Learning the different types of interviews and how to prepare for them can help you land your desired position.
How to Make Meetings More Effective: 8 Productivity Tips
Unproductive meetings waste more than $37 billion per year, and 67 percent of all meetings are considered failures.
Yet most people suck it up when their calendars get overloaded—or complain about it to their coworkers—never bothering to ask the question: how do I make our meetings more effective?
Granted, if you’re new to an organization, you probably aren’t in a position to dramatically change your team’s meeting habits. That said, there are some actions you can take to help you make the most of meetings—and guide others to do the same.
Read on for eight tips to make meetings more effective and productive, so you can get the greatest possible value out of your time.
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1. Understand the purpose of the meeting
A meeting for the sake of having a meeting is a waste of everyone’s time. If you’re going to pull people away from their valuable work, then you have to make sure the meeting provides equal or greater value—both to the organization and the individual people involved. This means that understanding, defining, and communicating the purpose of the meeting is critical. If you don’t know what the goal of the meeting is, you’ll show up unprepared and won’t be able to contribute effectively. The same goes for your coworkers. Generally, meetings fall into one of three categories:- Information sharing. In these meetings, information flows in one direction—usually from leadership to the employees. Generally there will be a Q&A, but the purpose is to clarify and reinforce the information shared.
- Creative discussion. This is a back-and-forth discussion where you toss out ideas, ideally in a judgment-free way.
- Consensus decision. Stakeholders come together to reach a decision on a particular topic. Ideally, once the meeting is over and the decision made, no more discussion is needed and you move to execute the plan.
2. Have an agenda
In addition to having a set purpose for the meeting, it’s also important to have a firm grasp on the subjects and topics to be covered. If not, it’s easy for the meeting to get off track—especially during a brainstorming session. Although your agenda should always be in writing, it doesn’t have to be fancy. It just needs to answer the following questions:- What type of meeting is this? What is the expected outcome?
- What are the topic(s) of conversation (define these as narrowly as possible)?
- Who needs to be present at this meeting?
- Who is responsible for leading the meeting? Who manages the post-meeting action items?
3. Be time conscious
Everyone’s time is valuable. If you’re attending a meeting, show up on time (or a few minutes early). If you’re running a meeting, show up on time and, most importantly, end the meeting early. This is easier said than done. There are a number of reasons why a meeting might run late:- Too much small talk or catch-up
- Lack of focus on the topic of discussion
- Allowing some people to dominate the conversation
- Expecting to accomplish too much in a short amount of time
4. Know your role
Everyone has a job in a meeting. If you don’t have a role, then you probably shouldn’t be there (more on that later). Are you leading the meeting, or just a participant? If you’re a participant, how active do people expect you to be? What are the risks of dominating the conversation? One of the biggest problems with corporate meetings is that expectations are often unspoken. If possible, reach out to the meeting leader with a quick email to clarify any details. It may take a few minutes of your and their time, but that small effort could mean the difference between a productive and unproductive session.5. Prepare in advance
If you’re going to productively contribute to a meeting, you need to be prepared. But that important truth cuts both ways: if you want everyone to productively contribute, you have to give them the information they need to be prepared. So if you’re a participant, do your research ahead of time. If you’re unsure about anything, ask in advance. And if you’re running the meeting, make sure you provide participants with the background information they need to be successful:- Data, stats, and charts
- Sales plans
- Production plans
- Roadmaps & backlogs
6. Identify who needs to be present
Not everyone needs to be in every meeting. While some people feel like they should be present because they’re involved in a project, the truth is that if they’re not going to actively contribute, the meeting is a waste of their time. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a “two pizza” rule of thumb: if you need more than two pizzas to feed everybody, then there are too many people. If you think that you need more people in the meeting, then it’s possible that the scope of the meeting is too big. In that case, focus on a narrower topic and objective.7. Listen actively
The point of a meeting is to gather input from your colleagues. If you don’t listen to what they have to say, then there’s no point—regardless of whether you’re a leader or participant. It’s true that the post-COVID world has blurred the lines between what’s acceptable in meetings. Generally speaking, spending time on your phone or holding sideline conversations is a bad move. Not only is it rude, but you’re missing out on important information—and you won’t be able to contribute to the discussion. And if these meetings are so boring that you don’t feel like you’re getting anything out of them, then consider this next point…8. Make sure you need the meeting
“This meeting could’ve been an email.” We’ve all heard (and probably said) that line a time or two. So before you schedule a meeting and expect people to give up their precious time, decide whether or not a meeting is absolutely necessary. Some issues can be solved via email, Slack, or a couple of one-on-one phone calls. As important as meetings are, if you spend your whole day in them, you’ll never get your work done. So consider the idea of “meetings as a last resort” — you’ll end up with higher quality outcomes in the end.let’s talk
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Best Ways to Hire for Your Lending Business
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Hiring for a lending business
Financial industry jobs are anticipated to grow by 10% by the year 2026. This means it will soon become more important than ever for financial services recruiters to know how to find, hire, and retain talent. Lending service hiring is a very specific process. It has challenges that make it more difficult to find the right people to fill open roles than other industries may have. Your company’s financial services recruitment strategies need to be on point if you want to land the most qualified candidates.What Are the Challenges of Financial Services Recruitment?
