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New Hire Onboarding Success with a SWOT Analysis

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The purpose of a SWOT analysis in the business planning process is to make sure you’ve identified all the possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business.  Only then can you create a business plan taking into consideration all these aspects and setting your business up for it’s best chance at success.  The new hire onboarding process should be no different.

Some aspects of the SWOT analysis are designed to act upon.  For example, you want to make sure you capitalize on and take advantage of your strengths and seize your opportunities.  Other aspects are for you to be aware of.  You must be aware of your weaknesses and competitors in the market place.

If you really think about it, doing the same type of analysis for a new hire should be no different. To a new employee, changing jobs is a “new business” operating in a new environment with different conditions. Extremely savvy job seekers will do their own SWOT analysis on the company before joining.  Why?  They want to make sure they are setting themselves up for the best chance at success.

Your analysis of your new employee should occur over the course of his/her onboarding and should be a critical part of the employee onboarding process.  Ideally you would have done most of this during the hiring process.  However, it’s not an exact science and you may have missed some items. Hopefully, at a minimum, you determined the new hire should have a seat on the bus.  Now you just need to figure out what that correct seat is.

It’s not uncommon for individuals to be hired for a certain position then find themselves in another. This happens quite frequently in organizations that focus their hiring efforts on the type of person and their strengths and abilities, more so than technical knowledge and experience.  You can only gain this much clearer understanding of the best fit for the individual once she is on board and you have had a chance to analyze her capabilities against various positions.

 

Strengths

 

This is the single most important aspect of an individual’s SWOT.  If you do nothing else, make sure you thoroughly assess strengths and figure out how to apply them appropriately. Getting a new hire aligned with his strengths is the best way to set him up for success in his new role.  

To properly identify strengths, you must allocate the proper time and training.  Just immersing someone in a new role will not yield the results you need to identify his core strengths.  Step one would be to have a simple conversation with the individual and see what he thinks his strengths are.  Consider a tool such as the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to assist in this endeavor. Then have him work through various aspects of his role (and other roles if possible) to see where he naturally excels with the least amount of direction.  By doing this, you can identify where his best opportunity for success may be.

 

Weaknesses

 

Awareness of weaknesses will avoid early failure and miss-steps for a new employee.  It is critical that he be given every opportunity to succeed, build confidence in his new role and gain confidence of his coworkers.  This doesn’t mean you don’t want to challenge him, but you want to make sure you are challenging him utilizing his strengths.

Once you’ve identified potential weak points, note them and work to avoid them.  The last thing you want to do is try to change someone or improve his weaknesses.  It’s much easier to focus on the strengths.  There’s also a tough leadership decision in this step of the process.  If it so happens that his weaknesses actually need to be his core strengths for the position, you will have to find this employee another seat on the bus — or another bus.

 

Opportunities

 

This is the fun step.  After your analysis of strengths and weaknesses you should have a pretty good idea of the direction(s) the individual can go within the organization after his onboarding.  These are his opportunities.  By the time you get to this step, the individual has probably started to see his opportunities as well and may have expressed some desire towards those.  

Don’t forget to have this important employee development conversation.  This will likely be the difference maker between an engaged long-term employee or a short-term employee.  Most employees will look for their next opportunity within the organization fairly quickly and if they don’t see one they’ll plan their next move — out of the company.  Your job as a leader is to make sure the opportunities they are seeking within the organization align with their strengths and avoid as many of their weaknesses as possible.

 

Threats

 

Typically addressing threats in a SWOT analysis takes into account competition.  We don’t want to think of competition in terms of an individual’s employment SWOT.  Rather, you want to look at what potential roadblocks stand in the way of his success.  The roadblocks you should try to identify are resource issues, process and procedural issues and potentially other individuals.

Ever wonder why they sweep the ice in front of the stone in Olympic curling?  They are grooming the ice and creating the best possible conditions for the stone to travel further and straighter.  As a leader you must continue to sweep the ice in front of an employee to ensure his optimal onboarding experience and continued success.  What you are doing is eliminating or mitigating the threats you know will stand in the employee’s way.   

 

If you’ve properly integrated a SWOT analysis into the new hire onboarding process you will be setting the stage for initial and continued success for the employee and your team/company.  It takes a little bit of discipline and practice to master, but really isn’t that difficult.  The most difficult part is evolving to the point where you only focus on aligning his strengths within the role, or a different role, and completely avoid any assignments that will draw on his weaknesses.

Done correctly, and applied correctly, a SWOT analysis will ensure a business stays on course, remains competitive in the market and services customers profitably.  This directly correlates with the same success of a new employee, his level of engagement, productivity and length of retention.

