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How to Effortlessly Use Texting to Hire Hourly Workers

in Hiring Process, Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

You only have to look at your smartphone’s weekly screen time report to know that the amount of time we spend accessing our phones is increasing at a relentless pace. Whether our pervasive mobile usage troubles or encourages you, it is undeniable. In fact, according to research done by Hitwise, the average device split for searches was 72% for mobile and 28% for desktop in 2017.

In consideration of the amount of time people spend doing web searches on phones, naturally we’re in a climate where employers must adapt and leverage mobile communication in their hiring process–particularly while unemployment is at an epic low.

Today, the name of the hiring game is speed, and this is painfully realized in industries that employ a large number of hourly, non-exempt workers. The reality of those employers is that if they hesitate to respond quickly, the competitor across the street has already paid their would-be new hire for their first shift.

Signs that you’re not effectively using a text recruiting strategy

We can and should all continuously experiment with and tweak our hiring processes. The hiring landscape changes so quickly that constant attention is required. However, there are telltale signs that help identify when your organization has a more significant mobile communication problem.

Phone ghosting

I was initially surprised a couple of years ago when I heard that many employers of hourly workers, in particular, struggled to get candidates to respond to phone invitations for an initial interview. If your recruiters are frequently encountering full voice mail boxes when reaching out to schedule a conversation; or they discover that a candidate doesn’t even have voice mail set up, then it’s time to try something other than a phone call.

Candidate shelf-life

It’s not uncommon for employers who rely on large numbers of hourly workers to empower the managers and assistant managers of various store locations to screen candidates and invite them to proceed in the hiring process. Because hiring is just one of myriad operational responsibilities for these managers, they don’t always respond to candidates as quickly as may be necessary in this job market.

This failure in prompt candidate engagement all too often sinks a retail location’s recruiting efforts before the ship even leaves port. Or, maybe a manager is in such tremendous need of candidates that he recognizes this deficiency and immediately calls or emails new applicants. However, because many hourly workers tend to fill positions that aren’t necessarily accompanied by a desktop computer or an office landline, their tendency is to communicate via text rather than voice mail or email.

If a job seeker doesn’t recognize a general manager’s incoming phone number, chances are she’ll avoid taking the call–meanwhile, if she has applied to multiple hourly positions, a savvy competitor is grabbing her attention and her time via text before she checks her inbox.

Standardizing communication and respecting candidate privacy

In the absence of a strong hiring software platform that allows managers to contact job candidates via text message, many managers of hourly workers will resort to their own smartphone to contact applicants to connect for an interview.

This is commonplace; however, it isn’t in the best interest of the employer. In many cases, these applicants were not prompted to opt-in to receiving text messages during the job application process–why would they if the applicant tracking system didn’t support text messaging?

Not only is this a privacy concern as it does not allow job candidates to formally opt-out of text messages once they are initiated, but practically speaking, candidates won’t necessarily be on the lookout for text communication from your organization.

Arguably, they will probably quickly adapt given that texting is second nature to many of them, but your organization is missing an opportunity to set expectations about the hiring process and endear itself to candidates…candidates who are in hot demand.

Moreover, when general managers take texting candidates into their own hands outside of an ATS, there is no guarantee of adequate communication documentation with the job applicant. By utilizing applicant tracking software that includes in-application texting functionality, an employer is ensuring that multiple users of the system have access to review communication between candidates.

After all, in this highly competitive recruiting landscape, recruiters have full plates and may be called to work on different job requisitions if a co-worker is on vacation, on leave, etc. What you don’t want is for only one person in your organization to have access to candidate conversations–that’s a significant obstacle for a scaling company.

Why is mobile recruiting an opportunity for hourly jobs in particular?

Hourly workers are often the front-line defense (or offense) for your organization. They are the individuals who are most likely to interact directly with your customers. And, unfortunately, they are often in the positions with the highest turnover–whether that is related to the nature of the job, the typical lower pay (relative to exempt positions), and/or the lack of benefits (at least in the case of part-time hourly employees). In a job market flooded with open positions, candidates will leave for a few cents more per hour.

You see this happen in positions like

hosts and servers at your local restaurant,
cashiers at your retail store,
LPNs at your healthcare facility,
service techs at your automotive dealership, and
direct support professionals (DSPs) for nonprofits.

People who fill these types of positions tend to be on the go (i.e. not doing a desk job) and may have more than one part-time job at a time. They don’t get into email or voice mail as frequently (if at all), and so they need fewer barriers to communication when it comes to job consideration, as well as long-term engagement with an employer.

Considering that over 58% of America’s working population fills hourly positions (BLS, 2017), there’s real opportunity to leverage texting to be the first to attract and engage hourly job candidates. I’m offering the following steps to help you position your organization as an earlier adopter of the mobile recruiting revolution.

6 steps to successfully use texting to hire hourly workers

1 – Create communication efficiency

Use pre-built text message templates within your applicant tracking system. Create and label them for different stages in the selection process for hourly workers. This saves store managers time when they need to hire three new retail associates–“yesterday!”

2 – Model the right texting behavior

Train your hiring managers on appropriate texting etiquette for your recruiting process. Does the language they use and the tone they convey support your overall employment brand? Additionally, make sure they understand how text messages will show up to the job candidate.

An easy way to accomplish this is to test the messaging feature from within a sample job application. Then, take a screenshot of how it appears to a recipient on your phone and share it with managers. This step will help them understand from what number(s) messages may originate, whether the sender’s name, job title and/or organization name are referenced, and how much of the message will appear on the preview screen before being cut off.

3 – Lightning fast speed

Use text to reply promptly to candidates once they’ve responded to your initial outreach. Don’t make the mistake of resting on your laurels once you have native texting functionality and take your sweet time to reply–jump on message responses!

Remember: texting affords job candidates fewer communication barriers to entry, so they expect organizations to respond quickly, too.

4 – Strategically plan text content

You should absolutely use text to reach all types of job candidates to screen and schedule interviews. However, text messages also present an opportunity–when used thoughtfully and selectively–to reach candidates who are on the fence about joining your organization.

Consider the potential impact of a personalized message sharing a link to a positive article about your company. Or, the likelihood that a hired candidate will end up ghosting you during the pre-boarding phase if you regularly connect with him to prepare him for his first shift.

5 – Flip the script on thank you notes

Use text messages to thank a job candidate for her time and preparation after you conduct an interview. That’s right–once upon a time, we expected job candidates to thank recruiters and hiring managers for their time in order to help them secure an offer–but times are changing!

Thank you notes are still an amazing gesture on the part of a job candidate, but they are no longer a mainstay for job offer consideration in today’s job market given the sorry state of many employers’ candidate pipelines.

Today is about sourcing, not screening. Break through the clutter by proactively thanking candidates with a simple text message and humanize your hiring process.

6 – Hiring process visualization

When candidates know what to expect from the hiring process it

helps them visualize how they see themselves interacting with your organization,
may allow them to more adequately prepare, and
it makes it easier for them to say “yes” when you make the job offer.

