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5 Reasons Why Companies Need Human Resources

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I was talking with a friend yesterday who does “life coaching,” and she asked a great question … “Why do you like your job so much?” My answer was simple…ExactHire is a small company so everyone here has to wear many different “hats” and no day is ever the same. We have fun together and work as a team!

The more I thought about it, I was struck by the ironic fact that we work in the Human Resources (HR) industry but don’t have a specific Human Resources department or even an HR manager. Every company needs to practice HR-related activities, but that does not mean each organization is required to have a designated person or department for this function; it really just depends on the size of the company. At ExactHire, since we are a small business, we split the standard human resources duties among several staff members, and also utilize a professional employment organization (PEO).

Regardless of the size of your company, it is imperative that you consider how the following HR-related responsibilities are being handled for your business. That way, you can be confident that the employment brand you are presenting to individuals is positive.

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Recruiting New Employees

At some point, every business needs to recruit new employees…whether due to growth or turnover. An effective recruiting process is key to an organization’s ability to grow and succeed. After all, how can you take on new projects / clients without more employees? In your business, who seeks out job applicants and screens them? You may have a designated recruiter in HR; or, individual departmental hiring managers may handle this duty for their respective areas. Applicant tracking systems (ATS software) can make the process of sourcing and screening job applicants streamlined and paperless, but someone in your business, preferably with an HR background, still needs to champion the recruitment function at your company.

Administering Employment Paperwork

I know…employment paperwork = BORING! But without it, your employees (and you!) wouldn’t get paid, taxes wouldn’t be properly recorded and benefits would not be available to your staff. Don’t forget about worker’s compensation and unemployment – those items require lots of time and paperwork, too! Also, HR should help to keep your business in compliance with federal and state laws. Many small companies can be overwhelmed with these compliance-related tasks, but it is still necessary to perform these responsibilities. Consider a paperless employee onboarding software solution, to make hiring new employees much easier on everyone involved.

Training & Employee Development

When a new employee is hired, who leads the orientation session(s) in your company? Normally, it’s the head of the employee’s department and/or the HR manager. Without HR, new employees might fail to learn critical company policies, and might fall short of feeling truly assimilated into the organization’s culture. Human resources professionals often head up other training programs such as health and safety programs for employees; as well as, sexual harassment or performance management training, too.

Compensation & Benefits Administration

When first accepting an offer with a company, some of the initial questions asked by new employees include “What is the pay?” and “What are the benefits?” HR typically handles all types of employee benefits, from insurance to 401k to educating employees about a flexible spending account. Medical, dental, vision, life, disability…the list of insurance types alone can get very long. Your human resources department coordinates these policies with the broker/provider and on behalf of the employee. HR business partners also manage benefit open enrollment for employees. When you have an issue with insurance, or a change in deductions for a flex account, or want to increase your 401K contribution, you will likely always seek out your HR guru first. Make sure your business has a “guru” resource.

Employee Relations & Evaluating Performance

Lastly, but certainly, not least – HR is usually tasked with championing a consistent and helpful performance evaluation process for employees. This is a big one! If policies are not being followed, the HR manager, in conjunction with hiring managers/department heads, has to step in and correct the situation…whether it’s a safety issue; or, perhaps an employee not showing up to work on time.

This wheelhouse also includes how well an employee is performing his/her function. Maybe the manager thought an employee would be a good fit for a position but it is not working out as expected. Could that employee thrive elsewhere in the company? Using an employee assessment recommended by HR, the organization may be able to help find the right fit for the department among other candidates; or, a new place for the existing employee. Performance evaluation also serves as a mechanism to review progress, and then effectively and sufficiently reward those that are doing a great job for a business.

As you can tell, there are MANY important duties that human resources performs in any company, of any size. Individuals tasked with these types of duties play the role of cheerleader for the employee, and also serve as the middleman between management and the employee. If you are not sure what you can do to improve your employment brand, ExactHire offers several web-based software tools to streamline HR-related tasks…making them easier and more efficient. Contact us today for more information or visit our resources section.

Image credit: Question mark made of puzzle pieces by Horia Varlan (contact)

How Do I Choose the Right Applicant for My Company?