Looking for tools to improve your employee onboarding process? Contact ExactHire to learn how our employee onboarding software can automate your new hire paperwork and workflow.

Contact ExactHire

 

How to Turn Pay Secrecy Obstacles Into Pay Transparency Opportunities

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I’ve been thinking about the impact of snap decisions a lot lately. Having just finished the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, I have a new interest in the role of the subconscious on action and performance. Gladwell presents mounds of evidence supporting the idea that instinct shouldn’t be discounted relative to more involved decision-making processes. Essentially, gut counts for something.

Just as recently, I learned about the passage of a new employment law in the state of Massachusetts that bans employers from inquiring about an applicant’s salary history prior to offering the individual a job. It is slated to be effective in July of 2018. The intent behind the law is to prevent future pay inequity obstacles for women and minorities, as it makes it impossible for an applicant’s prior history (of being potentially underpaid) to follow them around to future employers. It gave me pause because while, especially as a female with a recruiting/HR background, I have never consciously been a part of a decision to underpay a new hire, what if my peers and I have unintentionally perpetuated pay inequity simply because I’ve been privy to applicants’ salary history in the past? How many times have you had two great final candidates with similar experience, but chose the one that had a history of making less money at previous employers because you could get a great deal on talent?

Reconciling Individual Rights & Employer Interests

It’s an interesting topic because as an HR professional you must act on behalf of the best interests of your employer. Those interests should include what is best for the employer in the long run; not just the short term benefits of a metaphorical fire sale on talent. Massachusetts isn’t alone, as other states have passed similar laws and proposed similar legislation aimed at promoting pay transparency in general. Many hope that these state-championed movements will lend more support to federal action to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act which, in part, makes it illegal for employers to prohibit employees from disclosing their wages to other employees or retaliate against them for doing so. The inability for employees to freely discuss pay information with one another has arguably prevented some individuals from taking advantage of federal protections available under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 in the past.

This practice of pay secrecy has undoubtedly perpetuated the pay inequity that exists in our country today. According to this Huffington Post article by key representatives of the EEOC:

“Today, 57 percent of women work outside the home, but the typical woman working full-time full-year still makes 21 percent less than the typical man working full-time full-year. And the pay gap is significantly greater for women of color: the typical black non-Hispanic woman made only 60 percent of a typical white non-Hispanic man’s earnings, while the typical Hispanic woman earned only 55 percent.”

Working to Minimize Pay Inequity

Despite the aggregate inequity that exists in pay practices today, there are changes being made that aim to minimize the pay gap:

And while eliminating instances of pay inequity is the right direction in which to head, it doesn’t come without short-term hardship for some employers. Moving from a pay secrecy mindset where the employer often traditionally came out on top, to a pay transparency mode which stands to expose some unsavory disparities, is challenging. However, if organizations approach the process with not only economic and compliance pressure as the motivation, but also a motivation to fulfill a yet unlocked potential in its employees with new opportunities, the process will run more smoothly and be much more sustainable.

In fact, let’s examine some of the obstacles this transition could present to organizations, and reframe each of them to suggest an opportunity that will benefit the employer in the long-term.

 

Obstacle #1 – Compliance burden for multi-state employers

Organizations that have employees in more than one state should be aware of how the law differs across their covered geographic areas. For example, if a company has a plant in Massachusetts then it will have to adjust its existing employment application to ensure that it no longer asks applicants for salary history from previous employers. However, if the same organization has a distribution facility in another state, the same requirement regarding pay history may not apply.

Opportunity – Efficiency through technology

While managing differences between states can be onerous, organizations have an opportunity to embrace an attitude that supports pay equity by adopting the requirements imposed by the strictest state/city in their employment realm for all of their locations. Alternatively, to ease the administrative burden, an employer may partner with an applicant tracking system that allows the employer access to multiple versions of an online job application which can be implemented at the job listing level.

 

Obstacle #2 – Time & money required to get better market pay data

In terms of both the money required to pay fees for compensation software, as well as the investment of time in mining the data to incorporate it into internal pay decisions, being more transparent about pay requires an employer to be solid in how it determines the going rate for different positions.

Opportunity – Develop pay grades that reflect current market pay, among other factors

While creating accurate pay grades isn’t something you whip up in a week, it is an exercise that can be motivating for employees in that it conveys potential to them for growth through a job category and/or into other management positions. Additionally, it gives organizations that may be reluctant to disclose individual pay an opportunity to at least convey ranges of information for each role so that individuals better understand where they stand with regards to their runway for future earnings. It helps your organization more effectively compete for talent by ensuring that you regularly evaluate the system to ensure it is still reflective of market pay.

