Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

Founders and venture capitalists that run high-growth startups encounter many challenges daily. Challenges consisting of managing accurate financial information, generating sales leads, or creating effective marketing campaigns can only be accomplished if you have a standout team by your side.

However, recruiting a group of highly skilled professionals and getting them to work together cohesively can be a challenging task. With a myriad of factors to consider when building a team, you might feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.

When it comes to ensuring your startup team has the foundation it needs to succeed, you can’t take any chances. So, let’s take a deep dive and learn about our proven strategies for building a top-performing team at your tech startup.

Define Your Mission and Goals

Defining your mission and goals is one of the most critical components to developing a top-performing team. Your mission statement is intended to guide every decision you make and is the foundation that helps your startup land great odds of recruiting eager talent.

To successfully define your mission, you must ask yourself: what problem does your company solve, and how does it make a difference to your target market? Once you can answer this, you can map out the path forward by breaking the mission down into smaller goals and accomplishable procedures.

Make sure your goals and expectations are well-defined to avoid any mistakes down the line. A clear vision will allow your team to apply their unique talents to make those goals a reality.

As your company grows and changes, so too will your objectives. It is important not to abandon the predefined mission if things don’t seem to be where they should be during this process but instead continue to reassess and adapt to the influx of change.

Hire the Right People

When it comes to hiring the right people, there are three key requirements that you should think about as a lead investor or startup executive. As you interview top talent: you must identify whether their skills, experience, and personal background culturally fit with your existing team. Finding a balance between all three can be challenging. However, it’s worth it because it will help you accelerate your business in the long term and prevent fragmented workflows.

Try taking an unorthodox approach to correctly identify whether candidates meet the criteria to fit your team. Avoid asking redundant and standard questions, but rather ask questions that help you understand what kind of person the interviewee is in and outside work. For example, throw them a curveball and ask about their hobbies right after trying to gauge what managerial style they are.

Changing the traditional work-related hiring questions into something more personal gives off the appearance of a warm and inviting experience, which helps your brand image and helps you assess if they can work well with the rest of the team.

You can always consult a hiring assessment tool if you are struggling with this step. There are tons of them on the market. Some even leverage personality tests such as Meyers-Briggs or Enneagram software systems.

Create Positive Company Culture

A positive company culture starts from the top down. This means that the founders are responsible for driving a culture that others would want to work for. Therefore, it is necessary to be clear on the type of environment you are trying to curate.

Employees want to be a part of a culture where they are valued, respected, and supported inside and outside work. This can be achieved by an environment that fosters open communication, embraces transparency, and regularly promotes collaboration on projects.

Especially in the early stages of a company, encouraging team members to share ideas without the fear of being reprimanded can have a tremendous impact on the trajectory of your startup. It shows that you value your colleagues’ opinions, which can positively alter their perspective about moving up in the company and provides a good dose of self-esteem that every worker craves.

You can also boost employee satisfaction by recognizing marquee achievements, providing bonuses when applicable, increasing pay, and adding additional benefits.

Encourage Professional Development

Professional development is another way to build an effective team. Providing ongoing training and development prospects.

To encourage professional development, offer regular ongoing training, and provide access to resources such as books and online courses.  These can help your team members develop new skills and stay up to date with industry trends. Team building projects help keep participants engaged and motivated while building their skill sets and help foster the importance of working together with colleagues to produce maximum benefits.

Conference trips are particularly successful in boosting professional development for many reasons. First, it gets your employees out of the office and into a new part of the country, and for those teams that are distributed, it creates an opportunity to gather with colleagues. Second, it allows them to network and develop social skills. As a bonus, conferences help spread awareness about your company which is great for branding and marketing efforts.

By investing in your team member’s professional development, you can help them develop the skills and experience needed to become top performers and rise the ranks. As long as you are transparent about career paths and opportunities within the company, your team members will respect your honesty and continue to work diligently to help the startup grow.

Ensure Transparent Communication

Transparent communication is critical for relationships, professional development, and anything in life. As a team leader, it is your responsibility to communicate clearly and regularly with your team members. You must be honest with them about the company’s goals, progress, and challenges.

To foster transparent communication, create a culture that values open and honest dialogue. Set up regular one-on-one meetings with your team members to check in on their progress and discuss any challenges they may be facing. Hold team-wide meetings to discuss important updates or changes to the company’s direction or strategy. Finally, use various communication channels such as email, instant messaging, or project management tools to keep everyone in the loop.

Open communication does not end in-house. Keep your angel investors and VC firms supporting your business in the know. It is well worth the time to send regular, monthly updates about your business’s performance. You can highlight current financials, run rate, cash burn, and other important information.

It would be best to remind yourself that communication is a two-way street. Encourage your team members to provide feedback on your communication style and methods. Adjust your approach as necessary to ensure that your team members are receiving to help encourage them toward completing tasks promptly and resourcefully.

Evaluate and Adjust Company Methods

Building a top-performing team requires a continuous evaluation of your company’s methods of execution and workflows. It is necessary to regularly review and analyze the performance of your team members to help identify areas that need improvement. This includes assessing their productivity levels, communication skills, teamwork, and overall job satisfaction.

Based on your evaluations, you should sit down with your executive team and invite your investors to develop solutions to discuss the findings. Solutions could involve redefining job roles, changing work organization, or introducing new tools and technologies to improve efficiency. Soliciting feedback from investors is ideal because early-stage companies’ challenges are their forte.

Promote Work-Life Balance

As the world encounters an ever-growing mental health crisis, the emphasis on work-life balance has never been more important. To build a top-performing team, it is important to recognize that your team members have lives outside of work and encourage them to take care of their physical and mental health.

Encourage your team members to take breaks and vacations when they need them. Or offer wellness programs such as yoga classes or gym memberships that they can utilize to take a midday break. Creating a culture that values self-care and encourages your team members to prioritize their well-being can be a great way to help them feel rejuvenated for the next workday.

The best way to offer a healthy work-life balance to your employees is by providing flexible work arrangements such as remote or hybrid work. When working remotely, there’s no rush to catch a train or sit in traffic, you don’t have to carry files or your laptop, you can take a break when you need one, there are no stressful office politics, and you get more family and friends time.

