The Benefits of Skill-Building in Employee Training

In today’s rapidly evolving industries, staying competitive means more than just finding the right talent to fill your open job positions. This constant challenge demands continuous reinvestment in your employees’ skills.

As remote work, AI, automation, and other emergent tech paradigms continue to transform our offices and workflows. Certain “old school” skills may even be reaching the end of their shelf life, opening the door for focused and effective skill-based training, an essential priority for many companies that can immediately increase productivity, innovation, and employee satisfaction.

Focusing on skill-building initiatives not only leads to sharper skills and better outcomes but also helps your team feel a sense of ownership in your company. An employee, for example, may feel a greater sense of loyalty to a company that has recently sent them to an engaging workshop, helped them pay for a certificate program, or responded proactively to a request for additional training.

Skill-Building Matters, Here’s Why

Designing timely and necessary skill-building initiatives can drive the vehicle moving your company forward. Benefits include:

  1. Organizational agility. Companies that prioritize skill-building are naturally better equipped to deal with industry shifts, technological advancements, and even day-to-day staffing challenges. A highly skilled and confident worker can adapt to new workflows or jump in to help other departments more efficiently.
  1. Engaged employees. As your team members build more skills, they can take on additional responsibilities or compete for promotions. This increases their value to your operation while also making them feel like a bigger part of the company, allowing them to see their own growth while also creating company-wide growth.
  1. Skills create space for innovation. A team with a diverse and well-honed skill set is a team that can identify and quickly master new and better ways of doing things. When everyone is well-equipped to contribute, it fosters an environment where fresh new ideas and creative problem-solving naturally follow.
  1. Identify and cultivate future leadership. In addition to addressing immediate skill gaps or performance issues, skill-building activities can also help you identify high-potential employees. When you send your employees to training, pay attention to both their results and the attitude with which they approach the opportunity.
  1. Benefits for your employees. Focusing on skill-building isn’t just great for your organization but also a win-win prospect that creates value and opportunity for your employees as well. For your employees, skill-building is also confidence-building.

Identifying Skill Gaps & Building Effective Training Programs

The natural first step in building skills is to identify your team’s needs. There are a few different models and philosophies when it comes to conducting a comprehensive skills gap analysis, but there are a few concepts you’ll want to keep in mind no matter how you approach the project:

  • Use direct employee feedback to learn what skills your team members currently possess and what skills they need training on. Surveys and one-on-one interviews work well.
  • Make sure to leverage your existing performance tracking protocols to help you understand gaps in your employee skill sets. If you have robust data about employee productivity, now is the time to use it.
  • Look into using a “Skill Will Matrix.” This is a popular tool for corporate skill-building projects that allows you to sort employees by two major categories–skill level and willingness to learn–which can help you design and deploy your training regimen in the most effective way possible.

Once you know what skills need to be taught, you will need to build an effective training program that addresses those exact skills. In some cases, it may be more cost-effective to hire a third-party consulting firm experienced in the type of training you require, so be sure to explore every option.

Everyone learns differently, and because every industry is unique, training programs can look quite different from one company to the next and even from department to department within the same organization. Blended approaches that mix e-learning modules with one-on-one attention are popular currently but keep in mind that some skills can require significant hands-on practice and repetition to master, while others might be easily taught through an online video.

HireScore – Your Trusted Partner for Smart Skills Analysis

If you’re ready to future-proof your team, the HireScore SkillBuilder Gap Analysis tool is a great place to start. Click here to learn more about how our cutting-edge solutions can help de-stress the process of building the perfect staff.

By |2024-08-28T11:46:31-04:00September 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

How Recruiters Can Help Ease Onboarding for New Hires

Employee onboarding is the start of a new hire’s journey in the company, helping them understand their new role and feel more comfortable with their co-workers. When recruiting new employees, the job doesn’t have to end once they’ve been hired. As a recruiter, you can play a significant role in helping acclimate new employees, as well as increasing the chances of long-term productivity and job satisfaction.

What’s Important About Employee Onboarding?

Employee onboarding is essential to promote cohesion and productivity in the workplace, and it can also help with employee retention. When new hires feel welcome in a new job, they are more likely to remain long-term and are better equipped to be as productive as possible.

Creating and following a proper procedure for onboarding prepares employees for success and helps your new hires feel engaged and excited about their new job.