 

Obstacle #3 – Training staff to have the right expectations about pay differences

When moving away from a culture of pay secrecy, organizations open themselves up to the new-found need to better explain differences in pay across job categories. While much of this may be attributed to market demand for various position types, depending on the organization, a fair amount of internal equity among positions may factor into the organization’s overall valuation for each role. Without a clear purpose or mission, as well as defined values, explaining the motivation for different internal equity factors may be more challenging.

Opportunity – Evaluate the impact of internal equity & reward the most critical players disproportionately

A shift toward the pay transparency side of the spectrum necessitates more work spent on defining the factors that determine individual pay decisions, and especially starting pay for new employees. Use this as an opportunity to explore whether certain job categories merit paying above market based on a potentially disproportionate impact of the department’s work on the organization’s mission/productivity. Additionally, use this exercise as an opportunity to train hiring managers on how to confidently and correctly explain the pay factors to individuals employed with the organization.

The tech company, Buffer, has taken this to one extreme by incorporating a compensation calculator available for public use on their corporate website and publishing the salaries of all of its employees. While this approach isn’t for every corporation, it was an important move for Buffer since one of its core values is to default to transparency. But think about the opportunity this has brought the organization, including the chance for managers to not only explicitly explain pay factors to employees, but to blog about it publicly and contribute to the media exposure that has arguably made Buffer one of the darlings of the corporate culture world. For a less extreme approach, consider the company PayScale, which falls closer to the mid-section of the pay transparency spectrum. It doesn’t share every employee’s individual salary, but rather shares the median salary for each job category.

 

Obstacle #4 – The cost to increase pay for underpaid employees

For employers who are willing to take the proactive plunge toward being more open about pay differences, the cost to actually correct inequity can’t be discounted. So how do you make the most of that exposure and turn a vulnerability into a positive?

Opportunity – Communicate the action taken as a result of the lesson learned

Nobody loves being wrong or having their error paraded about town; however, there’s something to be said for the credibility and goodwill gained from admitting one’s mistake and taking action to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Take tech software giant, Salesforce, for example. CEO Marc Benioff was approached by two female employees about exploring potential pay gaps between employees of different genders. He didn’t expect to find an issue, but conducted an internal audit that would later find six percent of employees needed a salary adjustment. So, the organization spent three million dollars to eliminate statistically significant differences in pay. While it did cost the company money that probably wasn’t forecasted for that period, it has brought tremendously positive attention because the organization has been so open about it with employees, and has leveraged its actions with media exposure that will undoubtedly help it attract top, diverse talent down the road.

 

Obstacle #5 – It’s just uncomfortable to talk about potential pay differences

Cultural norms may suggest that it’s taboo to talk about what people make, and especially difficult if there’s an unfair disparity between what people who do similar work make. So even if employment law continues to progress to the point that encouraging pay secrecy is completely prohibited, employers and employees may be slow to embrace the concept of openness.

Opportunity – Focus on the “why” behind the transition

Different organizations will adopt varying degrees of transparency when it comes to compensation. While full disclosure may work for companies like Buffer and Whole Foods, a more conservative approach, like disclosing only the factors that contribute to pay decisions, may be more appropriate for others. The common denominator for success, regardless of the approach, seems to be process transparency, or a focus on the “why” according to this Fortune article.

By frequently discussing the reasons behind decisions, the motivation for employees to understand and engage with them improves. Conscientious communication around how pay decisions will help reduce long-term turnover, minimize office politics and support core values (especially if they relate to fairness, trust, respect) is an essential component of a smooth transition toward pay transparency.

 

In addition to the opportunities presented above, employers can capitalize on a commitment to improve communication about pay decisions by emphasizing employees’ total compensation packages. Whereas some organizations may not choose to pay at or above market for salaries for various roles, the relevancy and strength of their benefit offerings may serve as an effective counterbalance. It will be interesting to watch employment law in this area in the coming years, and especially after this year’s presidential election comes to a close.

Employ people in multiple states?

Our HireCentric applicant tracking system can help you manage multiple job application versions.

 

Are You Delivering on Your Employment Brand?

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What is an employment brand? In short, it’s how employees and potential employees view you as an employer. As a business you go through the painstaking process of identifying your ideal customers and what they value, than work tirelessly to deliver. Your employment brand is no different. It is what defines you in the labor market–internal and external. How do you differentiate as an employer and are you actually delivering on that?

