Amidst the chaos of pandemic, the business world has been adapting to the new normal with demand and supply crisis and a large number of layoffs. However, most companies are now preparing for reopening their offices as the vaccine has been announced, the COVID-19 crisis has led to significant behavior and outlook transformation during this period.
Some of the behavior transformations have been positive and have made the employers adopt a more empathetic approach to their employees. Let us look into the positive behavioral changes that have emerged out of the crisis.
Redesigning Organization with Positive Behavior
After the traumatic experience due to COVID-19, organizations have thrived to deal with the ‘new normal’ and employee behavior changes with some positive behavior transformation.
Delegation and Decision making
As the channels were disrupted during the pandemic, some companies took the bold step of cutting down the hierarchy of decision making, which actually rewarded them in their smooth functioning. Instead of waiting for approvals, large teams were delegated work to ensure fast and effective decision making.
The delegation of authority not only unveiled the value of employees in the company but also enhanced the speed of execution. Clarified work and authority delegation for each position along with 3-4 levels of reporting levels ensures better functioning of the organization even in the crisis period.
Working out with Agility
Agility is a prime necessity to keep the organization running under these circumstances. The companies emerged with agility by building up smart teams and clear delegation of work. While smart teams helped the employees build up leadership skills and collaborating skills, the end-to-end responsibility of the work was handed out to them.
Moreover, using artificial intelligence in recruitment, virtual skill development programs, remodeling performance evaluation through real-time feedback enhanced the virtue of agility in the organizations.
Welcoming Cultural Diversity
Recently, cultural diversity has come into the limelight, and it was reported only 39% of companies all over the world were recruiting a culturally diverse workforce. During this crisis, the emerging importance of cultural diversity in the workplace led companies to rethink their recruitment strategies.
This cultural change within the organization is essential to accelerate the shift of mindsets so that everyone is evaluated on their performance and not based on their culture. A culturally diverse workforce cuts off communication costs as well as ensures more engagement in the organization.
Restructuring Health Policies
Employee behavior has drastically transformed during the pandemic. Most employees are interested in working with empathetic employers. Therefore, most companies have adopted a more empathetic approach towards employees now.
One of the measures of a compassionate approach is the company’s decision to restructure health policies providing allowances for illness. Every company is now focusing on employee’s health and wellbeing. Companies refraining from their role in safeguarding employees’ health may expect employee turnovers soon.
The Bottom Line
This pandemic can be concluded as a global event that has taken every industry by surprise and compulsion to adapt to the ‘new normal’. It has been almost a year; organizations have realized certain aspects must be redefined or upgraded to keep up with the time. Working in the crisis has forced companies to adopt some positive transformations that actually can become a breadwinner in the long run.
These positive behaviors embraced by the companies around the globe have led to a greater rate of employee job satisfaction. Moreover, the organization exhibits greater value and better success rate if they have emerged with these positive behaviors in the crisis.
“When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove that you are smarter than they are.” — R.H. Grant
Talent acquisition is the talk of the hour in the recruitment industry. Amidst several requirements, innovation and lateral thinking are something you invest in when you opt for quality hires. As a recruiter, it is essential to judge if the candidate you are interviewing has the potential to step up with his own ideas.
If you are hiring smart people, you are paying them for their innovation. But if your hire has the mindset of just following the superior’s orders, you have hired a wrong candidate. Smart people are not to be taught how to do their work. Instead, you can have their out-of-the box ideas to grow your business.
When investing in top tier talents, do not forget to tick the innovation checkbox if you want a sustainable solution for your organization.
How is innovation the key to success?
Innovation can evidently become a competitive advantage for your company in this cut-throat era. It is essential to ensure that your talent acquisition strategies understand the importance of innovation. Here is how innovation can help your organization to stand out in the crowded talent space.
Perspective: If you are allowing your employees to share their ideas, you can figure out how you can do the same thing in 1000 in other ways. Indeed, you can crack the nut that seemed hard enough earlier.