Tips for the Onboarding Process

The onboarding process should start from the moment of a successful hire and continue throughout a new employee’s first few weeks. Some tips for onboarding as a recruiter include:

  1. Early Information: Get in contact with a new hire early, not just their first day. Help them understand what they can expect from a first day, their team and role, and basic information like dress codes or break routines. This can help ease anxiety for new employees.
  2. Frequent Communication: Be sure to check-in with new hires during the onboarding process and weeks after they settle in. As a recruiter, it is important that you help ease them into the new routine.
  3. Connections With Co-Workers: Connect a new hire with other new hires, co-workers, managers, and others on their team. This helps with integration and can prevent awkwardness.
  4. Listen to Feedback: The onboarding process may not be perfect initially. Ask employees what worked and what didn’t in their onboarding experience, and determine what needs to be adjusted.

Mistakes to Avoid in the Onboarding Process

Onboarding processes will differ between businesses, industries, and different employees. However, there are some errors that can make the onboarding process more stressful and frustrating for any new hire. Avoid these mistakes:

  1. Unclear Expectations: If the onboarding process does not outline expectations in the workplace, it can lead to issues in workflow and make new hires uncertain. This can also hinder the growth and abilities of a new employee.
  2. Lack of Human Connection: An onboarding process that leans solely on automated and AI tools can feel impersonal and unwelcoming. While these tools have their uses and can add supplemental value to the onboarding experience, it is crucial that you focus on connecting new hires to co-workers, managers, and others in the company.
  3. Informal Onboarding: There should be a clear and structured onboarding process followed for new hires. Without formal onboarding, new employees can feel overwhelmed and confused.
  4. Improper Training: Even experienced employees may not know how your company manages specific processes and programs. Insufficient training can make it much harder for a new hire to grow to their full potential.
  5. Insufficient Resources: If a new hire does not have the right resources to complete their work, they can feel unsupported. This can limit their initial enjoyment of a new job and increase uncertainty.

You’ll want a new hire’s initial experience with your workplace and team to be enjoyable and engaging. By determining the proper steps to take in your line of work, you can create a successful onboarding process. Although it may take time, you can create an efficient system that promotes productivity.

When you need insights into the current hiring market and methods, the HireScore blog can help you. Bookmark and subscribe to the blog so you’re always on top of the changes in hiring markets.

By |2024-07-26T12:11:25-04:00August 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

AI and the Employee Experience

 Today, much of the discourse surrounding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in a business capacity focuses on AI’s transformative abilities in the realm of customer interactions. With the rise of large language models (LLMs, think ChatGPT) frontline customer service for many operations can be handled by an automated bot. Equally significant, however, is AI’s potential to impact a company’s employee experience, or EX.

While hiring and recruiting professionals can no more predict the future than anyone else, they should at least make an effort to cut through the media hype and understand the true scope of AI’s current abilities so that they can leverage these emergent tools as effectively as possible.

Addressing Employee Anxieties

The current AI buzz is an exciting prospect for business owners and entrepreneurs in many different lines of business. Workers in many industries, however, may have mixed feelings about some of the same technological advancements you’re excited about. Increased automation can be perceived as a threat to livelihoods, after all.

You can help ease your staff’s concerns by implementing a robust, company-wide AI policy. This document can address the ways in which your company will use AI, and the scope of that use, so that employees know exactly where things stand. As technology advances, you will likely need to update your AI policy, but it’s important to have it official and in writing.

It could be difficult to determine what exactly this policy will say and to what extent it is okay to use AI. These choices will vary from person to person and will depend on your industry, your business model, how much you want to invest in AI tools, and the ways in which AI can best support your staff.

AI at Work: Enhancing Efficiency and Automating Personalization

The integration of AI in the workplace today goes beyond the obvious application of automating mundane tasks (although that ability remains a primary selling point). AI-powered chatbots, for instance, can resolve common employee queries, just as they can do for customers, providing a more user-friendly front end for employee resources and documentation. These technologies can also be customized and personalized for each employee, effectively giving each member of your team their own digital assistant.

In fact, personalization is a critical component of building a positive employee experience. Advanced AI technologies can analyze individual preferences, needs, schedules, and at-work activities, then use this data intelligently in a variety of ways, such as by serving users appropriate training modules based on their job duties, or helping managers put together more effective schedules.