You can use text to quickly outline the various hiring process steps at the onset of the recruiting process. Think of this step as reducing friction for distracted job seekers who probably have many options before them. If you can grease their understanding runway regarding your job opportunity–and you can do so quickly–you’ll be the employer who is poaching job candidates from competitors across the street.

Mobile recruiting facilitated by text message communication is here to stay. Armed with the steps outlined above, you’re on the way to engaging the job seekers in your hourly job candidate pipeline and positively impacting your employer’s bottom line.

9 Employer Strategies That Limit Ghosting

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

Even if you haven’t already heard the term employee “ghosting,” odds are you have still experienced the workplace trend. What is ghosting and why is it more relevant to your organization than ever?

From existing employees failing to show up for work and disappearing without a trace…to job seekers reneging on an accepted offer when a better one comes in last minute–ghosting occurs when someone you are counting on fails to appear and doesn’t give you any notice.

Why is this trend emerging now? Contributing factors may include a labor shortage, a tight job market, and younger generations’ popular preference for electronic correspondence over face-to-face conflict resolution. Not surprisingly, ghosting affects industries with a large number of hourly workers, but it’s also impacting the white collar worlds of technology firms, business services and healthcare.

Here are nine strategies to help scare off the ghosting trend in your workplace.

1 – Follow the Golden Rule

This is simple, yet worth restating with some regularity nonetheless. I frequently find myself telling my kids to “treat people the way you’d want to be treated.” And, the same goes for employees and applicants. Keep them informed, treat them with respect and be kind. For a long time, many employers got away with ghosting job seekers and interviewees, failing to respond to the messages of final stage candidates or even completely neglecting to decline them at the end of a hiring process.

Make sure your own recruiting tactics don’t include ghosting tendencies…turnabout is fair play! Recruiters can’t get away with the same bad behavior they may have had when unemployment wasn’t at the low that it is right now.

2 – Strategize the counteroffer

Considering that one of the insidious forms in which ghosting takes shape is that the employee doesn’t show up on his first day, you must anticipate job candidates receiving competitive offers–including a counteroffer from an existing employer.

Plan a strategy session with a newly hired employee at the time he accepts the offer and talk through various scenarios. Encourage him to brainstorm with you how he might fend off a counteroffer. Remind him to consider why he originally looked elsewhere and provide a template the candidate may follow to talk through his resignation with an existing employer.

3 – Leverage text recruiting

Since applicants (like the general population) rely on smartphones to screen their calls, in the age of spam robo-callers it is less likely that they will pick up the phone when you call them for the first time to schedule an interview. In my product research calls over the last year, many employers explained that job seekers they try to contact frequently don’t even have their voice mail box set up–or if they do, it’s full.

Make sure your hiring software includes the ability to text with candidates, and more importantly, ensure that incoming text message notifications to your job seekers adequately identify your organization, related job and recruiter name.

4 – Over-communicate with job candidates

Obsess about the communication piece of your employment brand. Counteract a potential eventual lack of communication on the candidate’s part with meticulous communication from the employer throughout the selection process. Job seekers will feel more informed and more engaged to reciprocate communication if they sense the opportunity may not work for them. Here are some specific communication tactics:

Set expectations about what the hiring process involves at the very beginning of the process (e.g. number of stages, requirements of each stage, duration of process, etc.).
Send updates to job seekers when target dates for various stages get delayed.
Invite candidates to share feedback about your process at different steps along the way–whether they are selected for the position or not.
Stay connected with silver medal candidates for future consideration. They are a great back-up if the gold medalist ghosts you, and more likely to come through for you in the next position if you keep them engaged in your pipeline through thoughtful messaging.

5 – Be transparent with those who refer candidates

Follow-up with referrers of candidates to thank them for their employee referral, and acknowledge your appreciation for the referral with the job candidate, too. This personal reminder puts pressure on the referred candidate not to let her friend down by ghosting the employer and risk damaging her reputation.

Not only does this practice help mitigate ghosting, but it also increases the likelihood that your existing employees will continue to refer you qualified candidates in the future. Remember–don’t ghost your own employees about referral outcomes when they take time to make a recommendation to you!

6 – Preview the employee onboarding experience

Create content that provides a thorough overview of your employee onboarding process to potential hires. This helps prevent the cognitive dissonance that they may otherwise feel about accepting an offer. If they’re excited about what to expect in their first year, then they’re much more likely to show up on their first day.

Additionally, give final stage interviewees a sneak peak into the employee experience by inviting them to do a job shadow before extending an offer. This simulation illustrates what it’s really like to work for your organization, and encourages candidates to self-select out of the process before you get to the ghosting let-down.

7 – Become a pre-boarding pro

Don’t go radio silent during the all too important pre-boarding process–that time between the accepted employment offer and the start date. This may last from a few hours to a few weeks depending on your organization and job category, but think about how to keep new hires feeling connected during this time.

Reflect on your culture and plan touch points with the new hire that make them feel welcomed to the team. Text a group photo, invite them to lunch before the start date and/or send them a swag bag at home. Ask the new hire to complete a “get to know you” sheet during pre-boarding, and then share info sheets about other employees with the new hire prior to the first day, too. This helps the new hire start to feel like a part of the team before the first day–which will make it harder to abandon the team without explanation.

8 – Flaunt your best attributes

Know your market and then understand which aspects of your compensation and benefits package and/or work schedule are highly attractive. While it is natural to highlight these attributes in detail in an employment offer, it’s a good idea to remind existing employees, too.

To help prevent employees from leaving unexpectedly for greener pastures, create a detailed total rewards summary and discuss it annually with workers to differentiate your unique value proposition from competitors. Make sure the summary highlights any continuous education opportunities, especially, so that employees not only understand their existing assets, but also their potential to improve their knowledge.

9 – Proactively thank candidates

Once upon a time, recruiters gave an edge to the candidates who sent the first thank you message (assuming all else was equal). However, today recruiters who don’t wait around, but rather proactively thank candidates following an interview are less likely to be ghosted. This follow-up is also a trigger for the organization to touch base with job seekers about timing for next steps in the process. And, as we learned in tip #4 above, over communication is a best practice.

It is unlikely that you will completely prevent ghosting despite your attentive efforts; however, the aforementioned tips are a proactive start in dramatically reducing its impact on your company.

Introduction to Using Video in Recruiting

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

ExactHire recently teamed up with Covideo to create a short series of videos highlighting tips for how to use video in the recruitment and hiring process. Check out the video below for a short overview of how to use video in recruiting.

Video Transcript

There’s no denying that the majority of people prefer to watch an engaging video rather than read text. Not surprisingly, many job seekers have the same preference as they research and engage with potential employers. But, to see why recruiters specifically could benefit from video, we talked to Jessica Stephenson from ExactHire.Hi, I’m Jessica Stephenson, and I’m the Vice President of Marketing and Talent for ExactHire. We’re a software firm that develops applications that help employers automate and improve the hiring process.

So, why would a recruiter want to add video to their recruitment process?

From a recruitment standpoint, video is super appealing. I think in the age that we are today, especially with unemployment being low, employers need to do everything they can to stand out in a sea of other employers as they compete for talent. So when you think about assets that you can use to promote your job opportunities, what’s going to stand out more in an email, in a social media stream, and anywhere–it’s going to be video and imagery…not just static text content.