The ultimate position for a company to be in is to be perceived by both current and potential employees in a desired manner–your employment brand. An employment brand is not all that different from your company brand. If fact, they should really align with each other. It’s much easier to deliver on your employment brand if it’s aligned with your product or service brand.

Make it Intentional

An intentional employment brand is a well thought out point of view. A point of view in which a company wishes to be viewed and what they want to be known for. It’s easy to dream of yourself as an employer of choice. The question is, can you deliver.

If you don’t intentionally define your employment brand, both your current and prospective employees will define it for you. And they will share their definition of employment brand with their friends, family and network on social media. You may luck out and end up with a positive perception of your brand. Most likely you will end up with a perception that is not desirable.

When striving to differentiate from other employers in the market, it is critical that an employment brand provide for a value proposition. An employment brand needs to address certain questions that every prospective — and current– employee will have. It’s critical that you provide a value proposition.

Why should employees work for you?

What do you provide your employees that they will value? You can’t be everything to everyone so don’t try to be. For example, maybe you are in an industry that routinely has irregular shifts and schedules. You may want to differentiate yourself by working hard to set consistent schedules for your staff. This would be part of your employment brand and value proposition. Employees who value consistent schedules will want to work for you.

What do you want to be known for as an employer?

Within the circles of your ideal employees and industry you want to be known for something as an employer and you need to identify what that is and work to promote that, internally and externally. When you ask people why they like or want to work with you, their answer should match what you want to be known for. If it does, it means you have identified an employment brand that is of value and you are actually delivering on it.

In establishing your employment brand you should have taken into consideration what your ideal employee would look like. Who will fit with your culture, business model, industry needs and the type of work. Who will want to work with you and will excel in the environment you provide?

Assuming you have an established employment brand, you want to make sure that is the actual perception among the workforce. After all, perception is reality. The last thing you want to do is promote an employment brand you can’t deliver on. Just like you wouldn’t give your customers a value proposition you can’t deliver on. You’ll want to test your employment brand from time to time.

There are two areas to focus on to quickly take the temperature of your employment brand. Leverage both the court of public opinion as well as quantifiable data to validate your employment brand. Remember, perception is reality! Use the following techniques to take the pulse of your employment brand.

Read More:  “5 Steps to Assess Employer Brand For Small Biz Owners.“

Conduct Surveys

A great place to start is to conduct surveys with your current employees. Remember those criteria you established to identify your ideal employee? Great–now take those, turn them into a survey and send it out to your employees. Analyze the data and see where you are misaligned.

Focus Groups

This is a great tool to use. Large organizations, especially tech companies, will use focus groups to identify if their products are delivering what customers are seeking. Identify small groups of employees within your company and speak directly with them about certain aspects of employment. You’ll find doing this in a small group setting over coffee or lunch will yield the best results.

Conduct Multi-Rater Feedback Surveys

The number one reason people are unhappy in their jobs is their manager. It is also the leading cause of turnover. You may be providing all the right benefits, working conditions, etc. that you aspire to in your employment brand, but if you have managers not executing accordingly your brand will suffer. Conducting anonymous reviews on your managers by gathering employee feedback will not only identify issues, but give your managers information to learn from.

Review Your Hiring Practices

Do your job ads, sources of applicants and interviewing process target your ideal employees and do they identify fit with your employment brand? If there is misalignment here you will not be hiring the right people and your brand will suffer.

Utilize Public Information

There are a number of free sites out there that allow for you to be able to take the pulse of current, former and prospective employees. Two popular ones are Glassdoor and Indeed. Current and former employees will leave reviews on these sites. Much like you pay attention to reviews from your customers on public sites, pay attention here as well. You can also catch social media and online mentions by setting up Google Alerts using keywords that would tip you off to on-line comments about employment at your company.

Employment brands are only good so long as you can deliver on them. Don’t try to do the “popular” thing if you can’t deliver on it. Don’t try to be Google if you’re not Google. Carve out your own niche, make sure you can deliver on it and test it periodically. Find employees who value your employment brand and fit with it. Take these intentional steps and you will find yourself attracting the right candidates who are delighted to work with you and will refer their friends and family to work with you.

Employment Brand White Paper | ExactHire

Photo Credit: Clem Onojeghuo

4 Guidelines for Optimal Job Application Conversion Rates

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We live in an age of distraction and it’s wreaking havoc on your talent applicant sourcing process. Despite your efforts to write engaging job descriptions, post them far and wide and publicize your amazing corporate culture, your click-to-apply ratio is dismal. So what gives?