AI Creates More Efficient Employees

Increasing employee efficiency is, of course, another main benefit of integrating AI into your day-to-day business operations. Rather than taking jobs away from human workers, AI can be leveraged to take care of the simpler, more redundant parts of their workflows, freeing up your team to do what humans do best: creative problem-solving and important, detail-oriented tasks.

Never think of AI as a potential replacement for people. Instead, think of it as another tool that can increase your employees’ productivity and multiply their value to your operation, like a forklift or a laptop.

It’s worth noting that work-from-home and hybrid work models have also become a permanent reality in many modern workplaces. To respond to this new trend effectively, companies must ensure their employees’ experiences are consistent and seamless, regardless of their physical location. AI technologies are highly portable, often running through a cloud-based service, which makes them well-suited to help build this sense of consistency.

For more great insights into the ever-evolving intersection between tech and hiring, be sure to bookmark the Stang HireScore blog and check back often.

By |2024-05-28T12:38:12-04:00June 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Understanding Generational Employment Trends & Leveraging Age Diversity for Staffing Success

Diversity is a key concept for many hiring managers and organizations today, but one particular type of diversity continues to go underappreciated in certain industries and markets. Age diversity–which is to say, building a staff from people of different generations–offers a range of key benefits. It’s important to understand generational strengths, values, and trends. While it’s easy to assume everyone at work is either a millennial or a boomer, the reality is that there are currently at least four generations active in the workforce to varying degrees.

Each generation has its own unique characteristics. Understanding these characteristics and how to use them effectively to meet your own unique staffing needs can still be valuable.

Let’s zoom in on the four generations that account for most of the job applicants today:

  • Baby Boomers – Folks born in the post-war “baby boom” of the 40s, 50s, and 60s continue to hold a significant percentage of jobs and will continue to do so as retirement ages creep upwards for some industries. 
    • Work Ethic – Having been raised by a generation who had no choice but to respond to serious hardships like economic depression and global war, baby boomers tend to value hard work and a sense of duty.
    • Loyalty – Many older employees remember entering the workforce in an era where a person expected to stay at the same job for decades, sometimes even their entire adult life. Incidentally, they may have highly specialized skill sets from holding long-term roles of this sort.
  • Generation X – While media tropes might paint Gen X as a sort of “forgotten generation,” you can’t afford to forget these valuable employees in your hiring strategies. These 70s and 80s kids are self-sufficient problem solvers who can bridge gaps between technological and practical concepts.
    • Career-Minded – As Generation X workers age, they’ll place more value on a stable career with clear paths to promotions and ample professional development opportunities.
    • Independent Work Style – Gen-X workers tend to be efficient, adaptable, and well-suited to roles that require working independently.
  • Millennials – For millennials, the employment landscape has been a raging sea of change and challenge for their entire working lives, so there’s very little that can phase them. Many have unique experiences from gig work or various side hustles that they can bring to the table.
    • Tech Savvy – Millennials represent the pinnacle of tech skills because they grew up in a time when the internet and mobile phone technology were fast becoming ubiquitous. However, there were still plentiful tech hiccups that required a person to learn technology beyond a surface level to use it effectively.
    • Work-Life Balance – Unlike previous generations, who may be more content with proudly defining their lives through their work, millennials demand clear boundaries between their work and their personal lives.
  • Generation Z – People born after 1997 make up an increasing share of the workforce each year, so it’s time to start considering them in your recruiting and hiring strategies. They value personal connections, diverse workplaces, and socially responsible organizations.
    • Inclusive Workplace Culture – Today’s young adults have grown up in a more diverse and connected world than ever before, and they naturally expect their workplaces to reflect this reality.
    • Flexibility – You may find that your “Zoomer” employees appreciate options like remote work, videoconferencing, and flexible scheduling just as much as–or even more than–your millennial staff members.

By understanding some of the unique values and work styles that have come to define each generation, forward-thinking companies can foster inclusive environments that maximize each individual employee’s skills and background. Generational diversity can strengthen collaboration and spark innovation, driving organizational success in today’s ever-shifting business world.

For more great insights into modern hiring and the tech that fuels it, bookmark the Stang HireScore blog.

