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Eight tips for building a health and wellbeing calendar

Has someone asked you to plan your organisation’s health and wellbeing program? Or perhaps you’re a small organisation and haven’t done anything formal in the past but wonder if there is something that could help improve the health of your staff.

As you get started, perhaps the biggest piece of advice is to make sure you have a goal. Initiatives are bound to fail when no-one knows why they are happening. Here are eight tips that may help you along the way:

One. To decide on your goal, begin by identifying the main issues for your organisation. Every workplace is a little different. Perhaps your staff are struggling with fatigue and sleep. Perhaps it’s stress associated with organisational change. Perhaps its weight and diet. Are your staff primarily sedentary with a need to include more exercise in their days? Or maybe you are working in an environment where staff are exposed to high levels of vicarious trauma – such as is often seen in healthcare and legal workplaces. Brainstorm the various issues and try to estimate how many people are affected in your organisation and how serious the health issues are.

Two. Next – refine it down. Choosing too many issues to focus on in a single calendar year doesn’t work well. In fact, having a primary focus of just one issue – with ancillary supporting programs – is often the most effective way to have an impact. As an example, you might notice that you have an aging workforce where heart disease and heart health are real challenges. This might be your overall focus for the year. You might build your calendar around this with some time spent on assessment and check-ups, a month or two spent on the effects of stress on heart health, another period spent on encouraging exercise, another on diet and finally a focus on sleep and its effects on heart disease rates.

Three. Once you have decided on your goal, try to make it measurable. Commit to how you are going to measure progress: is it the number of people participating? Is it specific health outcomes?

Four. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use national or international days and other initiatives and piggyback off them. With World Cancer day, Australia’s biggest morning tea, Diabetes awareness week, R U OK? Day, Jeans for Genes day, Women’s Health week, Mental Health Week, White Ribbon day, Worksafe Week, Movember and more, there are plenty of opportunities to highlight certain issues in your calendar and align yourself with broader community events.

Five. Get support from the very top of your organisation or business unit. Make sure your executive team know the goal and why you chose it and the business benefits you expect to flow out of the program. Then ensure that their support is visible. For example, you might launch the annual theme using a video from your CEO or have them include it within their regular communications. You can help make this happen by providing them with a short paragraph every week or month.

Six. Identify champions within your organisation. Without wholehearted staff engagement your health and wellbeing calendar is just a pretty plan on your wall. Appealing promotional materials are great, and necessary, but signing up people at all levels of the organisation and throughout your different teams is crucial to making any real difference. Be explicit about your champions program. Ask selected staff to help you, tell them what you want them to do, make it official and give them small incentives to encourage participation in their business unit. Then measure engagement and participation and celebrate with them when you see results.

Seven. Be consistent with your goal but flexible with the activities. Many health initiatives are long-term. You won’t suddenly turn your sedentary workforce into gym warriors who can sustain their changed behaviour overnight – or even in a year. Be prepared to commit to a program for the long term and don’t chop and change the goals too much from year to year. However, though the goals shouldn’t change, some variety in activities is helpful to keep people interested and engaged.

Eight. Don’t forget to talk with your health providers. Your EAP provider, occupational rehab and workplace medical providers will often have great resources you can draw on when you are building your calendar.

Dr Jenny George CEO, Converge International

Jenny has been the CEO of Converge International since 2016. Converge is one of Australia’s largest mental health providers to Australian workplaces, with services that include EAP, training and consulting and with a portfolio of clients in every Australian state and territory. A former Dean of the Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne, Jenny has more than 17 years of experience in executive education and 15 years of experience in leadership roles. Since 2007, she has been a non-executive director of businesses in the finance, retail and services sectors and has served on the boards of many not-for-profit organisations.

Jenny’s academic speciality lies in executive decision making. Her more recent experience in the delivery of mental health solutions to organisations has given her additional insights into organisational culture, stress, individual psychological biases and their effects on decision quality and organisational implementation of decisions. Jenny has worked as a consultant and has been involved in customised executive leadership programs for many clients including Leighton Contractors, CSR and Abigroup. She is a highly acclaimed presenter with consistently excellent feedback focusing on her ability to make complex concepts understandable and applicable. In 2015, Jenny developed and led the University of Melbourne’s first Master’s program in Business Analytics. In addition to facilitating formal education programs, Jenny has been involved in coaching and mentoring many executives and emerging leaders and has facilitated strategy and planning sessions for both Boards and executive teams.

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Want to improve the productivity and efficiency of your employees? Give them feedback!

It was Bill Gates who said “we all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”

That seems straightforward enough, right? Give feedback to your employee, and they will remain happy and loyal forever – win win!

But…have you ever given feedback to an employee, only to receive a negative response?

Feedback is one of the most important management tools for companies, however it can be one of the trickiest ones to get right. Feedback has the tendency to impact on people’s emotions which can mean that many managers avoid giving feedback altogether. However, despite how difficult it can be to give constructive feedback, avoiding it can do more harm than good. For employees, receiving feedback is important for development, productivity and morale, and is therefore a vital tool for companies to achieve results and drive success.

One mistake that managers often make is to wait until something goes wrong to give feedback or make changes. Employees prefer to hear about their successes in the workplace rather than their failings, which is why constructive feedback is most effective when positive feedback is also regularly delivered. When negative feedback is delivered ineffectively, the results can be highly detrimental to an employee’s performance.

In order to deliver negative feedback in an effective way that increases productivity, preserves morale and improves success, managers should consider the following strategies:

Avoid the ‘sandwich method’

There is a common misconception that the sandwich method – delivering negative feedback sandwiched in the middle of positive feedback – is an effective way of communicating feedback, however, it turns out that this is neither a transparent or effective approach. It can end up more closely resembling the “crap filled lolly” by presenting something as sweet when at its centre it actually isn’t.

Get to the point and remain focussed

Sugar coating the problem without drawing focus to the bottom-line is a way that some managers try to give feedback to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. This method is highly ineffective. By being specific and maintaining focus, managers can ensure that employees have heard and understood the information that has been given to them.

Ensure you only discuss their behaviour, not their character

Giving feedback in a way that appears to attack someone’s character can be humiliating, disempowering and undermining. Effective and constructive feedback should be framed around the task at hand rather than the employee’s character.

Discuss the solution too, not just the problem

Constructive feedback should be delivered in a way that highlights potential future successes. Instead of dwelling on the problem, managers should guide employees by concentrating on the solution. By concentrating on “what to do” instead of “what not to do”, the person will feel more empowered to achieve success.

Keep in mind that all employees respond to feedback differently, so when giving constructive feedback it’s important for managers to be receptive to the individual’s response. This way you can tailor your next discussion according to the techniques the person responded best to.

About David Leahy

David Leahy is the Director of Directions Unlimited, a specialist consultancy providing people solutions of every shape and size – from JobFit assessment testing, behavioural interviews and outstanding managerial tools to executive one-to-one coaching, team and group coaching programs. David “gets” business having worked for more than 30 years with multinationals and SMEs. An accredited organisational coach, he possesses a broad coaching experience having coached at CEO and Senior Executive level in the USA, South America, Europe and Australia.

www.directionsunlimited.com.au

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6 Secrets to Building and Leading a Globally Distributed Team

Managing a group of people isn’t always easy even if your entire team is sitting right in front of you. But the challenges faced by anyone building a team increase exponentially when that team is spread across different offices – whether the offices are at different locations within the same city, or whether the offices are spread across multiple time zones.

A distributed team is a distributed team.

You can’t just gather everyone around spontaneously to share a quick team update; the team in one office may be celebrating a win while their colleagues in another office are asleep; having a difficult conversation with a team member over a video chat is never going to be the same as taking them out for a coffee and sitting across the table from them; and maintaining team morale across multiple locations can often feel like an insurmountable task.

I’m guessing that anyone looking after a remote team can relate to at least one or two of these scenarios.

I spent many years looking after teams working in different offices around Australia and the Asia Pacific region. Over the last 7 years, in building RecruitLoop, I’ve built a core team that physically sits across 7 countries (quite simply because that’s where the best talent was based, or where they have since chosen to live). We’ve also built a global network of over 5,000 recruiters working in over 50 countries servicing clients in nearly 70 counties. Today it’s not uncommon for a client based in San Francisco to work with one of our recruiters in Tel Aviv; or where a recruiter based in Phoenix, Arizona can help a client build out their team in Sydney, Auckland and LA.

So from personal experience, I wanted to share a few pieces of advice and best practices when it comes to building and looking after distributed or remote teams. After all, it’s practically impossible to avoid time zones and the more companies realize that the best talent doesn’t necessarily need to be physically located in the same city (let alone the same office), it will become critical for HR and executive leadership teams to set expectations and implement processes that are ‘remote friendly’.

There’s no denying that today the best talent for your organisation can actually be located anywhere in the world.

The days are long gone of needing to build a team in one central location or having all your staff sitting together in the same office. With all the communication tools and technology available today, time differences and the all too infamous ‘tyranny of distance’ are practically non-existent.

Building a distributed team

When it comes to recruiting for distributed team, you must hire personality types that will align with this style of working.

You must also be 100% comfortable that you can implicitly trust everyone you hire who will work remotely given that you are probably more accustomed to having your entire team within eyesight and ear shot.

Leading a distributed team

First and foremost, never treat members of your distributed team any differently than you would a team you spend every day within the office.

Sounds strange, right?