A healthy work-life balance is not just nice to have; it is essential for maintaining high productivity levels and avoiding burnout. By promoting work-life balance, you will create a team that is energized, motivated, and ready to tackle any challenge.

Embrace Diversity

Diversity is one of the key aspects of building a high-performing team that often gets overlooked. Embracing diversity means creating an inclusive and welcoming work environment for people from all backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives.

Diversity is not just about race or gender; it also includes an assortment of thoughts, experiences, and skills. Encourage your team members to share their unique perspectives and ideas and actively seek out different opinions.

Implement diversity and inclusion training programs to help your team members understand the importance of diversity and how to work effectively in a diverse team. If you successfully implement diversity initiatives, you will create a more innovative, creative, and resilient team. They will feel valued and respected, and their contributions will help drive your company’s success.

Building a top-performing team at a tech startup requires a combination of strategic planning, defining mission goals, hiring the right people, fostering a positive company culture, encouraging professional development, effective communication, evaluating company methods, promoting work-life balance, and embracing diversity. 

As you embark on this journey, keep in mind that building a top-performing team is an ongoing process that requires continuous effort and attention. By adhering to some of the strategies in this article, you can be confident that your team will take your startup to the next level.

Photo by GR Stocks on Unsplash

Recruiters and talent acquisition professionals often find themselves besieged with the latest trends, only to see them disappear just as quickly. It’s no wonder the talent acquisition world can be cynical of any technology that promises to make their jobs easier and enhance their capacity to manage their responsibilities.

A recent poll by Tidio found that 85% of recruiters view Artificial Intelligence (AI) software as a valuable tool that can replace some aspects of the hiring process. However, there is still a significant percentage who are wary of the new technology. Only about 15% of HR professionals believe that humans are indispensable throughout the entire recruitment process, and 23% believe AI will eventually replace them and are concerned about losing their jobs.

Before we debunk the myths surrounding this groundbreaking technology, let’s first understand what AI for recruitment technology is and some of its major benefits.

What Is AI for Recruiting?

AI in recruitment refers to AI technology specifically designed for use by talent acquisition professionals, including recruiters and talent sourcer. Although various kinds of AI recruiting software exist, they all utilize artificial intelligence to automate certain aspects of the talent acquisition process. It primarily aims to streamline and automate portions of the recruiting system, enabling recruiters to work more effectively, hire the most suitable candidates, and devote more time to tasks that only humans can perform, such as building strong relationships with job seekers.

By using artificial intelligence to optimize recruiting, employers can benefit in numerous ways, including saving time, improving candidate matching, making better hiring decisions, creating a better candidate experience, and enhancing diversity.

Saving Time

The recruiting process often involves repetitive tasks, such as sourcing, that consume valuable time but don’t necessarily require human intervention to add value. In fact, according to Dice’s Recruitment Automation Report, many recruiters spend up to 30 hours per week sourcing resumes. When sourcing becomes a time-consuming and tedious process, requisitions can remain open for longer periods, and hiring teams run the risk of making poor hiring decisions.

One way an AI-powered applicant tracking system (ATS) may help reduce sourcing time is by taking advantage of the power of social media. Social media has become an influential tool for connecting with talent, including passive qualified candidates who are not actively seeking a new job. When you publish a new job listing in your ATS, you can immediately share it on your company’s social media accounts, such as LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Interested individuals who follow your pages can then apply for the job by clicking on the link that redirects them to your website.

Adding social sharing buttons to your job postings with your applicant tracking system is also a simple process. A visitor to your careers site can share your opportunity with anyone on their social media network with a shareable link that can be accessed with a single click.

Without a doubt, an ATS that integrates with social media can help ensure that your recruitment efforts align with your overall hiring strategy and makes finding the best candidates easier and faster.

Improving Candidate Matching

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that a bad hire costs a minimum of 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings, and recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a new employee can cost up to $240,000. Hiring the wrong employees incurs not only significant expenses but also affects morale, productivity, and profits. Unfortunately, it is a common mistake, with 74 percent of employers admitting to having hired the wrong person for a position, according to research by CareerBuilder.

HR can use AI-powered recruitment software to enhance their ability to identify and select the best-fit candidates from a pool of applicants. AI can assist recruiters in automatically screening thousands of resumes to identify the most qualified candidates for any job by evaluating the relevant information on resumes and comparing it against the job description using keyword match criteria. Some AI software can even be used to assess candidates’ soft skills and suggest whether they would be a good fit for the company’s culture.

Putting Data to Good Use

The proliferation of digital technology and data collection has left many companies with an abundance of information about clients and candidates. However, mistakes in data management can cause significant delays and costs in the recruitment process. AI-powered recruitment can leverage analytics and metrics to improve hiring results and drive business success. With AI technology, recruiters can accurately process large amounts of data from resumes, cover letters, and candidate tasks to streamline the process and minimize errors.  

In addition, incorporating AI-powered platforms throughout your recruitment process allows for the ongoing collection of data on both candidates and employees. This provides valuable insights into the qualities of a successful hire. These platforms enable you to track and analyze the key metrics most important to your business and adjust your recruitment strategy accordingly to ensure that you meet your growth objectives. 

Candidate Experience and Employer Brand

Positive communication between job seekers and employers significantly improves user experience, which ultimately enhances your company brand. Unfortunately, this component often suffers the most because recruiters have so much time-consuming responsibilities on their plate. According to Career Arc, 69% of the job seekers polled believe the response time to a candidate’s application can be improved the most.

Using AI chatbots for candidate communication can significantly improve the candidate experience and free up time for recruiters to focus on more complex tasks. Chatbots can handle initial candidate questions and follow-ups, schedule interviews, and send reminders. 

Natural Language Processing technology (NLP) NLP technology allows chatbots to understand and respond to candidates’ questions and concerns in a personalized way, making them feel valued and heard. AI matching can also help recommend suitable positions for candidates, ensuring their experience with your company is positive and tailored to their needs.

Bias Control

We all have biases, even if we’re not always aware of them. Unconscious bias can easily creep into the recruiting process despite our best intentions. These biases can lead to poor hiring decisions, legal issues, and a lack of diversity within the organization. To prevent these adverse outcomes, top organizations use AI software with comprehensive bias detection frameworks built in. By configuring the AI software to focus on relevant skills and qualifications while ignoring unrelated human characteristics such as gender, age, religion, and race, recruiters can feel safe that the best person for the job is hired without bias.

