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Job Descriptions that Attract Diverse Job Candidates

Attracting diverse job candidates is essential to finding high quality talent for your positions. That’s because trying to find the right person to fill a vacant position is challenging, especially in our current job market.

In the past, companies mostly competed against similar industries for talent; however, that has distinctly changed. Today, workers are expanding their interests and education along with examining how to transition into different fields. The competition for essential talent has never been more fierce. Companies must compete with competitors in and outside their industry.

So when an organization has a job to fill, it is crucial to examine the content advertised to ensure that all qualified individuals feel welcome to apply. Making your company an inclusive organization–ready to recognize and appreciate diverse skill sets–should be a huge priority.

 

Companies with a diverse workforce are 35% more likely to experience greater financial returns than their respective non-diverse counterparts. –Forbes

 

Why is Attracting Diverse Job Candidates Important?

According to an article published by Forbes, diverse teams are better decision makers 87% of the time as compared to non-diverse teams. Approximately 35% of applicants will not apply to a job if the listing and/or the company do not seem to support diversity. Companies with a diverse workforce are 35% more likely to experience greater financial returns than their respective non-diverse counterparts. Diversity and inclusion help expand the knowledge, insight and social connectivity of an organization so it is a priority that needs consistent support. But how can companies ensure that they are attracting talent from all backgrounds?

Unbiased Job Description Content

Often it’s department managers who create job descriptions for their areas. They know the intricacies of the functions they oversee, so this makes sense. But this might also lead them to create or revise job descriptions with the only the current employee(s) in mind.

And while that’s a good starting point for identifying tasks and responsibilities, that exact employee will not be in that role permanently. So it’s imperative to avoid biased job description content because the next person to fill that role will likely have distinctly different, individualized attributes.

How can my Job Postings be More Inclusive?

In the “relay” to fill job vacancies, Human Resources can take the baton from other internal departments and thoroughly examine job descriptions. This provides a clear and bias-free interpretation and, if necessary, revisions of the content. Doing this helps ensure that job descriptions reach diverse populations and offer a sense of inclusivity to all applicants.

To help with consistency of verbiage, Human Resources can create an inclusive style guide available to all departments. This ensures that consistent language is used when communicating job description content with external and internal audiences.

Here are some key items to evaluate when reviewing job descriptions:

  1. Avoid Gender Coding which is assigning traits, characteristics or behaviors to a particular gender. Curious as to how the organization’s job description’s content passes or fails in gender coding? Check out Gender Decoder to scan content, and learn about the purpose of the tool here along with a list of feminine and masculine perceived words.
  2. Check pronouns. Are the pronouns “He” or “She” used in the job description? Not all individuals identify with “He” or “She”. Using “You” in the job description will leave the reader more focused upon themself and the characteristics they personify to help give the reader a better opportunity to picture themselves fulfilling the duties of that particular role. “You will lead the success of your clients…You will assist senior management with strategic planning…etc.” To the reader, hearing what “You” can do is motivating!
  3. Include the organization’s EEO statement. Job seekers need to know the organization is committed to equal opportunity and supports hiring for all individuals. Personalize the company’s message to all audiences that they are truly welcome.
  4. To accommodate readers of all levels, keep sentences and paragraphs short. Use verbiage that the reader would not have to look up in a dictionary to define. This is a job description to attract interested, qualified applicants; it is not a dissertation.
  5. Approximately 10% of the population is dyslexic. Dyslexia is a learning disorder that affects written and comprehended language. Individuals with Dyslexia are also part of a protected population by the EEOC. Using fonts that help language processing such as Arial, Comic Sans Verdana, Tahoma, Century Gothic, Trebuchet, Calibri or Open Sans, are easier to read because they are are sans serif. Crowded text makes it more challenging for readers with language processing challenges so avoid the use of italics and underlining and go bold instead.
  6. Stop buzzing around! Using buzzwords and jargon can be confusing and overwhelming. Job seekers want the job description to be to the point and simple to follow without the need to go search the online dictionary for acronyms or jargon translation. This site, Milkround, helps scan for jargon and gives a good resource of what to revise. Keep in mind, the site is based out of the United Kingdom so there could be a bit of difference between UK and US English.
  7. When discussing benefits, focus on generalities. “Parenting” leave as compared to maternity or paternity leave. “Parents and Guardians” as compared to “Mothers and Fathers”. “Partners” as compared to “Spouses” or “Husbands and Wives”.
  8. Individuals with disabilities have skills to offer. Review the job content for items that could isolate individuals with physical or cognitive disabilities. Does the person have to actually “lift” an item to move it, or could the person move the item in an alternative way? Does a person have to read instructions, or could that person listen to an audio recording instead? One size does not fit all