You still need to have clearly defined reporting lines and you need to set crystal clear and deliberate performance expectations.

It’s entirely up to you whether you choose to have synchronous or asynchronous meetings with your staff, as long as you put extra effort into team building.

Here’s a tip: Try not to refer to anyone working remotely as “working from home”. This immediately conjures up images of taking client calls between laundry loads, sending emails from the kitchen table, or writing up a report in a tracksuit after taking the dog out for a walk. “Remote” or “distributed” team members has a more professional ring to it.

From a management perspective, in a ‘traditional’ work environment, you would probably try to promote a culture of work-life balance. However given that your remote (or ‘virtual’) consultants may well be working in a completely different time zone, it’s important to set clear expectations around work-life ‘separation’. In other words, you need to encourage your staff to not feel guilty if they are not online when you are (as long as the above-mentioned performance expectations are clearly established).

Wherever possible though (ie when time and budget permits), try to schedule face-to-face visits with everyone in your distributed team. I’m actually writing this post while spending a few days with my team based in the Philippines!

Communicating across a distributed team

It is absolutely essential that you set (and stick to!) a regular communication schedule with your distributed team.

Using some of the communication tools outlined below, your team meetings and 1:1s can continue as normal. However, the only real difference is that you will probably want to set separate personal check-ins at different times to your work-related meetings.

In a ‘normal’ office you might grab a quick coffee or a lunch with individual team members. As you build your distributed team, you need to create virtual impromptu coffee or ‘lunch’ moments (even if you’re eating dinner while they are having breakfast!).

Collaborating within a distributed team

Some of the communication and collaboration tools we currently use at RecruitLoop (or have experimented with in the past) include: Zoom, Slack, Facebook, Asana, HipChat, Trello, GoToMeeting, Skype, Google Hangouts, Google Docs, DropBox, Mightybell, StatusHero, and Sundial Teleport.

These tools allow us to see each other whenever we want to or to keep conversations going with individuals or groups at any time.

Creating a culture without borders

It’s often hard enough inside a single office to remove barriers between different teams or between departments working on different floors in the same building. When you’ve always got the remote experience top of mind, you must also ensure you’re creating a culture with no borders at all.

In order to foster a ‘culture across cultures’, you really just need an up-to-date calendar of international events. Depending on where all your team members are located, you may find yourself celebrating Independence Day, Bastille Day, Australia Day, Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Chinese New Year, and Diwali. Trust me, this will only further encourage camaraderie, engagement and a true sense of community among your virtual team members.

Dealing with the curse of separation

Coming from personal experience, if you are promoting the ability and freedom to ‘work whenever and however’, then problems associated with isolation and separation will undoubtedly arise. You will never be able to prevent it entirely, but as a manager it’s up to you to handle it.

An effective distributed team only works with the right people, the right leadership, the right touch-points and the right technology.

These days there is absolutely nothing stopping you building a team that crosses borders, time zones, or even language barriers. As one of our own RecruitLoop recruiters recently said, “These days it shouldn’t matter whether your team members are two desks away, two offices away, two blocks away, or 2,000km away!”

Paul Slezak Co-founder – RecruitLoop

Paul Slezak is a co-founder of RecruitLoop – a global marketplace of expert sourcers and recruiters available on-demand. With nearly 25 years in the recruitment industry and having worked for both an international publicly listed group as well as a global niche recruitment business, Paul has been a hands-on recruiter, manager, trainer, coach, mentor, and regular speaker for the recruitment industry and HR Tech space across Australia, the USA, Asia, and Europe.

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Selecting the Best HR/HCM System – 1^st of 5 Installments

When HR professionals find out what I’ve been doing for the past 18 years, they almost always ask me, “What is the best HR/HCM system on the market?” With a smile on my face, I always respond with the same answer … “The one that best meets your needs”. While we often go on to discuss the process they should consider in evaluating various HR/HCM System vendors, the following Overview is the first in a five (5) part series that will help guide HR/HCM professionals in evaluating, selecting, and negotiating for the HR/HCM System that best meets your unique needs.

Over the years, I’ve found that while specific needs are always unique, there are four (4) areas that are universally the primary Focus of Concern:

Needs – those functionalities that will provide the capabilities that are required
Solution – the vendor’s ability to clearly demonstrate proof of the HR/HCM System’s desired capabilities
Risk – what could go wrong in the evaluation and selection process that would result in failure to meet overall project expectations
Cost – ensuring that the benefits that will accrue from the enhanced HR/HCM System’s capabilities justify the investment

You will note in the chart above, as you progress through DISCOVERY to PROOF to RISK, the primary Focus of Concern raises and falls as each is addressed.

As the HR/HCM Evaluation/Selection process progresses, the importance and focus of each of these areas of concern varies …and may be categorized into three (3) primary phases

1. Discovery –. It’s been said that if you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know when you get there. Some HR/HM professionals ask individual vendors to provide “demos” as a form of education, Vendors are most likely to demo what they believe the be their “hottest” features … regardless of what the real need may be. I recommend that before contacting any vendor, you should conduct an internal Needs Analysis involving not only members of the HR/HCM staff, but also representatives of all potential user groups of the new HR/HCM System … including Operations, IT, and Finance … at both corporate HQ and in the field. I find that the best way to conduct this Analysis is by asking two (2) primary questions … 1) What are you trying to accomplish? What is your Vision? What are your Goals? After your goals/vision is addressed, the second question should be 2) How are you doing it today? What processes are currently being used? How much time/effort/resources are being utilized?

Armed with this information, you can form the core of an RFP … one in which potential vendors will be better able to understand and address those unique needs.

2. Proof – while virtually all vendors do “demos”, I prefer to ask for “Proof of Capability (POC)” presentations. While this preference may simply seem a matter of semantics, I see “demos” as something the vendor wants to show you while a POC presentation asks the vendor to provide “proof” of the capabilities they claimed in their response to the RFP. During the “Proof” stage, the focus should be on finding a potential Solution … can you see yourself already in possession, and using, the vendor’s capabilities to achieve your goals

3. Risk – with the Vendor of Choice (VOC) identified, the focus switches to what could possibly go wrong? A vast majority of projects like this that fail to meet expectations is due to poor implementation planning. In addition to Reference Checks, you should address the vendors proposed Implementation Plan … their Statement of Work (SOW). As most vendors are anxious to get “ink on paper” and in doing so, they offer a multi-colored implementation brochure that has been prepared by their Marketing Department. While it may look great, on what unique “facts” has this this proposed implementation plan been based? Please remember that their standard implementation plan is generic … while your company, and its needs, are truly unique.

To address this, you may want to provide your VOC with a Discovery opportunity PRIOR to negotiating and signing a contract … Pre-implementation Planning. Yes … it will take some time but will go a long way to reduce costly “surprises” during the implementation process.

Cost – while cost is always a factor in the final decision making process, you should 1) focus on finding the vendor that best meets your needs and then 2) get them to sharpen their pencil. It’s truly amazing how flexible vendors can, and will, be when they know that they’ve “won the deal” and that price is the only roadblock.

Next Month – Conducting a HR/HCM Needs Analysis and Developing an RFP

Bernard M. Aller, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CEBS

“Purveyor of Capability”

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/bernardaller

As a truly independent global HR/HCM Systems consultant, and without any bias towards any specific vendor or technology, for the past 18 years, Bernie has been providing independent guidance and counsel to organizations seeking to enhance the management of their human assets through the use of technology. Prior to this, Bernie, a SPHR, SHRM-SCP, & CEBS certified HR Generalist, was one of the early members of FEDEX’s award-winning senior HR staff followed by a founder of Aller-Rule, Inc. and an equity partner of FLX Corporation, a highly successful HR/HCM systems software company which was acquired by the Ceridian Corporation.

Long committed to his profession, Bernie has been, and remains, an active member of SHRM, APA, and IHRIM.

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The Art of Matchmaking Blog Series: A new HR approach to the employee journey

For the last 15 years I’ve been accompanying organizations to maximize performance, retention and engagement (earlier described as job satisfaction) by implementing strategies specifically design for Human Resources projects for the recruitment & selection team, learning & development team or the employee relations team. Today we are experiencing a shift in the workforce where the organization now think about the reasons why candidates/employees want to work with them versus they need to work with them. This mindset change has impacted the role of “Human Resources to Human Transformation” as Jacob Morgan explains in his employee experience research.

The new workforce pays attention on how the company makes them feel. Research demonstrate clearly the reasons an employee leaves a company is related to how they felt with the company and the boss. Human Transformation is all about the employee experiential journey including the technology needed to be successful, the working space that defines management styles and the company culture.

The Art of Matchmaking is a holistic, integrated 7-steps signature process where the relationship between the candidate, later employee and the company strengthens as they get to know each other, blend to a common language, learn and grow together from shared lessons and shine as a recognized celebrity brand in the outer world. The 7-steps demonstrate how we can transform by enriching the entire employee experience delivering an end-to-end [attraction – to – retirement] solutions to inspire employees with a purposeful, meaningful & productive work, ignite their potential and impact engagement, happiness and productivity at your organization. Every step of the journey is supported with the matchmaking method using assessments for employee self-awareness to provide learning and development resources for employee self-realization.

The employee experiential journey starts when our social media and employer brand Attracts (1) the potential candidate. (2) Measure and Select evaluating job-fit, culture-fit and emotional intelligence-fit with the organizational culture. Third step (3) Induction when employee & management styles start working together. Now the employee had demonstrated leadership potential and it’s time for the fourth step (4) Leadership Development. Step (5) High Performance Stars and (6) Employee Journey Maps are exciting times for both leader and top management as they are sketching together their future and later start closing relationships with last step of Retirement/Separation (7).