Now that the benefits of AI recruitment tools have been addressed, let’s dispel some of the most common misconceptions about the technology.

It’s Coming for My Job!

With all the hype around ChatGPT, and the number of new AI tools and features being deployed at every turn, AI in recruitment seems to be a concern for many, particularly with regard to the possibility of human recruiters becoming redundant. However, these fears are unfounded as AI is not designed to replace recruiters but rather to serve as a tool that can make their work easier and more efficient. With the aid of this tech, recruiters and talent acquisition professionals can make more informed and effective decisions faster while being relieved of mundane and logistical tasks.  

It’s important to emphasize that AI recruitment doesn’t involve working alongside a sentient robot, as some people might believe. In reality, artificial intelligence is essentially a sophisticated set of algorithms and learning processes that can be adapted to various human applications to be used with ease. With AI recruitment software, these advanced algorithms and data processing mechanisms are applied to finding, screening, communicating with, and identifying the possible best candidates for job roles. This enables recruiters to make more informed decisions and streamline their workflows.

Chatbots Can Handle It All

It’s important to remember that, just as AI won’t replace human intelligence, chatbots – a key feature of AI – cannot handle the entire recruitment process on their own. While AI-based chatbots can help screen candidates and engage with them by answering basic questions, they are limited in their ability to evaluate subjective factors such as a candidate’s communication skills or cultural fit. In addition, chatbots cannot conduct a full interview, where follow-up questions are often necessary to gain a deeper understanding of a candidate’s responses.

However, AI can play a useful role in objective decision-making, such as verifying a candidate’s qualifications and work experience. It can also automate routine tasks, such as scheduling interviews and sending follow-up messages.

In short, chatbots are a useful tool in the recruitment process, but they cannot replace the human element in the job description. Aspects of the recruitment process that require subjective judgment or personal interaction will continue to be handled by human beings.

AI is Expensive

Investing in high-quality AI hiring software may come with a significant upfront cost, but it can save both money and time in the long run. According to Ideal, Companies that don’t use AI automation in their recruiting efforts can expect to incur 35% higher costs in the hiring process. Recruiters also typically spend an average of 14 hours per week on administrative tasks alone. With an overload of repetitive responsibilities tasked to HR departments, companies may have to hire additional staff to handle the workload, which can be a major expense.

While AI technology was once reserved for larger tech companies, it has become more accessible to small and medium businesses. AI hiring features found as a standalone tool or in existing platforms, can offer benefits to companies of all shapes and sizes beyond just accelerating the recruitment process. For example, smaller start-ups that prioritize cost savings can reduce expenses associated with cost-per-hire by using AI to optimize their job descriptions with a content creation AI platform. 

It Is Too Complicated to Use

Although the programming behind AI hiring software can be complex, using it is a straightforward process. The user interface (UI) of most AI tools is designed to simplify the execution of tasks, and we are seeing them slowly be integrated into a variety of also existing user-friendly recruitment platforms. With just a few clicks, the UI can complete various recruitment-related tasks. For example, a good user interface for resume screening will let you input the job details and what skills your company is looking for before starting its automated tasks. 

Conclusion

Asking people to make changes comes with inevitable challenges. Recruiters, fearful of their jobs becoming automated, may be reserved to adopt AI into their daily responsibilities. So, it’s important to emphasize that their roles will still require human interaction and human-based decision-making. To ease fears, companies should provide demos, live training, and opportunities for feedback prior to launch.

So, let’s leave the AI pandemonium to Hollywood, and embrace a technology that saves time on repetitive tasks, will lead to a better quality of hire, improves candidate experience, promotes diversity, and lets you focus more on the human aspect of the job that can never be replaced.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

There is no room for businesses to lag in today’s fast-paced and ever-changing market — or they risk losing the race forever. When it comes to building a company that encourages growth from the inside out, there isn’t a more crucial piece of the puzzle than forming a capable workforce.

From personally hunting down the top dogs of your industry to attending business conventions near and far, your company needs to invest thoroughly in acquiring the right talent for its operations. While it may only seem like a small part of a much larger picture, crafting an effective career page can work wonders for your recruitment efforts.

In this article, we’ll be sharing the ins and outs of this critical tool to help your business find the best employees possible.

Career Pages: The Basics

If you’re a startup or small company, perhaps you’ve never even heard of what a career page is.

Essentially, these website pages act much like any other page you use to draw in new clients. From product descriptions to contact links, your business spends hours ensuring visitors know precisely what offerings you provide, and why their dollars are best spent on your products. The same effort — if not more — should be directed into making your career page.

What Should I Put in My Career Page?

With its dedicated section on your company’s website, the career page should clearly describe what jobseekers can expect from a position in your company: whether through informational videos, testimonials from current and past employees, company history, or resources for contacting a member of the company. Preferably, you’ll include all of the above.

Once your reader finishes looking through your career page, they should already have a good idea of what your company stands for, what your company expects of them, and where they’ll fit into operations. Remember: this could be the first and last time a job seeker looks at your company. Leave a good and lasting impression by ensuring your career page is as attractive as your sales pages, with professional presentation and comprehensive information that excites, not discourages.

Overall, the career page is a representation of your company culture as a whole. If you prioritize workforce morale, satisfaction, and enjoyment, your career page should reflect such values.

Career Pages: The Benefits

After years spent following the same ancient recruitment model, your company still might not see career pages as valuable investments. However, the market is changing rapidly, and your workforce must adapt if it hopes to survive the future.

The evidence is clear: job seekers are now looking at you to prove you’re worth the time, and not the other way around. With 43 percent of employees expecting “proactive, transparent, and frequent communications from employers,” a career page becomes a crucial piece of proof that your company is ready to fight for the best candidates in the industry.

How Does it Boost Recruitment?

Career pages are an excellent way to save time. Candidates who come across your website can review your company’s mission and decide for themselves if they’re a good fit. As such, your recruitment team will primarily speak to candidates who already understand the most significant parts of your company culture. Essentially, a good career page can work as a pre-interview long before the real thing.

Additionally, your company can collect vital information from the traffic a career page generates. By studying its SEO-optimized results, your recruitment team can make changes until the page is directly targeting the candidates you seek.