Commit to a Diverse, Inclusive Culture

Creating diverse content in job descriptions is an important step toward attracting diverse job candidates. But they are only words if the organization’s culture does not embrace diversity and inclusion initiatives. Make sure that what is written in the job description regarding the warm welcome for all qualified individuals to apply is sincere.

Human Resources is a champion for diversity and inclusion. Taking time to inspect job descriptions and promoting inclusive language and actions within the organization will save time in the long run. And crafting content to reach diverse audiences will become a norm as time evolves. Diverse, inclusive job descriptions will help organizations yield an opportunity to fulfill its main goal – supply the organization with talent for company growth.

Click here to learn how ExactHire HR Software can help your team create a library of diverse job templates that can be used to help save time posting jobs, screening applicants, and attracting diverse job candidates.

 

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

What Should a New Employee Do for the First Week?

Are you interested in increasing new hire retention by 50 percent? How about boosting your team’s productivity by 62 percent? Then, you need a solid onboarding plan. One study found that companies with an effective onboarding plan retained 91 percent of their first-year hires. And those that just wing it when it comes to onboarding? Their new hire retention rate is an abysmal 50 percent.

Now that you know how much is riding on your new employee onboarding process, how do you go about designing the most effective onboarding plan? While the best onboarding plans extend to the new hire’s first anniversary, it’s your employee’s first week that will make or break the effectiveness of your onboarding plan.

Welcoming New Employees During the First Week

Onboarding provides new hires with the support, encouragement and foundation they need to become successful, long-term employees. The first week of onboarding, when excited new hires are most vulnerable to second-guessing their decision, plays a pivotal role in the success of your onboarding process.

According to The Work Institute’s 2021 Retention Report, the average quit rate among new hires during their first year is about 34 percent. One study found that 40 percent of new hire turnover happens within the first month. So, the first week is all about reassuring the new hire that he or she made the right choice.

Several factors help determine employee longevity. Clear expectations, meaningful work and great friendships are just a few of the reasons good employees decide to stay at their jobs. Making meaningful efforts to engage your new hire on these points during their first week will dispel any lingering doubts they may have about you as an employer.

On the other hand, leaving new hires to fend for themselves will increase their apprehension. The more your employee is left questioning the basics, such as where to park or what she should do next, the more she will feel like an outsider. Instead of integrating with the team, she’ll be scouring the job sites with her cell phone while eating lunch alone.

New Employee First Day Agenda

The first day at a new job isn’t unlike the first day of school. We all remember that mix of nervousness and excitement when you desperately want something to go well but you’re not sure that it will. Your paperwork and training are important. But even more important is ensuring that when your new hire goes home and is asked by his friends and family how his first day went, he can answer with a resounding “Great!”

Before New Employee’s First Day

Your new employee first day checklist sets the stage for your new hire’s great first day long before you greet him at the door. A series of emails to welcome your new employee before her first day eases first-day jitters. Emailing the following information will help your new hire prepare for his first day:

  • Links to digitized new employee forms for 2022 and policy documents. Provide these links several days before the new hire’s start date.
  • An organizational chart and bios of team members, if available. Invite the new hire to write a brief bio as a way of introduction. Or create a “Get to Know You” questionnaire.
  • Basic information, such as parking, possible road construction, and dress attire.
  • Let him know who his first point of contact will be and also that he will be eating lunch with the team. Be clear about whether the company will provide his lunch.
  • An email of introduction and welcome from the new hire’s supervisor and others on the leadership team. An email from the CEO will help the new hire connect his role to the company’s mission.