Every industry is unique when it comes to best practices in recruiting new candidates. However, many would argue that the financial industry is the most difficult. A large reason for this is simply a lack of suitable talent. In fact, 76% of accountancy and finance employers said a shortage of suitable applicants is the biggest obstacle they face when it comes to hiring. When you add the fact that financial industry jobs often require niche skill sets, navigating a small pool of candidates is even more challenging. Finally, financial employers are often competing with many other sectors for new talent. Many young employees today are pursuing jobs in fields like tech over finance. So, you’re not only competing against your direct competitors but companies in other industries as well.How Can You Improve Your Lending Service Hiring Strategy?
Despite these challenges facing the industry, there are ways you can position your company ahead of the competition to land some impressive new hires.Improve Your Employer Branding
If you want to get the attention of quality candidates, you will need to invest in your employer’s brand. You should begin by researching how potential candidates perceive your brand and the things they really want to know about you. Then, you can analyze how those expectations differ from what you’re actually showing them. How can you influence potential candidates’ perceptions about you to appeal to even more people? For example, you’ll likely be competing with new, fintech companies that have a youthful, engaging brand. If that is something many candidates are looking for, they will skip applying to your traditional, conservative brand. In order to be competitive, you’ll need to make sure your company comes across in a way that resonates with the people you consider to be your ideal candidates.Use Recruitment Marketing Strategies
Lending service hiring really is a form of marketing and it doesn’t end with your company branding. You’ll also want to consider how you can employ strategies that will help you build an extensive pool of qualified candidates. This pool can be used for both current and future job openings. You’ll want to use digital tools such as programmatic advertising to help get your open positions in front of the right candidates. Another effective strategy is to create ideal candidate profiles for any job openings. This will help you identify the attributes that are most essential to success on the job. It will also help you employ programmatic advertising that targets the candidates with the skills you’re looking for.Expand Your Sourcing Strategy
Are you looking in the right places to find new hires? Your open positions should be posted in relevant places like social media platforms and online job boards. Online job boards are one of the best places to advertise your openings since 71% of finance professionals said they look for work through these platforms. You can utilize general job boards such as LinkedIn or Indeed and specialist lending service hiring boards. College job fairs and other recruiting events are another great way to expand your sourcing strategy. These are especially effective in meeting entry-level candidates. If the results of these strategies aren’t satisfactory, utilizing a recruiting agency like Brightwing is an excellent option. We can help you create a more effective sourcing strategy and even take some of the work off of your hands.Make Growth and Inclusion Part of Your Employee Value Proposition
Today, employees are looking for more than a place to earn a salary. They want to work for a company that encourages their personal growth and prioritizes inclusion. Candidates should hear your employee value proposition (EVP) and immediately know there’s nowhere else they’d rather work. Can you offer training opportunities that your competitors can’t or won’t? Are there clear paths for advancement within the company? Do you hire people of all backgrounds? These are all things that should be an integral part of your EVP.Connect Through Email and Social Media
Email and social media are highly effective ways to reach the younger generations of applicants. Consider utilizing email as a way to stay in touch with candidates who didn’t make the cut. You can maintain a relationship and nurture them to keep them in the loop for future job openings using email. Professional social media sites like LinkedIn are also useful for connecting with candidates. If you’re not convinced it’s a place to spend your time and money, consider that 49% of professionals follow relevant organizations on social media to keep up with their recruitment processes. You already know they are looking there, so why not reach them where they’re already active?Start An Employee Referral Program
There is no one better to vouch for your company than someone who already works there. Inevitably, your employees will know people who work in similar industries or at other companies. Getting employee referrals is an extremely easy and efficient way to reach new talent. You can start a referral program by rewarding employees for recommending employees they think would make great candidates. Employee referral programs lower the time to hire and also help save on recruiting costs so you are not sourcing. In addition, you already know these candidates have a good relationship with your current employees, which is a win-win.Lending Service Hiring is Hard
There’s no denying that recruiting in the financial industry is hard. Talent is in short supply and the competition is fierce. That’s why lending service hiring and recruiting has to be an active process, not a passive activity. You need to show potential employees why working for you will be the best choice for them. That means marketing to job seekers in a similar way to how you market to your customers.let’s talk
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What is Technical Recruiting and Is It a Good Career Choice?
