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Remote Work: Why Employers Should Consider it

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Introduction

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In recent years, the concept of remote work has gained significant traction, revolutionizing traditional work dynamics. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated this shift, pushing companies to adopt remote work policies. However, even as we emerge from the pandemic, there are compelling reasons for businesses to continue embracing remote work as a long-term strategy. This blog will explore the numerous advantages that remote work offers. These include increased productivity, cost savings, improved work-life balance, access to global talent, and reduced environmental impact.

Remote Work Enhances Productivity and Focus

Remote work has proven to enhance employee productivity. By eliminating long commutes and minimizing distractions often found in traditional office settings, workers enjoy increased focus and the ability to structure their work environments to suit their preferences. Studies show that employees working remotely are more likely to put in longer hours, take fewer breaks, and achieve higher levels of output. Additionally, it allows individuals to choose their most productive hours, fostering a sense of autonomy and ownership over their work.

Cost Savings and Efficiency

Companies that transition to remote work models can benefit from substantial cost savings. By eliminating the need for physical office spaces, businesses can reduce expenses related to rent, utilities, and maintenance. Moreover, it allows companies to tap into a global talent pool, eliminating geographical barriers and potentially finding highly skilled individuals at lower costs. Reduced travel expenses and office supply expenditures further contribute to these savings. Companies can reinvest these funds into employee development programs, technology upgrades, or other areas that drive growth and innovation.

Improved Work-Life Balance and Employee Well-being

One of the most significant advantages of remote work is the improved balance it offers employees. By eliminating the daily commute, workers have more time to spend with their families, pursue hobbies, or engage in self-care activities. It also provides flexibility for employees to better manage personal commitments, such as attending appointments or taking care of children or elderly family members. This increased flexibility can significantly reduce stress and contribute to improved mental health and overall well-being.

 

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Remote Work Increases Access to Global Talent

Remote work eliminates geographical limitations when it comes to talent acquisition. Companies can tap into a global talent pool and access individuals with diverse skill sets and perspectives. By embracing this strategy, businesses can build teams comprising the best talent, regardless of their location. This diversity of thought fosters innovation, creativity, and problem-solving. Additionally, it allows companies to offer job opportunities to individuals who may face barriers in traditional office settings, such as those with disabilities or caregivers who require flexible schedules.

Remote Work Reduces Environmental Impact

Remote work contributes to a greener future by reducing carbon emissions associated with commuting and the operation of physical office spaces. With fewer employees commuting daily, there is a significant reduction in traffic congestion and air pollution. Additionally, it reduces the need for office supplies and the energy consumption required to power and maintain office buildings. By adopting these policies, companies can actively contribute to environmental sustainability and align with the increasing focus on corporate social responsibility.

Conclusion

Remote work offers numerous benefits for both companies and employees. Embracing this flexible work model allows businesses to increase productivity, save costs, improve work-life balance, access a global talent pool, and reduce their environmental impact. By recognizing and embracing these advantages, companies can position themselves for success in a rapidly evolving work landscape.

Strategies for Remote Recruitment

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From 2019 to 2022, the remote workforce has tripled according to Gallup. Remote recruiting is Human Resources’ fastest growing strategy within talent acquisition to meet the needs of an evolving work environment. Remote recruitment involves the sourcing, screening, interviewing, and hiring of employees located throughout the world. Traditional means of recruitment used to entail a multi-step process. Phone screens, in-depth phone interviews and then, one or more onsite interviews prior to extending an offer of employment. While some traditions are tried and true, traditional recruitment as described is becoming antiquated. It does not accommodate the needs of an evolving remote and hybrid work model. Companies need to make the recruitment process efficient for all types of employees. When recruiting remote employees, an organization must examine their existing recruitment plans. Then make essential adaptations to make the evaluation process efficient for everyone involved.

 

SOURCING

Review your company’s culture and online presence. Remote job seekers will search for opportunities online. The description of the company found online can affect if they apply. The remote job seeker will want to click to learn more or scroll by. Craft your company’s website with a plethora of examples of the company as a whole. Company culture, history, commitments to employees, customers and society with an emphasis on the company’s investment in remote employees. Share pictures on the company’s social media pages to generate excitement about events within the company. Be sure to include remote employees’ experiences within the content.

Include videos from leadership discussing the company’s mission, vision and values. Having an informative and engaging website will help remote job seekers develop a connection to the organization and reiterate their desire to work there. Include benefits that support remote employees such as additional education and certification opportunities, flexible time, technology benefits, etc. Reiterate that promotion can occur for both onsite and remote workers. If your organization is truly a remote friendly company, broadcast that on the company’s website so remote job seekers can quickly identify that your company encourages remote workers. Make it more than words or a nifty “remote friendly” graphic by including testimonials from remote workers about their positive experiences so job seekers can get additional perspectives from those who do work remotely.

JOB POSTINGS AND DESCRIPTIONS

Now that the organization’s culture has been addressed, take a look at the job listings that are posted on the company website and job boards. Human Resources talent acquisition personnel need to craft job descriptions that attract remote employees. Clarify if the position is 100% remote or if the position is actually hybrid with some onsite work requirements. If it is hybrid, will there be occasional travel to the company headquarters or regional office, and if so, how often? Include specific expectations of the role that apply to its remote specification. Is there a specific time window or time zone that the employee must work?  What type of home work environment and technology are required?