The Art of Matchmaking Series will describe each of the 7-steps journey including Human Transformation top trends for attracting, engaging and retaining top talent. Until next time…

Magda Vargas Battle, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, has a Bachelor of Arts with a Major in Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Mrs. Vargas is Certified High Performance Coach and SPHR (Senior Human Resources Professional) from the HR Certification Institute. Recently certified as Human Capital Development Specialist in Change and Transformation by Srini Pillay, M.D., CEO of NeuroBusiness Group (NBG) and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. For the past sixteen years, Mrs. Vargas has specialized in the areas of Human Resources Development and Workforce Planning & Employment in various organizations in Puerto Rico and USA. One of her greatest contributions had been her experience implementing needs assessment strategies providing employees with the skills to meet current and future job demands. Mrs. Vargas held a Director position at the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Puerto Rico. She is active member of SHRM Puerto Rico and Miami, Florida and Doral Chamber of Commerce, Doral, FL.

The companies for which she had worked include companies specialized in Banking and Finance, Sales and Marketing and Manufacturing such as Kelly Temporary Services, Careers, Inc., Ethicon, Clorox Co., Doral Financial Corporation and Profiles International, Inc. who is recognized as the global leader of assessment instruments (“Assessments”) and tools specialized for the management of Human Resources.

In 2004, Magda embraced the entrepreneurship dream and started her business as a Management Consultant offering a variety of services including Internal and external Talent Discovery and Development, and the opportunity to implement in their talent management processes, measuring tools that help predict behavior and ensure the success and productivity of the candidate or current employee. In 2008, Mrs. Vargas acquired the exclusive license for the sales and distribution of Profiles International in Puerto Rico. In 2009, Profiles International, Inc. awarded her with the National Director Rookie of the Year 2008. Today Mrs. Vargas partners with Profiles International, Inc. with a distribution license for Puerto Rico, USA, Dominican Republic and Panama.

During the past thirteen years, Itr3s has held various business relationships with multinational and local industries. Some of the private companies that have relied on their products and solutions for the past years are: Coopervision, GSK, Bard, Unilever, PepsiCo, Courtyard by Marriott, International Meal Company, Empresas Santana, La Concha Resort, Wendco (Wendy’s), Caribbean Glaze Corporation (Krispy Kreme). In addition to their retail business, Itr3s Corporation develops and grows its market with authorized resellers in PR and USA.

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Improve the leadership capability of all first time people managers

Originally published on the MultiRater Surveys Blog

Moving from an individual contributor role into a team leader role and taking on more leadership responsibilities can be a daunting experience for some. The key change is realizing that the team performance is more important than your individual performance. For most people, their initial leadership attributes are mirrored off past and current managers. This imitation of leadership starts at the executive level and funnels all the way down to the individual contributors. Creating a culture of leadership in the workplace is vital but to fully understand and develop all people managers you need to have a succinct process to evaluate and facilitate constructive feedback.

For first time leaders, they need to understand that their key priorities have changed and that the strengths they exhibited as an individual contributor might not be the same strengths that are required to manage a team. Getting this transition right is very important not only for the business and improving employee engagement but also for an individual’s career path. For a long time leadership development has only been available to the senior executive leadership team but now organizations are conscious of the need for leadership development at all levels. An easy and effective way is to implement 360 degree leadership surveys for all people managers.

360-degree surveys allow managers to understand what they are doing right or wrong and increases their confidence to effectively manage their direct reports on a day-to-day basis. The core reason 360-degree surveys are so effective is their ability to measure the perceptions of the individual and compare these perceptions with those who are best positioned to observe their behaviors and performance. The results from this feedback can unveil any areas of development and help minimize critical issues that could be hindering team performance. This is even more important for new leaders who start to interact with more areas within the organization. Rather than only answering to their manager alone they now have people who will look to them for leadership and advice.

Transitioning from an individual contributor into a team leader is a very important stage for any professional. It is the building block on which an individual can start their journey through the leadership pipeline.Organizations need to understand that first-time leaders have a direct impact on the future success of the business and by implementing leadership development at all levels they can unlock benefits for both the individual and the company.

MultiRater Surveys offers a low-cost tool to help all sized organizations improve leadership at all levels. The customizable templates and reports allow you to create surveys aligned with your organisational competencies. Forget the expensive off the shelf 360 surveys that don’t ask the relevant questions for your organization and create your own custom development program using www.MultiRaterSurveys.com.

Written by David Snow, Client Services Executive at MultiRater Surveys – Your customizable online people analytics platform

Whether you are an HR professional, business owner, executive manager, consultant or advisor, multirater surveys provides you with the platform to maximise your people capital investment. MRS is easy to use and delivers easy to read professional reports.

By using Multirater surveys as your people capital survey platform, you can create professional 180-degree Performance Reviews, 360-degree Leadership Development surveys, Employee Engagement and Client Pulse surveys… in just five easy steps. Ask the questions YOU need answered – AND draw on our templates and question banks. It really couldn’t be any easier.

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Trauma is treatable – Strategies and evidence-based treatment for your employees

What events cause trauma?

Very frightening or distressing events may result in a psychological wound or injury. These are usually experiences which are life threatening or pose a significant threat to a person’s life or well-being. These psychological wounds are often called trauma and can result in difficulty coping or functioning normally. We all respond differently to situations and two people can experience the same event; one experiencing little or no impact and the other developing severe distress. If symptoms persist some may go on to develop a condition known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

The most common events that can lead to a trauma response include:

Involvement is a serious accident such as a motor vehicle or workplace accident
Natural disasters such as floods, bushfires, earthquakes
The sudden loss or suicide of a loved one
Acts of physical or verbal violence such as beatings, robbery, war, terrorism, rape, child abuse
Prolonged sexual abuse, violence or severe neglect

Symptoms

Although most individuals experience a traumatic event during their lifetime, the majority do not develop PTSD or significant psychological disorders. During the few weeks that follow a traumatic event, many people will experience, distressing symptoms such as;

Intrusive thoughts and disturbed dreams,
Avoidance of places and activities that are reminders of the event, or social withdrawal
Some rumination on the memories of the event,
Fear, irritability depression, anxiety and panic,
Problems with memory and concentration.

Although these symptoms are not pleasant, they are normal and for 75% of people, these symptoms will pass on their own, over a period of weeks. As physical wounds take time to heal, so do psychological wounds.

Risks increase for developing PTSD (and therefore not healing without assistance) if a person has, a history of previous trauma experiences; anxiety sensitivity, a predisposition to focus on negativity, or a personal or family history of psychological issues. The traumatic event itself can also increase the risk factors associated with developing PTSD. Experiences such as perceived life threat, feeling fear, shame, guilt or horror, either during the event, or immediately after can increase the likelihood of developing PTSD. Some people disassociate during a traumatic event, meaning they feel like an observer to the event, or leave their bodies so they feel numb to what is happening. Again, such events are likely to increase the severity of the person’s reaction to the trauma.

Minimising the potential for ongoing trauma

Some people work in occupations that expose them to frequent potentially traumatic events (e.g. paramedics, police and fire service etc. who may have to deal with human remains, or are repeatedly exposed to details of horrific child abuse). Some people live in situations that means they are frequently exposed to trauma (e.g. family violence). It is by no means guaranteed that a person working in a high-exposure occupation will develop PTSD. Each exposure may not in itself be traumatic, but repeated exposure can gradually erode resilience and productivity. The key to minimising the risks of experiencing trauma is to limit exposure – in effect taking a break from situations you find distressing.

What can I do if I’ve experienced a recent trauma?

Be gentle on yourself.

Recognise that you have been through a distressing time you might feel very tired and things might feel abnormal (even though you are normal) for a while. With this in mind, try to maintain a normal routine, exercise and eat well, but also be aware that you need time to heal. Relaxation techniques can be useful (yoga, gardening, walking, fishing etc). Do not over use alcohol or other drugs as a method for coping.

Talk to people/Express yourself

Let your friends and family know that you need them. Share your experiences with people you trust and who will not judge you for your feelings. If you don’t feel able to talk with people, express your feelings in writing (e.g., a diary). Expressing feelings can help the healing process.

Don’t avoid

Ruminating on the horror of an event can prevent recovery, but so can complete avoidance. Don’t avoid places or activities because of the event (e.g. not getting in a car after an accident). This can cause of build up of fear associated with the place/activity and may become a roadblock in the future (e.g. feeling like you can’t ever drive again).

Treatment for Trauma

If traumatic symptoms have persisted and turned into a psychological condition such as PTSD or Acute Anxiety Disorder then treatment from an experienced mental health professional may be required. The key thing to bear in mind is that trauma is very treatable – but it’s essential that evidence-based treatment is used as other methods can aggravate the trauma. Treatments such as Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR), Prolonged Exposure (PE) Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy are very effective treatments, but must be provided by a qualified and registered psychologist to ensure they are conducted properly.

What can workplaces do?

