Resources
Recruiting
3 min read
Recruiter Interview Questions
The demand for high quality recruiters is on a major growth trajectory with the job market tightening. So called ‘unicorn’ recruiters can make a huge impact in a company’s ability to attract and hire top talent. What should your company look for in a good recruiter? Rock star recruiters have several qualities that hiring managers can look out for. Network Quality recruiters have a wide network of people they can tap into. You should look for someone that knows the right people and can pull from across the industry for candidate sourcing. A wide ranging network of not just connections but the right connections can be priceless in attracting talent. Hiring managers should ask candidates about their networking strategies, follow up on social media platform visibility, and ensure candidates know how to reach people in their industry. Skills Recruiters need to have certain qualities and skillsets in order to be successful. Companies looking to hire recruiters should look for people who exhibit excellent communication skills and attention to detail. They should have familiarity with the popular ATS, sourcing techniques, and Boolean search queries. They must have the ability to make authentic connections with candidates. Recruiters must be able to operate well under pressure. They must be able to think critically and exude confidence. Specs Finding a great recruiter means looking for someone with a creditable history of successful hires. Hiring managers will want to look for solid quantifiable proof either in a resume or during the interview process. It’s important to know what recruiting load the candidate has experience with. Are you looking for an applicant used to filling one or two high level positions or someone who has experience sourcing for high volume positions? Business Acumen Knowing and understanding the innerworkings of the business is essential for recruiters to be successful. Organizations should be searching for candidates that have experience with the industry they will be sourcing for. Understanding how the business is successful, where the business revenue stream comes from, and the business growth strategy can make a recruiter more efficient in bringing in the right candidates. Recruiter should be subject matter experts in the industry they are working for. Recruiter Interview Questions Recruiters are well versed in the interview experience. Catering an interview specifically to an experienced recruiter is important. Below are example questions that may prove helpful in gaining valuable insight while interviewing recruiters. Experiential Questions How many positions are you typically filling at any given time? What was the average stick rate of candidates you helped hire? What is your relationship like with your hiring managers? What industry are you most familiar with recruiting for? Situational Questions Describe a time when you had a great working relationship with a client. What made the relationship thrive? Tell me about a time a successful candidate declined an important role. How did you pivot to fill the position? Describe how you respond when you must let a candidate down. When was a situation where you disagreed with the hiring manager’s decision? How did you react? Tell me how you would pitch our company to a highly desired applicant. Describe a time you used data to improve your ability to recruit successfully. Process Questions Describe your process of building a candidate pipeline. How has your recruiting process changed over your years of experience? Tell me about your method of keeping track of applicants and your follow up procedure. Describe a time when your typical sourcing strategies were not working. How did you fill the role? What tools and technology do you utilize to reach, communicate with, and update applicants? Where do you look to make connections in your industry and widen your network? How do you keep up with industry trends and the latest recruiting methodologies? Personal Questions Do you have a personal brand? If so, what is it and how are you building a network subscribed to you? What do you love about being a recruiter? What gives you joy to wake up and start work? What excites you about the future of recruiting in our industry? How do feel building relationships is tied to being a successful recruiter? Average Salary for Recruiters How much does a recruiter make? Depends on what type of recruiter you are. Corporate recruiters are generally salaried employees while those that work for staffing agencies typically work on commission. If they place a person in a job the employer pays the agency a percentage of yearly salary, anywhere from 10-30%. A quick check of Indeed’s salary pages show the average salary for a recruiter is $51,489. Stephanie Mauney is freelance writer and content curator specializing in Human Resources.