While the aforementioned items are undoubtedly important factors in the talent acquisition game, another critical component is the length of your job application. The likelihood that you’ll make your very next priority about researching your ideal application length will depend on the supply and demand for job categories in your local market. However, know that the very best candidates always have options, so even in a seller’s…ahem…employer’s market, top talent still won’t fill out your 50-question job application.

The proof is in the numbers, and it’s pretty staggering on both desktop and mobile devices. Check out this statistic from a study referenced in an ERE post:

“For every 100 candidates who click through from a job advertisement to a recruitment portal on a desktop device, an average of 8 will complete a job application. For mobile click-throughs, the completion figure is just 1.5 percent.”

I was curious about how the same numbers would stack up across all of our own HireCentric applicant tracking software client job portals. During the last six months, our own click-to-apply ratios for site visitors who make up the referral traffic category* are listed below.

  • desktop – 9.23%
  • mobile – 4.96%
  • tablet – 3.34%

*Referral traffic category visitor = visitor referred to a client’s HireCentric ATS portal from a link on another site like a client’s corporate website or an external job board.

While our ratios come out slightly more favorable than those referenced in the study, it’s still pretty disheartening to think about the fact that out of 100 job seekers referred to your careers portal, only three to nine of them will actually finish the application process, depending on their device. So how can you improve your own job site’s click-through numbers?

Ditch Traditional Job Application Length Thinking

Start to ask yourself the tough questions about what you really need to know from applicants at the onset of the hiring process. Then, dump traditional thoughts like these:

Employer thinks: “I want my application to be long enough that I won’t get overwhelmed with unqualified applicants.”

High potential job seeker thinks: “This is taking too long…I won’t be applying here now…or ever.”

While there is some logic to making your process long enough to be a speed bump to candidates that are just looking to claim their next unemployment check, if it’s too lengthy you run the risk of disengaging the best potential applicants from finishing your application now…or anytime in the future.

Employer thinks: If someone wants to work here badly enough, they’ll jump through whatever question “hoops” we present.

High potential job seeker thinks: If the employer cared enough about its employment brand, they’d only ask the deal-breaker questions early, and save the other stuff until later.

Evaluate your own application process to determine what works best for your organization and job market. And, remember to consider how the applicant might feel while completing your employment application. Use the following sections as a checklist to help make adjustments…and know that what works for one job category may not be ideal for another.

 

Mobilization

Make it easy to apply from a mobile device

The statistics don’t lie–the conversion rate for job seekers viewing your site from a mobile device are even worse than from a desktop. Smaller screens make lengthier applications appear even more intimidating and stop potential applicants in their tracks. Implement these enhancements to improve your odds for success.

  • Mobile-friendly jobs site – make sure your careers portal is developed with responsive web design so that your employment application automatically adjusts to the size of the screen on which it is viewed.
  • Mobile apply integrations – Look for an applicant tracking system that integrates with well-established sites from which candidates may pull application information.
    • Apply with LinkedIn – can your candidates authorize their own LinkedIn profile to populate some of the fields of your application?
    • Indeed Apply – Is your application set up in such a way (including responsive web design) that Indeed can empower job seekers to use their Indeed profile to push application info to your ATS? The key to making this setup work is collecting only basic information in the first step of the application process (e.g. applicant source, resume and job screening questions, for example).
  • Dropbox/Google Drive – Candidates can’t necessarily upload a resume file to your jobs site from their phone/tablet. Mobile job seekers will count on your system to allow them to pull their resume files from a cloud-based file storage site like Dropbox or Google Drive.

 

Segmentation

Do not put the cart before the horse

Do you really need to have a candidate’s references in the first step of the hiring process? After all, only a tiny percentage of all of your candidates will have those come into play at the end of the selection process. And, you don’t really need the full employment and/or education histories right away if you get a resume up front.

Look for an ATS provider that offers employment application options such as the two-step application. This feature allows you to ask only the absolute need-to-know-now questions of applicants in the very beginning of the recruiting process. Then, once applicants are pre-screened and a few top candidates are identified, you can always ask those top candidates (who are now more motivated to respond having been identified) for more robust applicant information in the second step of the application.

Additionally, limit the number of essay questions in your application, and instead opt for multiple choice questions to facilitate informative, quick answers that don’t lengthen the time it takes to complete an application, but at the same time, do allow your staff to use answers to automatically score and/or disqualify applicants. In fact, the aforementioned study found that the length of time it takes one to complete an application is an even bigger driver of applicant drop-off than the number of questions asked.