Lastly, a career page is a defining difference between regularly acquiring industry talent versus settling for whoever comes your way. A high-quality, impressive, and professional career page is guaranteed to attract candidates of the same caliber. As a plus, your recruitment team can utilize SEO-optimization to target specific regions, job descriptions, and candidate profiles; this way, the applications flow in with only a fraction of the work traditional candidate-hunting requires.

The Big Picture

Regardless of your company size, a career page is a proven method for attracting industry top players. As your company incorporates new changes to maintain momentum, relying on a talented workforce will only grow in importance.

As you craft your career page to be as intelligent and compelling as the candidates you hope to attract, remember to keep an eye on the big picture. After all, if the company culture and values you promised job seekers aren’t consistent, then you risk losing candidate trust entirely. Should you follow the suggested guidelines instead, you might soon find yourself far ahead of the competition.

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

It’s the 21st century, and competition within an ever-changing market has never been more rigorous. From technological improvements to operational innovations, businesses worldwide are cutting no expense when it comes to setting their brands apart from the thousands that currently crowd the same space. As your company finds itself competing against an ever-growing number of similar offerings, the task of maintaining brand recognition may seem like an impossible task. 

It’s likely that your business already spends an incredible amount of resources to maintain an outward-facing brand. After all, attracting more consumers makes up the bulk of most workforce operations, as they are what makes or breaks a company’s success—but what happens if that workforce isn’t as productive as it once was? What happens if your business fails to create an employer brand that supports a healthy and efficient workforce? 

The two elements are not the same, which is why it’s so vital for a business to focus on where their employer brand stands. Just as you would refresh your business’s outward-facing brand every few years, the same should go for your employer brand. If you’re unsure whether or not it’s time to revamp company morale, examine the criteria below, and decide for yourself where your business lands. 

What Exactly Is Employer Branding? 

Everyone knows how crucial a company’s reputation is when it comes to consumers. For this reason, so many highways and city streets are crowded with giant billboards, television shows are stuffed with ad breaks, and the marketing industry spends billions of dollars a year to convince consumers that their product is the best of the best. 

While these efforts will always be an essential asset of your business, your final products or services won’t be worth the effort if the workforce behind them isn’t as productive, powerful, and qualified as possible. To acquire employees that actively support a successful business, your recruitment team must create an employee brand that attracts A-level industry professionals into your company. 

Employer branding is created by showcasing a business’s qualities, benefits, and unique differentiators that make it worth a potential employee’s time. (This is why lists such as FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” are so sought-after). A successful employer brand won’t only entice consumers, but also convince top-class candidates to seek out a position in your company, subsequently bolstering its capabilities and significantly improving output. 

Ultimately, your business needs to consistently communicate to job seekers what it stands for, and why such a mission makes it the best choice when it comes to recruitment. 

What Does Your Employer Brand Say About Your Company Culture? 

Research reveals that 78% of job seekers will research your company’s reputation and culture before applying for an open position. If you’ve failed to create a compelling employer brand, then your business has effectively robbed itself of almost the entire number of jobseekers on the market. Those who remain probably won’t have much to offer your workforce. 

Essentially, you need to attract job seekers in the same way you would consumers. Your employer brand needs to be direct, reliable, and targeted at a specific audience. Google’s success in creating a sought-after company culture is a remarkable example to follow and became so popular it even improved brand recognition for their outward-facing brand.  

Therefore, you must examine your employer brand to see what it says about your company culture. Will a jobseeker understand how they’ll be treated if they join your workforce? Is your company’s mission statement clear, attractive, and relevant? Will employees feel as if their talents aren’t only respected, but put to fair use? 

If your current employer brand fails to answer these questions, it may be in serious need of a refresh. 

Creating an Employer Brand — In-House or Outsourced? 

From IT maintenance to customer service, businesses across all industries utilize outsourcing to complete essential aspects of their operations. Compared to in-house efforts, outsourcing can result in dramatically decreased costs and even improved quality. However, when it comes to a topic as delicate as employer branding, your business needs to examine the pros and cons of the decision closely. 

If your business doesn’t have the resources available to maintain an in-house recruitment team, acquiring outsourced help can still reap the same results—though you should be careful in your choice. The provider you choose must wholly emulate your employer brand and represent it with enough understanding that candidates don’t suspect they’re speaking to a third-party recruiter (i.e., using the same email address as your company, etc.).   

Additionally, outsourced recruitment may be an improvement over a small-staffed in-house team easily overwhelmed by many applicants. Since most outsourced recruiters have large workforces, they can quickly process a greater number of job seekers while still supporting your employer brand.  

Using Video to Convey Your Brand Message

Once again, your employer brand will utilize many of the same marketing methods it does with consumer branding. There’s no better way to entice job seekers than by personally showing them why working for your company is the best choice they can make. 

Take Workday (listed at #5 on FORTUNE’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list) and its recruitment page. Along with various listed benefits, the company also displays an introductory video that briefly walks jobseekers through some of the company’s key features. 

Investing in a few similar videos for your own business is a great way to maximize exposure and a foolproof method to prove to jobseekers that you’re serious about your company culture. If candidates can see firsthand what a day spent in your workforce might look like, they’ll be more than willing to send in their application. 

Crafting your employer brand may seem like a minimal task in the grand scheme of things, but it can be the difference between a business that suffers and one that thrives. Your employees are the seeds that will either see your company grow or wilt—a prospect that entirely depends on your employer brand. If your business has yet to implement the key aspects listed above, you may need to revamp your approach to this crucial piece of your workforce—before it’s too late. 

Photo by Pascal Swier on Unsplash

Regardless of what industry your business operates in, its company culture remains a crucial aspect of operations throughout the hierarchy ladder. From entry-level positions to CEOs, workplace culture transforms the way businesses perform in the market, especially during significant change or crisis.  

Recent years proved that companies rely on an efficient company culture just as much as they depend on marketing techniques, sales strategies, and more. Rankings like Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list are now industry-recognized predictors of which businesses will thrive in the future, and which ones could fall behind. It’s the same reason Google is now famous by both consumers and jobseekers for its unique approach to the topic, making it 2017’s company with the best corporate culture.

So, what does this mean for your company? Well, there’s more than enough evidence pointing to the fact that, if your company hopes to succeed, it needs a company culture that promotes growth. A startling 77% of adults now value a company’s mission and culture over salary — a clear indicator of what the future holds.