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Recruiting
3 min read
Stay Interviews 101
Employees are increasingly looking to work for companies who go above and beyond to keep them engaged. Employee engagement levels may be one of the best indicators of employee satisfaction and future retention. There are multiple avenues employers can take to get employees talking about their professional desires and level of current happiness with the employer. One way to gauge employee satisfaction is to conduct stay interviews. What is a Stay Interview? A stay interview is an honest two-sided conversation an employer has with an employee with the goal to encourage and gain feedback from the employee in order to keep them retained. Stay interviews have gained traction and popularity over the last couple of years as the job market tightens and the ‘great resignation’ continues. Recruiters are aggressively reaching out to passive candidates. For employers who want to make sure their employees know why they want to be at their current job, stay interviews may be a great tool. To be clear, a stay interview is not the conversation that is had while an employee has one foot out the door. It is not the talk management has with an employee to negotiate them not leaving. It is pre-emptive to that. It is a preventative step with hopes to avoid that possibility. Who Should Use Stay Interviews? The stay interview process is not an optimal strategy for every company. Organizations with trust issues, failing culture, or workplace toxicity will not want to open up two- way conversations for employees to give feedback. They would need to focus on primary objectives initially. Stay interviews are perfect for companies with well established trust, open door management, and stable retention. Open communication must already be an established value in order for the stay interview to be successful. Being Prepared for Stay Interviews Before conducting the stay interview, it would be helpful to complete a needs analysis to determine goals in mind. The goals will be a necessary benchmark for an evaluation following the stay interviews to understand whether they were effective or not. It is always important to have a process in place prior to implementing a new engagement or retention strategy, otherwise there would be no way of knowing whether it made any difference or not. Employers must have a plan in place to evaluate responses that need action. Companies preparing for stay interview must be ready for the challenges that may come with asking employees for transparency. Management must be willing to hear about difficult and complex issues that may arise. Unpleasant realities may come to the surface that are unexpected. Managers may have to accept accountability for situations that employees are dissatisfied with. The interviewer conducting the stay interviews must be mature, possessing advanced relational and communication skills. They must be an active listener, ready and eager to make employees feel heard. How to Conduct a Stay Interview? Prior to beginning, the structure of the interview should be determined. Decide who will be involved in the process. How will interviews be announced? Providing advance notice and preparation advice will allow employees to provide honest feedback without being caught off guard. Although stay interviews should be conducted in an informal conversational manner, the questions should be predetermined and structured. Interviewers should be well trained on how to conduct the interview properly. Conduct all the interviews within a few weeks of each other to obtain the most up to date response. The interview should be no longer than 30 minutes. For employees who seem nervous, interviewers should work hard to be vulnerable and help put the conversation at ease. Be sure to thank employees for their time and willingness to share openly. Offer them an opportunity to follow up should there be anything else they feel needs to be shared in the future. What questions to ask? Below are example questions that can be asked during the interview. Always begin the conversation with an opener that promotes casual open communication such as: “Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. This is an informal open conversation. I’d like to gain more understanding about how you feel your job is going so that I can support you and help this be a great place to work.” “What makes you look forward to coming to work?” “In what ways do you currently feel professionally challenged?” “How comfortable are you with your current workload?” “What do you like most and least about coming to work here?” “How do you feel about the impact of your work?” “If you could change anything about working here, what would it be?” “Do you feel recognized and appreciated for your contributions?” “What do you see yourself doing with our company over the next 5 years?” “In what areas could you learn more?” “What can management do more or less of to create increased satisfaction for you?” “Over the last year, what has caused anxiety or frustration for you here?” “What would be your dream job here?” Stephanie Mauney is freelance writer and content curator specializing in Human Resources.
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Human Resources
2 min read
Hybrid Work Environment Equals Happy Employees
Hybrid work is set to become the norm in corporate America. A recent survey by employee listening company Perceptyx shows that a hybrid workplace is superior to remote work on a host of well-being measures. Hybrid employees, defined as those who work at both in-person and remote workplaces – report greater improvements in work-life balance and mental health, more time for exercising, and a greater intention to stay at their current company because of this kind of work flexibility. Hybrid Employees Are More Efficient There is a disconnect happening however. While many managers believe having workers at the same physical location strengthens their relationships, hybrid employees are reporting the opposite in this survey of 1,400 working Americans. Only 1/3 of fully remote workers and fully in-person workers say they have stronger relationships in the office compared to last year. More than half of hybrid workers (53%, compared to remote workers’ 34%) report the same thing, indicating that it’s not how much time they are spending with in-person coworkers, but how purposeful those in-office interactions are. Measures of burnout – closely linked to churn rates – are also much better for hybrid employees. These workers are 50% more likely to look forward to starting their workdays and feeling like they make a meaningful contribution to their workplace. They are nearly twice as likely to feel energized by their work than either their fully remote or fully in-person counterparts. “The key to making hybrid work successful is autonomy. Dictating certain days on-site is just as ineffective as requiring 100 percent in-person. When employees get that autonomy, they thrive,” said Emily Killham, Director of Research and Insights at Perceptyx. “Organizations who want to compete for talent will have to find creative ways to offer that autonomy, even for on-site jobs. Flexibility in work scheduling gives employees the room they need to manage their lives and be more engaged during the work day.” Hybrid Work Does Have Gaps Perceptyx also found that the gap between how managers and employees view productivity and their physical location has only grown wider. 