Experiencing trauma can be debilitating and present in many ways. For some the distress is too great and they do not return to work. For others, they battle on, but may experience increased anxiety, bouts of panic, become irritable due to poor sleep and have high absenteeism. The positive in this situation is that modern psychotherapeutic treatment has been proven to work. Many people make a full recovery with fewer relapses than when medication alone is used. In fact, What work places need to do is talk with their EAP provider and ask if they use psychologists trained in trauma therapies, especially EMDR. An assessment by an experienced psychologist in such techniques will indicate whether the individual is a suitable candidate for treatment.

Altius Group provide expertise in people risk services including prevention and management of physical and psychological injuries and illnesses. Altius Group consists of specialised businesses, employing teams of highly qualified professionals, who deliver services in a broad spectrum of individual health, wellbeing and rehabilitation interventions. Altius Group ensures your organisation can realise the financial and commercial potential of a healthy, engaged team.

Anya Stephens | Director and Registered Psychologist, Perth

Anya is a Director of PeopleSense by Altius and is a registered psychologist (MSc Ed Psych – Brunel University), (BSc Psych Hons, London University). Anya is a certified trainer and assessor (TAE40110 – Cert. IV in Training and Assessment), full member of the Australian Psychological Society and WA Psychologists’ Board. Anya is also a qualified hypnotherapist.

Anya has over 20 years of experience and her areas of expertise include:

Organisational Consultancy:

Goal oriented coaching;
Team development;
Workplace mediation;
Development and delivery of training
Human resource related issues.
Certificate IV qualified in training and assessment;
Conflict and Mediation;
Communication, Interpersonal Skills, and Emotional Intelligence;
Recruitment and Selection;
Performance Management

Vocational Rehabilitation:

Extensive case management experience in both the WorkCover WA and Comcare sector;
Ability to manage complex and difficult cases of both psychological and physical basis.

Psychological Services:

CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) for a wide range of issues;
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)
Critical Incident Responses; and
Critical incident debriefing.

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Selecting the Best HR/HCM System – 2^nd of 5 Installments (Click here to view the first article in the series)

Needs Analysis and RFP Development

Conducting the Needs Analysis

There’s an old saying that goes “if you don’t know where you’re going, you probably won’t know when (or if) you get there”.

I continue to be amazed by the number of well-meaning, but otherwise uninformed, buyers who start their search by asking a well-known vendor to provide a demo of their product’s capabilities … just to get an idea of what’s available in the marketplace. While the vendor who is asked to provide such an open-ended demo is usually happy to comply, rarely does such a vendor conduct any meaningful discovery prior to the demo … and therefore provides a “spray and pray” or ‘show up and throw up” demo … which often only adds to the potential buyer’s general confusion.

For these reasons, it is essential that as the first step, before talking with any potential vendors, is to conduct an internal “deep dive” to determine:

what you are trying to accomplish
how you are doing it today

As the new HR/HCM system is hopefully going to be a strategic tool to be utilized not only by HR and Payroll, but by all employees to better manage the human assets of the organization, it is critical to involve not only the traditional “staff” functions, but also all of the “line” functions. Make sure to involve not only the all members of the “C” suite but also the part-time weekend-only receptionist and dock workers. As it relates to their current use of whatever HR/HCM systems capabilities are currently available, be sure to get their personal take on what new or enhanced HR/HCM system capability could make both their professional, and personal, life more “hassle-free”.

Developing the RFP

There is a current school of thought among HR/HCM Subject Matter Experts (SME), both buyers and sellers, that the RFP has outlived its effectiveness … that organizations should just simply develop a list of desired features, send it to select vendors, and then ask those vendors to provide a demo of its ability to provide those features. The challenge in using this type of approach is that:

it assumes that the buyer is aware of all vendors who could possibly provide them with the capabilities that they seek … which most buyers are not
it assumes that the buyer is aware of all the developing technologies and capabilities that are available in the marketplace … which again, most buyers are not

This SME firmly believes that a well-developed, well-prepared RFP is the best way to communicate to vendors … and this should start to sound familiar:

what you are trying to accomplish
how you are doing it today

Taking the information that was discovered during the Needs Analysis, and including it, perhaps verbatim, to form the core of the RFP is the most effective, efficient, and reliable method to provide potential vendors with the ability to make an informed decision on whether or not to commit the resources necessary to launch a competitive effort to win the business.

In order to further help potential vendors in making this decision, imbedded within the RFP should be a Tentative Project Schedule which provides detail on both major Project Milestones and the projected date that each milestone will be directly addressed … and when a “buy” decision will be made.

Next Month – HR/HCM Proof of Capability Presentations … aka “Demos”

Bernard M. Aller, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, CEBS

“Purveyor of Capability”

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/bernardaller

Long committed to his profession, Bernie has been, and remains, an active member of SHRM, APA, and IHRIM.

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The Art of Matchmaking Blog Series: Step 1 – Attraction

The Step I of my signature program is attracting the future workers with “matchmaking-strategizing”; in other words, communicating the reasons why someone should want to work for you and matching the corporate culture, values & employer brand with the potential candidates. In addition to understand what means attraction in today’s talent war; also, I encourage the leadership team to describe and understand their brand, how they want to stand out and get candidate’s attention and what’s the culture that defines and molds your organization.

The word brand means a unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors. This bundle shows how you are unique in what we do and demonstrate what makes you different. I mentioned in the previous article that one enormous shift in the workplace is that not so long-ago people needed to work expecting to receive a paycheck that can provide a lifestyle and now people decides if they want to work with you expecting a memorable experience in the organization that will ignite an engaged and remunerated relationship.

The goal is to attract new fans of your brand and not just candidates. Brand strategy is about captivating your fans’ hearts and minds resulting in admiration for the company. We want candidates that identify with our corporate values and purpose and for that we need to attract using inspirational content and implementing specific strategies that cultivate a distinct culture that is fully aligned with the brand identity.

Attracting culture-fit candidates is an essential tactic during the Step 1 of the employee journey. It’s important to recognize that culture is described as the attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group and much of it is anchored in unspoken behaviors, mindsets and social patterns. As companies continue to diversify and the speed of business continues to accelerate; building and cultivating a culture will shape the external brand identity and impulse a shared purpose and foster an organization’s capacity to thrive.

Once completed effectively the Step I of Attraction of our ideal candidate, we need to focus on what to offer to turn that candidate into an employee; the journey you want them to go on in your company. The program next steps from measure, select and onboard focus on the current employees you have and also the commitment you have to their growth. Latter steps includes skills development and igniting their potential to maximize productivity and keep them around until they’re at the end of their employee lifecycles.

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Better sales staff equals more sales. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Increasing the productivity of your sales people, however, is a complex task fraught with misunderstanding.

Finding high performing staff involves a specific hiring approach which targets those with precisely the right attributes for the job in hand.

Once you have the right players, it doesn’t stop there. It’s a question of matching them to the right sales roles, managing them and developing the sales team in an ongoing way to ensure maximum efficiency.

Remember the old maxim ‘If you can sell, you can sell anything’?

Well, times have changed. Not all sales jobs – or reps – are created equal.

According to studies analysed by Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney in their book How to Hire and Develop your Next Top Performer, around 50% of those working in sales lack the fundamental traits necessary in effective sales people. A further 25% are selling the wrong thing, for the wrong managers, in the wrong place.

That leaves just 25% of sales people operating to full capacity and producing great results.

So one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to finding the right sales person to sell your product or services.

Financial benefits of hiring the best people

Having a sales team composed of star performers can make a significant difference to your bottom line.

In a study of 100 businesses, Sales Force of Top Producers – A Manager’s (and Owner’s) Dream, reported in Employer’s Advantage, the company’s top performer outsold the bottom performer by a whopping average of 5.7 to 1 – with a range of 3:1 to 9:1.

Just imagine what kind of results you’d get if your entire team worked at the lower margin of 3:1, not to mention 5:1 or above.

Salesforce Work.com and the TAS Group drew some more shocking statistics from their own research. These include:

Two-thirds of sales people miss their quota.
More than half of all sales people close less than 40% of potential deals.
Top performing sales reps are 250% better at qualifying leads.
High performers are 2.5 times more likely to be effective qualifiers than the general population.
Around 40% of sales people don’t understand their customer’s ‘pain’, addressing problems they don’t even have.
Revenue can be up to 25% greater at companies where sales and marketing are well integrated.
High performers are 57% more likely to come from companies where sales and marketing work in harmony.

Measuring individual productivity

All this begs the question, just how productive is your own sales team? Can you measure individual productivity? And once you’ve measured it, how do you replace or improve poor and mediocre performers?

A range of smart assessment tools is now available to figure out how efficient and profitable your sales people really are.

These tools also help you determine which staff have the potential to improve – and which need to be replaced with new blood.

How to hire the best people

The right assessment tools can help you find the right people for your sales jobs.

Applied correctly, assessments that can measure “JobFit” can reduce sales department turnover by up to 47%, as well as making your recruitment of future high performers up to three times as successful!

Which should be music to any employer’s ear when considering the statistics.

Figures from Performance Resources and Profiles International, as reported in Employer’s Advantage, show that three out of four new sales employees don’t last the distance. They have, in fact, only a 25% chance of staying with the company for a full year.

Of those that do stick, only one in 10 go on to become a genuine top performer within three years.

So what is the essential DNA of these star performers? Many have fundamental traits and attributes in common which help drive their peak performance.

Assessments that measure JobFit can extract and compile these traits into a high performance role benchmark which becomes the real, customised measure of employee success in your business.

It can be used to great effect when recruiting new sales staff, ensuring that candidates fit these rigorous criteria and carry the ‘work genes’ critical to success in their roles.