An organization needs to examine all channels of promotion for remote jobs. Recruit existing remote employees to scan their networks for potential talent. Promote job listings on job boards that specialize in remote work opportunities. Utilize your Applicant Tracking System (ATS) integrations with niche job boards to expand your audience.

 

SCREENING AND PRE-INTERVIEW

Upon finding potential talent, it is time to evaluate further and put the “human” in “human resources”.  Remote recruitment does not readily offer the ability to bring talent onsite for interviews so it’s time to go to the talent themselves. Schedule the interview through your Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Phone screens offer an initial opportunity to evaluate basic skills, but for remote positions, consider replacing a phone screen with a video call. This gives recruiters an additional opportunity to develop a connection and evaluate communication and nonverbal language skills. Recruiters need to develop and refine video interviewing skills prior to kickstarting a video interviewing process.

Keep your interview area free from distractions and interruptions. Make sure all equipment is working prior to the interview. Doing this prevents precious interviewing time being wasted on resolving tech issues. Technical issues can occur no matter what. So have an alternate plan to continue the interview in case technical issues cannot be resolved. In a warm, welcoming manner, be the first person to join the meeting. This way the interviewee does not increase nervousness waiting for the interviewer(s). This is not a typical video meeting. Recruiters need to gauge and evaluate nonverbal communication cues, but that can be more difficult over a screen. Take notes regarding questions about qualifications and experience, but if you are taking notes using an interview guide within your ATS, ensure that you can see the interviewee the whole time.

INTERVIEWING

Craft interview questions to include segments focusing on time management, communication skills and autonomous experiences. Formulate questions to gauge the job seeker’s ability to work independently when remote and how they communicate with others when questions or challenges arise. How do they handle stress, particularly when they cannot get up and go walk to someone for assistance? Asking open-ended questions seeking examples will help recruiters find remote talent that will fit within the organization’s remote culture. Explore assessments to evaluate job skill compatibility along with behavioral and cognitive capabilities.  Conduct written assessments to get an example of how the job seeker expresses themselves. Writing samples can include how to respond to an angry client while researching the problem, providing instructions to a teammate or a client, or whatever is relevant to the position.

When the interview concludes, ensure they know the next steps in the process and how they will be contacted. Remote recruitment can take longer than traditional recruitment processes. All job seekers appreciate updates on their status in the hiring process. However it is essential to provide additional communication with remote employees so they can stay engaged in the hiring process. Depending on the intricacies of the job opening, examine the need for additional specialty interviews such as panel interviews. Including the remote candidate in a group meeting and encouraging their participation could give another perspective on interaction and group acclimation. Positions need to be filled quickly to mitigate productivity loss. However, take enough time to host enough video interviews and group sessions. Doing this will allow you to determine if the remote candidate is the best fit for the position.

HIRING

Once an employment offer has been extended to the soon-to-be new remote teammate and they accept, engage them in an active onboarding process starting with the use of onboarding software to automate part of the process. Keep the new remote hire involved with open communication and timely notifications of what is needed from them and what they need to do as well. Partner with the company’s Information Technology department to communicate technology security policies with the new remote hire.

Work with the new hire to validate that they have the tools they need to do the role. Craft communication plans with the new hire so they can start interacting with the team. Outline expectations for task completion, and most importantly, be available as questions arise. Check in on the new remote teammate and host weekly meetings to help them get up to speed on the responsibilities of their job. Remote work environments thrive on communication so ensure the team is there to support the new remote teammate as they learn the culture and their role.

Tailoring remote recruitment to meet the needs of remote job seekers provides the organization with the means to find candidates who want and can successfully complete the duties of a remote position. Remote employees must be self-directing and have stellar communication skills along with grit to handle tasks independently but be ready to collaborate and work with teammates digitally alongside them. Remote employees offer higher productivity and increased loyalty to an organization. As an organization seeks talent to fill vacancies, remote talent can provide the skills and commitment to forge a path of heightened productivity. Forge that path together, no matter where you are.

4 Ways to Support Women in the Workforce

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Happy 2023!

Often, as the new year rolls in, people proclaim that the new year consists of 365 days of new opportunities, and that is a valid statement. Unfortunately for many women, the new year continues to pose workplace challenges that did not end on December 31st.

Let’s take a look at the new year from a mathematical view.

A typical calendar year is 365 days. The average full-time employee will work approximately 260 of those 365 days, or roughly 71% of the year.  According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earned 83.1% compared to men’s earnings in 2021. This is down 1% from data collected in 2020.

Looking at this wage differential, women would need to work almost 45 more days a year to earn what men do in a calendar year. Not so much of a happy new year.

So let’s take a better look at what your company can do to better support the women at your company.

Women would need to work almost 45 more days a year to earn what men do in a calendar year.

Women in the workforce are often held to superheroic, unrealistic standards of excellence. They are expected to be stellar employees who work constantly to earn “exceeds expectations” on their performance evaluations. Many do this while also being a logistics coordinator in their home, maintaining their households and providing care to their loved ones.