45% of leaders think their team members’ relationships will grow stronger when the whole team is at the same location, while only 17% of employees think the same. I can see why, being in person helps to build trust which is harder when fully remote. As they found out last year in this study on officism, managers and leaders show a bias toward believing those in the physical workplace are more productive. Compared to individual contributors, managers are three times as likely, and leaders are five times as likely, to say that remote workers are less productive than in-office employees. This contradicts what the employees themselves are reporting – hybrid workers were the most likely of all employees to say their own productivity is up, while in-person workers were most likely to say their productivity is lower than the year before. Faced with evidence that in-office workers are not necessarily their happiest employees, many companies are reconsidering their return-to-office plans. Some Human Resources departments are no longer asking when or how the return-to-office plans will work, but whether they should be implemented at all. Just ask Apple employees. They are threatening to quit over a new hybrid schedule the computer giant wants to implement. “These findings don’t mean that every employee must have a remote option, but it does point the way on how to keep employees engaged,” said Killham. “Officism clearly still exists, especially among managers and leaders. So organizations must start tracking development opportunities, performance ratings, and promotions based on the physical location of their employees. That way they can be prepared to correct any bias that the data shows and strive toward an equitable workplace.”
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EAP
3 min read
Employee Assistance Programs for Holistic HR
Historically, employee assistance programs (EAP) address the needs of employees involving their ability to perform their job. They are often voluntary and offer some level of counseling aid, whether directly or through referrals. If the employer offers decent benefits, then the EAP could extend to every member of the employee’s family. An EAP’s intent is that a happy and healthy employee makes a productive and engaged one. However, EAPs often fall short. They either do not address the holistic needs of an employee altogether or the assistance provided isn’t sufficient. There’s also the possibility that employees aren’t even aware of the program and what assistance is provided; therefore, the program goes overlooked and underutilized. I think it’s time to revamp the employee assistance program and bring it into the year 2022. Here’s why. Employees are living with unaddressed trauma that is usurped by more trauma daily. Social media has given us the ability to view news and trending topics at our fingertips, so when one part of the world experiences something we all collectively experience it. And while a secondary experience isn’t the same as directly experiencing an event, that doesn’t mean that we all don’t collectively walk around with the heaviness of the world on our shoulders. While at work we’re expected to compartmentalize that heaviness away, but at what expense? What do employees want in an employee assistance program? A great EAP addresses all the needs of the employee. A quick way to assess whether your program is up to par is to evaluate whether your EAP provides relief from what’s happening globally. Does your program address the grief that employees are facing from loved ones passing from COVID? What programs address the weight gain some employees have put on since the pandemic started? What about the PTSD employees may be facing from the war in Ukraine? How are you alleviating the financial stress employees are facing with rising inflation? Are you requiring employees to return to the office but not providing childcare assistance? Most EAPs will refer an employee to an outside source. The downside to this is that the employee still must do their due diligence to choose the source that best fits their needs and there’s typically a cost associated with the service. If the service is associated with insurance, there may be a limit on how often the employee can use that service. Is there a better way to meet the needs of employees? I think there is. I think there’s a better way to address the needs of employees while eliminating employee costs for additional services. The solution is to bring as many services as possible in-house. What does that mean? That means that instead of offering counseling referrals, hire a therapist to work onsite or virtually. That therapist, or more depending on your headcount, will provide free confidential sessions to your employees. If you’re requiring your employees to work onsite, then provide an onsite daycare. Do you have employees that want to be healthier? Add a nutritionist and personal trainer to your roster. Do you have employees who want to process their trauma, in addition to therapy? Offer trauma-informed yoga. Do you offer professional development coaching to your executives? Extend that to all employees. Maybe an employee doesn’t want a coach but wants to grow professionally. Offer them free Udemy courses. What if they want other resources to learn? Then offer them free Kindle books. Is your employee feeling the added financial stress from rising prices? What if your employee is now a part of the sandwich generation and they’re caring for children and parents at the same time? Offer them a financial coach to review their budget to help them make better financial decisions. Work tends to address the social aspect of holistic health, but rarely provides avenues for the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. When we start addressing employees’ full needs, we give space for employees to truly be engaged and productive at work. A wonderful place to start when revamping your EAP is to survey employees to gauge their main stressors and then build programs to address them. You’ve revamped your employee assistance program, now what? One of the biggest reasons EAPs aren’t successful is that most employees aren’t sure what services are offered. This means you’ll have to consistently market your EAP to your employees. It is also helpful when leaders advocate for programs by sharing how they’ve found success with using EAP. This could help employees who may be hesitant to try a program for one reason or another. Lastly, with the new and improved EAP, ensure your employee can take full advantage of the programs by allowing them time throughout the workday to use the programs they need. With the addition of meeting them where they need it most, you also offer them the ability to truly break away from work, which should increase their productivity when they return to work. A successful EAP has the potential to address company-wide issues from employee burnout to decreased engagement and more. Providing holistic assistance not only helps the individual employee but will increase the bottom line for the entire company. In short, revamping your EAP provides a win/win for everyone. Timara Nichols has 15+ years of experience, specializing in human resources, operations, and customer success. She holds the following certifications – aPHR, Certified ScrumMaster, and Meta Certified Community Manager.