What to look for in sales job candidates

There are plenty of things to consider when hiring, but it’s vital that new employees are a good fit with company culture and embrace their new work environment.

They must be able to cope with challenges, build great relationships with work colleagues – especially in the marketing department – and understand the needs of your customers.

So what attributes do star sales performers typically have?

Real energy and stamina.
Assertiveness when clinching a sale yet flexibility when accommodating clients.
Ability to think creatively and problem-solve on the hop.
A relaxed, welcoming personal manner.
Innate ability to know when and how far to bend the rules.

The right recruitment tools help you weed out unsuitable candidates and identify the cream of the crop.

Other benefits of hiring great sales performers

Financial benefits are not the only advantages of building a high performing sales team.

You end up with staff who love working together, foster innovation and all contribute to boosting and maintaining morale.

Which makes your biggest problem who to choose – out of all those prime contenders – for that prize promotion.

David Leahy

Directions Unlimited

We supply state of the art JobFit assessments and Development solutions to help you attract, select, on board, manage, develop, and engage top performers

About David Leahy

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How not to be named and shamed in the #MeToo movement By Hugh Massie

As leaders, we have a responsibility to understand the impact our behaviour has on the people we have the responsibility (and the privilege) of leading.

No longer is it acceptable to bully, manipulate, harass, individuals just to achieve our goals. No longer is it acceptable to take risks that compromise the business and alarm and unsettle staff. No more can position, authority or power be used to compromise a colleague.

Leaders need to have significant insight into their leadership style, their communication approach, their bias, and yes, we all have biases. Further, successful organizations invest in knowing its leaders and individual employees are attuned to these things.

Aggressive and controlling management styles are no longer acceptable. The greatest and most effective leaders know how to guide, mentor, and invest in their people, knowing that this sets individuals and teams up for success.

Leadership is complex; it takes character and self-awareness. It requires a level of vulnerability and re-thinking if leaders are to be effective. Allowing bottom-line results, aggressive deadlines and demanding stakeholders to style your approach to leadership is a recipe for disaster.

The leader who is behaviourally smart is the winner. When you understand the importance of getting below the surface of yourself and the people you lead and understand how best to invest into them, businesses flourish.

Inherent behaviour is fixed: It’s who a person is; it’s the foundation. It’s the raw material that informs how the world is viewed. It can’t be learned. It drives talents and personality. It is fundamental hardwiring.

Personality is driven by behaviour: It’s the mask worn; it’s a person’s outward character. It’s what we let others see on the surface. Personality is formed and revealed from circumstances, social pressure, education, social environment and family influences. It’s the sum of the physical, mental, emotional and social characteristics of an individual and can change as circumstances dictate.

Having a revelation about the difference between inherent behaviour and personality not only educates, but, more importantly, it paves the way for leaders in business to understand what their role is in revealing behaviours which will remain constant over time. It gives insight and understanding into knowing when they are viewing the mask. Behaviour is the real person. Personality is the outward appearance an individual chooses to reveal.

Uncover this knowledge about yourself and you will quickly understand the importance of knowing it about the teams you lead.

The responsibility for effective team functioning and dynamics lies with you, the leader, and as such, demands a level of self-awareness that ensures your legacy will not be crossing boundaries and becoming named and shamed in the #metoo movement.

Using a highly-validated discovery process can deliver insight into both inherent and learned behaviour – all of which is measurable.

It can reveal communication styles. This above all creates powerful leadership and team development. With this kind of insight, messages are appropriate and clear. Individuals understand what they are being asked to do and why. Great communication insight is especially crucial in times of pressure, when blunt exchanges can surface.

Examples of key communication insights that are powerful both for leadership and the team are shown in the quadrant graphic. There is powerful value in leadership learning how to connect with each style and stay connected and then use this knowledge and insight to build optimally functioning teams.

Learn what lurks beneath, and use it to your advantage.

Hugh Massie, Behavioral Strategist

CEO & Founder, DNA Behavior International

Hugh Massie is a global pioneer in the practical application of behavioral insights. A “reformed CPA” and serial entrepreneur, Hugh has since 2001 focused his efforts on his role as CEO and Founder of Atlanta-based DNA Behavior International. The company and its network, online and off, is a behavioral data and technology solutions business that helps individuals and organizations discover and leverage strengths. Hugh and his team make their validated, proprietary “behaviorally smart” technology available to clients via the internet; some clients incorporate the applications into their other systems. Hugh’s solutions have impacted more than 1.5 million people/year in 125 countries and 11 languages, including leaders 2,500+ businesses and 20,000 financial advisors who are now behaviorally smarter. “Understanding and leveraging behavioral insights can powerfully disrupt the work of individuals, teams, leaders and organizations in positive ways, including affecting the bottom line,” Hugh says.

Learn more about DNA Behavior International and its Business DNA, Financial DNA and Communication DNA brands by visiting BehaviorallySmart.com, emailing inquiries@dnabehavior.com, calling 1-866-791-8992 or live chatting

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Imagine this: You arrive at your office on a typical Monday morning, knowing that you have a massive amount of estimating and quoting to get done. You think to yourself, ‘WOW remember how we used to do it!’ You’d get your first of many coffees and spend the whole day punching out window schedules and quotes. But not today; that’s all a thing of the past! You sit at your desk and say, ‘Hey Siri, I have just sent you a set of plans with a window schedule. Can you do a take-off and check the window schedule against the plans and highlight any anomalies? Then I want you to prepare a quotation using our 100 mm framing system in charcoal powdercoat.’ Siri says, ‘No worries, David. What type of glass do you want me to quote?’ You answer, ‘Clear glass to meet the standards for a category 2 terrain.’ Siri says, ‘David, I am working on it and I will email the quote to you for your approval when I am finished.’

How good would that be and how many headaches would Siri remove for all of us (me included) who are forever looking for highly skilled estimators, or any staff for that matter, that are tech savvy and can get the work done. Is artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) or Big Data really the future to finding the right people? Let’s explore.

Our Challenge

One of the biggest challenges we face in a labour-intensive business, such as window and door manufacturing, is finding, securing and then retaining talent in all areas of our business. While it’s true that the age of the Internet has made a wealth of information available to us on the background of potential candidates, knowing where to look and then wading through all that data can take considerable time and financial investment. It’s enough to make you miss the good old days when referrals were the only way to find employees. (In fact, referrals are still a very important factor in recruiting.) Even with all this ‘data’ available at our fingertips, how many of you are still keenly looking for tech savvy staff to join your business? Well guess what, the right talent, experience and/or attitude is still elusive and super hard to find for the best of us.

In the Now

Currently, we turn to Seek, LinkedIn, G+, Facebook and many other social media and online sites boasting to be brimming with the right people ‘just waiting to be snapped up’. Then, if you do find one, how do you approach them and start a conversation to understand if they really are the right person? In most online situations, candidates do not put their personal details such as email or mobile numbers online because they do not want every Tom, Dick or David chasing them. So how do you engage them? One thing I have learnt is that you can’t just ‘data mine’ your way to the right candidate; you need the right tools to analyse them, and the right people who can provide meaningful insight into the information you require. You must learn to entice them to come to you through a strong online corporate or business profile that is designed to attract the appropriately experienced people to your business. Sounds easy, doesn’t it! Not quite.

Let’s talk about AI for a moment. Think about the screening process and how software these days is doing most of the work in the larger firm, but it is all still very ‘black and white’ – using the approach of algorithms means that at present, human intervention is still very much a necessity. I think that human intervention will always play a significant part in recruitment because people interact and get a sense or feel for others. But, I’d also expect to see recruitment screening software that is increasingly ‘human’ in the way it analyses and reviews job applications and then presents us all with a more holistic view of a candidate’s skills and experience.

Where to from here?

There are already many technology solution providers that have started to bring AI and ML into the recruitment world. It’s not hard to imagine that in the future, artificial intelligence tools will simply collect all the information we need from all the data that is now available about candidates online and then proceed to create strong shortlist of candidates. Then, I expect that same technology will allow us to put candidates into real life scenarios where they must demonstrate their ability to analyse and manage situations in a manner that fits with the position and company. Of course, they will be interviewed using AI algorithms to determine the perfect match to our criteria or position specification. And of course, no more fooling us with mates as referees. They will be screened with as much vigour as the candidates because we will have the technology. But, that’s just to start.

Who knows where this new technology age will take us, but the capacity of AI, ML and Big Data just keep advancing. The one thing I do know is that we live in a very different world and it will be different again for the next generation. Clearly technology is and will continue to play a lead role in all our lives and particularly as we continue the search for the elusive perfect candidate. Or of course, you can just grab another coffee, chat with Siri and let AI do all the grunt work around the business. Not a bad position to be in I think!

About David Esler

David Esler is the Director of Kaizen Executive. With over 25 years experience at a senior management level, David delivers high quality recruitment solutions that are tailored to meet the needs of individuals and corporations alike. David also provides management consulting services in sales force effectiveness, sales excellence training, performance management and customer and market strategies.

e: david.esler@kaizenexec.com.au

w: www.kaizenexec.com.au

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The 8 Most Important Metrics HR Professionals Should Focus On

As a Human Resources professional, if you and your team obsessed over all the metrics that every article on the web suggested you should measure to confirm whether you are running an effective recruitment process, you would end up spending most of your time measuring recruiting activities instead of actually hiring people into your organisation!