By |2024-04-30T12:49:46-04:00May 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Elevating Workplace Mental Health Benefits: 4 Key Strategies for 2024

Mental health benefits have become indispensable tools for many organizations in response to today’s dynamic and fast-moving workplaces. Mental health benefits–unheard of in many industries a mere decade ago–have now become a key facet of employer branding for companies who want to foster a supportive culture in which their people can thrive and excel.

For business leaders and recruiting experts who must navigate this ever-evolving landscape of employee well-being, it will be important to focus on strategies that are cost-effective and that resonate with the actual needs of your workforce. This can be a delicate balancing act. You want to stay ahead of the proverbial curve, yet you don’t want to waste resources on new, unproven ideas.

In an effort to help you make the most of these critical choices, here are four key concepts we believe will shape and define workplace mental health benefits in 2024:

  1. Prioritize Mental Health in Traditional Benefits Packages

    One simple and direct way to boost your employees’ mental health is to simply make sure that the medical insurance you’re offering them includes ample coverage for a range of mental, psychological, and behavioral health services: counseling, therapy, stress management programs, smoking cessation, and addiction resources, etc.

    In 2024, mental health benefits should no longer be an afterthought or a special add-on perk that your employees can (and will) opt out of. Think of mental health as a specialized yet no-less critical component of a truly comprehensive health benefits package, no different from dental or vision care.

    As more companies offer these benefits, employees and their families will increasingly appreciate (and expect) them, so this is one area where staying ahead of the curve and positioning your organization as a mental health benefits leader in your industry may be beneficial.

  2. Maximize Healthcare Savings and Overall Effectiveness of Benefits Spending

    With healthcare costs on the rise, employers are seeking innovative ways to maximize the cost-effectiveness of their healthcare benefits spending. For the most successful organizations, data-driven approaches are used to optimize healthcare spending, focusing on clinical outcomes and tangible results to define a good return on investment. Mental health benefits are increasingly seen as having a significant role to play in these equations.

    How does this work? Essentially, by using mental health as a form of preventative medicine. By addressing employee mental health needs proactively and efficiently, organizations can actually mitigate long-term healthcare costs. Consider a worker who is masking severe clinical depression during the workday. With their mental health condition left untreated, they may fail to care for themselves adequately, leading to any number of other serious (and significantly more expensive) health issues.

    Addressing employee mental health results in increased stability for your healthcare spending and employee well-being alike.

  3. Address Social Determinants of Health

    For thought leaders in this area of data-driven health solutions, one guiding principle seems to be addressing key underlying factors at the intersection of social and health issues, called social determinants of health (SDOH). Forward-thinking organizations can do the same when putting together benefits packages.

    SDOH largely refers to basic human needs, such as food, access to housing, and financial stability, which significantly impact an employee’s mental well-being and productivity–not to mention their physical health. For example, even a superstar employee isn’t going to perform well if they’ve spent the last month hopping from couch to couch, unable to find a new apartment within their budget.

    Improving benefits through the lens of SDOH doesn’t have to be complicated. Simply increasing compensation is the simplest and most direct way to improve your workers’ SDOH factors in many cases. However, setting aside some of your budget to go towards robust mental health benefits can also be a very cost-effective way to address SDOH in a more comprehensive way.

  4. Cultivate a Culture of Mental Health Awareness and Support

    Benefit offerings can be used as one key part of a larger paradigm shift when it comes to fostering a comprehensive, organization-wide culture of mental health awareness and support. This starts on an individual level, normalizing conversations about mental well-being and being mindful of your coworkers’ mental health, as well as your own.

    As a bridge between traditional healthcare benefits and these informal, personal changes, you can implement a layer of employee assistance programs, wellness initiatives, and training sessions focused on boosting your team’s overall well-being at work. There are a lot of great, cost-effective programs in this area, so you can find something that fits your team and your industry with a bit of online research.

    If you worry that you don’t have the resources for these types of initiatives, they don’t have to be elaborate. Sometimes a simple gesture like additional PTO days that can be used on short notice can do a lot to boost both your employees’ well-being and your brand as an employer.

For more cutting-edge insights into hiring and recruiting topics, be sure to bookmark our HireScore blog.