With these pressures and expectations, it is no surprise that burnout in women is rising faster than in men. The pandemic unfortunately exacerbated these factors. Many women were forced to make hard decisions that have impacted the global business market. Women are leaving the work world at a faster rate than men, and they are also less likely to fill leadership positions.

In October 2022, McKinsey and Company, in partnership with LeanIn.org, released its latest “Women in the Workplace” study. The report is a must-read for any organization. The findings spotlight challenges that organizations must identify and overcome to provide women with the resources for success.

Employers need to be vocal advocates for women in the workplace. They can do this by creating a supportive, mentoring environment. One that invests in opportunities for women to demonstrate their tenacity. This post will provide four key ways, for an organization to support women in the workforce.

1.) Focus on Leadership Opportunities

Women earn more than half of the college and advanced degrees awarded in the United States. Women hold 23% of executive positions, 29% of senior management positions, 37% of manager positions, 42% of professional positions, and 47% of support staff positions globally. Why are there not more women in leadership positions?

Multiple studies have yielded similar results. There is a predominant assumption that women are not interested in leadership roles. Often times, though, leadership and advancement are not discussed with women in employee/supervisor meetings. And unlike men, women are not as likely to apply for a role unless they feel they are completely qualified for it.

Nonlinear Career Paths

Data shows that it is getting harder for women to rejoin the workforce because employers are questioning gaps on women’s resumes. This leads to selecting individuals, often men, who do not have employment gaps. Employers should become open to employment opportunities with women who have nonlinear career paths. This will increase the talent pool dramatically, while also enhancing it with talent that is resilient, determined, and more than capable.

Entry-Level Management Roles

Organizational leaders need to create goals to recruit and promote women on all levels starting with a focus on entry-level management. McKinsey identified that for every 100 men who are promoted from entry-level roles to manager positions, only 87 women are promoted, and only 82 women of color are promoted. As a result, men significantly outnumber women at the manager level. As advancement continues, there is still a lack of women in the promotion queue eventually to the point where there are not enough women available for promotion to senior leadership positions.

Unconscious Bias

Jobs posted in an organization’s Applicant Tracking System (ATS) should be gender neutral and evaluated to ensure there is no unconscious bias that implies a job is better suited for a specific gender. Make sure all employment applications use language that is non-discriminatory.

When an organization emphasizes recruitment, retention and promotion of women, it expands their talent pool, It also recognizes highly skilled contributors that personify talent in the workplace. Growing internal talent fosters a commitment between employees and the employer. This results in reduced training costs and quicker time to productivity as talent is already acclimated to the company’s culture. Implementing these changes can help to support women in the work place.

2.) Provide Support Resources

Since March 2021, 28% of women with children under 18 in the household have temporarily or permanently left the workforce to become a primary caregiver to children compared to 10% of men. The cost of childcare is one of the top reasons women leave the workplace. Approximately 55% of families report spending at least $10,000 annually on childcare. Organizations who offer childcare and elder care assistance are more likely to retain women. Providing extended leave time with the ability for the employee to return to a similar role helps eliminate concerns of unemployment.

DEI Initiatives

Women tend to be more involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and seek to foster an inclusive nature. McKinsey’s study revealed that approximately 50% of women say their manager regularly encourages respectful behavior on their team, and less than half say their manager shows interest in their career and helps them manage their workload. Organizations need to provide training and resources to managers so they can become stronger leaders instead of managers. Management needs to be cognizant of their team’s needs. Identify where challenges are manifesting and openly discuss internal and external resources to facilitate women’s evolution within their jobs.

Strengthen Relationships

Setting weekly or bi-weekly check-ins is a way to strengthen the professional relationship. Open communication with managers helps women convey concerns, proactively identify signs of burnout, and evaluate workload manageability. The past two years have lit the fuse to ignite a population of employees experiencing burnout. Providing managers with the skill set they need to identify ways to motivate, encourage and mentor their teams will benefit everyone. Women seek employers that support the whole employee, at and outside of work.

3.) Resolve Inequalities

Pay transparency increases trust among employees in an organization if men and women are earning parallel wages. This kind of equity shows a commitment to providing fair compensation to the individual regardless of any protected classification and that compensation is based on the responsibilities of the job and tenets of proven success. Pay equity validates that gender is irrelevant; pay is relative to performance and job duties. When a company provides transparency and equity in pay, it is more likely to retain top performers along with keeping and growing women with leadership potential.

Unconscious Bias

Create a work environment that is amicable, not adversarial, towards women. This will continue to support women at work. In the past two years, women have been 1.5 times as likely, compared to men in parallel roles, to leave a job to move to a company that was more committed to DEI initiatives. Ensure that employees understand conscious and unconscious bias, and provide resources to remove bias internally. Gender bias is defined as preferring one gender more than another. Women are often subject to various microaggressions such as being interrupted in meetings and decisions being questioned.

Micro-Aggressions

Women of color, disabled women, and LGBTQ+ individuals are more susceptible to being the recipient of micro-aggressions. Discrimination impedes productivity and prevents employees from demonstrating their full potential. Communicate and uphold policies that exclaim that discrimination will not be tolerated.