Basics of a New Employee’s First Day

When your new hire arrives for her first day of work, the following strategies will help her feel welcomed and integrate more quickly in her role and within the team.

  • Make sure her workstation is fully set up, with all the tools and network access her role requires.
  • Make sure her point of contact introduces her to the team before leaving her.
  • Provide her with tasks. New employees need to be told what to do. You can set her up with training modules or assign her to shadow a fellow employee for the day. Just make sure she has something to do.
  • Plan a team welcome lunch for the new employees to set the stage for collaboration and friendship.

New Employee Checklist Template for the First Week

Your new employee first week schedule template needs to accomplish a few objectives during the first to help ensure your new hire will go on to become a successful long-term employee. These objectives are related to the Four C’s of onboarding: compliance, clarification, culture, and connection.

Compliance deals with the documents required for the new employee as well as the necessary safety and anti-discrimination training. Clarification means the new hire understands her new role and how it connects to the company’s mission. Culture loosely refers to the company’s values and how those values translate into its daily operations. Connection refers to the emotional bonds and friendships your new hire will form with her colleagues and the company.

We like to suggest a fifth C: check-in. It’s important to periodically assess how things are going. During check-ins, the feedback the employee provides is just as important as the feedback she receives.

Below is a new hire schedule template for the first week to help you cover all five C’s.

New Hire Checklist Template Before the First Day:

  • Send a series of welcome emails to your new hire.
  • Have new hires fill out digitized paperwork.
  • Set up a workstation with necessary tools, devices and access.
  • Make sure IT sets up all necessary accounts and logins.

New Employee First Day Agenda Template:

  • Make a new employee announcement on the company’s intranet and social media pages.
  • Introduce the new hire to the team and supervisor(s).
  • Provide a tour along with interdepartmental introductions.
  • Introduce the new hire to the executive leadership team, who can then share words of advice for the new employees.
  • Provide a team lunch.
  • Give the new hire a prepared set of tasks.
  • Assign a peer mentor to assist the new hire.
  • During the first week:
  • Send the new hire to work for a day in different departments to help him understand how his role connects throughout the company.
  • Schedule lunch for the new hire with the peer mentor.
  • Schedule a one-on-one meeting with the new hire’s supervisor to help her gain clarification on the role.
  • Assign training modules to the new hire.
  • Give the new hire a “real” work-related project to demonstrate your confidence in his abilities. Make sure it’s a project he can accomplish with his current company knowledge.
  • Give the new hire a list of coworkers he can contact regarding various issues, such IT or HR related questions.
  • Schedule an orientation during which the new hire learns about the company’s history, mission, values and future direction.
  • Schedule an end-of-the-week check-in to answer any lingering questions or concerns.

Design an Onboarding Day by Day Plan

Providing the best onboarding experience for new hires will improve your employee retention.

Your new employee’s first week is pivotal to your onboarding plan. Anxiety and lingering doubts threaten your new hire’s long-term success. By designing a first week onboarding plan, day by day, you can welcome your new employee to the team and increase his engagement and productivity.

Your first week onboarding plan begins long before you greet your new hire on her first day. By sending out informative and welcoming emails, as well as ensuring her workstation is complete prior to her start date, you help ease her anxieties surrounding a significant life change.

Then, by organizing onboarding first day ideas in which she is enthusiastically welcomed to the team and immediately assigned tasks, you reassure her that her new role is meaningful to the organization. Finally, by creating daily onboarding activities to orient your new hire to the company’s culture, mission and values, you lay the groundwork that will boost your new hire retention rate. And always remember to include opportunities for onboarding experience feedback and answers to questions.

ExactHire’s employee onboarding software, OnboardCentric, can help you create an effective, streamlined and consistent onboarding process for new employees. Take the hassle out of coordinating the moving parts of your onboarding plan digitized paperwork, reminders and more. Schedule your free demo today to find out how ExactHire’s OnboardCentric can increase your new hire retention.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

What Is a Recruitment SWOT Analysis?

The Great Resignation, skills gap and increasing recruitment costs may have you wondering how you can improve your talent acquisition strategy.