What are some of the places where video can be used during recruitment?

So video can be used in all different aspects of recruiting and the employment life cycle. Starting with recruiting, also in interviewing, in pre-boarding, in onboarding and employee engagement, and even in offboarding.

Video is beneficial to any recruiter out there looking to distinguish themselves to their applicants.

There’s no right or wrong way to use video in the employment life cycle. Do what’s right for your organization based on your unique core values and culture. And, experiment along the way to see what works best for you.

6 Ways to Turn Today’s Silver Medal Candidates into Tomorrow’s Gold Medalist Hires

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

How often have you progressed through the hiring process and ultimately realized that your final two candidates were almost evenly matched–one just slightly nudged out the other for the gold medal employment offer? While it’s great to be in that kind of position as the employer, it can be tough to turn down a talented second choice candidate.

However, these “silver medal candidates” pose a significant opportunity for your company and great care should be taken to continuously engage them. You never know when you may need them to step up to a gold medal platform in your organization.

Have you already had the opportunity to groom silver medal candidates into eventual hires? Or, perhaps you were previously a second choice candidate that was later given the opportunity to finish first for a different role. If so, then you understand that with thoughtful practices in place, your employer can leverage a silver medalist pipeline to edge out competition by sourcing top talent quickly and in a cost effective manner. In this blog, I’ll share six behaviors that you can implement to foster enduring positive relationships with your silver medalist applicants.

1 – Set expectations from the start

So much of the content I write underscores the importance of setting clear expectations in the hiring process–but it’s so true. This critical step begins before you ever know someone will end up as your silver medalist candidate for a role. An expectation that is a part of any respectful hiring process is that the recruiter or hiring manager should tell the candidate

the milestones involved with the hiring process,
an estimate of process duration, and
the method by which the candidate will be informed of his/her status during and at the end of the cycle.

The added bonus of setting expectations well is that this behavior naturally forces accountability. After all, a recruiter who doesn’t follow through with what he says he’ll do is going to damage his reputation, as well as the employment brand of the organization.

2 – Promptly communicate

To reinforce the expectations set at the beginning of the hiring process, employers should communicate with candidates regularly and promptly. Even with multiple job requisitions open and oodles of candidates, there’s no excuse not to touch base with applicants thanks to the communication automation tools that are capable of candidate personalization available in applicant tracking systems.

While it can induce less stress to communicate with candidates earlier in the process, it can be trickier to do so with the final two candidates…particularly if the top pick is reviewing an employment offer you already extended while the silver medalist waits to hear if she is still in contention. If a deadline passes while you wait on an answer from your gold medalist, message the silver medalist to explain that circumstances have changed and that you will touch base with her again in a reasonable amount of time. Then, make sure you do.

Timely communication shows your respect for the candidate, and even if she doesn’t make the cut this time, she’ll remember how you treated her and the resulting word of mouth will more favorably represent your company.

3 – Reject expertly

No one likes delivering bad news, but when there are only two candidates left in your hiring process and they’ve both invested a great deal of time completing employment applications, taking assessments and interviewing, you owe the silver medalist a formal let-down. Call him–don’t just email (or worse yet, an automated email)!

And if that’s hard, make yourself accountable heading into the final phase interview by telling him (in the expectations period, remember?) that he will receive a phone call either way at the end of the process.

Then, also follow up with an email thank you and let him know of your sincere, continued interest in him for future roles within your company. Tell him how to learn about future job postings via your ATS job alert feature, and be honest about how often you might hire for positions that fall into his wheelhouse.

4 – Connect for future follow-up

During the phone call and email thank you, let the candidate know that you’re open to connecting on social media (if you haven’t already) so that you have an easy means of staying in touch with each other in the future. This is a great way for the candidate to be exposed to future career-related content that you may personally post or that is shared from your company social media profiles.

If your organization isn’t likely to be hiring relevant roles anytime soon, offer to help the silver medalist by connecting her with others in your network through virtual introductions.

To help prepare the candidate to go for the gold at the next job opportunity, make her aware of resources that might help her improve her job-related skills or knowledge (e.g. certification study courses, industry-related member associations, etc.).

5 – Nurture candidates with technology tools

Use your applicant tracking software features to designate talented second place finishers as great future candidates for other roles. Use applicant status codes or tags to mark them as “#silver,” for example. Or, better yet, “#futuregold!”

Then, it will be easy to target this group of candidates to share culture- and job-related content with them periodically. Take it a step further and observe how they interact with social media posts and engage in follow-up. Make note of their connectivity in their candidate profile within your hiring software so that future hiring managers and recruiters in your organization have a rich record of not only their potential qualification for other roles, but also their organizational engagement.

6 – Put silver medalists on the fast track

A surefire way to disengage silver medal candidates is to make them reinvent the wheel to apply to future roles that interest them. Consider that they’ve already gone through your entire selection process, so there must be opportunities to put them on the fast track for certain roles.

If you proactively source them for a new position, do the equivalent of giving them a “bye” in your recruiting tournament and start them at a later stage in the hiring process. The one exception to this may be if your organization/industry must adhere to certain compliance requirements that necessitate each individual experiencing every stage for a position.

Nevertheless, your applicant tracking system should make it easy for them to optionally pull forward previous resumes and standard application questions, while giving them the opportunity to answer job-related questions that are unique to the new role for which they are applying.

If they previously took an employee assessment that you use for many job categories, then there’s no need for them to retake it. And, especially if they are interviewing for a similar position the second time around–and you specifically invited them to apply–consider taking an informal approach with a coffee conversation to gauge the candidate’s interest, and to find out what’s new as it relates to the position and their career.

With proper grooming of silver medalist candidates, it will cost fewer staff hours to assess and hire the best candidates for the position because they will already be ready to go in your talent pipeline.

How to Use Video to Engage Applicants and Employees

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

There’s no denying the appeal of video. When I’m doing research for a home project, planning a purchase or trying to teach myself how to play a new board game, I prefer to watch an engaging video rather than read through text or scan images. Not surprisingly, many job seekers have the same preference as they research and engage with potential employers to determine which will suit their career aspirations.

How can employers use video in the hiring process and throughout the employment lifecycle to entice job seekers to consider a position? How can video engage employees to remain employed? Consider the following tips to leverage the strengths of video throughout your employment experience.

Recruiting

Employee testimonials

Identify your true employment brand ambassadors and invite them to produce testimonials for your career site. Ask them to speak about the invigorating challenge of their work and the unique, tangible and intrinsic benefits that your organization offers to employees. Most of all, make sure they convey the specific reasons they choose to work for your organization.

Job description overview

A key aspect of successful candidate recruitment is not only selecting the right individual for the company, but also allowing job seekers to understand what they are getting into when it comes to job responsibilities.

Create a video that summarizes the key responsibilities of a position, but then go a step further and discuss what job success looks like for a new hire at three months, six months and one year of employment. These career opportunity digital assets are excellent content resources to share on company social media channels, too.