I’m certainly not saying that measuring your recruitment activities isn’t important. Trust me I know it is, but from having spent over two decades in the recruitment industry I can confidently tell you that there are 8 metrics you really need to focus on.

Keeping tabs on these metrics will ensure you are informed as to how your business is doing on the human capital front. I have also included some tips for how to simply and quickly implement these metrics within in your organisation, whether large or small.

1. Time to Hire

From the time you advertise your vacancy, how much time passes before the successful candidate starts? Not just before they accept your offer, but until they are actually on board?

Companies with strong talent management processes have faster hiring times than those without.

Of course, the exception is any market that is short of suitably talented candidates; if you have strict hiring standards, it may take longer to find the appropriate person.

Compare the time to hire across different roles and aim to lower the average as time goes on.

2. Sourcing Channel

It’s important to track where your candidates came from.

If you’re smart about your recruiting, you will have multiple channels from which to attract your potential candidates. You may choose to post an advertisement on a job board; you may prefer to trawl LinkedIn; you might have a strategy to source and engage passive candidates in order to build a live talent community.

For every single vacancy or requisition in your business, you need to know:

How many applicants came from each source;
How many qualified applications were garnered from each source;
Where the short listed applicants were sourced; and ultimately
Where the successful candidate first heard about the position.

These metrics need to be kept in a database that can be cross-referenced over periods of time. Keeping tabs of this metric will save you money in the long run as it will highlight the effectiveness of your various channels.

If one channel is proving to be ineffective, you have justification to shut it down. Similarly, if one channel seems to be producing a higher than expected ratio of qualified candidates, you can focus more resources in that direction.

3. Cost of Hire

It’s a no brainer that the cost of every hire should be measured but have you considered all costs involved in a hire? Recruiter fees, whether internal or external, are straightforward. But what about the time it took the manager to interview?

You should consider these factors when calculating the cost of hiring new employees:

Advertisements placed (if they are billed directly to you);
Setting up and maintaining social media accounts like Facebook and LinkedIn;
Time your hiring managers spend interviewing potential employees;
Sourcing tools;
Recruitment fees and
Any accounting and administrative costs involved in setting up a new employee (eg contracts, pay accounts, health benefits etc)

Calculating the cost of hire is straightforward. You simply add up all the costs (eg those outlined above) and divide by the number of hires made over a specific period of time.

4. Efficiency Ratio

Too many HR Managers become obsessed analysing the cost of hire, when what they should really be scrutinizing is the efficiency ratio – a measure not often included on the list of important metrics.

While the cost of hire is based on the number of hires made in the business, the efficiency ratio is based on the total dollar value of the salaries allocated to the new employees.

The reason it’s important to consider this is because different roles (in terms of seniority) may have been worked on over a particular period of time – some roles perhaps requiring additional dedicated resources.

Was the team dedicated to recruiting a number of customer service representatives each on $65K? Or were there a mixture of roles across the board from office support roles on $55K to C-Suite positions commanding salaries of +$250K?

Rather than simply dividing the total recruitment spend by the number of hires, consider focusing on the ratio between the total recruitment spend and the total salaries of those new hires. This will differ greatly depending on the nature of the requisitions over a specific time frame.

5. Retention

Now that you’re seeing the true extent of the costs involved in hiring a new employee, it’s important to look at your retention rates.

Thousands of dollars per year can be drained from your budget with high staff turnover rates. The costs don’t just come from direct expenses associated with hiring a new person but also in the loss of productivity around the resignation, rehiring and retraining processes.

Remember the cost of losing an employee can be as high as 3-4 times their salary. Retention rates are best looked at from a cross-sectioned perspective. In other words what is the turnover rate for a specific role?

Compare that to the turnover rate across specific departments. Try checking the turnover rate by pay grade. i.e how many resignations vs terminations has each department / role / pay grade had? A proper analysis of this metric should be performed every 3-6 months and graded across a period of time to show trends.

6. Open Vacancies vs Positions Filled

Larger organisations will need to keep track of the number of vacancies the organisation has vs the number of vacancies that have been filled.

This metric could be measured either per month or per quarter and the result should go alongside the ‘time to fill’ ratio.

A company managing their talent acquisition closely will have a low amount of open vacancies when compared to positions filled.

7. Offer: Acceptance Ratio

It’s great to be in a position to make an offer to a rock star candidate.

Unfortunately, if they then turn it down for something else, you are back to square one. This process costs you time and money, as well as morale, which is why this is such an important measure.

How many formal offers did you have to extend before you ultimately filled the role? This measure can go alongside your ‘cost of hire’ metrics.

8. Diversity and Gender Mix

Many studies have shown the benefit of a mixed gender team, from greater innovation to greater profits.

Think about placing a metric within your dashboard that measures the percentage balance of men and women on your team in three levels; front line, middle management and senior positions.

From time to time it’s good to step back and assess the gender mix within teams and within the organisation as a whole.

* * *

If you are working within a large organisation, the clear way forward for easy collation of this information is a customized software application that gathers data from as many sources as possible and automatically populates a dashboard with figures and timelines.

You should consider sharing some of this information with your hiring managers as well.

The information should relate specifically to one particular team or department and compare them to averages from the rest of the company so they are aware of their own talent management capabilities.

If customized software is not a possibility in your budget right now, a simple excel spread sheet will do. Set up a regular interval to measure the metrics – eg every three months at a minimum – and request the information from your hiring managers at the appropriate time.

If you are a small operation, keeping tabs on these metrics as you go is the easiest way – updating the spread sheet each time a hire is made and comparing each one to the previous ones. When done right, metrics will save you time and money rather than sucking away precious resources into analysis.

Paul Slezak Co-founder – RecruitLoop

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The Art of Matchmaking Blog Series: Step 2 – Measure & Selection

The Art of Matchmaking 7-steps signature program focus on the organizational and employee needs throughout the employee journey; also known as employee lifecycle so that the employee experience, engagement and retention could be impacted in every step. For the last 10 years we’ve been experiencing a global talent war that forced to make attraction and retention a strategic priority in addition to financial performance, business growth, innovation and problem solving.

Previously we talk about the importance of a well-defined employer branding to attract culture-fit candidates that would live the brand as fans. The Step 2 introduces the process of measuring and matching candidates with specific job profiles and selecting the right candidate for the right position. The use of talent assessments produces lead indicators to help organizations not only with the selection process but also with talent management, assessing workforce capability, employee engagement, understanding organizational culture and succession planning with a high degree of confidence which we are going to discuss individually in every step of the series.

To help ensure that your job applicants have the skills the job requires, without interviewing every single one, you can implement the use of pre-employment assessments which provide a standard and scientific method to measure individuals’ mental capabilities and behavioral style and predict job-fit.

Some of the advantages of using assessments during Step 2 – Measure & Selection are:

Remove the unconscious bias that comes along with many selection decisions.
Rely on subjective selection methods.
Maintain equality in the hiring process standardizing the candidate selection

“Psychometric assessments can improve recruitment outcomes by 24% over traditional selection methods, such as resume screening and unstructured interviews” – Hiring Success Journal

Job-fit it’s the degree of congruence between an individual’s strengths, needs, and wants in a particular job and work environment. When interests align, the employee and the organization experience a good job fit. Establishing job fit helps to identify and place individuals in positions where they are likely to be successful. Based on identifying innate personality traits, abilities, and behaviors, assessing for job fit determines if a person can do a job, how they will do a job, and if they will enjoy the job.

Every human being is motivated and driven by different influences. Job fit outlines the unique job-related qualities that make a person productive. Job fit assessments help talent acquisition professionals and hiring managers predict job suitability, and accurately helps assist in matching people so that they get inspired with the work they will do in their new jobs, ignite their full potential and impact their experience, engagement and organizational bottom-line.

Click here for Step 1: Attraction.

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While it is now common for workplaces to strive for workplace well being, the role of culture is sometimes overlooked. In reality, workplace wellness programs including gym memberships, step challenges and flu vaccinations pale into insignificance when compared with the effects of workplace culture on the well being of staff.

What is a mentally healthy culture?

Here we’re not talking about a workplace that recognises and supports people with mental illness. That is important in its own right and has been discussed extensively by beyondblue and others. Instead we are talking about a culture that supports everyday ongoing health for all employees – the 20% or so who may have mental health issues but also the 80% who have no mental health issues but who can still find their wellbeing, and satisfaction with life, significantly affected by a poor workplace culture.

We define a mentally healthy culture as an honest, open environment where conflict, workload and stress are actively managed and not ignored or allowed to fester. Openness and honesty are important because a “high trust” culture can only be created if people believe that what they are being told is the truth and that there are no hidden agendas. It is this kind of environment in which people perform at their best.

Active management of conflict and stress means firstly monitoring and assessing how much of it is occurring. Second it means consistency – leaders modelling the behaviours that will lead to low levels of unhealthy conflict and stress. Thirdly, it means taking action when conflict or stress are becoming unhelpful.

It is important to note that both conflict and stress can be good in the right context and the right amounts. Conflict over a task (rather than a relationship), where two people in a team debate the right way to do something, is shown to lead to better outcomes overall. And “good” stress is the rush of adrenaline you feel when presenting a big new idea to a client or the excitement of working with a team to achieve a goal. Without some stress in our lives we quickly become bored and unmotivated. But we have all experienced times when those helpful and motivating conflict and stress situations slide into unhealthy negativity, anxiety and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

As a leader, how do you monitor the levels of conflict and stress and how do you tell when they are becoming unhealthy?