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In the June 2013 issue of Inc. magazine, you don’t have to get to page 30 to have a clear understanding that the differentiating factor setting companies apart from their competitors is which individuals they select to hire. The culture fit of a hire is one of the greatest make or break qualities the person can possess.

Luis von Ahn, the co-founder of Captcha, is very forthcoming about what he’s doing differently at his new company, Duolingo, in an article titled “Hire People Who Play Nice. This is Really Important,” Von Ahn mentions team dynamics and cohesiveness. A few pages later in the magazine there is an article, “How Do You Keep a Company Together When the Employees Are Thousands of Miles Apart?”, where Niner Bikes CEO, Chris Sugai, also talks about company culture-related elements such as bonding and diversity.

Don’t Teach an Adult New Behavioral Tricks

You can’t teach your preferred behavioral traits to someone who is old enough to enter the workforce…which sets us up for the ultimate question, “How do I find the right people for my organization?” Simple – you take advantage of the hiring process. Von Ahn spends an hour talking to people who come to interview at his organization. Also, at ExactHire we know that employee assessments that assess both cognitive and behavioral traits can be complementary to the interviewing process in terms of unearthing an applicant’s potential for job fit.

In addition, ask the odd questions up-front. I’ll never forget the day I interviewed with Harlan, our Chief Visionary Officer – he asked me what extracurricular things I was involved in during high school and college. Then he asked, out of those, which was my favorite and what position I held (the answer was soccer and I was either a full back or a marker – defensive positions). For what type of person was Harlan looking? What did my answer tell him about me? I think Harlan was looking for someone who wasn’t going to give up easily and was in it for the long haul.

I have a friend who is a hiring manager for his company and conducts oodles of interviews. He needs someone who is good with numbers and very technical, but also able to think on his/her feet. He will give the applicant several hard numerical questions back to back, firing one off after another, and then ask an off the wall question like, “What animal would you be if you were an animal?” What the answer is doesn’t matter in this situation, it’s if the applicant can think on his/her feet and provide an answer.

Avoid Hidden Hiring Costs

If you are using Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), you can ask questions similar to Harlan’s extracurricular one on the employment application. If you need to see how quickly people adapt to change – because people with those abilities thrive in your organization’s culture – ask during the interview. If you don’t, and you hire the wrong person, consider all of the costs – hard and soft – that have been expended. The soon-to-be employee’s fit with your organization is critically important.

Looking for technology for hiring tools to improve the results of your hiring process? Contact ExactHire today.

Image credit: Stand Out from The Crowd Unique Golf Tee Game September 19, 20119 by Steven Depolo (contact)

Help Wanted: Applicants Needed!

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I did some window shopping recently and I saw many “help wanted” signs plastered front and center of doors, cash registers, in yards, etc.

Many signs said, “See Associate” or “Inquire at (insert phone number)”. If you are hiring, chances are your staff is already stretched thin. Is it in their best interest to be talking with potential new hires? Depending on your business, you may hire applicants on the spot in which case this blog may not provide much insight for you.

Take Out the Middle Step

I enjoy making processes efficient. Instead of asking for an applicant to “see associate” to get more details or “inquire at…”, tell the applicant exactly what the other person was going to tell them – “Apply online at our website under careers.” This helps your current employees to be free to do their job and respects the time of your applicant. If you have multiple locations, it would be valuable to create a standard help wanted sign for each of your locations. It can be simple:

HELP WANTED. TO APPLY VISIT CAREERS AT WWW.YOURCOMPANY.COM

This will help your locations to present a standardized company recruitment brand and also avoid the need to have signs similar to those below.
Now Hiring - Smiling
Creative Person

The Sign Did Not Work

Even with a sign directing applicants to apply on your website, there will inevitably be applicants that still inquire with your staff. Some may see this as an applicant that cannot follow direction. I see this as someone with drive, determination, and possibly higher on the scale for social and creative behavioral traits according to some employee assessments. Be prepared. The easiest thing you can do is create an extra set of business cards. Provide a link to your organization’s website or applicant tracking system (ATS) portal on these cards, along with any steps associated with finding your online employment application.