If you use an applicant tracking system to manage your recruitment process, you may already have access to easily embed videos into job descriptions and share them with third party job boards. Other ideas for video overviews include having a top ten list of reasons to work in a specific role for your company; or, a short segment on what to expect from the hiring and selection process. For example, will the candidate be asked to take any assessments and how many interview stages are involved–and with which company staff members?

Here’s an example of how ExactHire used video in the hiring process when we were looking for web developers. Make sure that the tone and style of your video aligns with your organizational culture. For us, quirky is appropriate!

You could even automate a video email that outlines next steps to send to the candidate after applying online.

Interviewing

Candidate communication

Remember that the quality of your organization’s candidate communication is being closely evaluated by job seekers. It is the first impression that will indicate how responsive and communicative the employer will likely be once a candidate is hired as an employee–it’s the perception of job seekers (and, in my experience, often the truth).

Make applicant correspondence personal by using video email to invite applicants to progress in your hiring process. If you enjoy a remote work culture, using video to facilitate interviewing is critical in moving the selection process along quickly enough that you don’t lose qualified candidates to other offers.

Even if your office isn’t full of telecommuters, if you involve multiple employees in group interviews, video conference calls can open up additional calendar slots by eliminating the need for stakeholders to buffer schedules for commute time.

Closing the deal

In this competitive market, your top candidate will often have another offer when they are considering a position with you. While compensation, benefits, and role will heavily influence the candidate’s choice, you can use personalized video messages to encourage the candidate to join your team and share examples of how your employees embody organizational culture.

Consider sending a team video highlighting a recent company potluck, holiday event or fun competition. You could even send a personalized video email from the CEO to let the candidate know that leadership is excited to invite them on board. Make sure the candidate understands that by accepting an offer with your organization, he or she could enjoy these same moments with co-workers who care, too. It is these seemingly little gestures that often make or break the deal when another offer is on the table.

Pre-boarding

While many organizations pull out all the stops to woo candidates during the interviewing process, unfortunately too many then fail to keep the momentum going with frequent connections with new hires during the pre-boarding phase. Pre-boarding is comprised of the time period between when the candidate accepts an employment offer and experiences his first day on the job.

Office orientation

Even if you previously gave an interviewee an office tour, sharing a virtual video office tour helps incoming new hires orient themselves with the location of various office items before they experience their first day. Check out MOBI’s compelling virtual tour of their headquarters building:

Setting expectations

To minimize new hire jitters for your new teammates, create videos to help identify what the new employee can expect in her first week of employment. Preview the types of activities she’ll be experiencing and consider inviting mentors or other people with whom the new hire will be meeting to have a segment in the video. Other discussion points might include information about

dress code,
location of bathrooms and gym,
availability of office snacks,
beverages and the location of the kitchen, and
an overview of the types and frequency of company and department meetings that occur throughout a month.

Make sure that the new hire’s supervisor engages with him during the pre-boarding phase as well. While a phone call or interactive video conference is great in this scenario, if schedules make connecting difficult then a thoughtful video welcome message from the hiring manager can serve as an attractive alternative. Leveraging video during pre-boarding may help to reduce the likelihood of new hire ghosting!

Onboarding

Once your new hires officially begin work, make sure that their employee onboarding experience excites them and prepares them to be productive as soon as possible. Effective employee onboarding involves activities that introduce new hires to teammates and the organization, allow them to become familiar with the resources they’ll need to do the job, and further set expectations about performance and pace.

Training

To support these activities, offer videos that help train new hires on organizational procedures and teach them how to use different tools necessary for their role. If you use employee onboarding software to automate your onboarding workflow, then use the platform to create employee tasks that prompt new hires to watch these videos at the appropriate time during their onboarding phase.

Video is also a great way to facilitate introductions between new hires and remote workers when an in-person “nice to meet you” isn’t practical.

Employee Engagement

Daily connections

Speaking of remote workers, my organization is quite remote friendly and therefore we have to be intentional about creating opportunities for employees to regularly connect with one another. While we used to rely heavily on email and instant messaging tools to catch up on a daily basis, in the past year we’ve started regularly doing video calls with one another for daily “stand-up” meetings in various departments. Even though these meetings often last only five minutes, the chance to make eye contact with your peers and sneak in some “water cooler” type talk has been an important enhancement to our remote work culture.

Open window

Some of our departments take video calling a step further and have weekly “open window” time when they all log in to a video chat for an hour to simulate what it would be like to sit in cubicles next to each other. They use the time to catch up, but sometimes they just work silently until someone has a comment or inquiry.

Offboarding

While the hope is that employees will be successful and engaged for an extended period of time with your organization, the reality is that circumstances sometimes call for offboarding employees. Whether it is a voluntary or involuntary termination, there are opportunities to positively support your employment brand based on how you approach the situation.

Voluntary

In the case of someone who has resigned, solicit teammates to put together a best wishes video to send off your departing employee knowing that he was truly valued. After all, you never know if you’ll have the opportunity for a boomerang employment situation in which the person returns to work in your organization at some point in the future.

Involuntary

In the event that the employment separation isn’t voluntary, a video message to existing department members can be an effective means to properly communicate the tone of the situation and assure existing employees that everything will be okay despite the seemingly sudden departure of another employee. This approach is preferable over a static email in which tone can be interpreted inconsistently by various recipients.

Video: An Employee Engagement Tool

These are just a few tips for using video in your hiring process and for employee engagement. Experiment with different video themes for your own organizational processes.

Your culture, core values and current business opportunities will guide you in a direction that aligns with the interests of your applicants and employees.

This content was originally published on Covideo’s Blog.

How to Not Screw Up Remote Employee Onboarding

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

Whether your team’s hiring its first remote employee or its 79th, don’t skimp on putting thoughtful intention behind your new hire onboarding program for remote workers.

Go ahead, pick out your worst fear about hiring remote workers below.

If I can’t see them, will they just do their laundry instead of work?
Our employees need to be “on” during our regular working hours, how can they if they’re roaming coffee houses around Europe with a 6-hour time difference?
Company culture and connectivity will suffer if we can’t play ping pong in person together, won’t it?

Did you have trouble picking just one? That’s okay, so did ExactHire when we started allowing employees to work remotely over seven years go. Our organization has come a long way since then, and–with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic–we have adopted the mentality of “remote first.” That is, truly distributing the workforce in such a way that remote work is the default setting–not just an option available to some. SaaS companies like StackOverflow and HelpScout are worth further investigation if you’re considering this cultural pivot for your employer

Remote first = distributing your workforce in such a way that remote work is the default mode.

Another relevant read is Remote: Office Not Required by Basecamp Co-Founders, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. This book details Basecamp’s evolution into a remote first organization, including both the pitfalls and unexpected wins along the way. There’s no shortage of inspiration on how to make remote working arrangements possible for your organization these days.

In this post, I’ll focus on how to not screw up employee onboarding once you’ve committed to hiring a new fully-remote employee. For someone who is brand new to your organization and away from the office from the start, consider these items for your onboarding checklist.

1 – Make expectations and goals crystal clear

In the absence of in-person onboarding activities, picking up on body language and being a bystander to water cooler talk is more challenging. Therefore, organizations should put themselves in the shoes of new hires and brainstorm the details that new employees won’t necessarily absorb on their own.