By |2024-03-26T16:13:08-04:00April 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

What Hiring Managers Can Learn from the 2024 U.S. Chamber of Commerce State of American Business Report

As some industries finally feel the dust of the pandemic beginning to settle, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (a private, non-profit organization dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship) has published its 2024 “State of American Business” data. Ample expert analysis of the data from commercial and economic perspectives followed its early January release, but is there anything there for hiring managers to learn from?

In general, the Chamber’s State of American Business 2024 report encapsulates the resilience of the American economy in the face of the most serious viral pandemic in a century and attributes much of the post-pandemic recovery to the strength and adaptability of the private sector. Those of us in the field of hiring and recruiting, of course, know that the strength and adaptability of our organizations are only equal to the strength and adaptability of our staff.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chief Economist, Curtis Dubay, used the report as a chance to emphasize the remarkable growth experienced in some areas despite widespread economic concerns. He attributed this growth to the responsiveness of businesses and, specifically, their willingness to focus on hiring and wages to address critical staffing needs. The lesson for organizations? Investing in hiring systems and improved compensation packages is a way to remain resilient and fully operational when your industry is experiencing workforce inconsistencies.

Despite this story of growth and resilience, the report also highlights many challenges that those of us involved in hiring and recruiting need to be aware of:

  1. Worker Shortages – While staffing levels are getting back to some sort of equilibrium in certain industries, and other organizations are learning to adapt effectively with leaner staffing models, the simple fact is that active workforce participation remains shy of pre-pandemic norms. In fact, the Worker Shortage Index remains near an all-time low, with only about 7 workers available for every 10 job openings. This underscores a significant (and, lately, persistent) gap between need and demand.
  2. Consumer Spending – Despite concerns about inflation rates, consumer spending continues to outpace it. While this seems to indicate robust economic activity overall, it doesn’t tell the full story, with inflation straining budgets across the board and driving discretionary spending down sharply among some demographics.
  3. Supply Chain – While supply chain issues are nowhere near as dire as they were during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, serious challenges and shortages do persist in many sectors. These issues highlight the need for synchronicity across departments in your organization. In other words, the perfect staffing model won’t help if you don’t have the products and materials in place for work to commence.
  4. Entrepreneurship – The 2024 report also reveals a surge in new business applications and indicators of an increased spirit of entrepreneurship. While this can lead to an exciting time of fast growth in many industries, it can also exacerbate staffing challenges for those engaged in traditional hiring. Organizations may need to respond with flexible scheduling, ample time off, or hybrid work options that allow staff members the flexibility to continue pursuing their various passions and “side hustles.”
  5. Early Retirement – One effect of the pandemic that is sometimes left unexamined when analyzing workforce woes is the sharp uptick in early retirements. This trend continues, sapping the workforce of many highly experienced candidates. As hiring professionals, we know that building a multi-generational staff is a great way to access a diverse range of skill sets. Special accommodations may be needed to entice would-be retirees to apply for open positions.

Learn More From Stang Decision Systems

For more insights into the fast-paced world of hiring, be sure to bookmark and subscribe to our HireScore blog and check back regularly for updates.

By |2024-02-29T16:37:38-05:00March 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

New Year’s Resolutions for Recruiters

As we bid a fond farewell to 2023, many operations, recruiters, hiring managers, and entrepreneurs are looking back on what they learned –both personally and organizationally–and trying to position their teams for a year of new successes.

Embracing big shifts in workplace norms and staying ahead of the curve (and above the hype) when it comes to new tech has become essential in the field of recruiting. Here are four bold New Year’s resolutions to help get you there.

  1. Invest in Continuing Education

    When it comes to investing in your staff’s skills, use exit interview data from employees who are moving on, as well as feedback from current employees and customers, to identify key areas where additional training is desired.

    Make sure the financial decision-makers in your organization ensure sufficient resources to give employees at all levels, in all phases of your operation, continuing education opportunities. If you need an argument in favor of more CE funds, note that investing in your employees’ professional careers is a cost-effective way to boost your employer brand, as it starts paying for itself immediately in increased employee competency.

    When it comes to investing in your own CE, there are plenty of great courses and seminars for recruiters happening online and in person. Even online events can be a great platform to network with other industry professionals in addition to learning some new skills and methods.

  2. Proactively Build Your Employer Brand

    We’ve talked about this before, but your employer brand is crucial to your operation’s overall success.