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Technical Recruiting as a Good Career Choice
If you identify as a person with excellent communication skills, a strong curiosity streak, and have knowledge of technical career fields, then becoming a technical recruiter could be a good career choice.What is a technical recruiter?
A technical recruiter is a recruiter who specifically looks for talent to fill technical roles, which are jobs that require certain skills and expertise (usually in IT and engineering). Often, technical recruiters have at least two years of experience in the industry field they will be recruiting for, and formal education gives a prospective technical recruiter a competitive edge. Technical recruiters match people with opportunities to create a pool of qualified candidates for sustaining a pipeline of talent.What does a recruiter do?
To decide if technical recruiting is a good career choice for you, it’s important to understand the duties and responsibilities of a technical recruiter.Build recruiting strategy
Recruiters are responsible for building a pool of qualified candidates for a talent pipeline, a task that is critical to securing a recruiting firm’s success and longevity as they target the skillset. The importance of the task means that recruiters will have to strategize how to best find new talent and build relationships with them. The process involves reaching out through social media, job boards, text messages, emails, and phone calls.Identify sources of high-quality talent
A technical recruiter needs to identify the spaces where they can find qualified candidates for a technical role. This process often includes finding the right circles on recruitment-friendly websites such as LinkedIn and searching for candidates through social media. It’s also important that recruiters maintain a strong digital presence to present themselves as reliable and approachable.Reach out to prospective hires
This task is likely the first thing that comes to mind when you think of becoming a recruiter, and it’s a task that requires some tough skin. Technical recruiters will have to reach out to candidates who they identified through their searches who would be potentially good fits for the roles they are looking to fill. Recruiters will also have to be able to market different job opportunities to a prospective candidate. Often, it means reaching out to people who are not interested and being unfettered by blunt responses, rejection, and silences.Screen and interview prospective talent
Technical recruiters have to ensure that the candidate is qualified, which is why having industry knowledge is important for the job. The process often includes interviews, technical assessments, and other screening techniques-–often with multiple steps to guarantee talent and experience. To fully assess if a candidate is suitable for a role, a recruiter will need to have strong interpersonal skills and critical thinking. At Brightwing, we use our tried and tested BRIGHTView Process to guarantee we find qualified individuals for our targeted positions. Beyond gauging a candidate’s technical capabilities, Brightwing technical recruiters dive deeper to learn about a candidate’s soft skills, career aspirations, and potential cultural fit. Brightwing recruiters spend time with the candidate themselves, as well as with previous managers and co-workers to get a 360-degree view.Recommend prospective hires
Once a technical recruiter has found a candidate they think will be a good match, the candidate will likely be submitted to the client for the role. It is also a recruiter’s responsibility to present the recommended candidate in the best light.Coordinate and consult on client interviews
When a client decides to interview submitted candidates, the technical recruiter coordinates the interview scheduling and coaches candidates on how to perform their best during the interview. They’ll follow-up after each round of interviews with feedback from the client and tips on how to best approach the next phase of the process.Offer and negotiate job offers
Once the client decides they’d like your candidate to join their team, recruiters will have to contact the candidate with an offer and close them. The conversation can include questions and conditions from the candidate, during which a recruiter will have to answer and negotiate effectively to convince them to accept the offer.Represent businesses at job fairs
Recruiters will often be present at job fairs where they will promote and represent their business while also searching for potential employees and candidates.Is recruiting a good job?