Being transparent about expected working hours (despite time zone of new hire), explaining how organizational culture manifests itself and sharing milestone targets about what job success looks like at three months, six months and beyond are just a few of many possible details.

For example, in Remote, the authors talk about how it’s important for Basecamp to give its new hires a heads up that they may be bombarded by social media follower requests when joining the organization. Because their company is remote first, it has become common for employees to connect with one another on social media in order to get to know each other more quickly in the absence of traditional face time in the office.

2 – Make over communication a way of life

Nothing can trip up a remote working arrangement more quickly than a shortage of sufficient communication. If your company wants to make remote work work, then you need to embrace many modes of communication (“different strokes for different folks”) and in particular, abundant written communication.

Particularly if your remote employees are spread across different time zones, a bigger portion of your company’s internal communication will be asynchronous–with employees reading email, chat messages and Slack updates anywhere from minutes to hours after they are originally sent.

To amplify the effectiveness of asynchronous communication, be clear about your needs and consider capturing screenshots and creating short videos to better explain tasks and challenges to co-workers when big time zone differences diminish the ability to connect in real time.

Consider your communication culture and whether it makes sense to go to the extent of asking people to update their status when away from Slack, instant messenger, etc. While ExactHire doesn’t quite go this far, we do have an internal document that lists general working hours for all employees since individual availability varies widely depending on the day of the week.

3 – Organization is everything

While we’ve already established that communication is critical, committing to written communication goes deeper than the one-off messages and company announcements that happen on a daily basis. In the same way that ExactHire maintains a support knowledge base full of training documents for our customers about our products, employers with remote workers have an even greater responsibility than traditional employers to document policies, project statuses and resources in an internal knowledge base.

And, it’s not just about basic documentation, but also the style or approach you take for documentation and communication. For example, at a previous employer I was quickly indoctrinated into the organizational norm of referring to all employees by just their initials in written communication, as well as the practice of hiding unwieldy URL addresses behind anchor text in interoffice emails. Mind you, this was a decade ago…before it was a tech-based cultural norm to go to such formatting lengths.

Internal consistency in communication supports effective organization.

Additionally, having easy-to-use tools to track items is essential. For example, in addition to Slack, ExactHire has leveraged platforms such as Google Docs, Trello, Basecamp and Jira for internal collaboration on a daily basis in recent years.

4 – Paperless employee onboarding

For both new hires and existing staff members, the employee onboarding process is full of opportunities to miss details. Take the pressure off of remembering which employees should be prompted to complete which new hire documents, tasks and forms by leveraging employee onboarding software.

An effective onboarding platform automatically presents the right paperwork, onboarding tasks and training prompts to different new hires based on factors such as their geographic location, FLSA status, security clearance and role type. Because additional to-do items are only presented to new hires and internal onboarding process stakeholders when certain basic prerequisites are already satisfied earlier in the process, the experience for the new hire is positive and stress for the staff member is minimal.

5 – Create inspiration with preparation

It’s stressful enough for a new hire on her first day at a new job in a traditional office. Now imagine how much more awkward a remote employee’s first day on the job can be if the employer is unprepared for her arrival.

Prepare new hires to hit the ground running quickly by sharing a super detailed onboarding plan and training schedule with them before their first day. Include links to your internal knowledge base and make resources for additional learning easy to find and searchable. This written documentation will easily fill the gaps between video conference calls and virtual job shadowing sessions with co-workers.

From a hardware standpoint, outfit new employees with the equipment they need to start work on day one. Your approach to this will vary depending on whether you ship a computer, phone, headset, etc. to your remote employees or have a policy in place that allows them to bring their own device (BYOD) to work. Regardless of your approach, make sure that all equipment and software access follows internal security protocols and that new hires are trained on how to handle secure data and what to do in the event of a breach.

Be sure to give new hires access to relevant communication groups, recurring calendar events and internal online resources in time for their first day–along with instructions or a description of each item’s objective. There’s no quicker way to alienate your remote employees than to forget to add them to your monthly all-hands meeting call, and then interrupt it fifteen minutes in to invite them to join last late.

6 – Tell your culture story

Fostering connectivity can be a struggle in a remote-driven workplace–especially in an organization that has transitioned from a traditional in-person office to a distributed workforce. While veteran employees instinctively understand the core values, mission and unwritten ways of doing things, newly hired remote employees won’t become a thread in the organizational tapestry without understanding its roots and also being prompted to share their own background.

Create a series of videos about key aspects of the company’s past that can be embedded into the onboarding process. Host a monthly company trivia session where employees log into Google Meet or Skype to answer questions and compete for swag.

Telling the organizational story to new hires is a best practice, but savvy employers will also build in the opportunity for its diverse new employees to make their own mark and share their own background. This might be accomplished with a virtual employee directory that features fun facts about new hires; or, occasional “lunch and learn” webinars that invite new employees to do a show and tell about their own city/country or hobbies and interests.

7 – Promote peer mentoring

Mentoring is not a new concept for employee onboarding; however, adopting it as a practice for a remote workforce is an emerging trend. From job shadows with veteran employees in a new hire’s first few days to monthly milestone check-ins with a designated “buddy,” virtual mentoring has a great deal of possibility for remote-friendly workplaces.

When creating a virtual mentoring program, account for factors that may influence likely success between mentor and mentee; such as, time zone difference, job role, interests and behavioral tendencies as evident from an employee assessment.

Take 1-on-1 mentoring a step further and invite mentors and mentees to quarterly tweet-ups or video conferences in which newer hires have a forum in which they can ask questions of mentors in real-time and within a group format. By listening to the questions and answers of peers, as well, new hires will likely shorten their own learning curve.

8 – Make time for face time

When done right, remote work allows employees to focus for longer periods of time without interruption. While distractions may occur in both the office and at home, there’s a distinct difference between immediately responding to someone knocking on your door versus waiting a few minutes to finish a task before responding to an email.

Utilize video conference platforms such as Zoom or GoToMeeting to allow all employees to synchronously connect whenever the need arises. Perhaps your cultural norm is even to ask employees to always use video chat rather than voice-only phone calls when connecting for a meeting. However, when planning such video calls, and to be considerate of potential time zone differences, be intentional with the time allotted to focus on social connectivity rather than just covering things that might be more efficiently discussed via email.

Even in modern, 100% remote first workplaces, there’s a place for in-person interaction. Many employers that have largely distributed workforces still make time at least once per year to gather in person for social connection–as an entire organization. And while this type of event can inflate the company travel line item significantly, that is the tradeoff between having the overhead attributable to a physical office location versus employing a remote first approach. If that approach would break your budget, then consider smaller meetups between departments instead.

9 – Feed off of feedback

Emojis were once reserved for text-happy teenagers lamenting their latest breakup; however, in recent years they’ve earned their place as a remote work mainstay because they help express tone and emotion in a situation that might otherwise omit context for one’s mood.

And while it might still be a stretch for some to include them in email messaging, they thrive in messaging platforms such as Slack. And, they’re particularly helpful in a remote workforce when employees may have never met in person and do not yet understand the nuances of their peers’ personalities. Emojis are one way of leveraging feedback on a micro level so that remote employees can gauge how they’re communicating or performing.