Area of improvement: Innovation moves your organization towards improvement. Knowing where and how to use innovation is essential if you are looking for sustainable growth.
Identify weakness: It is the innovation that can expose the weakness of any strategy and tell you how to make that strategy fool-proof. If your employees stick their necks to the desk and follow your orders only, no one will ever tell you about a minor error that can be a backfire later.
Competitive advantage: Innovation can actually take you two steps ahead of your competitor. Be it figuring out your competitor’s next move or independently designing a strategy to beat them; you cannot do it without innovative employees.
Why opt for innovative talents?
If you are paying your employees, it is not just for the paperwork they do. When hiring top talents, you count on their contribution to the growth of the company. That is only possible if they can think, unlike you, with adequate reasons.
High-performance is undoubtedly on the top priorities of quality hires. But if you need to tell them what to do every time, do you think you have invested in the right place? Innovation opens up a broad scope of opportunities for your company. Therefore, if you are using your authority to curb it, you are actually harming your organization.
Investing in innovative talents ensures that you have made a smart choice for your organization.
Is investment in innovation overhyped?
Never. If you have innovative minds working for you, you can expect breakthroughs are on the way. Moreover, you can just avoid the hassle of passing orders on how to do and what to do on a project. Moreover, if you value your employees’ ideas, you also get the result in retention rates.
How to bring out innovation?
An innovative mind can be overburdened and destroyed if the superiors always practice their authorization rights. Therefore, it is essential to educate your managers on how not to say a straight ‘no’ to every idea that counters their ideas.
When a new employee enters a company with innovative ideas, you must teach them how to pitch it and where to pitch it. Brainstorming sessions not only bind your employees as a team but also ensures the exchange of ideas to figure out the best solution.
One thing that you must ensure is that a failure of a new idea does not become a barrier to the employee’s participation in any discussion.
The Bottom Line
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” — Steve Jobs
The contribution of innovation is undeniable in any success. A sustainable business plan is actually based on innovation. Therefore, undermining innovation in your recruitment process can be a grave mistake that you should avoid.
Pragna is a competent recruitment solution for hiring the most innovative minds in the market. With us, you can definitely get access to quality hires. To know more about our services, please check our website.
Gone are the days when the recruitment process revolved around referrals and newspaper advertisements. With the growing accessibility of the internet, the recruitment industry witnessed a drastic change on how to attract best talent. It has become a convoluted and multi-step process to hire a qualified candidate for the right position. Talent acquisition and high volume recruiting are two aspects that are a paradox in the recruitment industry.
If a recruiter wants to attract top tier talents in the field, it is necessary to think more like a marketer and present opportunity in right manner. Through this article, you can explore some exclusive tips that will help you as a recruiter on how to attract best talent in the market.
Why Recruiters need Marketing skills today?
The market is full of potential talents, but why should they choose to work for your company? As everyone has a smartphone in their hands, they do have access to several job opportunities for them. What makes your company stand out?
Instead of just briefing your candidate about your company during the interview, create a brand that ensures credibility. This can only be done if your recruiter can think like a marketer. Recruitment marketing involves not just posting about jobs every now and then. It is about creating engagement to attract qualified candidates to your company.
Tips to Attract Top-Tier Talents
Now that you realize why your recruiter needs to think like a marketer on How to attract best talent, let’s explore the answer to HOW?
Creating Employee-Friendly Brand Image
In this competitive market, the top tier talents become the picker of their employer. Therefore, if you want to attract the best talent in a field, you must portray your company as a company that cares for its employees. Every company has a ‘core value’ section enlisting every noble value to attract talent. But if you ‘practice what you preach,’ you can have employee reviews on reputed platforms like Glassdoor or Google that will surely make your company stand out. A company with several employees vouching creates public goodwill attracting the most qualified candidates in the market.
Optimal Utilization of Social Media Platforms
Social media is a powerful tool that can help you in attracting high-volume talents. You must have noticed that a large number of recruiters are using LinkedIn to attract the target pool. Social media indeed serves as a key to successful recruitment. But will it be effective if you only post job ads? No, as a recruiter, you must use social media platforms to create the brand image, post stuff that engages your target pool, and maintain an up-to-date social media page for your company to attract talent pool.
