn’t all one-sided.

Remote Work Employer Perspective

The employer is finding that they’re getting more productive employees, their turnover is going down, their absenteeism is going down, their productivity is going up, and they’re actually able to reduce their real estate footprint, which saves them money. And most importantly because remote work is becoming part of the equation, they can increase their geographic horizon from which they can hire–which is really important in a hiring environment like we are today.

The job ads that mention remote work are getting a lot more applicants. So if you’re a company that can’t address and handle remote working, you need to build a remote workplace strategy that works. If you’re not, your competition is, and it’s going to hurt you.

ExactHire provides hiring software and strategy to help employers adapt to job market changes and succeed in hiring. Learn how our software and team of strategists can help you hire and onboard a remote workforce.

How Do I Find Blue Collar Employees?

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

Blue collar jobs have long suffered from an image crisis, despite blue collar employees enjoying a high level of job satisfaction.

According to a study by The Harris Poll, 85 percent of blue-collar workers enjoy job satisfaction and are optimistic about the direction of their life. Yet, most high school graduates are opting to pursue a four-year degree. As a result, enrollment in Career and Technical Programs, where many students go to learn skilled trades, is at an all-time low.

Throw in an infrastructure bill and an all-around labor shortage, most businesses will be struggling to find blue-collar employees for the foreseeable future. Finding blue collar employees takes a mix of understanding this demographic, addressing its image and training issues, and being a whiz at advertising blue-collar jobs on the most relevant jobs sites.

Blue Collar Meaning

Finding blue-collar workers begins with understanding the term. Blue-collar generally refers to any job requiring manual labor. For decades, these workers didn’t require much technical know-how. Most learned their trade on-the-job, hiring into factories or construction companies right after high school.

Today, though, blue collar jobs refer to a wide-range of skill levels and pay scales. Electricians can make up to $98,000, while machine operators make less than $30,000. Many skilled blue-collar jobs require very little formal education. Instead, paid internships offer a path to licensing and employment.

Bias Surrounding Different Types of Collar Jobs

The blue-collar worker’s image is tied to our perception of social class in America. Even the term “blue-collar” is a reference to the dirt and grime associated with these workers who wear durable blue clothes that resist stains. In contrast, “white-collar” workers are associated with clean offices and intellectual work.

Blue-collar bias even affects college grads who come from a working-class background. In one study, researchers sent fake resumes to top offices and law firms in Australia. The resumes were identical as far as education and work experience. Some resumes, however, included upper-class hobbies, such as polo and sailing. Other resumes included typical working-class activities, such as track or country music. The resumes from presumably upper-class candidates received far more callbacks than those with working-class extracurricular activities.

But like many of our biases, these stereotypes have no place in our modern workplace. Blue-collar workers are indispensable. Anyone who’s had a broken pipe in their house or a fallen tree on their roof can attest: plumbers, construction workers, electricians and others build and maintain the framework for our society.

And they’re starting to get more respect. Blue-collar employees are seeing a 10 percent wage growth, compared to only 7.5 percent for their white-collar counterparts. And, according to this article about blue-collar stigma in Deseret News, “20 percent of technical certificate holders make more than the average [bachelor’s degree].”

Despite the surge in demand for blue-collar employees, many don’t enjoy the same perks white-collar employees take for granted. They often get less paid time off. When they go to work, they often don’t get free coffee from the breakroom or clean restrooms, often making do with a thermos from home and porta-potties.

Increasing Blue Collar Jobs Training

Fighting against the stigma attached to blue-collar employees is the first step to encouraging enrollment in trade schools and apprenticeship programs.

If your company isn’t already participating in your local high school’s career day, it’s time to get started. Representatives from your company can educate students about a blue-collar employee’s wage potential. You can also educate students on the costs of trade school as compared to a four-year university and the rising demand for blue-collar workers.

You should also be in contact with your local high school’s counselors throughout the year. Make sure they’re aware of the opportunities for blue-collar employees at your company. Talk to your local school board about setting up a vocational education program for kids still in high school. Encourage blue-collar jobs training by offering scholarships to trade schools. Or perhaps your company can offer paid, on-the-job training.

Use your social media outlets to promote blue collar jobs. There’s a large, grassroots movement to promote trade schools and end the bias against working-class workers. Relentless promoter of blue-collar trade schools and host of the TV show Dirty Jobs, celebrity Mike Rowe is never far from the spotlight and a great source for shareable articles. Create a Google alerts for search terms such as “trade schools” or “blue-collar” so you’ll never run out of content to share on your social media pages.

Finding Blue-Collar Employees

Promoting trade schools to current high school students is an effective long-term strategy for finding blue-collar employees. But it isn’t how to recruit blue-collar workers for the openings you have today. You can find blue-collar employees for your immediate openings by expanding your talent pool and advertising on the sites where blue-collar workers are.