If you have space and resources, the next best thing is to set up a computer/kiosk on-site and allow applicants to apply right then and there. You would need to speak with your IT department about setting up the computer so that only the ATS and/or your organization’s website is accessible. This keeps applicants from lingering and surfing the internet while applying. If you utlilize the on-site apply option, you would want to make sure that the resume upload section of your application is not required or that it is set up as a two-step application. Two step application processes allow HR staff to invite specific applicants who meet minimum requirements to complete additional sections of an application further into the selection process.

While You Have the Applicant’s Attention

Now that the applicant is on your applicant tracking software portal, tell them about your organization. Job descriptions can tell a lot about the organization’s personality and culture. What do your job descriptions say about your organization? How about your application? Does it accurately portray the culture and brand? These two things should entice the type of applicant you are seeking to find. If your organization thinks of its employees as a giant team and expects the perfect applicant to be a team player, this should shine through on the job description and in the application.

Spend some time adding additional pages to your careers site – benefits, testimonials, pictures, etc. These pages tell stories of your organization and the type of people who are employed there. If an applicant is not interested in working within that type of environment, then he/she will likely not apply. Whereas if your ATS does not have additional informational pages, the applicant may make it past the phone interview only to show up and realize at the first face-to-face interview that your organization is not a good fit. The opposite could happen as easily, too.

Time is valuable – your time, your employees’ time, and your applicants’ time – utilize your applicant tracking system’s features and direct all applicant traffic to the careers portal.

Photo Credits:
1 – “Help wanted,” © 2006 Nonsequiturlass, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

2 – “Job requirement,” © 2010 Quinn Dombrowski, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

3 – “Creative Person,” © 2008 Wade M, used under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Hiring Technology In Layman’s Terms

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When I hired on at ExactHire, I honestly had NO idea what this company did. I had never dealt with applicant tracking systems and onboarding before. These were words that might as well have been foreign! To make it more interesting, my family and friends wanted to hear all about my new job and what services we provided…. I had a hard time explaining, at first.

I am an accounting person, a number geek if you will. I have some sales and marketing background but overall, I have always preferred the role as a “bean counter.” Business school had taught me some basic HR ideas and terms. Being at ExactHire has certainly broadened that scope. Interestingly enough, I had just been out on the job search… applying to jobs online, talking to recruiters and searching all the job posting sites out there. I got pretty good at filling out all the online applications. Ironically, I now work for a company that has web-based options for making hiring easier for any company.

Basically ExactHire has three different products:

Employee Assessments Explained

Assessments are pretty self-explanatory; you answer a bunch of questions about yourself and get a report back on your cognitive skills and/or behavioral traits, depending on the assessment type. An understanding of how you are “wired” will help both you and your employer ensure that you have the best possible chance of job fit with your intended position. Every new employee at ExactHire takes one of these, and the version I took reminded me of the tests you take as a junior in high school when you are deciding what to do for the rest of your life (because 17 year olds are good at big decisions!)!

Onboarding Software and Going Paperless

Onboarding software is also pretty easy to explain… we make hiring a new employee easy and paperless!! Yes, being GREEN is important (and trendy). The client tells us what forms they need their new employees to fill out (from I-9’s to tax and direct deposit forms just to name a few), and we provide those for them – paperlessly (is that a word?!).

Understanding Applicant Tracking Systems

Finally, the big mystery – what is an applicant tracking system? Basically, ExactHire provides a web site to each of our clients to help with their hiring needs. The client can post jobs, track applicants that apply and manage any resumes that are submitted. It’s actually quite brilliant! There are tons of benefits to this technology as well. The company can reach more potential candidates by pushing listings to external job boards, too. The recruitment process is more efficient and consistent. This allows each company to enhance its employment “brand” and customize its priorities for applicants. The hiring team can search through their database of applicants to find those that fit certain requirements while saving info of others, who may be a good fit down the road. Overall, this is perfect for making good hiring decisions so that each of our clients can build their best team.

At ExactHire, we strongly believe in the importance of job fit. Using all three of these products can make the hiring process much more pleasant for the applicant as well – which means good “word of mouth” advertising for your company. FREE positive advertising…who doesn’t need that!? Now next time you hear “ATS” or “onboarding” in a conversation (because that could happen!) you will know exactly what those terms mean!