If a recruiter has marketing skills, it can make it easier for your company to hire high-performing candidates who would already be interested in your company. Moreover, it won’t be difficult to find the talents who align themselves with your business goal. If a recruiter has excellent marketing skills, you have an edge in talent acquisition.
Clear and Visible Call-To-Action
Do not hide your ‘call-to-action’ when you are looking for quality hires. Whenever you are posting something on social media, ensure that your ‘call-to- action’ is clear and visible. You can use a different color font or backlinked icon to invite CVs or urge people to look into your website or company profile. The message should be clear to the viewers.
Engage Your Potential Targets
A person may not be looking for a job right now, but if you can engage him through your activities, there’s a high chance that he/she will think about approaching your company when they are open for a job. Moreover, if you are successful in engaging through your social media posting or email-marketing, you get a competitive advantage to attract as well as retain the best talents in the market.
Final Thoughts
The recruitment industry has changed over the years and has become an amalgamation of technology and marketing. Using the marketing strategy in recruitment has become vital as the competition is increasing day by day. Acquiring and practicing the right recruitment marketing skills does affect your hiring output.
At Pragna our talent acquisition specialists are fully trained to be marketers to attract right talent. They understand the importance of brand building and social media presence which is becoming important day to day to hire top talent. To know more about Pragna capabilities visit our website.
Since the time we came to know about our family and life responsibilities, our struggle starts for a stable life. Your every step means moving towards the financial stability of yours. Somehow, if it gets hampered, it means you a lot because it hinders your job and the entire family. Uncertainty in work is a very crucial stage for an employee. The office is the place where an employee spends almost 12 hours a day. So, how an employee can digest the condition of uncertainty in his career?
What is uncertainty? Let’s consider the current situation of COVID-19. It is the most uncertain condition from the era, where nothing has left unaffected—the schools, the offices, the workers, etc. The employees are losing their jobs in vast numbers. Everyone is a bit insecure about their stability in the work. So, as a manager, what will you do if your team feels discouraged due to this uncertain time. As a leader, it is your significant responsibility to keep your recruiting team engaged amidst uncertainty. I am presenting a few techniques using which you can make your team encouraged.
First, Take Care Of Self
I will consider “taking care of yourself” as an essential point before you start to finish with your employees. If you are not fit, you are stressed, you are not confident and relaxed, then how will make your team feel full of energy. It would be best if you stood with a positive attitude, and then only you will able to involve your team at work. Don’t show them that you are stressed. Get each one involved in the book. Ask yourself, “How can you support someone in this unstable time?” “what do you want to be to deal with such a condition?” If you get the answers to these questions, you are ready to go to your employees.
Give Them Your Compassion
You are the leader. But, you reached the position of stepping being an employee. So you are very well known about the feeling that if your leader doesn’t listen to you, how it affects your work. So, it is essential to listen to the team one on one, know about their issues, and try to make them comfortable. Keeping your doors open and regular check-ins are the most promising way to show you are ready to cope with their issues. They can get relax by involving you in their shoes.
Communicate Like You Never Been Before
You are the boss, so don’t go with the thought of being the boss. Pin drop silence kills the communication, and it is not always beneficial. Ask your team for the updates, even if you are not new to it. This small action comes as in, the employees are still the priority for you, even in the crises. Even though you have learned Business Continuity and Crises Management rules, it does not teach how to deal with it. Problems don’t come up with the shape and menu card. It could sometimes be worst than your imagination. So, your sense of action defines you, how you treat the employees.
Share Your Calculated Decisions
This tiny thing can get your team into confidence. Don’t be afraid of sharing your calculation chore before your employee approaches you for the permission. Making decisions for paid leaves, adjusting working hours to taking care of the family, and remote work schedule emphasizes your employees’ significant impact. Sharing these details before your team contacts, make them feel comfortable and involved in bookworm.