High Demand and Potential for Growth
There is currently a recruiter shortage. Today, companies are not only facing a staffing shortage, but also difficulty finding recruiters who can fill those shortages. As such, recruiting jobs are in very high demand with ample opportunities and chances that pay well. According to Indeed, the average technical recruiting job in the US pays around $60,737 a year, while Built-In says the average is closer to $85,000. The recruiting industry is also expected to grow in the coming years, which means that there will be growth reflected in both your salary and in recruiting firms. Entering this industry means you won’t be short on good opportunities.Work with Purpose
It’s hard to feel motivated by a job if you feel like you’re not making any sort of difference. But as a technical recruiter, your efforts will be tangible. You will be matching people with their best-fit opportunities, which means that with each placement you make, you have brought in new talent to a business. You can feel that you are doing valuable work both for the people you recruit and for the clients you serve. Your efforts will also clearly be reflected in your pay, as successful placements will give you commission fees and high-quality recruiting will lead to significant bonuses.Transferable Skills and Industry Freedom
A recruiting job is basically a sales job, which means there are countless soft skills you will learn from being a recruiter that you can transfer to other jobs. From excellent listening skills to critical thinking to negotiating, having a recruiter’s skillset prevents you from feeling trapped in one industry, and multiple doors will be open to you in the future.Become a recruiter
Here at Brightwing, we hire and invest in our people to help them reach their potential. Learn more about our careers today and send in your resume to see if becoming a recruiter with Brightwing is the best opportunity for you!let’s talk
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is LinkedIn the best place to find and apply to jobs on? More often than not, the answer is no. Find out more about your options.
How Are You Hedging Against Labor Shortages?
According to data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), nearly 90 percent of their respondents said they were struggling to fill open positions, and 73 percent noted a decrease in applications.
This data is indicative of the pain most companies are feeling—they need workers, but struggle to find people to work for them.
While sectors like food service, hospitality, healthcare, and manufacturing are hardest hit, this is something that businesses across sectors are feeling right now. Many companies are struggling to increase wages and step up the benefits they offer, but not everyone has the resources to handle this right now.
As a result, you may be at a loss as to the best ways to hedge against these current labor shortages. In this post, we’ll walk through some steps you can take to keep your company growing, even if hiring is a challenge.
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What is Causing Current Labor Shortages?
As with any economic event, labor shortages have many causes. Here are some of the factors that seem most prominent in the Great Resignation:- The shock of the pandemic has forced many workers to reevaluate their work-life balance priorities
- Many aging workers chose to retire early during the pandemic, exacerbating a growing skilled labor gap
- Employees who work in crowded environments are hesitant to return to work and risk contracting COVID-19
- High unemployment benefits enable workers to still meet basic needs without returning to work—in many cases they are spending the time seeking job opportunities in other fields
What You Can’t Do
Before we dive into the best ways to respond to these shortages, let’s talk about some options that shouldn’t be on the table. Many companies have just decided to throw in the towel, and limit the services they offer. While it may seem like “battening down the hatches until the storm passes” is a good option, that assumes that this “storm” is a short-term phenomenon. While COVID-19 concerns may abate soon, other economic factors may not. What if these dynamics continue for multiple years? Companies who will succeed over the long term adapt to challenges, not shirk away from them. Another bad idea is to expect to achieve sizable growth without growing your team. While adopting automation and technology can help make this possible (more on that later), expecting one team member to do the jobs of two or three right now will just lead to burnout, and people will leave. As a result, if you want your business to grow, bringing on more talent is a key part of the equation.How to Hedge Against Labor Shortages
Here are a few of the actions that leading companies are taking to hedge against current labor shortages. Let’s look at a few of these tactics.1. Raise salaries and offer better benefits.
We’ve all seen the fast food restaurants offering $12-15 an hour (some even more) for new employees. That’s because the most obvious thing to do when you’re having trouble finding talent is to offer more compensation:- Higher salaries
- Signing bonuses
- Education subsidies
- Free subscriptions (e.g. Spotify Premium)
2. Promote company culture.
As people’s lives re-shift after the third (or fourth, depending on how you count) COVID wave, people are going to be even pickier about the companies they work with. Simply put: culture matters now more than ever. Employees want a culture that values their contribution, provides the necessary freedom for work-life balance, and provides opportunities to grow in their career development. Valuing employees as human beings goes a long way to both attracting and retaining top talent. Be sure to put culture front and center in your hiring materials, social media posts, and online content. Let potential candidates know that you’re a company that people want to work for, not have to work for.3. Build a talent funnel.
In today’s candidate-driven market, most companies are rolling out the red carpet during the hiring process, hoping that it will entice top talent to work with them. If you want to build a reliable talent funnel, then you need to start doing some of these things:- Be quick in your response times (automation can be a real help in this area!)
- Engage in remote hiring, both to expand your talent pool and improve accessibility
- Keep candidate information in a centralized database so you don’t re-ask the same questions
- Work with a reputable recruitment firm who can handle much of these details for you
4. Upskill your current employees.
Promoting from within is almost always more cost-effective than going out to hire a replacement. So if you have some excellent employees who are interested in taking their career to the next level, you can offer training opportunities for them to do so. Of course, this has a two-fold effect: it creates an in-house talent ladder to hedge against potential resignations, and it also keeps these employees engaged so they don’t feel the need to go work somewhere else.5. Invest in automation.