On a macro level, employers hiring remote employees must give and receive feedback early and often throughout the onboarding process.

Gather new hire input in the pre-boarding phase to make sure that incoming employees have a firm grasp of the resources available to them to get started.
Hold virtual town hall meetings for new hires three months into their employment tenure for ideas on how to improve remote employee onboarding.
Make sure that supervisors have a regular cadence of offering constructive feedback to direct reports throughout the first year of employment, especially.

Successful Remote Employee Onboarding

Make your objective to create experiences in which remote employees feel as assimilated and supported as traditional in-office employees. Remember that it will take some experimentation, careful hiring and an open mind. If you don’t get it exactly right the first time, gather feedback to make an adjustment and try, try again!

15 Tips for Improving Emotional Intelligence in the Recruiting Process

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

I love learning more about human behavior’s impact on employee engagement and corporate culture. I guess that’s par for the course in the human resources field. But specifically, the idea that emotional intelligence is an adaptable skill that can improve—or regress—based on an awareness of one’s emotions is fascinating to me.

I recently listened to Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry during a few of my lengthy morning commutes. I say “morning” because I generally only have the focus to pay attention to a book narrator in the early morning hours…by the end of the day I just need to decompress with music. Alas, one of my “a-ha” moments during the book was learning to truly be self-aware of my own prime times and circumstances for optimal listening. In fact, “self-awareness” is one of the four primary parts of emotional intelligence (EQ):

Personal competence
- Self-awareness
- Self-management
Social competence
- Social awareness
- Relationship management

In this blog, I’ll share fifteen golden nuggets I collected from Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and briefly relate how each of them are especially applicable for recruiters to bear in mind during the recruiting process.

SELF-AWARENESS

1 – Think about what you are feeling when you are in the moment

As a recruiter, there may be times when you lose your composure or are, at the very least, mildly annoyed:

When a candidate blurts out an unexpected answer that you don’t appreciate.
When a hiring manager doesn’t get back to you with feedback in a timely manner.
When an interviewee shows up late to an interview.

By being aware of how you feel about a situation, you’re better equipped to recognize your feelings before they have an undesired impact on others. Then, you may instead take positive action to improve a situation–even if you didn’t cause it to go poorly. According to Bradberry’s book, the more you think about your feelings and how you wish to act, the more you strengthen the pathway between your brain’s limbic system (where emotions originate) and the part of your brain that helps you think rationally.

2 – Pay attention to the ripple effect your emotions have on others

Even the subtlest emotions–contentment, moodiness, irritation, nervousness and bashfulness–can have an impact on those around you. And as we already know, the more extreme examples of happiness, sadness, anger, fear and shame can significantly affect social situations and outcomes. Check yourself during your next candidate interactions to see how your most basic emotions may be influencing the recruiting process–for better or worse.

How has your personal demeanor impacted an interviewee’s answer?
Does your attitude perturb (or elevate) other stakeholders during the hiring process?

3 – Be aware of your physical reactions to situations

Whether you’ll admit it or not, the range of physical responses you experience during certain emotions varies from barely perceptible (though still detectable) to obnoxiously obvious. If you’re like many of us, you may do the following:

Tap your fingers when you’re getting impatient with an interviewee’s lengthy question response…or bounce your leg up and down under the table (I’m guilty of the latter).
Redden in the face or neck when someone says something that upsets or embarrasses you.

And while you can’t necessarily prevent these responses from happening, you can use them as the first clue that you’re heading down the path of experiencing a certain emotion so that you can take positive action to keep your composure and minimize the impact.

4 – Determine why you do what you do

Instead of simply reacting, consider why you behave in a certain way when experiencing various emotions. This may be just the ticket for better controlling the strength of your response–you don’t have to revert to your signature behavior just because it’s the way you’ve always done it.

Is your response rooted in a need to control a situation…or perhaps a desire to not have to be in control?
Are you worried about being ashamed if you mess up in front of your peers at your employer?

Once you’ve identified your motivations for behavior, then you may consider whether you may make any adjustments to eliminate your need to act that way in the future. Or conversely, what can you do to encourage more of the same behavior in the future when you are experiencing positive emotions?

SELF-MANAGEMENT

5 – Just smile

This is old news, yet so easily forgotten. Smile when you are on the phone with a prospective employee or during a face-to-face interview. Bradberry’s book shares that, in this scenario, your face actually sends signals to your brain that make you happier.

6 – Schedule time to ponder

When you have ten different requisitions for which you are sourcing and you feel like you must schedule back-to-back phone interviews all day long, you’re not at your best. You can’t sustain that level of activity while having the best outcomes for all involved in the recruiting process for long.

Schedule blocks of time to decompress and think about candidate responses and make notes before making any decisions. That way, any emotions you were already feeling about certain candidates will be somewhat dissipated and you’ll be in a better position to process rational thoughts about each individual’s qualifications for a position.

7 – See your own success in advance

When I played basketball as a kid, my coach taught me to see the ball going into the hoop as you are shooting it. Visualization is an important tool to being successful in your endeavors…and it helps improve your free throw percentage, too. Once you’ve identified a situation that may cause you to lose your cool–even mildly–imagine yourself coming out of the scenario with a positive outcome.

The next time a hiring manager brushes you off and doesn’t respect your desire to get back to candidates promptly, visualize your conversation and actions with the HM instead of reverting to your normal response of annoyance, anger and/or helplessness.

8 – Keep your circadian rhythms in rhythm

If you’re anything like me, you sometimes struggle to put your laptop away once the kids are in bed. In order for you to be the most alert during the day, you need to give yourself the best chance for good sleep at night. Turn the computer off at least two hours before bedtime…stop screening applicants while watching DVR!

SOCIAL AWARENESS

9 – Greet people using their name frequently

Everyone loves hearing his own name. Be sure and use prospective employees’ first names at an appropriate frequency during the interview process. If you’re the type of person that forgets a person’s name as soon as he tells you, then think of a mental image that will help you remember new acquaintances’ names. For example, if you meet a “Sandy,” picture her standing on a sandy beach.

10 – Be prepared for awkward silences

As a business professional, there will be times when you hit an uncomfortable lull in conversation in the workplace. While it likely won’t be on a phone interview, maybe it’s while giving an office tour to a final stage candidate. Have a “go-to” question in mind to circumvent those awkward silences. After all, part of your job as a recruiter is to make interviewees feel at ease at your organization. Here are some casual conversation question ideas:

Have you read any good books lately?
Is there anything about our organization that you’ve learned, but weren’t expecting?

11 – Don’t think ahead, just listen

Personally, this is an area in which I know I have room to improve…slowly but surely! Whether you’re interviewing individuals or working with your peers at your employer, don’t try to plan your next comment while “listening” to someone else speak. That’s not really listening and you’re bound to miss details…or at least the context of some of one’s comments. Whether or not the other person acknowledges your failure to focus, his behavior and respect for you will reflect his attitude about your inattention. Listen and learn from others’ talking points first and foremost.