    Compensation, office amenities, benefits packages, remote and hybrid options, overall workplace culture, and the language in your job postings all contribute to your brand as an employer and matter when you’re trying to compete for great candidates.
    Remember, improving your employer brand and your customer brand are two very different concepts. While the latter is a matter of marketing and customer service, your employer brand starts and ends by fostering positive experiences in the workplace and making sure your team feels invested in the greater project of your business.

  3. Make 2024 the Year of Mental Health

    The concept of mental health in the workplace is having a real moment, with many articles written on the subject and many companies adding mental health-specific benefits to their employee compensation packages. The focus on this aspect of the work-life equation can be seen almost as a natural counterpoint to the anxieties currently plaguing many workers about new technologies like AI.

    Depending on the nature of your business and the resources at your disposal, beefing up your own operation’s mental health might include things like more comfortable workplace furniture and amenities, flexible scheduling, access to online counseling services, or medical insurance benefits that include comprehensive coverage for mental health treatment. In 2024, however, it might also include something as simple as adopting a company-wide policy on AI use that emphasizes the value you place on your human staff.

  4. Harness the Power of a Multi-Generational Staff

    Gen Z makes up more of the global workforce every day, so it’s time to start understanding and embracing the power of a multi-generational workforce. This year, take the time to understand Gen Z values, effectively apply the unique experience of older employees, and examine your own internal biases about folks of your own age group, good and bad.

    The next big, industry-shaking technology is always on the horizon, and it appears that the so-called “AI revolution” we find ourselves at the dawn of 2024 might be one such occurrence on a generational level. Familiarity and comfort with different types of emergent technology is another great reason to get some talented young folks on board as soon as possible.

Be mindful of these resolutions, and you’ll be ready to tackle the challenges and embrace the opportunities that 2024 has in store.

By |2024-02-01T14:21:30-05:00February 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Prioritizing Worker Well-Being in an Era of Organizational Change

Over the last several years, businesses have been forced to reassess their approach to many aspects of their operations in light of shifting post-pandemic paradigms. One of these key concepts, which lies at the heart of hot-button issues like work-from-home models, is employee well-being.

It may realistically be years before best practices in this area are fully determined, but the message is already becoming quite clear: worker well-being is not a fleeting trend to be entertained; it’s absolutely imperative for organizations who want to foster a thriving, modern workplace.

Employee Mental Health: Shifting Attitudes

It wasn’t so long ago that discussing mental health was considered taboo in the workplace. Currently, today’s professionals are beginning to understand the toxic and counterintuitive nature of this paradigm. Worker engagement reached an all-time high last year, but so did employee stress levels.

In fact, 44% of workers worldwide reported experiencing “significant” stress, emphasizing the critical need for organizations, their management, and their HR professionals to prioritize the well-being of their employees. It comes as no surprise that organizational psychologists trace these stress levels back to the Covid-19 pandemic and the uncertain employment landscape left in its wake. These seismic reverberations are still being felt throughout the workforce, making it crucial for employers to rebuild trust, alleviate uncertainty, and make significant, material investments in employee well-being.

Throughout the last several decades, the responsibility for employee well-being, including in the area of mental health, has rested on employees utilizing their company-provided health benefits—and doing so on their own time, outside of work. Some psychologists and business professionals now believe a paradigm shift has occurred, with employees refusing to recognize this arbitrary boundary between their personal mental health and their work lives.

The solution to issues of worker well-being is for employers to alleviate (or at least stop exacerbating) workplace mental health challenges, but with many of us involved in competitive, fast-moving industries, this is much easier said than done.

Empowering Employees and Healing Relationships Through Workplace Well-Being Initiatives

As more organizations and managers acknowledge the profound importance of the connections between workplace conditions, corporate culture, employee well-being, and overall outcomes, employees and job-seekers find themselves imbued with the power to limit their job prospects to companies that demonstrate real concern for their employees’ mental health. While this power shift can create a temporary staffing challenge for companies that are currently behind the curve in this area, it ultimately leads to better and healthier workplaces for everyone.