The evolving economic and labor landscapes mean that what worked in hiring prior to the pandemic doesn’t work now. How can you systematically assess your approach to recruitment against these changing circumstances?

An old business standby, the SWOT Analysis, can be adapted to help you develop a recruitment strategy that uses your strengths to harness opportunities while reducing your vulnerability to those circumstances that make recruiting so challenging.

SWOT Analysis in HR

SWOT, meaning an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, was developed in the 1960s and is widely used today. A SWOT Analysis takes stock of all four factors in a business endeavor to create a strategy to ensure the endeavor’s success. Individuals and businesses can use a SWOT analysis to aid in planning and goal setting.

SWOT Analyses are effective when making decisions in business planning. Business leaders who use a SWOT analysis benefit from the balanced perspective it provides. Leaders can make decisions that build upon existing strengths without falling victim to uncalculated risks.

When performing a SWOT analysis, decision makers typically start by drawing a quadrant with four boxes. They then label each box beginning with the top left with one of the four factors: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In a business setting, it’s best if the quadrant is drawn on a large presentation pad or whiteboard for maximum participation from all stakeholders.

The best SWOT Analyses have the following characteristics.

  • Focus on the business activity in question.
  • Avoid complexity that hinders decision-making.
  • Prioritize specificity and honesty over vagueness and evasion.
  • Include input from several stakeholders to overcome the subjective nature of the analysis.
  • Perform the analysis in relation to top competitors in the business activity in question.

There are many benefits of a SWOT analysis in recruitment. It offers the organization an opportunity to reframe their recruitment challenges using a range of considerations not normally examined. Using this fresh perspective, hiring teams may see patterns previously missed. You may find it helpful to also perform an onboarding SWOT analysis and employee engagement SWOT analysis to gain further insight into your recruiting process.

Recruitment SWOT Analysis

Performing your own recruitment SWOT analysis can help you devise a talent acquisition strategy that will leverage your company’s unique strengths to overcome its particular challenges. It will help you identify the employers competing for the same talent and consider the recruitment process from the candidate’s perspective.

Before embarking on a SWOT analysis for the hiring process, gather relevant data and identify the people whose input will help make the analysis as objective and productive as possible. Recruitment areas to examine for SWOT analysis include things such as distributing an anonymous employee survey or performing a job search and researching your company from the candidate’s perspective.

When deciding how to do a SWOT analysis of recruitment for your own company, follow these tips.

  • Clearly identify your recruitment goals, including unofficial goals that the hiring team may not have expressed yet.
  • Identify organizations competing for the same talent, even if they are not a competitor within your industry.
  • Consider candidates’ perspectives when reviewing opportunities and threats.
  • Gather information from outside sources, such as employee reviews on Glassdoor and anonymous surveys from employees and previous candidates.
  • In addition to considering the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, take stock of those factors specific to the HR department.  
  • Consider only those factors which are relevant in the present or the very near future.
  • Think about aspects of your organization that are unrelated to HR but still relevant to the recruiting process, such as company brand and core competencies.

Recruitment Strengths and Weaknesses

The recruitment strengths and weaknesses you list on your SWOT analysis are factors within your organization. These are the factors you have the most control over, but they are also the items about which you’re least likely to be objective. Again, having multiple stakeholders contribute to the SWOT analysis for recruitment will produce the best results.

Recruiting strengths are those items that positively impact your candidate search or make your company appealing to job seekers.

Common strengths of the best recruitment process include:

  • Pay scale above industry norms
  • Tuition reimbursement program
  • Executive buy-in for the importance of recruitment in relation to the company’s goals.
  • A strong team in which members feel valued and cared for
  • An applicant tracking system for talent recruitment that ensures the most qualified applicants are at the top of the interview list
  • A mobile-friendly job application

Recruiting weaknesses are those internal factors that make your candidate search more difficult or cause applicants to view your company as less desirable than your competitors.

Common weaknesses in the recruiting process include:

  • A benefits package that is more costly and less comprehensive than your competitors
  • Lack of insight about which job sites for recruiting job seekers reliably produce the best applicants for your company
  • An online application that takes longer than 15 minutes to fill out
  • A physically demanding or uncomfortable work environment
  • Lack of advancement opportunities

Recruitment Opportunities and Threats

Recruitment opportunities and threats are external factors over which you have little or no control. They may include an influx of recent graduates, lack of candidates with the necessary skills or widespread crises such as the pandemic.