The age of COVID-19 placed a unique emphasis on the need for unity within workforces. As employers and employees alike struggle with the global crisis, companies with a strong people culture are more likely to thrive: Here’s why.

A Healthy People Culture Improves Preparation

It’s no secret that organization is the key to success. Buildings without a strong foundation are prone to collapse during earthquakes, and trees with weak roots can overturn during a windstorm — the same logic holds for your company culture.

Just as your company directs its focus towards acquiring loyal customers, the same attention must be spent fostering a passionate, talented, and prepared workforce. Kristine Kelly, Vice President of Workforce Strategy & Intelligence at Ceridian, called company culture a “constant; rapid change should not affect companies with a strong culture.”

In contrast, “an organization that has not invested, nurtured and nourished its culture will find it difficult.”

An Established People Culture Bolsters Reputation

There is a bounty of examples to back up Kelly’s statement in 2020, as COVID-19 effectively turned the market on its head and caused chaos throughout every industry. Retail giant VF Corporation — the owner of Vans, The North Face, Timberland, and more — is a sparkling example of how a strong people culture promotes success during a crisis.

As COVID-19 grew in impact, the company donated more than $10.3 million to COVID-19 relief efforts and made employee safety a top priority; employees in North American retail stores were even paid their usual salaries despite closures. While these decisions may seem like radical risks, it improved the company’s position. As of June 2020, VF Corporation is on track to recover from the pandemic with full force.

According to VF Corp. chairman Steve Rendle, the company also spoke with black and brown employees when tensions rose in the U.S. due to racial injustice. The effort was “to help [them] understand what [they] can do differently to improve their work experience, [and] how [VF] can give back to the communities that they live and work in.”

“Consumers are looking for and demanding that brands stand up and act, consistent with what they said they will do,” added Rendle. “And as they do that, you’re building much greater loyalty and long-term affinity.”

By following VF Corp.’s example and encouraging a company culture that values its employees, other businesses can simultaneously improve their relationship — and reputation — with consumers.

A Dedicated People Culture Encourages Innovation

COVID-19 proved companies must have the ability to change their entire approach at a moment’s notice. Large or small, businesses across all industries were forced to adapt to new health requirements and complete their operations remotely. While some workforces like VF Corporation were able to handle the switch remarkably, others were not so fortunate — nor as prepared.

As such, your company culture plays a crucial role in how well you can respond to times of significant change. According to Kelly, having a “culture where everyone feels a strong sense of belonging and acceptance as a unique individual” is the key to encouraging innovation. “This means listening and incorporating various perspectives and ideas to deliver a natural way of working and creating authentic connections among employees, customers, and vendors.”

Without employees who feel that their value is appreciated, your company will lose out on essential feedback, ideas, innovations, and suggestions an otherwise invigorated employee might provide – especially when you need it most.

Repaying Their Appreciation

From mild disruptions in the market to a global crisis like COVID-19, fostering a strong people culture is the best method to ensure your company is prepared for anything the future throws at it. By proving to employees how much you value their talent and time, you guarantee they make the same effort when repaying their appreciation. 

Photo by Matt Ridley on Unsplash

As the digital revolution plunges more and more businesses into the online world, workforces must adapt to the many changes that come with such a wide-scale transformation. As such, HR and recruitment departments face some of the most considerable challenges when it comes to their recruitment methods. 

While a diverse array of digital resources is available for hiring teams to utilize in their operations, these teams must understand how to use them to the best of their ability. The days of traditional recruiting are long gone, instead replaced by data-driven recruitment processes. There’s much to be gained by using these state-of-the-art methods, allowing recruitment efforts to be far more cost-efficient and quicker than ever before. 

Staying ahead of competitors doesn’t only mean implementing new digital tools into your customer-facing operations—it’s a process that affects your workforce as a whole. If your hiring team is ready to take the next step in improving their efforts, be sure to follow the tips listed below. 

Make Sure Descriptions are Detailed Using the Right Search Keywords 

With the rise of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features, your business must thoroughly examine its job descriptions to identify areas of improvement when it comes to keyword density. Say goodbye to the days of flyers and word-of-mouth, because most job seekers are now utilizing the many available online tools at their fingertips to discover relevant job openings according to their interests. 

To maximize your rankings on job boards, ensure the descriptions for each job listing from your company are as detailed as possible. As a result, job seekers will gain a better idea of the position you’re offering, therefore setting you apart from competing openings that might not be as detailed. Additionally, it’ll be far easier to slip in a few more related search keywords into your job description, helping your posts to rank higher on search pages. 

Of course, you shouldn’t be filling your job description with incomprehensible, wordy filler that turns the reader away. Much like any professional document, be sure your entire hiring team reviews it for errors or areas that need improvement. Industry hiring experts also recommend you pay particular attention to formatting and ensure you’ve highlighted the most important aspects of your position, such as benefits, pay, unique qualifications, and more. 

Make Your Call to Action Visible and Accessible 

According to industry research, you only have about 76.7 seconds to hook the attention of your job seeker if they feel the job posting is one that matches their skills and interest. Compared to the sheer number of competing postings available, this isn’t much time to stake your claim. 

First, your job description should already meet the criteria listed above and be worthy of the time your candidate spends reading it. Once you have their focus, ensure your call to action is as visible and prominent as possible without distracting from the core of your message. Whether this call to action comes in the form of a link to your website, an email or phone number, or direct access to an application form, it should be easily accessible. If not, you risk losing a few candidates or having your job posting ignored altogether. 

Have a Subscription Button on Your Page  

Whether or not they’re a potential job candidate, your business’s website pages will see a growing number of visitors. While this is a great marketing tactic for broad exposure, your hiring team can utilize these visitors to improve the efficiency of their hiring efforts and to increase the number of views their new job posts receive. Much like those on YouTube or podcast channels, a subscription button on your recruitment page can substantially increase your output. 

For one, subscribers will be regularly updated on your business’s movements in the market, giving you a crucial method for enticing them to apply to your job postings. Should they feel as if the current job openings you offer aren’t a good fit for their qualifications or skills, a subscription will inform them of any openings you have in the future that might interest them. 