When teammates can appreciate others’ unique characteristics and talents, the work environment becomes more positive and productive resulting in an employer brand that radiates “this is the best place to work”. Eliminating discrimination will also aid in supporting women at work.

4.) Flexibility

Wearing that superhero cape can be daunting. When an organization instills a flexible work environment, the organization empowers employees to take ownership of tasks and responsibilities.  It also shows that they trust that the work can and will be done. Remote work is not just about removing commute times and providing convenience. McKinsey’s study showed that women who work remotely for part of their work schedule experience fewer micro-aggressions and higher levels of psychological safety.

Psychological Safety

According to Forbes, psychological safety is the ability to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences of self-image, status or career. They feel more comfortable doing their tasks and can complete responsibilities. They don’t need to look over their shoulder or validate their decisions compared to working in-person.

Unfortunately, women who work remotely are at higher risk to be overlooked for promotions and to receive public praise for success. Mentorships are proven means to help employees grow professionally. These and are more often provided to onsite employees as compared to virtual employees. Being remote should not eliminate this professional development opportunity. Virtual female employees should have equal opportunity to establish and maintain professional mentorships.

Performance Reviews

Remote women employees have a higher risk of not receiving proper accolades for successful results. This is because of the “out of sight, out of mind” concept. Performance reviews are often a factor in evaluating current talent for promotions.  At performance evaluation time, it is essential that tasks and results are the items measured – not work location and gender. If managers favor onsite employees’ work compared to remote work, managers are succumbing to bias.

As the new year commences, organizations need to evaluate their strategies in place to assist women in the workforce. Companies that take a genuine interest in the professional development of the women work population will exude success through successful recruitment and higher retention of contributing talent to experience heightened productivity. Women seek a work environment that fuels their internal fire for their ambition. Let this fire burn!

ExactHire Full Service Hiring

At ExactHire, we have a proven process to help employers increase their volume of qualified candidates and quickly hire new employees. Our team takes care of writing and posting job ads, screening applicants, and interviewing candidates. Then we deliver you a list of qualified candidates from which to hire.

If you are a company that needs to grow, but don’t have the time or resources to hire, then allow ExactHire to help!

Contact us here to let us help you hire today!

Is Hybrid Work the Future of Work?

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

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

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

Work Trends

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

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

 

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

Hybrid Work Challenges

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

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

But hybrid work comes with its own minefield of challenges.

Hybrid Work Can Be Costly

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

Hybrid Work May Nullify the Perk Employees Want Most

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

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

Hybrid Work May Increase Proximity Bias

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

Hybrid Work Model Tips

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

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

Redefine and Reduce Your Office Space

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

Make Time for Connections

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

Recognize the Savings of Hybrid Work

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

Explore Software and Cloud Computing Options

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

Be Flexible with Hybrid Work

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

Be Proactive About Employee Recognition

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

Hybrid Work Culture

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tips to Strengthen Hybrid Workplace Culture

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

The Future of Hybrid Work Is Here

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

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

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

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

 

 

Photo by Surface on Unsplash

Build a Remote Workplace Strategy

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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.

5 Pro Tips for Quickly Pivoting to a Virtual Employee Onboarding Process

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The new normal of living amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic is causing many employers to adopt new business processes…and to adopt them quite quickly.

For those organizations who are fortunate enough to continue hiring new employees, one of those business processes is to learn how to correctly onboard remote employees in a distributed workforce.

A hastily created employee onboarding process will put new hires at risk of feeling disconnected from their work and organization. On the other hand, a productive virtual employee onboarding program will forge a connection between the new teammate and the organization; thereby, positively contributing to employee satisfaction and the goals of the organization despite the uncertainty and hardship attributable to our current coronavirus reality.

Are you ready to pivot to a distributed workforce? Whether virtual employee onboarding is a brand new practice at your company, or you’re just looking for ways to fine tune employee onboarding for distributed workforces, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, I’ll discuss five best practices for quickly pivoting to a virtual employee onboarding process.

1 – Create a “remote-first” pre-boarding experience

With so much uncertainty on everyone’s mind, your new hire’s interactions with your organization in the days leading up to his start date shouldn’t further increase his anxiety. Make a toolkit of digital assets to share with a new teammate to make sure he feels adequately prepared and informed on day one. Here are some ideas:

  • Provide an organizational chart listing all employee names, titles and the hierarchy of the management structure. If you are a part of a very large organization, then a chart of the new employee’s department and/or division may be sufficient.
  • Create a task list or training schedule for the new hire’s first few days on the job. Create this in a shared document (e.g. Google Docs) that can be edited on-the-fly to include additional tasks as time progresses, as well as hyperlinked resource documents. With this approach, the employee can follow links to conduct further research to acquaint himself with your company and its organizational knowledge as his schedule permits.
  • Task relevant co-workers with creating video welcome messages to be shared with the new employee in the days leading up to the first day. We use a variety of tools at ExactHire (ranging from completely free to very affordable) such as video capture on our smartphones, and video applications like Soapbox, Vidyard and Camtasia.
  • Share a short, hyperlinked list of your company’s social media profiles with the new hire, as well as expectations about whether he is likely to be bombarded by social media invitation requests in his first week (as this can be a common way for remote workers to connect with one another).
  • Make it clear what equipment will be provided by the company (and by what date), and/or whether the new hire is responsible for bringing any of his own devices to his remote workstation. Ensure that all devices are accompanied by robust instructions on how to use and/or setup appropriate security protocols for effective work within the organization.