We mentioned this earlier but it bears repeating. There are a variety of devices, software, and systems that can increase productivity and output without increasing the cost of labor. An obvious example is the self-service kiosks or mobile apps for fast food restaurants, but there are other types of automation that can help engineering, IT, healthcare, automotive, and other companies:- Chatbots that automate the front lines of customer support
- Email marketing automations to personalize and automate customer communications
- Productivity workflows and project management software
- Employee analytics tools to gauge the productivity of each team member, and identify opportunities for improvement
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How a Recruiting Company Can Help You Fill a Job Faster
As an employer, sifting through the numerous applicants received for every open position can be exceedingly challenging. Not just because it takes time and effort above and beyond a hiring manager’s normal set of responsibilities (though, of course it does). The challenges of hiring in today’s market are greater than in recent memory. How, when, and why we work has been disrupted over the last couple of years. Shifting priorities make hiring the best people harder than before. That’s where a specialized recruiting agency comes in extremely helpful. Recruitment companies yield more consistent and speedy employee and employment searches, results, and substantial, long-term employment of the best employees for a given role. Not least because they don’t wait for applications to come in – they work proactively to find top talent that may not even be looking to make a change. In this article, we’ll discuss what a recruiting agency is, the leading-edge benefits of using one, and how to make the most of a recruiting company.
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Why Outsource Your Talent Recruiting?
In an ever-changing and evolving job labor market characterized by increasing recruitment and acquisition challenges, high turnovers, unfilled job openings, and changing candidate expectations, many have turned to recruiting firms to find their next career role or to find their next valuable employee. The average cost per hire in 2022 using traditional means is $4,425, and filling the average position takes 36-45 days. Moreover, the cost of a bad hire can be a third of one’s salary. A recruiting company acts as an expert mediator between employers and job hunters. They work for a company to understand their people’s needs and then find the most ideal matches. They have a broad view of the market in that skillset, and they have well-developed pipelines of candidates – some who are actively job seeking, and others who are not. As a result, the best recruiters are prepared to garner top results for employers and job hunters, and save valuable time, money and energy for both. In contrast to an employment agency that focuses on hiring unskilled applicants (or laborers), recruitment agencies are highly beneficial to both employers and skilled applicants. A skilled applicant possesses the experience and certifications, as well as the motivation and the soft skills to fill a role on a particular team well. The recruitment agency works with their clients to qualify job requisitions, then engages in recruitment processes that vary from firm to firm. In the case of Brightwing, we’ve developed the Brightview process to thoroughly vet our candidates, as an example. These tasks include meaningfully reaching out to candidates through various networks, identifying the most ideal for a job through their database and various networks of existing relationships, vetting these potential employment candidates, and presenting the resulting top candidates to the employer.Benefits of a Recruiting Company
Traditional hiring and job-seeking methods are less reliable and efficient than using a recruiting company. They are more expensive and time-consuming in numerous ways, and less able to yield the best results for both hiring manager and candidate. Some of the top benefits of using a recruitment company such as Brightwing to achieve your hiring goals include expert recruitment knowledge and assistance, easier and faster hiring, higher-quality candidates, extended reach and access, specialist knowledge of the job market and current trends, full support for employers and job hunters, less wasted time and resources, and a more competitive edge for both employers and job hunters.Expert Knowledge and Assistance
The entire job and focus of a recruitment company is finding the best candidates with expert knowledge, resources, connections, and extensive experience above the average employer. Not only do they post compelling job ads, but they maximize interest in the position by leaning on their longstanding relationships with leaders and up-and-comers in the field.Easier and Faster Hiring
An employment recruiter dramatically shortens the time it takes to fill a role with expert knowledge, assistance, and increased focus toward the end goal. What’s more – hiring managers will spend quality time looking at three qualified candidates, rather than sifting through hundreds of applications that are not necessarily qualified at all. The hiring manager or job hunter gets the gift of gaining back their time.Higher Quality Candidates
When working with specialized, agency recruiters, employers receive only the highest quality, skilled candidates in their industry. Hiring managers work through a handful of expertly referenced, pre-screened, and interviewed candidates, rather than a vast pool of unvetted incoming applications.Extended Reach and Access
Alongside expert knowledge and assistance, employment recruiters also have extended reach and access to wider pools of candidates in diverse industries, including ideal candidates that are less easily accessed and/or who may not be aware of the ideal job opportunity.Specialist Market and Trends Knowledge