You may have difficulty deciding which quadrant to use as you’re finding opportunities to recruit better. Some factors, like your employer brand, begin as an internal element, but then become an external factor subject to independent opinion. Rather than getting caught up in placing a factor in the “right” box, focus on the insights arising from the discussion about your SWOT analysis for recruitment.  

Examples of opportunities include:

  • The city in which your company is headquartered just appeared on a list of best places to live.
  • You can recruit from almost any geographical region for newly remote positions.
  • A competitor is downsizing and laying off employees.
  • The local university offers educational programs in line with your industry needs.
  • Your brand enjoys a good reputation in your community.

Examples of recruitment threats include:

  • A recent court case just increased personal liability for employees in key positions.
  • There aren’t enough graduates in your field to fill the open positions across your industry.
  • Your recruiting competition has switched to a fully remote workforce.
  • When performing internet research from a candidate’s perspective, you find that your organization has a poor employer brand.
  • The big job sites don’t work well for your highly specialized open positions.

Overcome Recruiting Challenges with SWOT Analysis

When you’ve finished your SWOT analysis, you should have around five, but no more than 10, factors in each quadrant. Your aim is to develop a “strategic fit.” Internal factors should complement external factors. And strengths and opportunities should effectively overcome weaknesses and threats.

For example, perhaps an external threat to your recruiting efforts is that your local area lacks enough candidates with necessary skills. Ideally, a strength or opportunity would exist to mitigate this threat. Your organization could develop an opportunity by partnering with local schools to develop a curriculum to teach students the in-demand skills. Or you could bolster your recruiting strengths by offering an in-house apprenticeship program.

A recruitment SWOT analysis can help you analyze the factors that lead to both your recruiting challenges and success. It’s an effective way to gain insights into the circumstances that affect your recruiting efforts. Whether you’re addressing the changing landscape of talent acquisition in general or looking for solutions to challenges unique to your locale or industry, a recruitment SWOT analysis can offer much-needed perspective.

 

Photo by Paul Skorupskas on Unsplash

Why Should Companies Hire New Graduates?

Read any article on hiring recent graduates, and you’ll find a litany of ageist aphorisms. Some pigeonhole Millennials as lazy and entitled. Others sing their praises for their ability to be adaptable or ambitious, as opposed to (we’re led to assume) their aged coworkers set in their ways and coasting along until retirement.

Then there are fresh takes on Zoomers–the most recent college graduates.  According to some, they are driven more by salary than a good opportunity to learn new skills, and so at the drop of a dime will job hop for a slightly better salary.

In truth, you don’t have to pay Millennials in trophies or lure Zoomers with hefty sign-on bonuses–any more than you had to endorse flannel as business casual attire when you hired Generation X.

Moreover, hiring new graduates makes sense even if these stereotypes are true. The skill shortage is real, and all the data points to the power of a diverse workforce. In this article, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to recruit new graduates, regardless of their generational traits.

Hiring Fresh Graduates

There are many benefits of hiring college graduates. They’re understandably excited to have graduated college and start their careers. As candidates without experience, they often will accept a lower job salary in exchange for upskilling opportunities. There are other great reasons to hire new grads that far outweigh the disadvantages of hiring fresh graduates.

Reach your diversity goals. When companies hire fresh graduates, they’re more likely to attain their diversity goals. Pew Research Center reports that recent graduates are more diverse than ever. A diverse workforce is good for your business. According to McKinsey, companies succeeding at diversity are 35 percent more likely to enjoy profit margins above the median for their industry.

Access a passive talent pool. Most hiring managers would agree a currently employed candidate is more appealing than a jobless candidate. Turns out 41 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed, with at least 10 percent earning less than $25,000. Chances are that these hard-working employees would prefer a role with a promising future at your company.

