Ways To Improve Your Hiring Process 

Hiring the right staff has never been more important or more challenging than it is now. While the global health crisis is hopefully winding down, life isn’t going back to what it once was. Many employees are now used to working at home and like the lifestyle changes.  Some have even used the pandemic to rethink their priorities and reassess career choices.

According to the August 2021 North America Talent Attraction and Retention Survey, nearly three in four employers (73%) are currently having difficulty attracting employees, nearly triple the number (26%) who reported difficulty the year before, and up from 56% during the first half of that year. Roughly the same percentage of employers (70%) expect hiring challenges to continue in 2022.

Retaining employees has also been challenging. Six in 10 respondents (61%) are having a hard time keeping workers, and a similar percentage expect the problem to continue into next year. Last year, only 15% of employers reported having difficulty retaining employees.

In short, the “great resignation” has created a big problem for companies who need to build up staff, but there are steps you can take improve your hiring process and assemble the stellar team you want. It’s important to get this right. Recruitment and retention are perhaps the most important functions of your company’s human resources department, and some would say your company as a whole. Finding the right sales and management talent can lead your company to revenue and profit success, whereas the wrong people or team can lead to disaster and even ruin.

So, what can you do to insure you get it right?

• Review your hiring process.

As companies evolve with new technologies and product offerings, your recruiting and hiring process needs constant updating as well. Make sure your interview process is reviewed and fine-tuned constantly. Candidates will judge your company by how they have been treated during the recruitment and hiring process. What has the candidate experience been like? Are you evaluating what skills and experience future hires will need? Are you responding to potential employees in a timely and professional manner or are you ghosting them? Your brand reputation is on the line. Don’t tarnish it by executing a poor hiring process.

• Know what you’re looking for with a proper job description.

Bring clarity to the process with a well-defined and thought-out job description. Be clear about the role and responsibilities you, and everyone involved in the hiring process, are looking for. The job description should be based on key responsibilities and growth opportunities within the position and company, not just a shopping list of required experience. Have a good understanding of what are you really looking for, not just a wish list, and what you have to offer potential employees. Know exactly what the ideal skill sets and experience are that will be needed to excel in the position. Make sure you leave room for flexibility; the best candidate may not tick every box. Start with a clear idea of what the role needs to achieve before you start the interview process. This will save you time and money.

• Have a competitive total compensation package.

Be clear ahead of time about what you’re willing to offer in compensation and benefits. Besides salary, what else are you offering potential employees? The competition for talent is fierce so your expectations for salary and perks may need a reset. Employers indicated in the survey that higher wage expectations are affecting their ability to attract and retain employees in all positions. It is a candidate-driven market at the moment. Gone are the days when companies feel that candidates should be privileged to work for them. Don’t think of employees as a line-item expense. They are the KEY to your success or failure as a company and should be treated as such.

• Interview with standardized behavioral-based questions.

Job interviews are your first interaction with candidates, and they set the stage in many ways. When done properly, interviews provide an opportunity to get a good understanding of more than just past work experience and degrees, but goals and aspirations.

Have a standard set of behavioral-based interview questions that all candidates will be asked. This will give you a better understanding of what they have done and why, as well as ensuring that you are bringing equanimity to the process and enhancing the diversity of your company.

• Be prepared, don’t wing it.

CVs are important so spend some time really reading them, Go beyond looking at the title and number of years in a role. Are the skills transferable? Also, not just look the CV and do some research on the candidate before the interview when possible. It’s wise to use this in-person meeting to go beyond their background and what they have done but look ahead as to what they will do in the next 3 , 6 , 9 and 12 months, and beyond. Ask them what they can bring to your company, why and how.

• Choose the best person for the role, not the one you like.

When the interview is over, choosing the right candidate is crucial and perhaps the most difficult part of the process. A candidate who interviews poorly could be the one who would excel at the job, while others can interview great and still be completely wrong for the Position. Consider the applicants carefully and to avoid personal bias. Don’t hire people just because you like them, you can “relate” to them, or you have a “gut feeling” about them. You want to hire right for the role.

• Use a professional to help you get it done Correctly.

You go to a doctor or lawyer when needed, why not a recruitment professional?

Recruiters can find and attract the best people. They can talk to talent who are actively looking for a new role, as well as the passive candidates you can’t get to these are the ones who are not really looking, but are open for the right opportunity, and those who are working for your competition. A good recruiter can walk you through the pros and cons of each applicant objectively and facilitate valuable tools such as the Winslow Assessment system, a human behavior assessment tool used for employment and retention. Winslow is used at the beginning of the recruitment process to help you get the right person into the right role and to weed out potential low performers before they get hired. Thus, saving you time and money.

According to a survey of 572 HR leaders in July 2021 by Gartner, Inc., 91% of HR leaders are increasingly concerned about employee turnover in the coming months. Another Gartner survey of 1,609 candidates between May and June 2021 found that nearly half of today’s applicants are considering at least two job offers simultaneously. 