12 – Be punctual

How many blogs have you read about job seekers complaining about never hearing back from companies…or hearing one promise, and receiving another outcome? Too many to count from my end. Respect the time of others and give yourself a competitive advantage–because enough recruiters and hiring managers out there don’t bother.

Be prompt with phone interviews.
Mind the clock so that interviews don’t exceed the allotted time expectation.
When scheduling interviews, be as flexible as possible with candidates to accommodate their own schedule limitations.

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

13 – Accept feedback famously

Some people are better at receiving constructive criticism than others…and what an opportunity to strengthen your EQ and your relationships if you can do it well! Solicit suggestions from job candidates and hiring managers about how the hiring process may be improved. Then, smile (remember #5!), be gracious about feedback and communicate plans for any action steps as a result of the feedback.

14 – Acknowledge the feelings of others

Let’s face it…you’re never going to agree with everyone about everything. However, the way you work through differences of opinions will certainly influence how smooth your interactions (and future disagreements) are with the same stakeholders in the future. It’s okay to disagree, but don’t minimize or ignore the feelings of others.

If you’re disputing which candidates should be hired with hiring managers, respect their opinion as valid before trying to come to a consensus, compromise or action step for further candidate vetting.

15 – Don’t be shy about having hard conversations

If you can have tough conversations in a clear, professional manner, then people will respect you more and know that you’re being upfront with them. The alternative approaches of avoidance and/or insincere sugar-coating only delay the inevitable and cause turmoil for yourself and others involved. Especially when delivering bad news to the final candidates who don’t get an employment offer, be courteous and give them a call to break the news and thank them for their time. Be direct but kind.

If you have not read any EQ-focused books yet, consider picking one up soon to continue exploring techniques for how you may improve your personal and social competence. Any improvements you can make will not only serve you well professionally, but also your employer as you represent the organization in the recruiting process.

Make time to boost your recruitment EQ

When you can save time and stay organized, you’re able to focus on your emotions and relationships. HireCentric is applicant tracking software that manages your entire recruitment process so you can focus on the more strategic aspects of recruiting.

Learn More

6 Learning Benefit Ideas That Won’t Break the Bank in 2017

in Workforce Management/by Randi Renee Doerr, SPHR, SHRM-SCP

It’s the end of the year once again. And if you’re like me, you might be reminded of all the things you endeavored to accomplish in 2016…but just didn’t get around to starting/doing/finishing. Especially if any of them were official new year resolutions. And while I failed at some endeavors, but succeeded to form other productive habits, one thing is clear: my ideas with the best chance of success are the ones that take just a little bit of time, not a ton of money and can be easily turned into a healthy long-term habit. Sustainable learning is one such habit that has every chance of being successful–and not just for me.

“What you see depends on where you stand.” – Albert Einstein

Wise words, indeed. Furthermore, consider Isaac Newton’s statement “if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Gaining new knowledge to broaden our perspective is a great place to start when considering little habits with potentially big impact in 2017. In this blog, I’ll share six learning opportunities you can encourage your employees to utilize in 2017 that range from free to affordable for small and medium business.

1 – Feed their brains with Feedly

Does the thought of scrolling your email inbox forever strike fear into your heart? Or…gasp!…having to click to view the next page of emails? If I had you at “scroll,” then imagine the liberation of capturing all the compelling blogs/articles from your favorite e-newsletters (that you never have time to read before they pile up in your inbox) in a separate, easy-to-find spot that can be searched anytime? Enter Feedly – your new favorite RSS reader for all the content you don’t want to miss. While Feedly does have paid options if you really want to get into easy content sharing and annotating, I enjoy the free version on my desktop and smartphone app. Make news of this resource available to your team and encourage them to share the insight they gain from staying up on the latest content in your industry.

2 – Never miss a good read

Once you’ve mastered Feedly, you’re bound to run across book reviews and/or interesting quotes from novels that you might like to read as you peruse the latest blog content. Don’t make the mistake of logging a mere mental note to check that book out next time you hit the library or Audible. Instead, create a profile on the free social network for avid book readers, Goodreads. Whether I keep a tab open in my browser or quickly access the phone app, Goodreads is always there for me to quickly categorize a book as “want to read,” “currently reading” or “read [it].” Better yet, by connecting with my peers on the network, I can quickly find books that may appeal to me. In a business setting, fellow co-worker bookworms can share and inspire ideas for goal planning and/or content for in-office book clubs.

3 – Auditory learners have options, too

Not everyone is the type of person to just curl up with a good book or e-reader; however, many more are willing to give listening to books a try. Especially if you have employees with lengthy work commutes, or those who are looking for a distraction during their next workout session, consider offering an optional subscription benefit for an audiobook service like Audible or Scribd. At ExactHire, we have a partial benefit that allows employees to pay only 50% of the cost of a subscription to ebook and audiobook provider, Scribd. We selected Scribd because it is only $8-9/month for three books and one audiobook, yet has an increasingly prolific catalog of business- and personal development-related books from which to choose. Because there is a cost to the employer for this benefit, we ask employees to do the following in exchange for the partial reimbursement:

At least once per quarter, write a blog that either reviews a book, or at least references an idea from a relevant book read during that quarter.
Share insights gained from books read to inspire new ideas and actions during departmental and strategy planning meetings.
So, for only about $13.50 per quarter, I get to read and/or listen to as many as 12 different books of my choice…without any waiting lists. I satisfy my work requirement for the quarter, and then catch up on my personal to-read list, too.

4 – Seize the day – get that certification

While the price of obtaining a professional certification will vary depending on the credential one seeks, relative to the cost of tuition reimbursement for an employee, certifications are an affordable learning benefit that allow your teammates to improve their skill set. Some members of the ExactHire team hold various credentials, including HRCI’s PHR/SPHR, SHRM’s SHRM-CP/SHRM-SCP and the Google Analytics certification. In fact, a big congratulations goes out to our very own Darythe Taylor, who earned her SHRM-CP designation last week!

Aside from well-recognized professional certifications, in this world of SaaS software there are myriad providers who certify power users of their own software platforms. So, encourage the administrators of your organization’s key software platforms to explore advanced training and/or certification from your provider(s).

5 – Learn anywhere, any time with Lynda

Need to boost the knowledge base of your white collar workers? Look no further than Lynda.com from LinkedIn to give your team access to unlimited courses about everything from web development to business to design to marketing. Plans start at just $19.99 per month for the basic offering. Or, research and consider other similar services/sites such as Udemy, Codecademy or Khan Academy.

6 – Fingertip fast

Earlier this year, I learned about a free pilot program from Google called Primer. Its promise is easy to digest, marketing-specific training in five minutes or less. While this appeals to me (especially when I’m waiting to pick my kids up from practice and have time to kill on my phone), not everyone is interested in marketing learning. For a broader array of subject matter resources, check out the TED app to catch up on the latest TED talks. With such a wide variety of topics from which to choose, there is bound to be something for everyone on your organization’s team. Who knows, maybe a talk will inspire a rousing debate at the next all hands meeting.

Make accessible learning resources a priority for your workforce in 2017. It’s a great way to engage employees and create a culture that champions development and innovation. Here’s to standing on giants’ shoulders!