 

Customization

Identify the information you need in each job category

Help job candidates help you. That is, customize their application experience to be hyper-specific to the information you need early on to assess their potential qualifications for a position. For example, if you are sourcing applicants for an exempt position, then don’t make them answer an application question that asks whether they are willing to work overtime…as that would only be applicable to non-exempt job candidates. This can be accommodated either through job screening question groups customized for each of your job categories; or, via multiple application layouts for different hiring needs (e.g. executive-level, different geographic locations, etc.) that are set up by a trusted applicant tracking software provider.

Think about other potential considerations to ease the candidate experience. Do your graphic designer job applicants have a designated place on the application to reference their online portfolio? Does the application associated with the recent college graduates’ hiring track allow candidates to link to a copy of their student transcript?

 

Communication

Paint a clear picture of the path to employment

Many effective writing styles preview a piece of content’s focus before getting into meaty topics. In a sense, you’ve got to tell readers what you’re going to tell them before you tell it. Redundant or not, a lot of people like to know what they are getting themselves into to determine if it’s worth their time in the first place. Job seekers are no different.

Create content that illustrates not just your employer’s application process, but the entire hiring process including interviews, background/reference checks, the offer letter and employee onboarding activities. Here are some communication strategies:

  • Job description length – If you want more qualified candidates to apply, then you generally need to describe the position in more words than found in one short paragraph. However, your job listing should not be a novel either. Look to recruiting metrics available in an in-app ATS dashboard to help you start to diagnose which of your job listings are performing best when it comes to organic search results…this could be a partial clue into which of these descriptions have a more optimal, keyword-savvy, length.
  • Career-focused content – Include pages within your jobs site that share Q&A narratives about what candidates can expect from the hiring process. Incorporate video and images as often as possible as it makes it easier and more entertaining for job seekers to process the information presented.
  • Clear application instructions – Take another look at the actual directions listed at the start and end of your application process. Do they set expectations that additional information may be collected later, if applicable? Could they be lengthened (or shortened) to be more effective?

By heeding these guidelines for converting more job applications, your organization can make strides toward improving your hiring efficiency.

MondayFunday: Races and Bases

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Unless you’re Patrick Star and living under a rock this summer, you’ve noticed that the weather has been beautiful…and hot. That hasn’t stopped us at ExactHire from going out and having some fun in the sun though! May and June have both proved to be quite competitive here in the office for our monthly MondayFunday as we raced remote control cars in May and tried to throw wiffle balls into a bucket with gusting winds in June.

Out of the Gates

Since May is for racing, the fun committee decided that it was time for the first official racing of the remote control cars. Even before the races started, there was some trouble as Christa discovered that one remote was controlling both cars so it was decided that each person would go solo. As the newest member of the team, I was forced to play the guinea pig in the first running of the ExactHire races. Unfortunately for the rest of the team, I had a few tricks up my sleeve – tricks being ten year-old sisters that keep me up to date on kids’ toys (such as race cars), allowing me to clock in a lap time of approximately 12 seconds…cue victory dance. There were many other admirable attempts to beat my time, but karma was racing the others as there were many bumps and run-ins with patio furniture along the way.

Tom’s son proved to be the best of the best when it came to stepping in as the flag man and providing enthusiasm throughout the harrowing lap – emonday-funday-racesven going as far as to follow the car to the finish line (such fearlessness). Overall, race day proved to be a great way to relieve some stress and have a few laughs together as it was pretty much impossible to navigate that pesky patio furniture, but either way – we all had a good time (especially anyone who got to help Tom’s son have a blast!)

Throwing Caution to the Wind

June’s Monday Funday proved to be insanely difficult as winds were gusting at approximately 110 mph (I’m not a weatherman, but I’m pretty sure it was that windy). The fun committee, not foreseeing such inclement weather decided to have us all participate in a pseudo-game of baseball/catch; we all had to run base to base and throw two wiffle balls, trying to toss as many as possible into a bucket place on the pitcher’s “mound.” This may seem simple enough, but rest assured, it was not.

monday-funday-basesHarlan Schafir managed to beat us all with a whopping three balls in the bucket. Tom came close to trumping him, with four balls in the bucket, though unfortunately for him, three bounced out – rendering them unscorable.

Despite our winner having a success rate of only 37.5%, we were 100% successful with our goal of having fun! We celebrated our success with a baseball-themed cookie cake which only added to our excitement.

 

Monday Funday is one way in which ExactHire seeks to build and grow a fun work culture. Each month–on a Monday of course–we recognize the workiversaries and birthdays of our team. We also participate in creative competitions that sometimes turn fierce.