Look at data that already exists. You will probably find that you have information about turnover, EAP data and customer complaints and satisfaction scores.
If you don’t already, start running surveys of employees. These can be engagement or culture surveys and can be formal or informal. In a small organisation you might do this via one-on-one “fireside chats”. If you need a third party to be involved you can get team and organisational assessments done by an external provider which can not only survey employees but also interview them in depth and provide commentary and advice.
Really listen to individuals who come and talk to you. Making the effort to talk to a leader can be daunting and so when someone talks to you about an issue it often signals the tip of hidden iceberg. Take notice!

As a leader, how can you change an unhealthy culture?

This is the million dollar question and it does not have an easy answer, nor will a one-size-fits-all approach work for every company. However, a few things that are necessary ingredients are:

Buy in from the top. If the top management (including the board) don’t see the cultural change as necessary and model it themselves then no-one else in the organisation will believe you are serious.
Buy in from middle management. Although it’s essential for top management to buy in, most culture is set by the daily interactions between people at middle management and front-line levels. If middle management doesn’t fully engage with the culture change, the lives of workers in the organisation won’t change much.
From top management throughout middle management, everyone needs to put the culture change into practice in their own lives. One practice that can make a big difference is managers modelling good work/life boundaries – not overworking or taking work home and giving themselves the time to experience stress relief. A second practice is implementing a no-blame culture which focuses on learning rather than punishment for mistakes. When managers do this themselves and expect it of their people it can significantly reduce the conflict and stress in their workplace.
Clarity of communication. Make sure that expectations are very clear. For example, rather than just naming “respect” as a value, try to be really specific and outline the actual behaviours that are represented by this value. For example: “Having a respectful culture means that we expect that no-one will speak badly about a colleague or their performance either internally or externally except via official performance reviews and 360s”
Taking visible action on bad behaviour. Bullying and harassment are hugely costly and when they are notified but not acted on promptly, workers make the inference that this behaviour is culturally tolerated. Bad behaviour must be acted on and made a performance issue that is just as important as financial or operational targets. Follow through by refusing to pay bonuses to people who don’t live the culture and in extreme cases, make it a performance issue that could lead to termination.
Culture change can take years, not months or days. Having a focus and goal for the culture and sticking with it for the long-haul is essential.

The bottom line

By being honest and transparent with people, while also caring about their welfare, you create a culture of trust. Your employees will feel that they know where they stand and that they too can be honest and open about themselves. This is a guiding step towards a mentally healthy workplace and will have positive effects for individuals and the organisation that last for years.

Dr Jenny George CEO, Converge International

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When can an employer discipline or terminate an employee for inappropriate use of social media, particularly outside work hours?

By Abraham Ash, Partner and Heloise Ormandy, Lawyer, Clayton Utz

Disciplining and terminating employees for inappropriate use of social media is unfortunately a “hot topic” for businesses. The divide between “work life” and “private life” has become increasingly blurred, in large part due to the pervasive presence of social media, and its facilitation of communication between employees outside work hours. This can create risks for employers, including bullying and sexual harassment issues, or exposure of the business to reputational damage.

This article considers:

When can an employee be disciplined or terminated for social media use?
What are the implications if the offending conduct occurs outside work hours?
What can employees do to mitigate problems with social media use?

When can an employee be terminated for social media use?

The Fair Work Commission has upheld dismissals due to an employee’s inappropriate use of social media in cases where the offending conduct has a sufficient connection to the workplace. Though each case will be decided on the basis of its own facts, such conduct may include:

sending explicit, unwanted sexual content or offensive material to other colleagues;
posting/sending material that is threatening or derogatory towards another employee;
posting material that is damaging to an employer’s reputation; and
posting material that is a clear breach of an employer’s social media policy.

For example, in Starr v Department of Human Services [2016] FWC 1460, a Centrelink employee was validly dismissed for describing clients on an online forum as “whinging junkies“, as well as disseminating false information about wait times for Centrelink payments. In O’Keefe v Williams Muir’s Pty Limited T/A troy Williams The Good Guys [2011] FWA 5311 an employee was validly dismissed for threatening his employer’s pay roll office with expletives in a Facebook status, even though the post occurred after work hours.

Social Media use outside work hours

A flexible, practical approach has been taken by the Fair Work Commission when dealing with social media conduct that occurs outside the traditional “9 to 5”. The conduct must have a valid nexus with the workplace. Recently, in Luke Colwell v Sydney International Container Terminals Pty Ltd [2018] FWC 174, the Commission found that an employee who sent 19 colleagues a pornographic video via Facebook Messenger after work hours was validly dismissed. Mr Colwell contended that given the message was sent to his Facebook “friends” outside of work hours, it was outside the remit of his employer to seek to regulate the appropriateness of his personal communications. The Fair Work Commission disagreed, finding that the conduct was sexual harassment, and contravened the deliberate efforts of his employer, the stevedoring company, to encourage women into a traditionally male dominated industry.

What can employers do to mitigate problems with social media use?

Employers should ensure that they have a comprehensive social media policy, setting out what constitutes appropriate behaviour, and clear disciplinary measures for breaching the policy. The policy should be well communicated to employees, including via training sessions. Any complaints about behaviour on social media should be investigated swiftly and thoroughly.

By Abraham Ash, Partner and Heloise Ormandy, Lawyer, Clayton Utz

Abraham Ash

Abraham has specialised in employment law for over twenty years and has been responsible for running a number of leading work health and safety, employment and restraint cases. He regularly appears for major corporate clients in industrial tribunals.

Abraham has extensive experience advising on and appearing for clients regarding a broad range of contentious and non-contentious workplace relations matters. These matters include employment contract negotiation, restructures, unfair dismissal and adverse action claims, post-employment restraints and confidential information matters, workplace policies, fraud and white collar crime. Abraham’s experience and attention to detail is valued highly by his clients.

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Whether your organization is up and running or you are an entrepreneur facing your first hire, you may have valid questions around the hiring process. Is this the right time to hire? Do I have a recruitment process that fosters ongoing employee engagement?

And if you really want to be poised for hiring success, you’ll hopefully include behavioral insights in your hiring equation:

Have I benchmarked the typical behavioral characteristics needed for specific roles?
Am I clear about the talents – and the behaviors – I expect from the hire?
Do I have quality behavioral questions to use during interview?

The cost of making the wrong hire is clear. One study cites 69 percent of employers in 2012 reported that a bad hiring decision placed a strain on their company. Twenty-four percent of companies reported that a bad hiring decision cost them well over $50,000, with a larger 41 percent of businesses reporting a figure of over $25,000. Other findings put the figure at over $40,000 to replace an executive employee, and anything from $7,000 to $10,000 to replace an entry- to mid-level employee.

According to Entrepreneur magazine, citing a Robert Half survey of financial professionals, in 95 percent of cases a bad hiring decision can affect office morale. Likewise, Gallup estimates that there are 22 million actively disengaged employees costing the economy as much as $350 billion per year in lost productivity. These costs are in addition to the cost of replacing a bad hire.

When you know 87 percent of business issues are people-related, it’s not hard to see how important the hiring process is. According to a Deloitte Insights article from 2015, “culture and engagement is the most important issue companies face around the world.”

Consequently, the hiring process must include:

Benchmarks of inherent natural behavioral talents and communication styles.
Benchmarks of talents required for different roles to the candidate’s talents
Benchmarks of the typical behavioral characteristics needed for high performance in specific roles, so the right people can be hired for that role.

This insight would not only deliver the right people for the job, but also enable more effective matching of individuals to teams and line managers. This same sort of matching also can provide value by aligning customers with your organization’s representative(s) who can best serve them.

Too often, people are employed for their skills and knowledge, with little or no attention paid to identifying a candidate’s true talents – those natural behaviors which continually and predictably repeat over time and are often not easily seen in an interview.

When a highly-validated discovery tool is introduced into the hiring process, it not only reveals talents, behaviors and communication styles — all of which are measurable – it also reveals how the individual will respond under pressure. This insight allows the interview process to include specific behavioral questions that drill down to a candidate’s “masked” behavior, which likely only surfaces under the weight of a busy workload or, worse, in conflict with colleagues.

Without a behavioral discovery process, over time and with pressure, the natural behavior emerges, and the candidate may not perform as hoped. Anyone involved in the hiring process also has blind spots and biases that likely form part of any failure to uncover the natural behaviors of the interviewees.

Having a strong hiring process supported with robust discovery processes and strong behaviorally based interview questions will flag warning signs around an otherwise talented candidate. It could be that their moral compass when tested is lacking. It might be that under pressure or in a season of fast change to the organization they get left behind and this opens the potential for them to go rogue.

Smart employers will know the value of having this information up front.

Hugh Massie, Behavioral Strategist

CEO & Founder, DNA Behavior International

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8 Savvy Ways to Perk Up Performance Appraisals

The idea of having performance appraisals can make team members feel all sorts of emotions. Some feel fear and anxiety, others may feel neutral or excited, or even entitled. As the time for performance appraisals approaches, here are 8 areas management can review in helping upcoming appraisals to be more valuable, insightful and inspiring.

1) Set Expectations

All managers and team members should know the specific time and location of the appraisal, as well as the topics and themes to be discussed. The element of surprise is best kept away from performance appraisals as meetings will be most productive when those gathered are as comfortable and clear-headed as possible. If positioned well within a business, performance appraisals should be recognised by the team as part of a normal series of events and conversations that happens throughout the year.