You can actively recruit blue-collar workers by targeting specific groups. Many veterans already possess the training they need to excel in your blue-collar job openings. Check veterans’ job fairs in your local community or online. A Regional Veterans’ Employment Coordinator can help you connect with veterans seeking blue-collar employment in your community.

You can find blue-collar employees through a largely untapped talent pool. Former offenders usually get overlooked by hiring managers. But a third of U.S. adults have a criminal record. Including these individuals in your search for blue-collar employees is the right thing to do and more important than ever in the current labor shortage. Some local and state governments are offering incentives for hiring justice involved candidates in addition to the tax credit provided by the federal government.

You can find blue-collar employees on sites like Indeed if you use these effective keywords.

Skilled Trades
Apprentice
Manufacturing
Operator
CDL

But you’ll be able to find even more blue-collar employees if you expand your job advertising to other, niche sites. Bluecollarcrossing.com is job board that help employers find blue-collar workers in all industries. Also look for niche job boards for your industry. careersinwelding.com, tradesmen-electrician.jobs, and cdljobs.com are several examples. “Jobs on Facebook” is a new paid advertising site on the social media giant and an effective place to find blue-collar workers.

Hiring for Blue-Collar Jobs

The current labor shortage probably has you wondering more than ever, “how do I find blue-collar employees”. By addressing the stigma around blue-collar workers and promoting trade schools in your area, you can position yourself to find blue-collar employees in the near future. But by directing your recruiting efforts to marginalized groups and your job advertisement campaigns to blue-collar workers and the sites they frequent, you can hire for your immediate openings.

ExactHire ATS can help you improve your time-to-hire metrics for all of your open positions. You’ll be able to access over 25,000 job boards and advertise your job openings with one click. You can then monitor each job site’s performance to learn which sites perform best for your company.

ExactHire ATS also makes it easy for blue-collar workers to apply to your open positions with a mobile-friendly careers site and application. You can even seamlessly text with your applicants from within the software. You can run a report rather than sift through files when it comes time to file for your Work Opportunity Tax Credit.

To learn more about how ExactHire can help you find blue-collar employees, contact us today.

Photo by Jason Richard on Unsplash

Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions for the HR Generalist

in Workforce Management/by Nancy Meyer, SHRM-CP

The year 2022 has arrived at our door whether we are ready or not. Traditionally, at the culmination of the year, rumination over the year’s positive and negative experiences flood the mind while music like Auld Lang Syne resonates with the validity of its translation: “Days Gone By”. Truly, those days have gone by quickly, yet at times, days are seemingly endless. Let us turn our energy to starting a new year with renewed focus and optimism.

As we reflect on days gone by and the challenge of starting a second year of business operations in a pandemic, it helps to focus on the core of a business’s success. And while customers are a driving force for profit and growth, the ultimate force that helps sustain and grow our organizations–the core of our success–is our employees.

Each day, statistics and articles are published focusing on “The Great Resignation”. No one can deny that people are leaving the workforce in record numbers for myriad reasons. Executive leadership within organizations must be cognizant of the daily struggles of their employees at all levels. Eliminating the disconnect between managers and support staff is crucial to ensuring a productive and positive working environment.

HR Generalists – keep your superhero cape fastened. Here are five goals for 2022 that will help keep the light bright within your organization.

Reevaluate your current talent – Look internally at your talent. Are there current employees who would be ideal for your vacant roles? Do you have a succession plan in line if your key talent and leadership leaves? Current employees are knowledgeable of the company culture and already meet a basic learning curve.
Retrain and refocus – As technology evolves, are your employees staying up-to-speed? Do certain departments or employees need specific training offsite, or can outside trainers meet your needs onsite? Many educational institutions offer group training designed after a thorough needs analysis which can be delivered onsite or virtually.
Enhance the employee experience – Make physical and mental health for yourself and others a priority. Does the organization offer, and encourage, the use of physical and mental wellness plans? Many gyms have closed or are on modified schedules due to COVID. Some individuals do not feel comfortable going into public exercise facilities. Any option to provide paid time to work out for 30 minutes during the day at the company or at home?
Lead by example – HR is the go-to for the majority of items. Often, HR receives complaints and concerns but not always positive feedback on the successes of others or wins across departments. Seek ways to generate positive feedback from employees and departments to improve struggling morale.
Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility – HR has been stretched to the point of snapping, but HR is also flexible enough to bounce back after being pulled multiple ways at multiple times. Our working world will not be able to party like it is 2019 anytime soon. Having contingency plans for staffing, support and incentives for employees to pick up additional tasks and shifts will help ease the roller coaster of departures and quarantines. Find ways to bridge the gap between onsite and remote employees. Weekly or biweekly sessions offered via video conferencing software might help.

Human Resources professionals are human like each of us. HR Departments of one or many need support too. The last two years have proved that we must work together to succeed.

To start 2022 more efficiently and streamline your employment processes, contact ExactHire to learn more about our Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), employee onboarding and employee assessment solutions to help increase your organization’s productivity.

Photo by Tony Hand on Unsplash