We will share recaps of these events via our blog in an effort to spread the word that Monday can be a fun day. But we also want to know how you have FUN at your workplace too. So add that in the comment section below. Our Fun Committee is always looking for ideas!
Image credit: Spongebob Patrick Star Anime by Koorication (contact)

Vermont “Ban the Box” Legislation

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As the movement to eliminate potential employment barriers for individuals with a criminal record continues, Vermont is the newest state to pass legislation to “Ban the Box” in the early stages of the application process for public and private sector employment. “Ban the Box” AKA “Fair Chance Policy” aims to reduce recidivism rates and future incarcerations of prior offenders. The policy will help individuals with criminal records “have a fair chance” to be actively considered for employment opportunities despite having blemished records when they are applying for jobs in their attempt to attain employment.
Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, signed the legislation on May 3, 2016; however, this legislation does not become effective until July 1, 2017. The time delay will be implemented so that employers will have adequate time to adjust employment processes to comply with this law. The bill, H.261, prohibits employers from asking criminal conviction related questions initially on a job application. Employers are still allowed to ask questions about convictions later in the hiring process. Certain exemptions exist on this law, please consult your company’s legal team for more information on the exemptions and criteria to qualify.

Upcoming “Ban the Box” Legislation

Vermont “Ban the Box” legislation is only the latest to be adopted a state. Currently, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Illinois, New Jersey and Oregon all have statewide Ban the Box legislation for public and private employment. Other states, cities and municipalities have enacted localized or public employment related legislation related to the Ban the Box concept. To keep abreast of states and cities who enact “Ban the Box” legislation, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) has an interactive map that provides an overview of the current legislative status. For the actual legislation, you will need to go directly to the state or city government website to access the passed law(s) in its comprehensive language.
Employers need to be aware of the legislation that exists and what legislation is pending to be prepared for the potential impact on their organizations. If your organization currently has hiring practices in multiple states and cities, or posts job listings nationally, it is important to be cognizant of the locales’ legal expectations and determine if you need to alter verbiage on your employment application(s) and/or change specific steps in your hiring practices to be compliant with “Ban the Box” legislation.
Please note: The ExactHire team is not legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice so any questions regarding your company’s eligibility for exemption with the “Ban the Box” legislation and/or proper verbiage for your company’s employment application(s) should be discussed with your company’s legal counsel. To learn specifically how Vermont’s H.261 affects your organization’s hiring practices, please contact your company’s legal team.

ExactHire Clients

At ExactHire, we take pride in doing our best to ensure our clients’ satisfaction is the highest possible. We do whatever we can to resolve clients’ current needs and identify potential needs. After you speak with your legal counsel, and if you and your legal team decide changes need to be made to your employment application(s) to comply with legislation, the ExactHire team can work with you to create a new application with the verbiage you specify for compliance. Also, please know that one of the benefits of using ExactHire’s HireCentric software as your applicant tracking system is that you can create multiple employment applications, each specific to your needs. If you are an existing client looking for more information about updating your current employment application(s) and/or creating additional employment applications, please email support@exacthire.com, and let us know your needs.

Learn More About ExactHire Solutions

If you are not yet an ExactHire client, for more information about HireCentric ATS, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

New FOX TV Pilot “HR”…Will It Be A Hit?

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I just finished reading a post discussing a new sit-com pilot on FOX with the working title HR. I’ll link to that article a little bit later, but for now let’s consider what this new show might mean to the world of Human Resources.

I certainly support the idea of a new comedy based around the Human Resources profession–no loss for material there. But I can’t help but wonder if HR will be short-changed. Now before you think that I’m just being a Debbie..er Donnie Downer, hear me out.

Workplace Comedy

People spend the majority of their waking moments at work. Sadly, for many it’s anything but funny. It’s dull, boring, and monotonous. Only 48% of U.S. workers are satisfied with their jobs according to The Conference Board–a nonprofit research organization that has conducted the Job Satisfaction Survey since 1987.

So why are workplace comedies so popular? I think Bob Newhart explained it well, “Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it, and then move on.”

When weary workers arrive home to ultimately plop in front of a screen, they’re looking for something. They want to escape. They want to get distance from their day. This can be done countless ways, but workplace comedy provides the opportunity to both escape and laugh at oneself. And for many, that is more than entertainment, it approaches a type of therapy.

So I know that I won’t find many sympathetic souls to join me in questioning the idea of HR as comedy. In fact, at first blush, the profession may seem to be tailor made for it. Even HR professionals themselves would likely agree that their jobs can frequently incite laughter, or at the very least amusement. People do funny things, and at work HR is there to…document it.