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Human Resources
2 min read
Onboarding Employees on the First Day
Change is hard. Changing jobs, changing cities, changing homes, changing colleagues, changing bosses- all of these can be overwhelming aspects of starting a new job. Human Resources professionals and managers should strive to make an employee’s first day a positive and impactful experience. The person coming onboard has made a choice to bring their skillset to a new company. Their first day experience could be the starting point for a tenured, mutually beneficial relationship, or it could be the day they head right back to the job market. Making a good first day impression with a new employee is vital to retention. According to the Society of Human Resources Management: Up to 20 percent of turnover takes place in the first 45 days Make sure your organization is planning in advance for new hires. Implement a structured schedule and at least one wow factor to guarantee new members of your team walk away from day one excited to return. Before Day One Keep communication channels open prior to an employee’s first day. Touch base before day one to prepare them for what their schedule will look like. Where should they park? Who should they ask for? What do they need to bring? For virtual environments, ensure the employee knows what to expect for day one interaction. Ask them if there is anything you can do to help them prepare or answer any questions they have. Day One Goodies Provide a small gift to help ease the day one jitters. Maybe a gift bag, some company swag, or a coffee. This is an easy and inexpensive way to show employee appreciation right from the start. For remote employees, think about a simple gift shipped straight to the employee. Perhaps a morning treat delivered to their door? Physical Tour Pretty basic concept, but preparation for this can make all the difference to giving an employee a feeling of comfort on their first day. Provide a tour, whether physical or virtual, that gives the employee the knowledge to start gaining confidence in the new role. Tech Prep Be sure to have all technology pre-set up for the employee’s first day. The last obstacle you want a new hire to be facing is tech issues. Have logins, software, and supplies ready to go for use and training. Schedule Plan out what Onboarding look like over the next 30, 60, and 90 days. Prepare your new hires for what’s to come. What does week one look like? Provide a plan of action for how they will be integrated into the work, and when independent work will begin. Office Announcement Ask your new hire to share a photo and a small bio about themselves. Share with the office or team they will be working with. Creating a sense of community for a new hire is crucial. This gives a chance for them to become part of the group early on and may inspire connection with their peers. Lunch on You Day one nerves can get the best of almost everyone. Make plans to take your new staff member out to lunch, or have a virtual lunch meeting, to take a mental break and focus on building rapport. Mentorship Partner all new hires with a tenured employee. This person can serve a check-in for the new staff. Providing a mentor gives employees someone to look up to and have open conversation with. It can go a long way in encouraging them and answering questions. Checklist Create a formalized workflow for the human resources team handling day one onboarding. A checklist is a great tool to have as a check and balance. It ensures no steps are left undone. A note on what not to do for day one Onboarding Be sure to never ask new employees to ‘hit the ground running.’ This is a huge red flag. Expecting employee to begin autonomous work without proper onboarding could quickly lead to losing them. Additionally, be careful about information overload. It’s best to allow the employee time to soak everything in. This will set them up for the to succeed with you. Ultimately, taking the time to properly onboard new hires is to the benefit of every organization. Recruiting, hiring, and training can be costly. Taking the time to create a positive and effective first day experience will lead to increased retention, more efficient operations, and money saved. Stephanie Mauney is freelance writer and content curator specializing in Human Resources.