Hire digitally proficient employees. One trope about today’s fresh graduates is mostly true: they pickup new technology quicker than older generations, an unsurprising fact since Millennials were the first generation to grow up with the internet–and  Zoomers may not remember a time without smart phones. New graduates can likely help the company quickly improve its online presence or make more efficient use of existing software.

Challenges of Hiring New Graduates

These numerous benefits aside, there are problems faced by employers in hiring new graduates.

And while one article ungraciously claims “Millennials’ Work Ethic Is In The Eye Of The Beholder,” you’ve been a hiring manager long enough to know the same could be said of many people, regardless of age. The weakness of a new graduate employee has less to do with tired stereotypes.

Simply put, new graduates have different expectations than their older counterparts.

  • Recent graduates want to work for companies that “care about their individual well-being,” according to Gallup. While that may seem like a nebulous requirement for an employer, it’s clear your company needs to develop a culture that humanizes your employees in order to attract new graduates.
  •  The internet is integral to the way younger generations connect with the world. Companies need to engage in mobile recruiting coupled with a strong online presence to attract fresh graduates. You need more than one or two ads on job sites to appeal to fresh graduates. Your company needs to have a strong, authentic social media and online presence, including a branded careers site.
  • Lastly, lack of experience for fresh graduates is a legitimate concern for hiring managers. To successfully hire and onboard Millennials and Zoomers, your company needs to help them quickly acquire the knowledge you might expect from more experienced employees.

Campus Recruiting

The best place to find your newly graduated new hire is—you guessed it—on campus. The following tips will help you recruit graduates on campus.

  • Make sure your job ads are listed on the university’s job board as well their social media pages. One of the advantages of campus recruiting is that you can target your audience when you use university’s niche job board.
  • Have a strong LinkedIn presence. As graduation approaches, many students will strengthen their LinkedIn profile. You can search for recent graduates and reach out through InMail.
  • Make sure your branded careers site is appealing to recent graduates. Your careers site should include information about your company culture as well as “behind-the-scenes” videos.
  • Host an on-campus job fair complete with free company swag. Your campus recruiting strategy isn’t complete without an onsite job fair. Make sure you advertise the job fair both on campus and online. Have several employees at the booth with plenty of literature about your company and its open positions.
  • Build relationships with college organizations and the university’s career department. Your business isn’t the only one competing for new graduates. You want to make sure your company is top-of-mind when career advisors are counseling students.

Job Offer for New Graduates

Gallup surveyed new graduates and published the findings in their report “How Millennials Want to Work and Live.” When Gallup asked Millennials what they look for in a job offer for after graduation, pay and benefits did not make the top five. When making a job offer for new graduates, you need to highlight the job quality most important to them.

Opportunity to Learn and Grow

Continuous learning and opportunities to grow are important to 59 percent of new graduates. These candidates understand their inexperience is a disadvantage. The see ongoing upskilling as a way to career stability. Tuition reimbursement and certifications are important to fresh graduates.

Quality of Executive Leadership

Your executive team makes important decisions about the company’s culture and direction. For this reason, strong executive leadership is important to 58 percent of Millennials. New graduates will be more likely to accept your job offer if you’ve explained the company’s vision well.

Quality of Direct Manager

Over half of Millennials agree with 60 percent of Baby Boomers on at least one thing: quality of manager is extremely important. Throughout the interview process, give candidates the opportunity to meet their potential manager.

Challenging, Meaningful Work

While no one wants to be bored at work, new graduates are more likely to decline an offer for a job that isn’t interesting. But that doesn’t mean you need to rewrite your job description to make it more entertaining for your new hire. Creating a culture of innovation can make even a receptionist role more interesting if it means you’re open to creative solutions that extend beyond the usual scope of the role.

Advancement Opportunities

Gallup’s survey indicates that half of new graduates consider advancement opportunities an important factor for a graduating senior’s job offer. Keep in mind, fresh graduates are just starting their careers and are looking forward to achieving goals. The best job offer for new graduates will include clear guidelines about advancement decisions as well as career pathing for the new hire.

Pay and Benefits

Compensation may not have made the top five. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t an important factor for new graduate job offers. Pay and benefits are a close sixth in importance at 48 percent.