Image credit: finding balance by woodleywonderworks (contact)

Make a Business Case for Paperless HR Software – How to Talk Your Boss’s Language

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A challenge for many Human Resource professionals has always been getting a seat at the proverbial table. In other words, how can HR and the workforce, in general, be viewed less as an expense and more as an asset? After all, that’s what we all want, right?

Speak the Same Business Language

One of the primary reasons this remains a difficult task is because the language and analytics traditionally used by human resources professionals may not be as meaningful to others in leadership roles. For instance, while turnover percentage and time-to-fill are reliable indicators to many in the human resources arena, these HR metrics don’t necessarily translate well to CFOs, COOs, or presidents.

In many of my conversations with prospective clients, I hear this same scenario played out again and again. However lately, I’m seeing more frequent instances where changing how HR folks think to more closely align with other organizational leaders can turn this tide. Let’s take human capital, for instance. In particular, let’s focus on applicants and new hires, as that’s where our solutions work for most companies.

When adding applicant tracking software or employee onboarding software, many HR leaders focus primarily on justifying these web-based software applications by focusing on efficiencies gained and/or staff time saved. While these points certainly have merit, they also fall outside the common terminology of most finance and operations leaders. Because efficiency and staff time saved in HR are difficult to quantify and not directly attributable to the bottom line, these savings are usually discounted or dismissed entirely.

However, focusing on what direct impact those efficiencies can have on the revenue growth or profitability of the organization changes that conversation completely. Here’s what I mean – instead of focusing on time saved, work with metrics that are meaningful to your boss.

Metrics That Are Meaningful to the Bottom Line

Revenue per employee and profit per employee are very common ways to look at your workforce as an asset. Fewer employees with more revenue equals more profit — nothing too complicated about that. Thinking this way allows the human resources department to make a true business case for recruiting automation that will resonate with other leaders. Logically, here’s the case:

  • Automating job board postings and using social media recruiting tools drives more applicant traffic to the organization
  • Allowing applicants to apply online (vs. paper applications or emailed resumes) converts more applicant traffic to actual applications
  • Leveraging job screening questions allows the recruiting team to focus on the higher quality applicants more quickly — even with a potentially higher volume of applicants
  • Focusing more effort and spending more time with those quality applicants leads to hiring better people — this will be even more pronounced if you choose to utilize employee assessments to increase your potential for optimal job fit across your workforce
  • Good employees ramp up more quickly, stay longer and perform better than average employees
  • This drives more revenue, improves customer satisfaction, reduces operating costs, improves output, and the list of positive benefits goes on…

Now you’re making a business case for using solutions, instead of asking for something under the appearance that it will simply make life easier for you and your staff.

This may not happen overnight in your organization, but continuing to think more like your boss and communicating in his or her terms will improve your perceived value to the organization. Oh yeah…it will also help you get more of what you want and need for you and your team.

For help with making a business case for paperless HR software in your organization, please contact ExactHire.

An Employment Application’s Place in the Selection Process

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I was recently emailing a newer client during our applicant tracking software implementation process, and asking him to make edits to the standard version of the employment application that we load to our client sites. After all, we can customize applications to the needs of each of our clients.

To this he responded:

“I’m actually wondering if I even want the actual employment application online. At what point is the decision made for someone to actually fill it out? Currently, we only get applications for candidates after they have interviewed face-to-face. Your thoughts?”

This is a great question and one I have fielded before. After all, some of our clients have changed the placement of the employment application in their selection and recruiting process as a result of implementing our ExactHire applicant tracking software (ATS). And so I replied:

“Great question! The ATS portal actually uses the online application as the means by which ExactHire captures an individual’s information in order to consider them as an applicant. That is, in order for one to apply for a position with your company, they complete the online application, and if they’d like, they may also attach their cover letter/resume. Without an application, we have no means of recognizing them as an applicant within the ATS for you then to manage them through the selection process.

It is perhaps a bit different of an approach than what you are used to at your company; however, it is nice to not have to worry about having to capture the applicants’ details after the fact and further into the interview process. Plus, you also have the option of asking job-specific questions on the second page of the application so that you may obtain more objective information about each candidate pre-interview so that you can better screen out unqualified applicants based on their answers to what I call “deal-breaker” questions.”

If you have any questions about how your employment application can be customized on our portal, please contact us.