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Recruiting
2 min read
How to Become a Recruiter
The human resources field is filled with specializations. For those who are people centric, they may consider a path to recruiting. In the current job market, the demand for both internal and agency recruiters is on an exponential trajectory. Companies are realizing the value of hiring recruiters who can dedicate their full-time work to sourcing, screening, vetting, and bringing on new talent. Not only can they bring in talent quickly, but they can begin to optimize a candidate pipeline that makes hiring even more efficient and effective. Recruiters tap into their wide ranging network to increase hiring efficiencies. For those wanting to specialize in talent acquisition, there are a few ways to narrow your path, acquire the right skills, and inject yourself into the recruitment industry. Lay the Foundation Depending on the current level of career, it may be helpful for someone wanting to enter recruiting to gain basic human resources knowledge by obtaining a PHR (Professional in Human Resources) certification. This will lay the foundation for understanding legal compliance, industry terminology, and standard hiring protocols. Find a Recruiting Niche Recruiters are typically focused on a niche. Whether its tech, finance, manufacturing, or healthcare, talent acquisition partners typically have a niche market in mind when filling roles. A good first step to becoming a recruiter would be to analyze the desired niche market. Become a subject matter expert in the industry. Follow recruiters who are succeeding in that industry. Learn the insider language of the industry. KNOW the business. For example, if it’s an inspiration to be an IT recruiter, find out what the companies who hire primarily in tech look for. How does the technology department fit into the grand scheme of the business? What are the primary required skills for tech hires? Answering all these questions will level up the ability to hold knowledgeable conversation with those in the industry. Immersion in the desired niche market will take you from average to expert in the minds of those hiring for the talent acquisition team. Network, Network, Network Take two candidates. One has an outdated, never touched, LinkedIn profile and little proof of interaction with professionals in the industry market. The second has a large LinkedIn network, an expertly designed profile, and a community of already engaged employees to draw on. Who will look more desirable to a recruiting hiring manager? Obviously, the second. All would-be recruiters should begin by updating their LinkedIn profile to begin attracting a wider network. Start connecting with both other recruiters and those in the desired market in a meaningful way. This doesn’t mean hitting ‘connect’ with as many people as possible. It means engaging in a way that provides value. Be curious. Provide helpful information. Begin to build a marketable skillset that people find useful. Upskill Your Recruiting Skills Both soft and technical skills are required to be a successful recruiter. In the category of technical skills, its necessary to understand the basics of online research. Talent acquisition applicants should be competent in Boolean queries and sourcing techniques. It would be additionally advantageous to have familiarity with applicant tracking systems. More difficult to learn are the required soft skills. According to Forbes, there are six required soft skills in recruiting; communication, conflict management, succeed under high pressure and flexibility, teamwork, confidence, and critical thinking. In order to leverage past experience towards a future career in recruiting, it would be helpful to perform a gap analysis. In what ways has past experience demonstrated one or all of these skills? Write down quantifiable ways to define situations that put these skills on display. Go For It For anyone considering a jump into the recruitment sector, NOW is the time. Consider your passions. If that list includes helping people, analyzing data, or problem solving, you may be the right fit for a career in recruiting. Don’t let having a mediocre career path hold you back from jumping into an exciting and challenging career. Recruiting is not going to be an easy road, as with any job that deals primarily with other humans. But, the rewards are endless. Recruiting holds the possibility to change lives, build meaningful relationships, foster diversity and inclusion, educate employers on best practices, and more. Stephanie Mauney is freelance writer and content curator specializing in Human Resources.