Recruitment agencies provide clarity on current job market trends, with deeper knowledge and investment in up-to-date research and reports. They provide valuable information and informed advice on how to best achieve goals and improve your employer brand or your job hunting profile.Full Support
The best employment recruiting teams communicate actively with both employers and job hunters, find ideal candidates for various roles and job vacancies individual candidates are ideal for. They engage, make impactful connections, and provide full support, feedback, and suggestions to both.Less Wasted Time and Resources
There is less waste of time and resources expended toward candidate searches, engagement, and recruitment by using an experienced recruitment agency. Expedient recruitment that provides higher-quality candidates saves time, money, and the results pay for themselves.A More Competitive Edge
By providing expert knowledge and assistance, easier and faster hiring, higher-quality candidates and resulting employees, extended reach and access, specialist marketing and trends knowledge, full support, and less wasted time and resources, employment recruiters give employers and job hunters a more competitive edge in their diverse industries of the job market.Experiences Without a Recruitment Company
Without an employment recruiter, employers and job hunters spend much more time and resources searching for candidates or jobs on their own through numerous conflicting, and potentially misleading sources of information. The results are ill-fitting employment matches and connections that lead to inefficiency, high turnover and ultimately make reaching organizational goals more difficult and more expensive. Not to mention, any drawn-out in-house recruiting places an additional burden on team members. This additional work can lead to excessive burnout and increased expenses.How to Make the Most of a Recruitment Company
To yield the best results, have a clear idea of your needs and desires for both the employment recruiters and the open role before you engage with a recruitment agency. The best recruiting agencies will press you for clarity on both of these. Provide a clear job description, a list of requirements, and important skills and attributes for the position. Be clear to yourself and toward the recruitment company on your ideal candidate so they know what to look for. And consider carefully which skills or attributes are required versus nice to have. As an ideal candidate, be clear on your own needs, desires, top skills, and attributes to match with the most ideal job for you. Work with your recruiter to develop questions so that you interview hiring companies as much as their interview you.Getting Started With a Recruitment Company
Employment recruiters at Brightwing are ready to provide you with expert consultation, and highly efficient results that save valuable time, money, decrease turnover, and increase your teams’ work quality, focus, capabilities, performance, and competitiveness. Whether you are looking to find a job or your next top employee, a recruitment company can help you fill a job faster. For the best employee and employment matches, reach out to us to start a conversation.let’s talk
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6 Steps to Keep Afloat after a Sudden Employee Resignation
It’s the one thing that every employer dreads. Unfortunately, in our current reality, this thing has become almost commonplace. We’re talking about an employee resignation.
A sudden departure can be scary, especially if you’re losing a top performer. Plus, there’s always the concern that the resignation will become, for lack of a better word, contagious.
So if your top employee leaves, here are six steps to keep your organization afloat, set your team at ease, and continue moving toward success.
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1. Take a moment to breathe.
An employee resignation can be overwhelming at the best of times. When you’re not expecting it, or if the person leaving is a star performer, it can seem like the world is coming to an end. So instead of making decisions while in fight-or-flight mode, take a deep breath. Ideally, your employee will follow best practices and turn in their notice on a Friday. This will give both you and them the weekend to process the news. Then, on Monday, everyone can come to the table with a clear head.2. Fulfill all your legal obligations.
There are some basic, legal obligations that you have to do when an employee leaves. These can include:- Paying all accrued wages
- Paying severance, unemployment compensation and other legal requirements
- Paying out any accrued benefits that must be paid upon termination (or issuing a notice of non-entitlement to these benefits)
- If applicable, accounting for and establishing a schedule for commission or bonus payments
- Providing the employee with the required legal notices (COBRA benefit continuation, workers’ compensation notices, etc.)
- Reviewing nondisclosure and noncompete agreements to maintain compliance (on both sides)
3. Fill the most critical gaps first.
When someone works for your company, they ideally fulfill 40 hours worth of work (or more) per week. This is a major contribution, and it’s going to be hard to fill those gaps in the short term. That’s why you shouldn’t try and fill them all at once. Instead, put together a list of the employee’s weekly tasks, and figure out what must get done, and what you can drop until you hire a replacement. Be very picky about which tasks you deem essential, because your current employees are going to have to take on those tasks on top of their regular duties.4. See if there’s a deeper issue within the organization.