The solution, simply put, is to do better for your employees. Instead of focusing resources on reaching more candidates despite known workplace issues, first implement programs that resolve those issues in a direct, material way:

  • Benefits packages that include robust mental health coverage
  • Put psychology to work by considering recruiting professionals with a psychology, wellness, or mental health background for key leadership and steering positions.
  • PTO packages and leave policies that account for “mental health days”
  • Frontline mental health and de-stressing resources available at the workplace
  • Appropriate staffing policies that don’t leave your employees stretched too thin
  • Workplace layouts and furnishings that foster a comfortable atmosphere
  • Severance or transitional benefits that ensure employees will be supported in the event of major organizational changes
  • Don’t skimp on simple and easily afforded amenities like coffee, water, climate control, and flexible break policies that treat employees like the busy adults they are.

As always, the evolving landscape of business and workplace culture demands a strategic and proactive approach. For now and into the foreseeable future, that means taking a serious look at worker wellness. For more great insights into the fast-paced world of hiring, be sure to bookmark our HireScore blog and visit regularly.

By |2023-12-28T14:32:42-05:00January 1st, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

3 Effective Strategies for Improving Hiring During the Holiday Season

The holiday season can cause many routine business operations to slow down or even come to a complete standstill. For many operations, this includes recruiting and onboarding new employees. When you’re in need of new talent at key positions, however, you don’t have the luxury of taking a holiday hiring hiatus.

We all like to use the holiday season to get in some much-needed relaxation and reflection, but at the same time, ensuring your team is ready for the challenges and opportunities of the fast-approaching new year is crucial. That’s why we’ve put together this trio of highly actionable tips to help you make the most of this so-called unproductive season when it comes to recruiting and hiring.

This year, instead of cringing away from the idea of trying to work on hiring during that quiet stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, use the uniquely peaceful holiday atmosphere to your advantage and take the opportunity to get a new perspective on your hiring and recruiting challenges.

  1. Strengthen Your Employer Brand

    We sometimes think of branding as an explicitly customer-facing concept, but that simply isn’t true. You also maintain a brand as an employer, and you build and shape this brand with every single interaction you have with an employee or candidate, like it or not. Instead of running from that fact or trying to justify your problem areas, lean into the concept of employer branding and turn your employer brand into one that attracts great talent and serves as a blueprint for other companies who want to do it right.

    A great place to start is by identifying some marketing principles that have worked well for your company and brainstorming how these same principles could be applied to recruiting new talent. Consider using the holiday lull to build or overhaul the “careers” page of your website, or consider launching an official social media group for your employees. Better yet, create a whole new section of your website that’s just for job seekers and current employees, which will give you a vast canvas on which to start developing brand elements.
  1. Reflect on the Past Year and Plan Some Productive “Me” Time

    Looking ahead is obviously important when it comes to identifying your staffing needs, but you can also take advantage of the quieter holiday period to assess the previous year’s recruiting efforts (and where they fell short). After all, you probably wouldn’t be trying to find new employees around Christmas time if every hire you made last year had been a home run. Think about what decisions you could have made differently in the past year to improve hiring outcomes, both personally and at an organizational level. If you’re a HireScore user, make sure all of your cycles for the year have up to date information about who was hired. This gives HireScore important information that will make your hiring decisions better over time.

    Instead of focusing all of your energy outward and hoping you will somehow stumble across the perfect new staff member if you simply look hard enough, turn some of that inward as well. Once you’ve identified some areas in which you can do better, do actual work towards improving them. Set aside some time for simple activities that can beef up your own abilities: have a “touchbase” call with your HireScore Project Manager, participate in online communities for hiring and recruiting professionals, attend an online seminar, find a continuing education event to sign up for, learn the ins and outs of a department you don’t usually work in, or take some time to evaluate and fine-tune the systems you rely on for your hiring processes.

  2. Predict Future Talent Needs

    During our end-of-year “housekeeping,” we can sometimes get caught up in the simplistic idea that we need to replace any employees we’ve lost, but staffing needs change, and staff members don’t always need to be replaced on a one-for-one basis. While technology may make one role obsolete, growth in your business might create opportunities for staff expansion in a totally different area.

    The end-of-year break naturally provided by the holidays makes a good opportunity for re-evaluating whether or not your human resources are being deployed in the most effective way. Start from scratch by making a list of crucial roles that need to be filled for your business to operate, then compare how that aligns with your actual staff structure and ask yourself why.