Hiring New Graduates

New graduates grew up with the internet and smartphones. They witnessed several historical events before entering the job market. But they still have the same sense of excitement about their future as previous generations. And the outlook and preferences of Generation Z  are still evolving. Don’t fall into the trap of dismissing new graduates as fussy job hoppers, and don’t broadly characterize them as upgrades of your older employees.

The key to recruiting new graduates is to humanize the candidate experience and see them as individuals. If you think about it, that’s what all your prospective new hires want.

Do you need help analyzing your recruitment process? Download our free scorecard to evaluate whether your recruitment process is helping or hindering your job offer acceptance rate.

 

HyoSun Rosy Ko on Unsplash

 

 

 

Remote Work Culture and Engagement

Whether you cultivate it or not, your company has a culture. From employee retention to product quality, having a positive company culture will increase employee engagement and improve your company’s results.

 

VIDEO: Remote Work Culture

TRANSCRIPT:  Remote Work Culture

Whether you cultivate it or not your company has a culture. From employee retention to product quality, having a positive company culture will increase employee engagement and improve your company’s results.

This was complicated even when all your employees were under one roof, but the explosion of a remote workforce has made this more complicated as we’ve tried to figure out how to establish and maintain a company culture in a remote work environment.

What is Work Culture?

Culture is how we do things around here, and engagement is the performance aspect of culture. So engagement is important because it goes up when culture aligns with how employees measure what is successful for them.

Why is a culture that encourages employee engagement important?

Well, Gallup found the companies that had better employee engagement had higher metrics in the following areas. Engaged workforces experienced:

  • 81%  less absenteeism
  • 41% fewer quality defects
  • 10% boost in customer loyalty
  • 18% increase in productivity
  • 23% increase in profitability

Work cultures today need to be friendly, family-oriented, caring, and supportive. Engaging your workers and making them feel valued is really key to developing a strong company culture for your remote workforce, but as we’ve learned with other leadership strategies: what we’re going to have to do to be successful with the remote for workforce is very different than the methods we’ve used with in-office teams. So here’s some information that might help…

4 Characteristics of High Engagement Work Culture

There are four key characteristics of workplace cultures that increase engagement.

  1.  Warm Relationships: People like to work with people, most of us do–this is very tough to do in a remote workforce environment and people can easily get isolated, so it’s on you as a leader to promote teamwork and encourage collaboration.
  2. Honesty:  Engaged workers have honest interactions with their co-workers and their leaders, so you need to create an environment where honesty is encouraged. One of the best ways to do this as a leader is to be honest yourself and exemplify that. Your workers will notice and they’ll do the same.
  3. Shared Accountability: Engagement goes up when team members share accountability. Everyone wins or loses together.
  4. Alignment on Shared Goals: make sure that everyone’s contributions and objectives are in alignment with the company’s mission and purpose.

Implementing these strategies can be complicated if you need help let us know.


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

5 Signs You Need to Automate Your Hiring Process

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

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

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

You Don’t Know Your Recruitment Metrics

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

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

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

You Need to Reduce Your Time-to-Hire

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

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

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

You Need to Hire Better Quality Candidates

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

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

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

You Hire for a High-Turnover Industry

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

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

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

Increasing HR Responsibilities Leave Less Time for Manual Processes

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

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

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

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

Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash

 

 

 

 

Avoid HR Headaches with these 25 Tips

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

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

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

Eliminate Workplace Discrimination, Promote Diversity

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

Avoid Wage and Hour HR Issues

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

Avoid HR issues and Turnover by being Proactive

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

Avoid Employee Conflict

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

Improve Your HR Recruitment Results

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

Take the Headache Out of Human Resources

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

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

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

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

Photo by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash

Hiring with QR Codes

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

What is a QR Code?

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

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

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

Hiring with QR Codes

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

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

How and Where to Use QR Codes for Hiring

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

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

Better Hiring with QR Codes

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

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

 


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

 

 

Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

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

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

 

VIDEO: Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

 

 

TRANSCRIPT: Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

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

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

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

Remote Work Employee Perspective

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

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

But this isn’t all one-sided.

Remote Work Employer Perspective

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

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

 


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