In many cases, a resignation happens because of an issue with the employee—they want to pivot their career, work in a different kind of environment, etc. It doesn’t mean there’s a problem with your organization, it just means that the fit is no longer there. When this happens, it’s highly unlikely that the resignation will become contagious. But there are some cases in which a resignation happens because of a problem with your organization. In those cases, the resignation will almost certainly be the first of many. So when you face a sudden employee resignation, it’s important to get to the root of their reasons why. Often employees are hesitant to burn bridges and so may not be forthcoming, but that’s why it’s important to ask probing questions during the exit interview, and even read between the lines a little bit. Some of these questions may include:- What are your reasons for leaving the company? What service did you feel we were unable to offer you?
- What did you like about the company? What did you not like?
- What are the top 3 things you think we should do differently here?
- Did you have a good relationship with your supervisor and team?
- Did we meet your expectations in terms of employee experience?
5. Be transparent with your team.
It’s important to maintain trust with the rest of your team in the best of times. But when someone resigns, it automatically sets everyone on edge. So it’s important to be especially vigilant about being open and transparent, and reassure them that you still have their best interests at heart. Start by letting everyone know that the person has turned in their notice. Better they hear it from you than from the grapevine. If appropriate, share some of the reasoning. If the employee is moving onto “bigger and better things,” share and celebrate it. Transparency and honesty will help reassure the team that you support them as individuals, not just for their work product.6. If possible, part on good terms.
Barring some Festivus-style airing of grievances where the employee clearly wants to burn their bridges on the way out, it’s important to maintain a positive relationship with an outgoing employee. You never know: they could become your next customer, refer new business your way, or they may come back to work for you in the future.Final thoughts on handling an employee resignation
If your top employee quits, there’s a lot you’re going to have to do to handle it. However, the best thing you can do is plan ahead. Here are some workforce planning tips to help stave off the worst effects of a sudden employee resignation:- Don’t allow anyone to become indispensable. When an “indispensable” employee leaves, there’s no one left to fill the gap. Make sure that no one person siloes themselves off and hoards their knowledge and expertise.
- Document institutional knowledge. Top performing employees naturally accrue a good deal of institutional knowledge. You need to ensure that knowledge is properly documented so you don’t have to spend too much time bringing their replacement up to speed.
- Focus on meeting your team’s needs. By building a strong culture, you don’t just build a better and more enjoyable place to work, improve your chances of succeeding as a business and reduce employee churn; you make it easier on everyone when that churn happens.
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Employee Retention Strategies
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Effective Employee Retention Strategies in the Wake of the Great Resignation
2021 was a year of change and struggle for many people, resulting in a wave of resignations which have cost companies millions of dollars in hiring, restructuring, and more. It seems like everywhere, businesses are short-handed and searching for adequate workers. Sometimes called the “Great Resignation,” sometimes the “Great Reshuffle,” millions of employees have switched jobs and even careers in search of a better work environment. Effective employee retention strategies are the key to keeping your employees satisfied and content in their job.Employee Retention Strategies
While there are many strategies for retaining your employees, some are better than others. It is easy to think as an employer that your employees have everything they need, but it is time to consider what might help your employees enjoy their jobs to the fullest.Perks and Benefits
While this may seem like an obvious employee retention strategy, it could be the deciding factor between your workplace and a similar job that wants to hire your employees.Benefits
If you can make it happen, offer your employees benefits! Access to healthcare and a 401k are the bare minimum in today’s market – can you add other less expected benefits like employee discounts or tuition or childcare reimbursement? Not only do programs like these benefit your workers, but it benefits you as the employer as well. Employee benefits are tax-free, and often it won’t cost you much more to provide them. It also ensures you have a healthier, happier workforce with fewer sick days and more long-term employees.Paid Time Off
Another perk or benefit you can easily offer is generous paid time off (PTO). Burnout is a huge contributor to the great resignation. Paid time off can help reduce burnout and provide opportunities for vacations, family time, and needed leave for important other events like doctors appointments or funerals. Everyone needs time off, but a lot of companies make their employees take time off without pay, which can make things difficult for those employees. There are other cultures where everyone has time-off, but people don’t feel comfortable using it. We’ve all heard of the intense work environments where needing time off is looked at as a weakness, and never taking a vacation is rewarded with promotions. Offering generous PTO – and then actually encouraging employees to take it – is a great way to support your employees’ wellbeing and help them to stay with your company.Other Perks
When a company offers perks, it is important not to slight the more important benefits and go straight to fun solutions. However, these fun perks can be effective employee retention strategies, especially in companies where you offer good benefits but need another reason for your employees to stay. Some of these perks are things like gifts over the holidays, contests with prizes, and even remote work options. These can be as exciting and fun as you want them to be! Creating a stand-out work environment can help your employees to see what is so great about your company. Sometimes perks can also look like nice office space, a stipend for office decor or supplies, paid lunches once a month, or even a free gym membership. Get creative! Help your employees see what makes your workspace special.Talk to Your Employees