2) Be Prepared

As cliché as it may sound, being prepared for each appraisal is an essential way to maximise everyone’s time and reach the most valuable outcomes. If all attendees have relevant background knowledge and adequate preparations then the meeting should progress in a smooth and orderly fashion. Managers can do additional preparations such as knowing about the employee’s work circumstances and any relevant information, knowing where the boundaries are to be set within each appraisal, particularly if it comes to negotiation, and by creating the right setting with comfortable seating and no outside disturbances. Although the meeting may flow into a two-way conversation, it is important for managers to stay on topic and guide team members back from other non-relevant areas if they digress. Other topics can be scheduled for a later discussion.

3) Keep it Positive

Most people would naturally want to shield themselves from negative feedback. An appraisal is a time when an employee may need to hear about such findings as low performance levels. When giving feedback, it is possible for criticism to be constructive and for feedback to be made to feel positive. Think about repositioning any ‘negatives’ as challenges and developmental opportunities. When arriving at each meeting, it can start well to be there with a positive intent and with an attitude that the performance appraisal will be a great way to smooth out the past, stabilise the present and get excited for the future. If any improvements need to be made, focus on the ‘how’ aspects of getting the team members to want to improve, such as through additional training, goal-setting or mentoring. By keeping it positive, the rapport should be positive, helping to uplift the mood of the team members and making it easier for any ‘challenging’ feedback to be taken positively.

4) Be Open and Non-judgemental

This is a time for team members to have their say and ‘get things off their chests’. They may feel uncomfortable about broaching topics of concern, perhaps not even sure how to raise some issues. As a manager, it is important to remember that although appraisals have a managerial function, they are intended to give each team member their time to be open, upfront and honest. By listening calmly and intently, and being open and non-judgemental in any response, conversations can be more open and productive, with quicker solutions and better outcomes.

5) Be Compassionate and Empowering

Team members like to feel cared for, acknowledged, recognised and supported, and a performance appraisal is a great opportunity to show your care and support. When a team member feels that their thoughts are being heard and understood by management and that they have a supportive ‘partner’ in their career future, they will feel empowered and committed to achieving mutual success. If goals or KPIs are being set, ask employees for input and find out their career aspirations and visions. Discover ways to create a shared vision that you can achieve together.

6) Watch How You Say It

The tone of what we say may be more important than what we actually say, but in saying that, of course, what we say is important too! During appraisals, team members’ senses may be heightened and they are more likely to contemplate non-verbal cues during and after the appraisal. Managers should be aware of how they speak, including their own non-verbal responses, such as body posturing, facial expressions, hand gestures and eye-contact, though being natural in general. Managers should feel comfortable to ‘not rush ahead’, even to slightly elongate their response time following a question to help remain as clear and articulate as possible.

7) Follow Up

It can be easy for a round of performance appraisals to come and go, merely passing by as a formality but if used well, appraisals can provide the basis for touchpoints with team members as the business moves forward. Follow-ups with team members could be about goals that were set, challenges that were presented or resolved, milestones that were achieved and more. Having frequent catch-ups outside of the performance appraisal setting can foster and promote a workplace with increased communication, more cohesive performance and higher levels of overall satisfaction. Ideally, managers and their team should be catching up regularly – every week, fortnight or at least monthly. The ‘formal’ performance appraisal then becomes somewhat of a summary or culmination of all the little ongoing conversations.

8) Harness the Information

During an appraisal there is a lot of conversational content generated and in this ‘online age’, there are accessible and economical tools that can help. Ideally businesses can incorporate an online system that monitors the progress, challenges and developmental aspects all team members.

Good luck with your performance discussions – don’t build them up bigger than they ought to be!

I hope you have a fantastic year ahead and wishing your business and employees even greater success through having more meaningful conversations.

Nick Hedges is the founder of Resolve HR, a Sydney-based HR consultancy specialising in providing workplace advice to managers and business owners.

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Have you ever experienced arriving all fresh and ready to go for your first day at a new job but your manager is running late?

Maybe the receptionist doesn’t know where your desk is (if you even have one)? Worse still, perhaps nobody is even expecting you!

A bad first experience can ruin a new job for any new employee.

As their manager, it is your role to ensure their first impression is a good one.

It’s important they settle in well and overcome any initial hurdles of a new workplace and a new environment as quickly as possible in order to begin adding value to your organisation.

How can you be sure you’re giving them what they need?

A comprehensive induction and onboarding process typically consists of a fairly standard set of activities. However, depending on the size of your organisation and the nature of the role your new hire is stepping into, there could be some variation in the details.

Every phase of the onboarding process with a new employee is important, from before they begin their job, through their first month, to the successful completion of their first year.

It’s up to you to create a welcoming atmosphere and provide the guidance necessary along the way for every new team member to acclimate to what it’s like working within the organisation.

The importance of professionally onboarding every new employee cannot be underestimated. After all, you’ve spent a lot of time, effort and money securing them for the position, and all of that can go to waste if you reduce their morale or don’t provide them with the information they need in their first days and weeks with you.

On the other hand, a great onboarding process can keep an employee with your company for many years – and I can personally attest to this from both sides of the table!

Onboarding is a long-term process that actually begins before your new hire even walks through the door, and continues for at least 6 (some say 12) months.

Before your new employee even starts

The onboarding process doesn’t start on an employee’s first day. You don’t want your new hire spending their first day drowning in administration. Where possible, try to get as much of the paperwork out of the way ahead of time, so they feel more settled and actually part of the team from day one.

Remember to call the employee in the lead up to their start date to let them know how excited you are to have them joining the team and confirm start date, time, place, parking, dress code, etc.

Make sure you have their email account and calendar set up and add any regularly scheduled team meetings to the new hire’s calendar so they can see everything on day one. In fact you should prepare the new hire’s calendar for the first two weeks including any set training session, meet and greets, etc.

Ensure a lunch is confirmed with key peers or colleagues for your new hire’s first day, and have their desk and work area ready, order business cards if appropriate and have a set of office keys/security swipe etc ready in advance.

Arrival / Day 1

No matter how experienced they are, when they arrive on day 1, your new hire is ‘unconsciously incompetent’ – they don’t know what they don’t know.

They don’t know any of the team or the many different personalities that make it up; They haven’t been exposed to any of the internal jargon or lingo; They have no idea how you ‘do things around here’. They are literally completely unaware.

Everybody remembers his or her first day at a new job. You want your new team member to remember their first day in your organisiation for all the right reasons.

Make sure you arrive earlier than they do so you are there to greet them personally and if possible clear your calendar for the morning or at least have some time blocked in your calendar to spend time with them on day 1.

Carefully walk through the orientation plan with your new hire and clarify the first week’s schedule, and confirm any required and recommended training.

If you can’t take them to lunch, ensure that someone in the team is free to have lunch with the new hire.

No matter how many other things you have on your plate, it’s amazing what a simple friendly, welcoming smile can do to improve the onboarding experience.

Week 1

Having a well-documented or well thought-out induction or orientation program for anyone new coming into your business is essential … at least for the first week or so. This will allow your new team member to meet with all the relevant parts of the business and to also get to know ‘who’s who in the zoo’.

Formal (job specific) training is separate to any induction or orientation program. While every new employee will be eager to prove themselves on the job, throwing someone in the deep end (a case of sink or swim) is probably not the best way to induct somebody new into the business.

If you haven’t got the time or the budget to take all the team to lunch, then at least consider having drinks in the office at the end of their first week just so the rest of the team can get to know the new kid on the block. It’s a great way to ensure that Paul “the new guy” can meet Sofia “the HR lady”, Roberto “from I.T” and Leonie “from payroll” in a more social setting.

Check in with them from time to time during their first few days (ideally every day if possible) to ensure they’re OK and to see if they have any questions at all. Have your new hire sit with key roles from around the business and perhaps even shadow them for a few days.

After a few days of getting the ‘lay of the land’ in their new role, sit down with them to reinforce your expectations of them in their role and within the business. It’s a good idea to block time for them to take you through their own expectations of what they would like to achieve.

Ensure they are completely comfortable with all the internal tools and software used by the team or business. You don’t want them to feel overwhelmed by something that is second nature to everyone else.

The first few months

New employees are fairly vulnerable during their first few months in a new role. They crave feedback and they want to know how they’re going on a fairly regular basis.

For a new employee the first few months can feel like an eternity if they haven’t received regular feedback.

Remember to schedule and conduct regularly occurring one-on-one meetings with your new hire. Make sure these are blocked in your calendars. Continue to provide timely, on-going, spontaneous, meaningful “everyday feedback” and elicit feedback from your new hire and be available to answer questions.

In the first few weeks explain the performance review process and create written performance goals and professional development goals.

Ensure you book in their 30 day check-in and ideally conduct this offsite perhaps even over lunch.

Lock in their 90 day (probation) check-in well in advance and about two weeks prior to the 90 day check-in time, send the new hire a pre-appraisal questionnaire.

After 3 – 6 months your new hire should hopefully start feeling ‘consciously competent’ – when it suddenly all feels like second nature to them.

* * *

A strong employee onboarding program should show that you’re focused on employee success; that you care about their professional development; and that you are driving a supportive company culture.

By curating a great employee onboarding experience you will encourage new hires to hit the ground running, reach their full potential, and be great representatives of your employer brand.

Paul Slezak Co-founder – RecruitLoop

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