HireScore: Highly Effective Hiring Tools for All Seasons

By using smart strategies like these and bolstering them with innovative technology like the HireScore platform, you can come back from your holiday to a well-assembled staff that’s ready to succeed in the new year and beyond.

By |2023-11-27T12:36:22-05:00December 1st, 2023|Uncategorized|0 Comments

The Impact of AI on Hiring in 2023

In a shockingly short amount of time, artificial intelligence has changed from an idea on the margins of science fiction to an innovative force in many key sectors of human life and the global economy. For better or worse, AI’s reach has already extended to human resources and hiring policies at many large employers.

The landscape of hiring in 2023, significantly influenced and informed by AI, represents some drastic and rapid shifts in how employers find and engage with candidates. Yet, while the efficiency and scalability of AI are undeniable perks, the need for a careful human touch in the hiring process has, in some cases, only become more evident.

Leveraging AI in the Modern Hiring Process

In this digital age, the process of recruiting and hiring employees has already seen rapid and remarkable evolution. Traditional methods of seeking employment, such as newspapers, cold phone calls, and “pounding the pavement” with a stack of resumes in hand, have all but been replaced by comprehensive platforms. These platforms (and their gradual integration with the AI revolution) help job seekers zoom in on positions that are a good fit while also helping companies locate and lock down suitable candidates.

One trend that has already gained a lot of traction at more large-scale HR operations is the utilization of AI to quickly scan resumes for particular keywords or other “green flags.” These systems can search for crucial keywords related to job requirements or prerequisite skills, optimizing the initial screening process while human HR staff is free to focus on more detail-oriented work (or getting the next job posting up).

AI and Improved Decision-Making for Corporate Workflows

Data-driven decision-making that can occur responsively at any scale is another emergent AI advantage for companies willing to adopt. Operations can identify deficiencies in their staff or hiring process by analyzing good data, and with AI, this analysis can be done more rapidly and with less human bias than ever before.

For example, if a key open position is seeing a slump in applications, AI analysis can help identify whether the issue lies in the applicant pool, the job posting, or some other element of your hiring strategy. AI can also help analyze the backend of your HR and recruitment processes, such as offering feedback on which recruitment channels and tactics are providing you the best return on investment in the form of qualified, dedicated employees.

The AI Bias Debate

While we’ve already touched on the potential for AI to improve objectivity and impartiality in the hiring process, there’s also an ongoing debate about whether today’s AI systems might actually inadvertently perpetuate, rather than mitigate, existing human biases.

The United States EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has actually released guidance on AI use in the workplace, emphasizing that while these software tools can streamline the hiring process, employers need to remain responsible for ensuring that the methodology behind these decisions remains equitable and uncolored by bias.

You’re likely wondering how this can be, as cold, machine objectivity has been touted as one of the major selling points of AI. However, the crucial thing to understand here is that AI models are not perfectly objective robot brains grown in a sterile lab. Rather, they are human-made computer programs trained on historical data (i.e., human writings). If that historical data carries the implicit biases of its many authors, there is a risk that AI might perpetuate or even exacerbate them.

Striking a Smart Balance

AI in hiring is undoubtedly a powerful tool. Its ability to screen thousands of applications efficiently and offer data-driven insights is hard to deny. Hiring your perfect staff, however, remains a deeply human endeavor in so many ways. Good recruiting and HR revolves around understanding different cultures, gauging the skills and needs of your current staff, and, perhaps most crucially, recognizing a person’s potential beyond the mere text of a resume.

Here are some tips to help you maintain balance and keep the human element present while transitioning to more automated hiring policies:

  1. Transparency and Accountability: Implement clear policies detailing the role of AI in the recruitment process—and its limits. These policies should emphasize AI’s use as an assistive tool rather than a replacement for human judgment.
  2. Actively Counteract Bias: Engage in regular audits of any AI systems at use in your organization to ensure they don’t perpetuate existing biases or introduce new ones.
  3. Prioritize Human Engagement: Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that while AI can identify great matches for open roles or quickly analyze documents like resumes, the nuances of interpersonal soft skills, company culture, and individual potential for growth are better assessed by humans.

Don’t get left behind in today’s fast-paced, highly online hiring landscape. For more great content about hiring and technology, bookmark the HireScore blog.

By |2023-10-25T11:41:18-04:00November 1st, 2023|Uncategorized|0 Comments