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Human Resources
3 min read
How To Layoff An Employee
One of the less liked aspects of working in HR is terminating or laying off employees. While terminations don’t happen often and, in some cases, can be avoidable, layoffs tend to be driven by the needs of the business. Since globalization and social media have given us all the ability to harness unlimited information in the palm of our hands via cell phones, employers cannot afford to get layoffs wrong. Especially bad are those layoffs via text stories. What happens when employers screw up a layoff? The world hears about it. The quickest way to increase your reputational risk is to have your layoff trend on social networks. If your layoff was driven by the market or financial restraints, you risk losing more customers and future candidates. If you fumble the layoff in some way, you also run the risk of seeing current employees start looking for new employers and the laid-off employees completely writing your company off for good. If this isn’t your first layoff nor is it the first time your layoff trended, it highlights a potentially toxic environment. It also shows an inability to improve processes. To be careless with your laid-off employees also highlights the employer may be careless with the employees that are still with them and have not accounted for survival guilt, burnout from an additional workload, and more. Is there a perfect way to lay off employees? No! Layoffs affect one’s livelihood. Employees are facing increasing anxiety from living in a never-ending pandemic, a war that has global impacts, rising inflation in just about every market, and more. While a layoff may help the business’ bottom line in the short term, it is one more thing already anxious employees must manage. If there is no perfect way, how can an employer improve their layoff process? Audit your current process. If you don’t have a process, then today is a great day to create one. Even if you don’t foresee your employer laying off employees anytime soon, it’s still a great time to build a contingency plan for the day you must. If you have a process and you’ve laid off employees before, it’s a great time to review how effective that process is. What did you learn from your previous layoff? What trends did you see from current/past employees or potential customers discussing your layoff on social media channels? If you could redo the layoff, what would you do differently? Get buy-in from the right players. The quickest way to kill a project before it starts is to not include all key players in the process. Layoffs are sometimes like that. While you don’t necessarily have to share a list of at-risk employees, you should connect with stakeholders in the process. Some of those stakeholders could be your recruiting team. One thing I find odd is to see a company hiring while also laying off employees. Is there a possibility to transition employees into new roles to avoid laying them off? Other stakeholders are the key players who discuss talent planning and succession. Could there be a possibility to shorten succession times by moving at-risk employees into roles, especially if the layoff has the potential to increase a knowledge gap in a role or department? Provide the right “layoff” benefits. What severance package do you offer employees? It’s typical for severance packages to offer X number of weeks in pay for X years of service, but additional benefits are needed. COBRA insurance is expensive; could you extend health insurance for your laid-off employees? Do you offer EAP or mental health services that you can extend for these laid-off employees? What transitional services could you provide to help them find their next job? Transitional services should include resume reviews and career coaching. Create a marketing plan. Most employers would rather not have to mention layoffs. They’d rather let the people know who were impacted and go about their day. However, social media makes that unavoidable. It’s becoming more common to see articles and trending topics even before the layoffs happen. Therefore, not only do you need talking points, but you should have a marketing plan to proactively address the backlash. No longer can you sweep this under the rug because your reputation is at stake. Follow the law and keep your word. This should go without saying but needs to be said. Please have your legal and HR teams verify laws to ensure you’re not breaking any. And when extending benefits or services, have integrity and honor your commitments. At the end of the day, laying off an employee is not transactional and shouldn’t be treated as such. Every step of the process must have a human-first approach. It’s not OK to hold a zoom meeting to announce a massive layoff. It’s not OK to direct deposit severance checks in an employee’s account before even telling them they’ve been laid off. When you approach it with the same care and concern you give your customers, you will be able to alleviate some of the pain points that come with laying off employees. Timara Nichols has 15+ years of experience, specializing in human resources, operations, and customer success. She holds the following certifications – aPHR, Certified ScrumMaster, and Meta Certified Community Manager.
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Human Resources
2 min read
HRIS Software Migration Tips
Due to workforce growth and changing business objectives many companies find themselves transitioning to a new Human Resources Information System. The transition process from start to finish can include sourcing new software, navigating the sales process, mapping the implementation plan, data transfer or data conversion, and employee training. It can be overwhelming if you haven’t been through the process before. Ensuring you choose the right software to fit department needs and deciding what data to pull through is complicated, especially considering compliance and regulatory requirements. Here are 7 tips for your next HRIS software migration. Needs Analysis First, your team needs to identify the reason for the migration. Are you looking to move to a better user interface? Do you need more efficient reporting tools? Do you want employees to have higher engagement? Start by creating a list of your top ten requirements. Get the whole team involved to allow for as much clarity and input as possible. A new software may provide an opportunity to contemplate a more progressive use of data. Think about the ways your HR team can use an HRIS to influence the business goals. Are you hoping to track diversity? Do you need to easily pull data analytic visuals to show the value of your strategic plans? Do you need an applicant tracking system to help you fill roles quickly? Most HRIS companies offer a multitude of products which