However, there is a risk that the Human Resources profession could–as often occurs–be unfairly painted with a broad brush. Frequently, HR is seen as the rule maker, rule enforcer, and both the source and destination for workplace grievances. Sure, a comedy could succeed in laying bare the hilarious truths and absurdities that HR silently, compliantly deals with–and that’s a great start–but what about the genuinely positive role of HR in the workplace? How is that story told?

The Other Side Of The Coin

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be a buzz kill here. A sit-com is not a social movement or cause. There is no requirement that it simultaneously function as a PSA either. Its goal is to maximize the number of people tuning in to laugh on a weekly basis.

But in looking back at some popular workplace comedies, yes, they were hilarious, but they also treated the professions they satirized with dignity. Think of TV series like M*A*S*H, Taxi, WKRP In Cincinnati, and Cheers. These shows produced a ton of laughs, but they also developed depth in characters, especially the lead roles. In this way, these comedies became something more for the viewers.

Of course, there are other workplace sitcoms with well developed characters, but these weren’t alone in portraying the dignity of a profession to the masses. These sit-coms were counterbalanced by a TV drama that focused on the same profession. For instance: Scrubs could be over-the-top zaney because ER was grounded; Night Court brought humor to the courtroom, while Matlock brought justice; and the motley team of detectives in Brooklyn Nine-Nine are a nice reprieve from Law & Order: XYZ.

Where Will “HR” Land?

As I said, a comedy around the HR profession should have no trouble providing hilarious stories. I will be watching the pilot episode, and I hope the show is funny and ultimately lands a series. But more importantly, I hope that this show succeeds in creating characters who portray the positive aspects of Human Resources professionals.

Yes, let’s laugh at the self-martyring employees, office pranks gone awry, and innocent, but thoughtless and inappropriate, workplace behavior. But let’s also see the real humans behind these HR roles, the ways in which they are trying to enhance the lives of employees, provide guidance on difficult personnel matters, and how they are trying to make the workplace less dull, boring, and monotonous.

If we can walk away from the pilot episode of HR with a dozen laughs and a greater appreciation for the work of Human Resources professionals, then I think FOX may have a very promising comedy in its hands. To learn more about HR, you can check out the SHRM post here. It gives you a detailed overview of the concept, the cast of characters, and a fun discussion about possible plots for this new show–it’s a fun read.

 

ExactHire provides hiring software for small- to medium-sized businesses that enables Human Resources professionals to spend more time with people and less time on process. 

Payroll Service Bureaus – Are Clients a Flight Risk? [Infographic]

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Payroll service outsourcing is nothing new regardless of whether you look at large employers, or organizations that fall within the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) space. However, advances in other human resources-related technologies in recent years have, for the first time, enabled increasing numbers of smaller businesses to automate administrative tasks related to recruiting, employee onboarding, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), background checking and reference checking. And, to do so for a reasonable price.

This presents a challenge to independent payroll providers because larger, national payroll organizations are packaging these additional HR services into a single solution and luring existing clients and prospects away from regionally-focused, independent payroll service bureaus. Want to identify the warning signs that suggest your clients may seek payroll services elsewhere? Check out the infographic below and learn how to spot the red flags that your customers may be a flight risk.

(Click here to enlarge)

payroll-providers-hr-services-infographic

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HR Software Provider Partnership Guide

What’s Your Recruiting Personality? [QUIZ]

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Looking to get into the recruiting profession? Or, maybe you’re already a seasoned pro but just want to better identify your true recruiting strengths? Whatever the case, take ExactHire’s “What’s Your Recruiting Personality?” Quiz to identify your talent acquisition sweet spot.

From recruiting analytics and compliance reporting to social media and screening, this entertaining yet informative quiz will use your answers to ten short multiple choice questions to point you in the direction of your most prominent recruitment personality type.

Whether you’re happy managing metrics, driven by social shares or energized by candidate conversations…there’s a recruitment role that speaks to your passion. No matter which personality type you call your own, one thing is certain across all personalities…the recruitment field is always evolving and challenging professionals to adapt their sourcing styles.

This is especially true when it comes to navigating the mobile recruiting space. As a result, the ExactHire team has included examples of mobile recruiting software features especially well-suited for each recruiter type in each persona description.

What are you waiting for? Take the quiz and then share the results with your friends!

Mobile Social Recruitment Best Practices

Image Credit: Any Questions? by Matthias Ripp (contact)