Being a senior, it is not always essential to be a leader. No one has a book that can teach the art of dealing with the crises. It is you and your way of thinking that makes you the boss. If you have the powers, it is equally important how you utilize them, making your boss.
Just like every other sectors, the recruitment industry is amidst uncertainty. Pragna solution can be your key to hassle-free recruitment. We are a team of competent consultants and HRs who target and get you quality hires even in this COVID 19 situation. For any assistance for recruitment solutions, Pragna solution can offer you the best recruitment services. To know more about our services, check out our website.
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs has been a great leader not only for Apple but also for every aspiring entrepreneur. When we talk about leaders, we always portray a strong and confident person who gives us hope to rise every time we stoop down or stumble over an obstacle. Remember how the most exemplary guy in your school was chosen as the head boy? Well, nothing has changed in the larger picture. Every organization decides its leaders carefully to ensure the growth of the organization. You can become the leader as well if you adopt some of the leadership attributes needed during challenging times.
In this era of the pandemic, the economy is sliding down every passing day. You must be amazed at how a leader can effectively change the scenario. Here are some leadership lessons for hard times that you must learn.
Motivation is key to productivity
A leader should have personal attributes like self-confidence, communication, ability to make decisions, etc. A ‘successful’ leader is the one who has the potential to motivate each member of his team. You may be surprised how just a compliment from the leader can boost the productivity of the employee. Therefore, a leader motivating employee in tough economic times becomes the need of the moment. If you want to emerge as a leader, never fail to boost your employees’ morale.
Lateral thinking can be the game-changer
Lateral thinking is a key attribute that every leader must possess. It is all about thinking out of the box. Every subject or situation has a conventional approach; a lateral thinking leader is the one who can break through this traditional course of thinking and bring out a creative approach of looking at the issue and solving it. For instance, Gillette has utilized an innovative way of marketing. They follow a strategy of making their products obsolete to replace it with their own new products. In this way, they successfully cut down their competitors. Lateral thinking is the creative and innovative way to investigate the mundane issues to bring out a new approach to resolve them. This leadership skill is crucial for facing the challenges and turning them into strengths. Just like ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade’.
Establish bond of trust
Trust building is an essential leadership skill that can become the key to the unexpected growth of an organization. You may have always seen that every great leader was surrounded by people who trusted him. Yes, this attribute can be beneficial in both ways. If you can establish a bond of trust between you and your employees, you will surely notice how it affects you as well as their productivity. Especially during this time of self-isolation, every employee needs to deal with stress due to remote work. If you want to emerge as a leader now, you must establish a trust bond to influence their productivity instead of just dumping your burden on them. Trust building activities not only enhance employees’ confidence but also their loyalty to the organization.
Empathy can reap sweeter fruit
Jack Welch once said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Leadership is not about growing individually but growing as a team or organization. You may not be born with leadership skills, but you can acquire them with perseverance. Creative thinking, open communication, or bonding – each of this leadership skill can lead you to the best version of yourself as a leader. As a leader, you are bound to confront new challenges, but your skills can mold you to become the most outstanding leader.
Compassion is an attribute that every leader must possess to combat the challenges of tough times. A successful leader always listens to his employees to gain a better understanding. You must learn to be empathetic if you want to ace leadership skills during these tough times.
There will be situations when you can blame your employee or publicly criticize them. A successful leader will not take those steps; instead, talk to the employee personally. Just the empathetic approach towards your employee can boost their morale and turn them into an asset for the organization.
Strategize with a clear vision
Having a clear far-sighted vision is a significant leadership attribute during challenging times. As a leader, you may have to face several challenges due to the falling economy. It is your turn to take up the responsibilities and strategize with a clear vision. A leader’s clear vision can help to develop objectives for every level of the organization. Formulating strategies to combat the upcoming challenges requires far-sighted vision. In fact, a successful leader knows how to balance short term and long-term goals.