can increase the cost quickly. You will want to ensure that you have your biggest needs at the forefront. Identify a Budget Meet with executives to determine cost limitations. You will want to go into the sales process with a good idea about your spending limit. This a significant investment for your company; you will want to guarantee the executive team is fully supporting the transition and investment expense. Sales Team Antics The sales managers at these companies are good at what they do. They are going to show you a demo that will leave you pulling out the checkbook ready to sign on the dotted line. When that happens, take a step back. Treat this like buying a car. You need to test it out and seek plenty of outside input. Ask them to reveal a couple companies using their software in similar industries. Reach out to those companies directly for honest feedback about the interface, implementation process, and customer service level. Read online reviews. Take your time. Resist the pressure to follow a strict sales deadline. Do your due diligence to make sure they are capable of what they are selling you on. Data Transfer Prior to making any moves take the time to clean up your existing data. Next, decide what data fields must be moved over to the new system as well as how many years of history your team regularly needs access to. You’ll want to make sure historical data comes with you. For information not being migrated, determine a storage location in the chance that you would need to reference it later. Tackling Implementation Taking on an HRIS implementation requires a team effort. Divide and conquer by assigning duties to subject matter experts in your department. Work with the HRIS software employees to create a reasonable timeline with clear expectations about what will be completed and when it will be completed by. Identify test users who will look through every tool of your new software and become well acquainted with the user capabilities. Employee Roll Out Some industries have more technologically literate employees than others. Determine where your employees’ abilities stand and plan strategically about how to communicate the change to them. If needed, hold training sessions to demo how employees can best utilize the new HRIS. Change is hard for most people, so be patient. Monitor Progress Once you are live with the new HRIS, track employee usage, check to make sure all the tools you agreed upon are all working properly, and pull data sets to audit for accuracy. I recommend, if you are able, to create a small window of overlap where you maintain access to the prior system for a few months. This can be extremely useful in the instance you need to reference back. Do not hesitate to get the implementation team back in if something isn’t going the way you expected. Stephanie Mauney is freelance writer and content curator specializing in Human Resources.
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Recruiting Tactics
2 min read
How to Attract More Job Applicants
To win in talent acquisition today employers must begin to make job offers in a matter of days not weeks according to a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). They also need to streamline the mobile application process. It’s no secret that employers face a daunting hiring challenge. The numbers are staggering: 4.5 million people left their jobs last November, and there are 10.6 million active job listings in the US along with a net labor shortage of 4.3 million workers. In 2020 and 2021, the vast majority of turnover occurred in the hourly service sectors like hospitality, retail and food service. In response, many companies have gotten creative to compete in the hiring war for hourly workers, incentivizing potential employees with sign-on bonuses, increased wages and additional PTO. But this latest BCG report finds that employers need to adopt an analytical, data-backed approach to their pipeline to truly attract more job applicants and improve their hiring rates. “Our analysis shows that many successful companies employ a ‘test-and-learn’ approach to hiring. The right data that is accessible to the right people is critical to success, ” said David Welch, managing director and senior partner at BCG. Here are four things employers must do today to effectively compete for job applicants; Expedite the Hiring Process BCG’s analysis of proprietary data from ATS provider Fountain found that employers who present job offers in less than seven days yield 80% more hires on average than organizations with longer timelines. What’s more – each day removed from the hiring process improves that rate. The best candidates looking for work are applying to multiple positions, and the employer presenting jobseekers with their first offer are more likely to win that talent. Texting job s cam also add speed to the process. Broaden Your Screening Qualifications BCG’s analysis found that the quality of candidates can vary greatly across various job boards, and with myriad options to choose from, employers that explicitly balance hiring quantity and yield will improve business outcomes. Eighty-four percent of applicants reported applying for a position using their smartphone, so companies need to make sure they are targeting candidates more strategically. Location is a common screening tool that employers use when searching for candidates. While 70% of applicants seek jobs less than 15 miles from their homes, BCG found that applicants willing to travel farther were hired at an equivalent or higher rate. Job Postings That Articulate Company Benefits According to BCG’s report, 46% of job postings analyzed did not mention benefits provided. Yet analysis showed that offering certain benefits improved applicant yields and resulted in higher quality applications. Benefits that increased hiring rates most significantly included bi-weekly pay (34%), 401k (34%), medical leave (27%), tuition reimbursement (25%) and PTO (25%). Revise Job Requirements to be More Inclusive BCG found that employers need to continuously analyze certain criteria throughout the process of crafting job listings to increase the likelihood of improved hiring results. For example, positions without explicit age requirements generated more applicants but resulted in a lower hiring rate than positions with age requirements. BCG also discovered that companies attracted more applicants when they relaxed requirements tied to work experience, but saw double the hiring rate when they specified that experience. Finally, education requirements like a GED or high school diploma decreased applicant pools by 40% without improving the hiring rate. Hiring is both science and art. Organizations than can leverage data to improve the hiring experience will stand out to job applicants.
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