Rather than lose a candidate forever, hosting a subscription button on your page is an excellent way to capture a wider audience while improving the number of job applications your hiring team receives in the future. 

Increase Organic Traffic with Google For Jobs  

While it may seem as if an online transformation will only present your hiring team with a slew of new challenges, there is a diverse array of useful tools for your workforce to utilize—perhaps even making them more productive than ever before. When it comes to recruitment, one of the most popular resources in recent years is Google for Jobs. This essential asset enables businesses to place their job postings directly in front of job seekers, usually for only a minimal cost. 

Essentially, this method places your job opening on the search results of any Google web search related to job-seeking. (For example, a Google search for ‘Tech Jobs’ will reveal relevant job openings in a designated section of the search page). 

While this may seem like any other paid advertisement, there are quite a few benefits Google for Jobs offers. For instance, the search results are never influenced by paid boosting, meaning listings with no relevance to the job description won’t overtake your job posting. Furthermore, every link directs users to the leading recruitment website, bringing in a larger amount of organic views to your web pages. 

Ultimately, Google for Jobs is a no-brainer for any business and proves to job seekers that you are serious about recruitment. 

While the realm of the worldwide web may appear daunting to businesses of any size, utilizing the tips listed above is a sure way to overcome any challenges your hiring team faces in their search for new job candidates. Ultimately, by ensuring your job descriptions are of the highest quality possible and encouraging viewer engagement, your recruitment needs won’t ever fall short again.  

Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

Whether you work for a multinational corporation or live off self-employment, the discussion about work-life balance has never been more relevant in this ever-changing society. Across all industries, employers and employees alike find themselves debating current standards regarding workweeks, especially as more workers than ever find themselves completing their day-to-day tasks at home rather than at an office. 

While the 40-hour, five-day workweek remains a staple across most nations, many have raised the prospect of changing this standard to reflect shifts in employee expectations by introducing a four-day workweek. Regardless of where your business stands on the issue, it’s clear that the market is shifting. From tech-giants Twitter and Square allowing employees to work from their homes forever to Microsoft’s experiments with a four-day workweek, it’s clear that the future will see a significantly different corporate reality than what society is used to. 

So, what’s the big deal? Perhaps your business remains wary of such an enormous change, or simply views these large-scale announcements as nothing more than brief PR-stunts meant to boost brand recognition. Since a four-day workweek is a relatively new concept, many companies struggle with the same fears, but current data may be enough to curb most of those worries. 

In this article, we’ll cover the four major factors that prove a four-day workweek isn’t only a relevant prospect, but a vital one in the age of COVID-19. 

Increased Productivity

Ever since the industrial revolution, employers have been experimenting with countless methods to boost the productivity of their employees. While the digital revolution of the 21st century replaces enormous factories with high-tech offices and cramped cubicles, their efforts haven’t changed.  

One of the most persistent questions circling the prospect of the four-day workweek is, unsurprisingly, focused on how it might impact business output. If this sounds like an experiment your business isn’t willing to take, then it should be pleasing to hear that one of the largest companies in the world already took the plunge. 

In 2019, Microsoft Japan gave employees a three-day weekend throughout the summer season to see how a four-day workweek could improve operations—or possibly ruin them. Remarkably, the company saw employee productivity improve by 40% throughout the experiment. Additionally, the company enjoyed lower maintenance costs thanks to the reduction of electricity usage by 23%. 

Microsoft wasn’t the only business to implement the policy. In the spring of 2018, New Zealand’s trust management company Perpetual Guardian experienced a 45% improvement in employee work-life balance and a 20% increase in employee productivity with a four-day workweek. The company has subsequently made the policy permanent. 

Downtime Leads to More Creative Thinking  

The improvements mentioned above aren’t a fluke: There is a reasonable explanation for why companies see such an increase with a four-day workweek. 

In an increasingly consumerist society, break times and days off are regularly seen as inappropriate, especially when it comes to business operations (time is money, right?). However, a non-stop cycle of work can deter results and decrease the capabilities of a workforce if employees aren’t given sufficient downtime between workdays. 

A growing body of research explains why downtime boosts creativity. When the brain focuses on the same stimulus over an extended period (i.e., an office cubicle, an excel spreadsheet), it eventually loses focus and causes performance to decline. Ideas become redundant, and creativity plummets drastically.    

To combat this phenomenon, a sufficient amount of downtime is necessary. By taking a break from operations, employees can return to their tasks refreshed and with ideas of higher quality to overcome business challenges. With a four-day workweek, workforces can return to the office on Monday with a mindset that is re-energized and eager to tackle their tasks better than ever before. 

Employee Cost Reduction — Will It Be Affected? 

Businesses are always seeking new ways to cut costs, and a four-day workweek is a prospect that further complicates cost-management efforts. 

On one end, an extra week out of the office provides direct benefits to the business itself. Utility fees such as lights and air conditioning will be noticeably lower, and office supplies won’t run out as quickly. 

When it comes to employee cost reduction, the answers are not as clear. Companies like Microsoft chose to continue paying employees a typical five-day workweek salary during their experiment. Still, some businesses may not be willing to make—or able to afford—the same decision. At this point, the prospect of paying employees a regular salary while keeping them on a four-day workweek may become a political one, though how strongly depends on where the business’s principal operations are located. 

Those who defend a reduced employee salary with a four-day workweek point out that employee concerns regarding payment may be offset by decreased commute times and improved work-life balance. Until the four-day workweek becomes more common, its actual impact on employee cost reduction remains yet to be seen. 

Ultimately, it may simply come down to each business having to make their own decision on what they’re willing to pay employees if they’re given a longer weekend.  

Has COVID-19 Made This the Perfect Time to Transition?  

No conversation about the four-day workweek can be complete without considering the effects of COVID-19. 

Industry experts have voiced their opinions on the matter, and their conclusion is clear: This is the perfect time to make the change. More than ever, it’s up to employers to show that they care for their employees as the world battles with the pandemic, whether their support comes through stimulus checks or improved health benefits. 

With most workforces operating from home, the line between work and life hasn’t been more blurred. By implementing a four-day workweek, companies won’t only help restore this distinction, but assist industries across the world in rising back to their feet. 