Open communication
When talking about leadership attributes, you cannot miss out on open communication on the list. According to statistics, 57% of employees fail to perform to their full potential due to the lack of open and clear communication with their leaders. Therefore, a successful leader must have effective communication skills to convey every vital information to his employees. Brainstorming sessions can be an effective way for leaders to practice with their team to bring out innovative solutions.
Lead with excellence
Leaders become examples for the employees. If you are always late, you cannot expect your employees to be punctual. The “walk the talk” philosophy is still something every successful leader has followed in his life. A successful leader never fails to inspire his teammates. In fact, a good leader always pushes his teammates for growth. Leadership does not mean exploiting power. In contrast, leadership is all about taking up responsibilities, following your own rules, and creating a benchmark of excellence to inspire others. So, if you want to become a successful leader, do not just command but lead by example.
Do you possess any of the leadership skills? Let us know how you have evolved as a leader in your life in the comments below.
In the fast-moving world of recruiting, the main objective while searching for a new employee is to hire the best talent available in market for a given position as quickly and efficiently as possible while also reducing the hiring costs. Technology is helping the whole world in all aspects and it has come a long way in streamlining the overall recruitment process and also improving the candidate experience.
Automation helps to reduce unconscious bias, it gives job seekers the flexibility to self-schedule interviews, which makes communication between recruiters and the candidates much easier than ever. While all this sounds good to hear, it is a difficult task in reality. With progress also comes the challenge. There are recruitment pitfalls which can knock down all your recruiting efforts off course if you’re not careful.
Here are the top recruiting pitfalls to avoid for a better candidate experience
Improvised Automation
Automation has so many good things to talk about. But complete automation removes the human element completely from the recruitment process. Job search has an emotional side that recruiters should keep in mind. Automation should act as an aid your recruitment process not to completely replace it.
Automation should be used to handle all the behind-the-scenes functions like to do job postings, maintain candidate’s data etc. Don’t miss out on the actual human touch-points while communicating with candidates. Just getting automated feedback from your side will make candidates less engaged and finally loose interest in your position.
Falling Prey to Bias
Humans tend to like people who are similar to them in any way this happens while interviewing also but just because you liked a candidate for who they are doesn’t mean they are fit for the job role. Recruitment is about hiring someone who can bring in fresh ideas and new perspectives rather than someone whom you’ve considered in your head as right. With bias recruitment, diversity in the hiring process fades away slowly, crashing all efforts to build a balanced and multi-talented team.
With advancement of AI recruitment tools human biases against older workers, minorities or religious groups is reduced to some extent. But AI works on perceiving patterns of past behaviors, which might result in few hidden biases in your organization’s hiring that an AI solution will inevitably pick up.
Rushing the Recruiting Process
The ease of applying for jobs online helps recruiters to build a large pool of candidates. But this also makes it difficult to sort right candidates from so many applicants. If there are lot of resumes to look at, it’s tantalizing to toss each one aside at the first bad line. Obviously, you want the hiring process to be smooth and really quick in order to fill open positions fast, but not at the cost of excessively expensive or a bad hire. An in efficacious process results in multiple mistakes and ultimately, a wrong hire. Take time to understand and analyze each applicant before you decide he or she isn’t the right fit for the job.
Complicated HR technology platforms
There are enough human resource software solutions available that you can use to manage your recruiting efforts, to name a few: Workday, Epicor HCM, Oracle HCM Cloud, Dayforce, SAP Success Factors etc. But not all systems can do everything you need or want it to do. Many solutions have feature gaps that require to be augmented by additional point solutions for example CRM to interview scheduling to improve the candidate experience. It’s highly recommended to do gap analysis before integrating it to the rest of that platform to be make sure your team has the right tools to succeed.
The main goal in recruitment is to give all candidates a great experience while also ensuring the best candidates keep moving along the interview process and get hired. Technology certainly helps with the overall process. But relying on it too heavily, or without the right amount of thought and consideration will lead to certain pitfalls. If you avoid these pitfalls, you’ll be reaping all the benefits of the digital age hiring great talents and offering amazing candidate experience.