2 – Leverage the unique onboarding resources now available to your organization

While social distancing has caused many of us to approach the work setting in dramatically different ways, it has also led to the installation of a handful of new laws and limited regulations meant to help the American working population and employers cope with this crisis. Aside from new laws such as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also recently relaxed its normal requirements for Form I-9 compliance when hiring new employees. This change will help employees who have never hired remote workers to examine and temporarily approve employment eligibility documentation with confidence.

In particular, DHS has “[deferred] the physical presence requirements associated with Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) under Section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Employers with employees taking physical proximity precautions due to COVID-19 will not be required to review the employee’s identity and employment authorization documents in the employee’s physical presence.”

However, not all employers meet the criteria necessary for taking advantage of the option to initially virtually examine new hire documentation. In fact, only employers who have gone 100% remote for all employees may utilize this temporary flexibility in document examination. For more details on which organizations qualify and what documentation is necessary to participate, check out this recent Forbes article.

3 – Make a short list of near-term new hire expectations

To make this pivot toward remote onboarding manageable and relatively fast, focus on only the absolutely critical expectations that you need all new hires to know right from the start. In doing so, make sure you communicate that the current situation necessitates focusing on the “must-knows” initially, but that icing-on-the-cake knowledge and nurturing will be sure to follow as things calm down a bit.

Your new hire will appreciate your candor, and be more likely to establish trust in the organization early because it is helping to flesh out priorities to ensure the new hire’s success.

Here are some examples of employee expectations that may resonate with your team. Be sure to educate your new hire about each of the items below that may be important for his work.

  • Training prerequisites that must be completed before certain aspects of a job can be endeavored (e.g. safety, password security protocol)
  • Preferred methods for co-workers to communicate with each other (e.g. email, phone, Slack, text, video conference, project management tool comments)
  • Mission-critical reports and metrics that must be updated…and with what frequency

Remember that while your ability to equip your new employee with these essential bits of information can shorten his learning curve and improve outcomes, don’t forget that our normal isn’t so normal right now. In fact, it reminds me of an unidentified quote that my co-worker shared on our Slack channel today…one that very appropriately describes the current plight for many of America’s remote workers:

“You’re not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work.”

There’s a place for grace right now.

4 – Communicate your culture

While company culture can be somewhat nebulous to describe to others, as it is often something experienced for one’s self in-person, there’s no doubt that remote cultures exist, too.

However, it may take longer to assimilate remote workers to cultural norms if you don’t take strides to help them take seed early. Here are some ways to make your virtual culture more quickly tangible:

  • Facilitate video introductions between a new hire and fellow department members and other key co-workers. Make sure all teammates take a turn to introduce themselves, explain their respective roles, and offer suggestions on how they interface with the new employee in his job.
  • Recognize that your organization likely has a multitude of multimedia approaches for communication in different situations. Create a “cheat sheet” of common scenarios to give your new employees a head start:
    • Protocol for out of office messages
    • Appropriate channels for different types of Slack posts
    • Frequency for co-worker video meet-ups and the purpose of each (e.g. is this a project-related call or a virtual happy hour?)
    • General guidelines on how quickly to respond to different inquiries and requests (make sure to allow for time zone differences between co-workers)
    • Location of a schedule of regular working hours for different employees
    • Protocol on whether to use one’s video camera on conference calls (is it preferred or required by various departments?)
    • Acceptable format for email signatures
    • Preferred software applications for different assignments (e.g. MS Word or Google Docs when both are available?)

5 – Implement employee onboarding software for remote hiring success

Depending on the industry in which you work, you likely use a set of software applications critical to the productivity of your business–it’s your tech stack. From CRMs to POS systems, and project management suites to ticketing portals, these varied forms of technology are essential to different industries because they leverage technology to automate and improve repetitive, and perhaps otherwise manual tasks for different employers.

While health clinics may not need POS systems, and safety equipment manufacturers aren’t desperate for software issue ticketing suites, I will advocate that all employers who are currently hiring should consider employee onboarding software.

Moreover, if you are hiring remote employees, onboarding software gives you a significant competitive advantage as you can improve the new hire user experience (aka first impression) as well as minimize documentation errors.

ExactHire’s OnboardCentric employee onboarding software can be implemented either as a stand-alone solution to meet your urgent onboarding needs; or, as a hiring component integrated with our ExactHire applicant tracking system.

As employers face constantly evolving news related to COVID-19, they are adjusting priorities and re-allocating resources on a daily basis. Our team understands the need for fluidity and responsiveness, and we’re equipped to get you up and running with onboarding software quickly.

To expedite implementation and improve your new hire experience despite the current pandemic, we recommend that you start by implementing required new hire forms (e.g. state tax forms, Form W-4, Form I-9, direct deposit, etc.) and allow us to train supervisors who need access right away.