Change is a frightening thing, which makes it easy to understand why most businesses have yet to implement—or perhaps even consider—a four-day workweek. However, from increased productivity to effective cost management, there are more than a few reasons as to why this prospect could significantly improve workforces across the world. If anything, COVID-19 has proven that change is inevitable. If your business hopes to keep up with competitors, a four-day workweek might be the only way to do so. 

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

As markets across all industries continue to grow with unprecedented speed, your business must equip itself with the tools necessary to compete with relentless competitors and the ever-changing expectations from consumers. Whether you are a multinational tech corporation or a mom-and-pop shop, preparing for the future is of the utmost importance if you hope to remain in the lead—regardless of your workforce size. 

However, most of your business efforts cannot flourish unless they are built on a foundation that actively supports your cause; in this case, your employees. In fact, companies with a higher quality of hire are three-times more likely to see an improvement in their first-year performance. No matter what your workforce looks like, acquiring industry top-players is the only guaranteed method to build a company that thrives. 

While the task of bringing in top-performers from your industry may seem like a daunting task, there are more than a few steps your hiring team can take to entice these A-players. By following the methods listed below, your business can finally form one of the most crucial aspects of its operations and prepare itself for the future. 

Create a Clear Hiring Strategy for Each Position 

Your business wouldn’t rush a new product into the market without a clear strategy to promote its success, and the same goes for your job openings. 

Regardless of what the position might be (don’t dismiss smaller roles in your company—those are still just as important!), your hiring team should have a clear picture of what their game plan is. Look over your strategy to confirm that it contains each of these key features: 

Include A Detailed Job Description 

A detailed job description won’t only help your hiring team understand what type of candidate they should seek out, but also attract new applications. (Tip: adding relevant search terms into your description will also help your job posting to rank higher on search engines).   

Create A Job-Map of Where to Find Candidates 

If you genuinely want the best of the best, your business can’t afford to waste time waiting for them to drop from the sky. Instead, take matters into your own hands and seek them out yourself. Note any relevant job meetups or organizations with attendees whom you can discuss your openings with. 

Know Your Details 

While role titles, keywords, Q&A’s and search keywords may seem like only a small part of the hiring process, they can make or break your success rate. Inclusion of these aspects won’t only help your job opening to rank higher on search engines, but also attract more professional job seekers.

Create a Candidate Profile in Addition to a Job Description 

If your hiring team doesn’t know precisely what type of candidate they’re looking for, then it’s likely they won’t find anyone at all. While job descriptions are an essential factor in attracting job seekers to your opening, it does little to help your side of things if you don’t know how to set applicants apart from each other. 

There’s a simple solution to this problem: a candidate profile. 

This method won’t only simplify your hiring efforts, but also improve the quality of candidates you receive. The profile you create should prioritize characteristics that fit the position (i.e., time-management, leadership skills, customer service skills, optimism). Additionally, you’ll want to highlight traits that are essential to the job—call these your “must-haves”—along with those that aren’t necessary but still appreciated—also known as “nice-to-haves.” 

Ultimately, a comprehensive candidate profile will answer most—if not all—of the questions you’ll ask of job seekers. From their educational backgrounds to their industry qualifications, your hiring team can effectively do twice the amount of work in half the time with an appropriately crafted candidate profile. 

Check Your Database for Candidates That May Still Be Available and Have Already Been Screened 

Some of the best candidates for your job could be those you’ve already met before. If you’ve had job openings in the past that saw multiple applicants, you already have an excellent resource for finding job seekers to fill your new opening. 

First, you’ll need to identify candidates who were second place to the previous position, as they are the most likely to be highly qualified individuals. (Additionally, they might even have gained more experience in the time spent between your job openings). 

After you’ve curated a list, you can begin forming unique messages to each candidate. Beware: don’t just send them your application invitation out of the blue. Be sure to personalize your message with everything you already know about the individual, rather than surprise them with a potential job offer—it’s just common courtesy. 

Measure Your Results — It’s All About Data

Your company relies on data every single day, whether it’s for product sales or brand recognition. The same should go for your hiring efforts. 

Measuring your hiring results can help you separate the strategies working in your favor from those that require fixing.  

Your team should regularly examine the following data points to ensure your strategies are performing efficiently: 

• Number of candidates you’ve sourced
• Conversion rates for your messages 
• Ratios for how many interviewees had hiring potential 

Much like any large-scale project, your recruiters should understand which metrics are most relevant to your requirements and add any that would offer additional clarity to your results. 

While your hiring team might be eager to plunge into the sea of jobseekers without much preparation, this will ultimately waste their time—and your resources—in the long run. By incorporating the methods above into your recruitment efforts, you won’t only improve the quality of your hires, but the quality of your business’s overall output. 

The top-players of your industry won’t just settle for anyone, which means your company needs to work hard to gain their respect—and their interest. If you treat your hiring efforts with the same standards of performance and passion you hope to find in a candidate, you’ll subsequently attract individuals who value the same principles into your company.

Photo by SwapnIl Dwivedi on Unsplash

When employees face times of distress, they often turn to human resources to deal with their worries. In times as strenuous as COVID-19, this sort of support is nothing less than essential to allow operations to continue without skipping a beat.  

Even though HR managers are currently taking care of their responsibilities through digital mediums, it is especially important to not lose the skills previously used before the pandemic to solve workplace issues. Regardless of the circumstances, HR managers must strengthen these critical skills to keep the wheels moving in the right direction.

Active Listening

There is no question that HR managers are required to deal with multiple employee concerns. Whether it be to solve salary troubles or investigate workplace harassment claims, HR managers cannot come up with solutions without learning how to actively listen to all parties involved. It should come as no surprise how beneficial the simple act of listening can provide for any workplace.

Many people do not realize that most of the time, listening is only a means to reply rather than understand. Employee concerns can only be appropriately dealt with if the HR manager fully understands the situation. People who master this skill are usually dubbed as “people persons” by their peers. By learning to listen and communicate appropriately, HR managers can not only make their jobs more comfortable but improve the lives of employees.

Body language can sometimes be more meaningful than words. HR professionals need to identify facial expressions, tone, and more to paint a full picture and discussions should be two-way conversations. Managers should ask for further clarification in areas they are confused about to ensure they fully understand the issue.

Be Flexible

HR managers should prepare to treat their policies and general hiring conventions with a flexible approach rather than a static one. It has long been regarded that successful workplaces are those who are open to change, and the realm of HR is no exception to such a rule.