11 Small Business Tips for an Epic Annual Meeting

in Workforce Management/by Harlan Schafir

I enjoy working in the small- and medium-sized business (SMB) space–it’s easy to relate to challenges and opportunities for these employers because I work for an SMB, myself. Having access to impact the entire business from wherever I stand within the organization is an empowering benefit, too. One of my favorite instances of this benefit is the annual ExactHire company meeting. While we do meet as a team on a monthly basis, the annual meeting enables us to retreat off site and do a deep dive into the state of the organization, our long-term product road map and our business strategy.

Having at least six of these yearly meetings under our belt now, I can say we’ve definitely improved our efficiency and meeting outcomes over the years. In this blog, I’ll share our tips for holding an epic annual company meeting to help propel your business forward.

1 – Location is everything

The easy, predictable thing to do is to just have your annual meeting in your own conference room. However, there is something exciting and liberating about changing your venue and assembling in a new space. Yesterday, we were lucky enough to occupy an ultra cool space at the Hotel Tango Artisan Distillery in our hometown, Indianapolis. It was my first time there and it was an excellent space for getting our brainstorming juices flowing and stepping outside the box.

ExactHire Company Meeting Distillery 2016

Hotel Tango was a great, unconventional space – don’t mind Christa’s angelic illumination!

When you select a venue for your meeting, be sure and consider the needs of your employees when it comes to things like accessibility and atmosphere. Do you want somewhere quiet or somewhere full of action and visual stimulation? When I stepped into Hotel Tango, I was reminded of the grain bins and silos on the farm where I grew up…but in a good, nostalgic way. Of course, that’s par for the course at a distillery! Additionally, we took breaks here and there to allow the distillery staff to attend to their spirits and open up the garage door to operate the forklift. Nevertheless, the shiny copper pieces on the stills and the illuminated string lights within the exposed brick building provided creative ambience for our session.

2 – Provide an agenda and assign some homework

What you get out of your corporate meeting will be dependent upon the amount of effort you put into preparing for it–and not just the organizer, the whole team, too. Our Co-Founder, Jeff Hallam, sent a thorough agenda of meeting topics more than a week in advance of our meeting. Additionally, he assigned the entire company the “homework” of thinking about how to answer three primary questions that were tied to our overall short-term objectives of growing revenue and improving profitability.

By asking your team to think about solutions in advance, they are more engaged with the discussion topics and likely to be prepared to contribute to the discussion during the meeting. Remember to keep your homework assignment short–having too many to-dos not only dilutes the effectiveness of any one potential solution, but will also most certainly guarantee that you run out of time during the meeting.

3 – Don’t forget the coffee

And snacks are good, too. Our meeting ran from 9am – 1pm, so while people had the opportunity to eat a normal breakfast at home, we still provided fruit/dip and plenty of hot coffee, creamer and sugar. The coffee was of course key to not only our mental stimulation, but also a source of warmth for a few of us while the distillery garage door was open to allow forklift entry. We stayed cozy though!

Also, be sure to take into account any dietary restrictions present among your team members. For example, have some gluten free and/or meatless options available, if applicable, for your organization’s employees.

4 – Make a ruling on electronic device access

At ExactHire, we live on our electronic devices which comes as no surprise since we are in the SaaS product space. I can’t remember the last time I actually printed or filed something in a cabinet. However, having everyone glued to their laptops and/or tablets during a team meeting isn’t always productive as it becomes easy for people to be distracted by email, caught up in IM, etc. It really depends on the purpose of your meeting and whether you need to collectively view or update items electronically during the meeting.

NOTE: It is a good idea to have access to a projector so that everyone can look at a screen together to discuss items.

5 – Designate an official note taker

Especially if you decide that the majority of people will not be using their computer during the meeting, make sure that one person is the official recorder of all important discussion topics and action items. The last thing you want is for all your glorious ideas to be forgotten a week after the meeting.

The notes should be sent out promptly (within one business day) of the conclusion of the meeting. I was our note taker for yesterday’s meeting and opted to bold some of the more compelling team ideas, as well as highlight specific action items (and their owner) in yellow on the notes.

6 – Encourage a variety of presenters

Because annual company meetings tend to be longer than the average monthly update, it would get pretty tedious for the same person to speak the entire meeting. While Jeff and Harlan (our other Co-Founder) did speak quite a bit at the start of the meeting, they also called on many other teammates throughout the discussion to provide a deeper explanation of their own projects.

The extent to which this is successful in your organization will depend on the personalities of individuals (are they comfortable speaking in front of a large group), as well as the extent to which candor is valued within the business. While everyone cannot provide an overview, many can ask questions and probe for greater context within a culture that challenges assumptions and welcomes inquisitiveness.

7 – Have a parking lot…literally and metaphorically

While nearby parking is ideal for your meeting, what I mean by “parking” is designating topics that get into the weeds as something to table and discuss later–put them in the “parking lot” to handle at a future date.

To do so, add them to an easel chart, whiteboard and/or shared file and assign an owner to make sure they aren’t forgotten later. To avoid hurt feelings when one person’s passionate about hashing out a topic, set expectations at the start of the meeting that, at times, some items will have to be put on the back burner in order to get through the entire meeting agenda in a timely fashion. Pass the conch shell, if you will, and move on to the next item.

8 – Don’t forget to order lunch in advance

It’s a nice gesture to order your team lunch during the annual company meeting. We enjoyed some delectable dishes from Chilly Water Brewing Company during our retreat yesterday…conveniently located right next to Hotel Tango.

In past year’s meetings, we didn’t always have the foresight to order our meals before or early on during the meeting, and therefore found ourselves scrambling to figure out food options right at lunchtime. This resulted in waiting a long time to eat and delaying the meeting.

9 – Take pictures

Especially if you head to an eclectic off site location, be sure and snap some memorable photos of the team and what you accomplish during the day. Photographs of events like these are great for inclusion on your branded company careers page, on company social media profiles, around the office and maybe even in an annual holiday video. They just might inspire a blog related to company culture and procedural effectiveness, too.

10 – Respect everyone’s time

Significant, every great once-in-awhile company meetings are typically long already. Make sure you don’t extend discussion beyond the official stop time. If you do, you not only may delay employees’ ability to make other engagements already planned (e.g. sales demos, picking up kids, etc.), but you also will likely forfeit the attention space of those that remain–even with coffee.

Speaking of respecting time, make sure you start your meeting on time, too. A prompt start time is key to a prompt stop time. If this is a struggle within your corporate culture, set the expectation clearly in the agenda email that is sent in advance.

11 – Post-event check in

The work will have only just begun at the conclusion of your corporate meeting. Even when the notes are sent and action items are marked, your leadership team should be sure and schedule milestones to check in with the team and make sure that each task owner is accountable to moving his/her action item(s) forward. This is a great opportunity to offer assistance, vet new questions and schedule follow-up discussion for items that were placed in the parking lot, too.

I hope these tips help you plan an invigorating annual company meeting. While you can’t anticipate every single need or detail, you’re already ahead of the game if you are providing a special opportunity to engage your team and move the business forward–together.

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