So, how can you implement new and innovative ways to attract and retain experienced and skilled employees, now and into the future?

There are plenty of ways to improve your hiring process. Contact JammGroup today to find out more about how to recruit and train the best staff for your company.

By Robert Williams

Robert Williams has 20 years’ experience as an Executive Recruiter in Asia. He is the owner of two Executive Search firms, is an accredited JammTrain coach, a faculty leader at JammRecruit, and a Winslow Consultant. He is based in Hong Kong.

People Moments

In May 2021, during an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Anthony Klotz, an Associate Professor of Management at Texas A&M University, predicted and coined the phenomenon of ‘The Great Resignation’ – a significant rise in voluntary resignations (in the United States). (Bloomberg)

Associate Professor Klotz in a further interview with NBC attributes the Great Resignation to the following: The pandemic has made many people realize their job does not contribute enough (or at all) to their pursuit for happiness and meaning, and they have decided to invest their energy elsewhere — in new jobs, new careers or in other aspects of their lives. (NBC News)

Roll forward nearly a year and now we are reading about “The Great Regret,” (The Guardian), which shares the following: “That theory has been given credence by another study released this week by the job search site The Muse. Its study of more than 2,500 workers found that almost three-quarters of them (72%) experienced either “surprise or regret” that the new position or new company they quit their job for turned out to be “very different” from what they were led to believe.”

The new job, if it was an existing position, may well have been vacated by a ‘disenchanted someone’. The Great Regret suggests swapping bad for same, or worse, has occurred for many that have taken the leap.

The English punk rock band The Clash said it perfectly in their 1982 album, Combat Rock, “Should I stay or Should I go Now?”

I am one of those that did go in 2021 and thankfully have no regrets. What my own resignation journey has taught me is to consider what I refer to as ‘People Moments’.

In the in the January–February 1999 issue of Harvard Business Review, Edward Howell wrote an article titled “The Human Moment at Work,” an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space. The human moment has two prerequisites: People’s physical presence and their emotional and intellectual attention. That’s it.

This article was written in 1999, in a pre-Covid work from the office, business as usual world, reflected by the references of people sharing the same physical space. This article indicates to me that the seeds of “The Great Resignation” were already in place, waiting for the right conditions to germinate.

For our current, evolving VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and uncertain) workplaces and world, I contend the concept of People Moments can add value to individuals, teams and organisations, and shore up resolve to stay creative, positive, and maintain sustainable high performance.

People Moments are simple – the beginning of the working week sees many workplaces holding a beginning of the week team/department meeting to discuss the previous week, and the week to come. Depending on your industry or corporate values, you may start the meeting with a ‘Safety Moment’ to instil and reinforce positive safety behaviours and choices.

Some organisations may have ‘Financial Moments’ whereby they instil and reinforce positive and responsible financial behaviour – think before printing, carpooling (social distancing rules apply now in some organisations) etc.

I suggest that we also start each (weekly) meeting with a ‘People Moment’? Let’s recognise the diversity (I refer to diversity as being the beautiful uniqueness) of our teams and the value that each person may bring to the table.

Let’s identify an act of kindness, creativity, innovation, accountability, inclusion to start the week and set the emotional and behavioural tone for ourselves, our teams, and our companies.

Done respectfully and meaningfully, People Moments allow for positive reflection and recognition of individual and team efforts leading to a much stronger sense of connectedness, community and enhanced collaboration. That must be a good thing, right?

Yes, let’s close performance gaps, and yes, let’s gain knowledge from lessons-learned, but please, take the time to focus on the positive and diverse contributions each of us make every day within our personal and professional lives.

Just a thought! 

Associate Professor Danny Simms

BEWARE TALKING TO STRANGERS

Malcolm Gladwell in his latest book “Talking to Strangers” argues people make terrible lie detectors. While some people are skilled at detecting fraud, most of us consistently overestimate our ability to understand strangers and are in incapable of spotting deception. Evidence suggests we are as accurate as a coin toss in predicting someone’s success in our organisation. There are over 150 human biases. Many of these come into play in the first seven seconds of meeting someone. A great first impression can often hide this misfit beneath.

Profiling tools, algorithms and artificial intelligence have become more accurate at predicting success and development needs, than human judgement. Choose your tools wisely this Valentines Day and fall in love for the right reasons.

Positively!

DON’T FALL IN LOVE

The ‘7/11 Rule’ suggests people make up to 11 different judgements about us within the first 7 seconds of meeting us . Because of 150 human biases, whether we are choosing a mate on Valentines Day, or choosing an employee to join our workplace, these first look judgements can often be wrong.

Humans make terrible lie detectors. For example, 90% of people cried at work last year and 15% last week. Fewer than one in three employees are engaged and the research tells us this has a big impact on productivity and profit.

Don’t be fooled this Valentines Day. Choose your tools carefully to help select who you will be courting for life or attracting talent into your workplace.

Positively!