While such an approach is difficult to detail with a bulleted list, there are specific ways to begin implementing flexibility in any workplace. For one, further emphasis on work-life balance proves to boost employee confidence and improve efficiency. Whether this is done by providing daycare centers for employees with children or reducing a five-day workweek to a four-day workweek. By remaining flexible, HR managers can successfully manage employee expectations while still minimizing potential workplace challenges.  

Embracing Digital Platforms

Any business that wishes to stay afloat these days must embrace digital platforms to manage workflow. You would be surprised how many industries still have not accepted this reality. For HR managers who have yet to utilize digital platforms in their own workspace, the time to do so is now. With only a little bit of research, HR professionals can quickly discover more than a few digital tools to aid their efforts.

Some of the more popular adjustments involve incorporating thorough analytics, taking HR systems into the “cloud,” and automatic recruitment processes. Before picking a digital platform to supplement their efforts, HR managers should experiment with different platforms to understand what works best for them.

Managing Costs and Budgets

HR departments oversee allocating budgets to provide funding for hiring, salaries, benefits, training, and more. None of these responsibilities are easy, but a great HR manager must learn how to employ budgeting methods to streamline the process effectively.

With incremental budgeting, HR managers will use their budget from the previous period and add incremental amounts either upwards or downwards for each item based on spending expectations. As the name suggests, zero-based budgeting requires HR managers to start from scratch. Rather than using previous information, a zero-based budget analyzes every need to justify proper expenses. Depending on the situation, both methods are very useful to simplify their budgeting process and spend more time improving employee experiences

While the COVID-19 pandemic may have thrown a wrench into conventional business practices, there is still no excuse for HR managers to let their skillsets fall by the wayside. For HR managers hoping to sharpen their skillsets, an emphasis on the methods listed above is a great way to improve not only their own work lives but also the experiences of those around them.

Photo by Nelly Antoniadou on Unsplash

It is no question that the rise of COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into the gears of workplaces across the globe. From bringing entire businesses into digital realms through Zoom and other online methods, to incorporating government-mandated social distancing requirements into physical spaces, employers and employees alike have an overwhelming abundance of changes to follow. 

As any business owner might expect, this has sparked a global debate surrounding the current benefits many employees enjoyed before the rise of the virus, and how things might change as a result of it in the future. One of these changes involves the possible adjustment of employee benefits, as many employers have to make tough decisions when it comes to keeping workers well cared for without suffering from the effects of reduced profits. 

In this article, we will be reviewing some of the changes in benefits employees might soon experience as a result of COVID-19, and how both employees and employers can best prepare for potential workplace-wide modifications. 

Digital Tools

Now more than ever, society relies on a series of digital methods to maintain the same workflow and lifestyles people once enjoyed before the pandemic. From office meetings and classroom lectures conducted on Zoom calls to completing large-scale projects over shared online tools such as Google Docs, we have seen an unprecedented rise in reliance on the digital sphere. 

While much of this was sparked through pure necessity, it has also made both employees and employers realize the benefits of utilizing online resources to supplement their everyday workflow. From quick collaboration to nearly unlimited communication abilities, there is a distinct advantage of transferring business tasks onto laptops, phones, and the like. 

As such, it would be no surprise if employers began offering a wider variety of digital tools within their employee benefits packages, along with the proper training. After all, these resources have become nothing less than vital for businesses that wish to continue operations at full efficiency. 

Remote Working

Arguably one of the most substantial shifts experienced by workplaces worldwide is the introduction of remote working. From major tech companies to local retail shops, businesses who wish to survive COVID-19 economically have no other choice than to conduct almost all operations entirely online. As a result, employees who may have once conducted their work in enormous office spaces are now doing the very same thing in the comfort of their own home. 

Already, companies are responding to this change. Google has promised to keep their employees home until at least the summer of 2021, and Twitter announced that it will allow their employees who do not have jobs requiring physical presence to work from home for the near future. In fact, the San Francisco-based social media giant is reimbursing all employees who need a home office set up, and are supplying a variety of resources to help workers with the transition. 

For employees across the globe who were required to complete operations remotely, this sounds like a future that might soon become all too common. For one, many businesses have realized some jobs do not require employees to be physically present. While this presents many benefits for employees – from reduced commutes to overall comfort – it is also in the best interest of employers. With an emphasis on remote work, businesses might only utilize physical spaces during specific events, therefore reducing costs such as electricity, commute reimbursement, food costs, and more. Additionally, companies might not even have to rent out an expensive office building in the first place. 

As businesses weigh this discovery, it is more likely than not that employees will have extended options in their benefits package when it comes to completing their work remotely – even after the COVID-19 crisis has passed. While this may very well eliminate any benefits related to commute costs and the like, Twitter’s example should reassure employees that they will receive reimbursement for their home office set up.

A Shift from Permanent Roles to Flexible and Freelance Working Patterns

With the rise of remote work, the online realm has seen a particular uptick in freelancing services, with sites such as Fiverr and Upwork receiving more traffic than ever before as businesses scramble to transfer their services online. 

As remote work takes over, it is apparent that some roles may not require as much permanency as what was originally perceived. Once the crisis comes to an end and the world returns to at least some sense of normalcy, it would be no surprise to find businesses take this approach into account. 

As already mentioned, major flexibility adjustments due to remote work may be on the horizon. Employees could expect to have more than half of their workload be done remotely, while some businesses may transfer entirely online. This type of change greatly benefits freelancers as they can even work for more than one company at a time. 

Of course, there is a chance this affects how employers distribute benefits. Without permanent job positions, employees may see a cut to the previous number of perks they would have received otherwise. 

What Does This Mean for Recruiters?

As with any workplace change, recruiters from across every industry should stay alert regarding all alterations currently underway – and for those that are not yet fully implemented. Recruiters must now work with both employers and employees to understand the modifications made regarding benefit packages, as well as make careful observations to identify the shifts in standards across all global workplaces. 

While the future is more uncertain than ever, it is no surprise to learn that employers across the globe have already detailed rigorous plans for when the COVID-19 crisis comes to an end. Employees should prepare for significant changes and possibly more after the pandemic passes. Therefore, it is more likely than not that those benefits, just like everything else, will never be the same.