Then, as demands on your schedule decline, our team is happy to work with you to include non-essential nice-to-have new hire forms, discuss onboarding process best practices and conduct more advanced user training with all of your hiring managers. Our responsive team is ready to work as your partner through this crisis.

Demo ExactHire Onboarding Software

Are you ready to improve your employee onboarding experience and respond to the rapidly changing hiring landscape with success? Schedule a demo of OnboardCentric today.

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Remote Work While Parenting and Teaching Kids

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7 Tips for Remote Work Success + Kid Activity Ideas

Can you relate to this remote work scenario?

It was about three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon and I was engaged in another Zoom video conference related to COVID-19 planning for our business. My office is in the back of the house away from the main traffic areas and is usually pretty quiet–ideal for video conferencing.

However, a crouched figure suddenly appeared at the side of my office chair with pleading eyes looking upward. This time it was my daughter, and it was the third time this afternoon that one of my two children had crawled into the office to avoid being seen on webcam, and in an effort to whisper-shout something to me.

This time took the cake though. To my chagrin (but also to my glee at her inner resourcefulness), my daughter was holding a small dry erase board with an important question for my consideration:

Remote Work Parenting | ExactHire

“Can I play FIFA Soccer [on Nintendo]?”

I’m sure all of you who are fortunate enough to still be working…and doing so 100% from home…can relate to my story. If you are a stay-at-home parent or caregiver, right about now you are also likely open to new ways to keep kids occupied while sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic.

I’m blessed with the opportunity to be safe and spending time with my family in a way that unfortunately has faded in recent years due to over-scheduling. Nevertheless, we all need some creative ways to balance remote work with helping to tutor and care for children at home during the work day.

In this blog, I’ll share seven tips on how to cope with the challenge before us, as well as kid activities I’ve been curating from friends, Facebook groups and word-of-mouth.

1 – Create structure

With so much chaos in the world right now, we all (not just our kids) need some stability in our lives. School-aged kids are used to the assuring rigors of the school day including a predictable schedule of different classes and activities. While e-learning coursework fills some of this gap (when your kids aren’t on a break), it doesn’t mean that they are busy for the equivalent of your eight-hour work day.

Every morning I create a list of activities that my two kids can do during the day. I might assign a time span to some activities, or schedule certain tasks for a specific time of day (e.g. let’s all go outside at noon and play soccer in the yard).

Part of this schedule may instruct them to do specific activities that don’t require my supervision during the times of day that I might need to be on a conference call for work. Having a schedule…or even just a list of to-dos…helps you handle boredom angst with a plan of action before you find yourself in the thick of it!

Ideas:

2 – Empower with control

Our current reality is one in which we have less control over our daily lives than normal. In Indiana, we are currently under “shelter in place” restrictions from our state government and so the freedom we have to travel to certain destinations and connect in-person with others is impeded–even if remote work is now offering more flexibility. A lack of control can be frustrating and isolating.

The same is true for your kids. Help them realize a certain degree of control in their lives by letting them pick from a variety of activity options. For example, with the schedule I mentioned above, let them choose an option from different categories, or ask them to choose any three activities from a list of five.

Another way of offering them more control is to allow them to earn rewards by completing different tasks. On a daily basis, I ask my kids to complete a couple of chores, do some reading, practice their typing and get exercise (just to name a few things) before I allow them to play video games. The Nintendo time slot in the late afternoon is their delayed gratification reward for doing well throughout the day. It also nicely coincides with the time of day I tend to have video calls.

Allow kids to choose from a variety of tasks:

3 – Be flexible

Before you accuse me of talking out of both sides of my mouth, while you should have structure and offer control, you have to be a little flexible, too. But, how?

Consider the schedule a fluid priority list. It’s not critical that some of the tasks happen at a specific time, but perhaps just that they happen that week. If you’re working from home, you already know that flexibility is essential to accommodate feeding your kids lunch during the day and addressing their occasional skirmishes with each other. The good news is that many employers are offering more flexibility and understanding than ever before. So, my co-workers are well aware of my kids sneaking into my office while I’m on a video chat.

Also, don’t forget the physical interpretation of flexibility, too. Make sure you’re creating opportunities for your children (and you!) to exercise and move around.

Get moving:

4 – Be forgiving

It’s not a time for our normal standards; we’re still in transition to a potential new normal. Tensions are high because we’re all under more stress than usual; therefore, grace toward others should be a priority. Don’t judge, support.

That means you shouldn’t stress or have “mom or dad guilt” because your kids are getting more screen time than you’d normally prefer. We’re doing the best we can. Make it work by helping to provide options for “quality” screen time that might teach your kids something worthwhile.

5 – Foster social connection; albeit distantly

For the sake of our sanity, social distancing can’t also mean social disconnection. While we all need to be doing our part to slow the spread of COVID-19, we should absolutely be creative about using technology to connect our kids with friends and loved ones who can help us while we work at home.

My son and a friend have a virtual playdate scheduled for today to play Battleship. They each have the game at home, so it will be easy for them to play via video conference.

Other ideas:

  • Plan a Zoom video call with your baseball team or Brownie troop
  • Shoot a video skit to share with your friends and ask them to return the favor
  • Have a grandparent read a story via video conference

6 – Celebrate iteration

Because the ExactHire team is a software company, one of our internal mindsets is to iterate and improve on initial experiments…whether they be in development, marketing, sales, client service or even remote work. The idea behind iteration is that it doesn’t cause us to delay launching a concept in an effort to make sure it’s 100% perfect first. Instead, we launch a promising idea, product or service, and then constantly improve upon it as we go–after all, we can’t predict the future to know what will work perfectly the first time.

How can you instill that fearlessness to innovate in your own children? Now’s the time to talk to them more regularly about the types of things you do for work since they have a front row stage to your work habits. Additionally, there are activities you can share with them that will help them explore new skills and experiment with unique ways of doing things.

Stretch their imaginations:

7 – Remember mindfulness

Above all else, as challenging as times may get, don’t forget to be grateful for what you still have and mindful of your mental state’s impact on others. If you are anxious, then your kids will be anxious, too.

What can you do together and/or provide to them to promote relaxation, appreciation and a mind-spirit-body connection?

Be mindful together:

There are many things I would change about the current situation and my hearts go out to everyone for this unanticipated hurdle we are banding together to overcome. However, I do recognize now as an opportunity to nurture the resilience of my children, and to be a family with ever stronger values around how we spend our time.

Working and Onboarding Remotely?

If your organization is allowing more remote work than ever, you may need options for remote employee onboarding, too. Contact us for a demo of ExactHire’s employee onboarding software and make remote onboarding seamless.

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How to Not Screw Up Remote Employee Onboarding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 – Make expectations and goals crystal clear

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

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

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

2 – Make over communication a way of life

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

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

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

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

3 – Organization is everything

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

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

Internal consistency in communication supports effective organization.

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

4 – Paperless employee onboarding

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

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

5 – Create inspiration with preparation

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

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

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

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

6 – Tell your culture story

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

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

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

7 – Promote peer mentoring

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

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

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

8 – Make time for face time

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

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

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

9 – Feed off of feedback

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

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

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

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

Successful Remote Employee Onboarding

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

Download ExactHire's Employee Onboarding Checklist

Healthy Working From Home: Part 2

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If you work from home, your friends have likely told you how lucky you are, or how they wish they could work at home too. Their minds immediately go to the benefits of working from home. They overlook the challenges of working remotely.

In the first part of this blog series, I wrote how remote workers can maintain good physical health by making a plan to avoid bad, unhealthy habits. However, in order to stick to any plan, a person needs to be mentally strong and disciplined. And as with your physical health, there are certain bad habits to avoid in order to maintain mental fitness.

Please Note: the following advice does not attempt to resolve, minimize, or otherwise simplify the seriousness and complexity of mental health disorders.

Bad Habits That Affect Your Mental Fitness

 

You’re Not Sleeping Well

This bad habit could very easily be discussed with physical health because it is foundational to your overall health. However, poor sleep can often be the first domino that falls in a series of bad habits that affect your mental fitness. Not getting enough quality sleep negatively impacts your judgement, mood, and memory. Poor performance in these areas can lead to further negative outcomes–physical health being one of them.

So any discussion of improving your mental fitness while working at home must begin with establishing a prerequisite for good sleep. The National Sleep Foundation quantifies that as 7 to 9 hours per night for most adults. Seems easy enough, but why is this a challenge for remote workers?

The late weeknight has many temptations: television, page-turning books, social media…a few drinks with friends. These are possible temptations for all workers, but there are little justifying thoughts that can pop into the head of a remote worker: “I’m working from home tomorrow. I don’t need to get ready for work. I don’t need to drive to work. I can sleep in a little. I can stay up a bit later.”

Five episodes of Game of Thrones later, you’re finally getting to bed at 1:00 AM. You plan to get 7 hours, but you’ll wake up at 6:45 AM, unable to get back to sleep. So you put the coffee on and start your day.

There’s no getting that sleep back, even with a midday nap. Your day is off to a bad start and you haven’t even started working. This provides the mindset for a host of bad habits to follow–some that are listed below or covered in part one.

Your Solution: Set a bedtime that provides for enough hours of quality sleep. And go to bed on time! To help yourself in this task:

  • Move to your bedroom at least 30 minutes before you plan to fall asleep.
  • Use that time to read, meditate, sudoku, crossword puzzle, or talk to a loved one, but NO screens (phones, tablets, TV’s, etc.)
  • Ensure that you have a completely dark and quiet room–blackout blinds, non-visible alarm clock, and a white noise machine will all help with this.

You’re Not Focusing

It’s hard to focus on a task when you’re tired, but there are other things that can cause you to lose focus as well. Stress–internal stress and external stress–can cause your mind to wander while you’re working anywhere, but at home it can become more prominent.

Internal Stress

When most people hear the word “stress,” they think of internal stress–worry, anxiety, dread. Often times internal stress is the result of outside factors associated with work, interpersonal relationships, or other ongoing responsibilities and commitments. It’s these factors that initiate the stress, but then it continues to exist in your mind.

When working from home, internal stress can often be exacerbated. Work stress is higher when communication with coworkers is weak or inefficient. Interpersonal relationships may be strained if family members fail to respect your home/work boundaries. And then there is the constant temptation to attend to house chores that you’ve been putting off–laundry, vacuuming, lawn care…that DIY project.

External Stress

External stresses are short-lived and immediate, though they may occur frequently. These are almost always a result of the environment and affect one of your five senses. They may also be a factor that contributes to internal stress.

If you’ve ever been dutifully working from home, only to be interrupted by the sound of your neighbor cutting grass, then you’ve been affected by external stress. That interruption might, in turn, remind you of the need to cut your own grass (internal stress), which you can’t do tonight because your child has a soccer game (more internal stress)…suddenly you’ve lost focus!

Your Solution: As best you can, make an effort to control your work environment and structure your schedule. One of the great benefits of working remotely is the ability to enjoy the coziness of your home. However, this should not be confused with working anywhere within your home at anytime. Set boundaries with the following tips:

  • Print out your work schedule and share it with your family members and overly neighborly neighbors. Let them know that you cannot be distracted when working.
  • Create a quiet, clean space with a quality desk and chair, free from distractions, to help you maintain focus on your work and keep external stresses at bay.
  • Lean on the side of over-communicating via email with co-workers. For particularly complex or important discussions that must take place while you are at home, call or use video chat.
  • Structure your free time wisely. Sometimes working at home makes you feel like you’re always on the clock. It can be difficult to transition from working for your employer to working for yourself, but by using your free time wisely to take care of household chores and personal commitments, you can lower internal stress while working from home.

You’re Not Engaging With Coworkers

Good communication with coworkers is important for productivity and to reduce stress when working from home, but it also serves another purpose when working at an office. Communication helps coworkers engage with one another through the sharing of experiences. This sharing can easily be threatened when a team is working from home.

We all know about the dangers of working from your email, or allowing email to manage your work schedule. Because of this, recipients often prioritize the emails they receive, and senders streamline the emails they send (no one wants to be the annoying emailer). Although these strategies help keep the focus on work, they also reduce the opportunities to share.

When working from home, there is no water cooler or break room for small talk. You really have to go out of your way to engage with coworkers, and it may seem forced or unnatural. The physical space between you and your co-workers may even make you feel that engaging in small talk while “on the clock” is somehow wrong.

Your Solution: Team bonding is difficult for remote workers, especially if they are working from home full-time. To a large degree, a team’s ability to overcome this really depends on their personalities. But organizations can facilitate bonding by creating a structure that provides opportunities for sharing. A few ideas for this include:

  • Schedule at least one day per week when the entire staff works from the office.
  • When a physical office is not available, have a weekly department meetup for remote workers at a coffee shop, co-working space, or library. Or have a team member host at their house!
  • Require staff to share a short, weekly “non-business” update with the team on Mondays. This could be a weekly “How was your weekend?” email chain.
  • Conduct remote meetings via skype or another video enabled chat service. Seeing each other’s faces may make you feel closer.
  • Host monthly, low-cost gatherings that are “non-work” such as a happy hour, miniature golf, or bowling.

You’re Not Motivating Yourself

Finally, your mental fitness can really be at risk when you fail to motivate yourself through work. No one wants to work in an office with a manager constantly looking over their shoulder, suffocating them. But the opposite scenario can be equally challenging.

Working from home by yourself can be, at once, both empowering and isolating. This is especially the case when communication or engagement is low or poor. Even for those who are intrinsically motivated, it can take some time to adjust to working remotely. Thankfully, there is no shortage of resources on self-motivation! But first, you have to recognize that your motivation may be lacking.

Your Solution: Take inventory of your current level of motivation.

  • Do you feel that you are accomplishing something meaningful everyday?
  • Are you staying “on task” on a consistent basis?
  • Are you contributing new ideas to the organization?
  • Do you feel that you have grown as a professional over the last 3 months?

The full answers to these questions can tell you a lot…more than just whether or not you are motivated. But what’s most important to know is that you are in control of these answers.

Answering “yes” to these questions will not always be easy. It requires self-motivation, goal setting, and discipline. And answering “no” to these questions cannot be automatically blamed on your employer. An organization can create a structure for you to succeed, but it’s ultimately up to you to get to “yes”–especially when you’re working from home.

Working From Home | Plan Healthy Habits

Sleep, focus, engaging with coworkers, and self-motivation are four key areas of mental fitness that are vital to maintain when working from home. Building strong, healthy habits in these areas can be challenging, especially for those who are transitioning to remote work.

A good strategy is to structure your workday as if you were, in fact, in the office. Arrive and leave at the same time everyday, and schedule breaks consistently. Do everything you can to simulate an office environment in a designated area of your house, and let your family and friends know your schedule–and its importance. To stay motivated, you can write reminder notes of your goals and post them in your workspace.

As you become accustomed to working at home, you can begin to make small adjustments to your schedule, like working on the patio for an hour or taking a trip to the gym over lunch break. This will make it easier to adjust to changes and allow you to enjoy the full benefits of working from home.

 

ExactHire provides paperless hiring software that makes it easier for teams to complete their work from anywhere. Our applicant tracking software and employee onboarding software provide HR teams with the tools they need to communicate and manage hiring processes effectively.