While creating a happy work environment and exciting job package is always beneficial, it can’t replace a great conversation. The best employee retention strategies include several steps:Have a One on One With Each Employee
Many companies begin by issuing a company wide survey that gathers quite a bit of data. Then, move on to create a one on one with each employee. If this isn’t possible for you to meet with each employee, ask your managers to step in and meet with some of them. Record your impressions and ask questions such as “What could we do to make your job better?” or “What is your biggest frustration right now in the workplace?”. Make an effort to listen and make your employee feel validated. If you’re already friends, this can be an amazing discussion. Don’t make them feel like you are interrogating them or that if they say the wrong thing, they could lose their job. If that happens, the employee might even feel like they should leave due to these meetings. Be aware of your own shortcomings, and be willing to take some criticism.Compile Your Findings
Notice what your employees say to you. Is there a common thread? What seems to be the biggest frustration of your employees? Maybe take a survey as a part of your meetings. Find what would help your employees to feel happiest in their individual jobs.Address the Issues You Find
Once you have the evidence you need, make changes. Address the issues through effective employee retention strategies. Upgrade the office if needed! Give raises to the employees who deserve it! You will find that your employees will tell you what needs to be corrected if you only listen to their needs.Growth and Opportunities
One of the most effective employee retention strategies that especially works well for Millennials and other younger employees is the opportunity for growth. Some people are happy staying in the same job for the rest of their lives. Employees often hope for growth, especially when they enter a job at the entry-level or are near the beginning of their careers. Most entry-level employees never grow in salary even after they are much more valuable to the company, prompting them to leave once they have more experience. A great way to combat these employees leaving is by offering scheduled raises or having yearly performance ratings and following up with the employees who go above and beyond. Reward your good employees, without them having to ask for it!Upgrade Your Office Equipment
If your company has been using the same computers for the last 10 years, it’s time to upgrade. If an employee is struggling to complete their work tasks because of a computer, that makes them feel frustrated and like they have no control over their duties. Upgrading your office decor, space, and appliances can also impress clients and visitors to the office, making your employees proud to work there. Upgrading your office hardware can make your office more productive and also help the employees to feel valued and rewarded. Not only does this benefit them, it also benefits you as the employer. Employees who feel listened to and have what they need will stay where they are. Creating a safe, sustainable job environment is the most effective employee retention strategy. While it is not easy being an employer, it is hard to continue hiring and rehiring employees who are unhappy and leaving. Do what works for you and your business, and you can gain a loyal employee group that will keep your company running.let’s talk
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Hiring for Your Financial Services Teams
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What to Know When Hiring for Your Financial Services Teams
Financial services recruitment can be difficult, especially in a world full of fraud, scams, and untrustworthy individuals. When you are looking to add data scientists, risk analysts, financial analysts, or accountants to your team, there are several steps to help you choose a good candidate. 2022 is a great year to look for new hires, as many people are looking for change in their jobs or may be seeking new employment. Hiring the right person with the talents you are seeking is a great way to set your business up for success.Hiring A Financial Services Team Member
Depending on the type of financial role you are trying to fill, take into account what qualifications you are seeking. A financial manager is responsible for the health of your business! Taking into consideration the kind of person you will need is key. Hiring a financial advisor can be difficult, so it is important to lay out what you would want your financial manager to do before you start the hiring process. It is much easier to find a candidate you want when you are prepared with a job description and your desires.What Does a Financial Services Job Entail?
As mentioned before, a financial manager would be responsible for the overall health of your company. Some other unique responsibilities might include:- Fraud monitoring: A fraud specialist may be in charge of tracking and monitoring illegal transactions on clients’ accounts without proper authorization from the account owner. Fraud specialists may also report any suspicious account movements and unusual transactions that may be risky to the bank and/or their clients.
- Train and develop staff to create a great customer experience.
- Delegating tasks to various employees.
- Developing strategies to increase sales and retention
How to Find a Good Candidate
Once you have identified what exactly you are looking for, you need to put out an accurate job description. Whether you hire a recruiter or post a job listing, be clear on what you want. Are you seeking an applicant with several years of experience? Would you like for them to have a degree? Make it clear in your listing what you are willing to accept from a candidate. Then, be open to candidates who fit the basics. Remember that years of experience don’t always make an individual trustworthy. The hiring process is one of the most difficult parts of running a business, but once you hire the right candidate, your business will thrive. The main steps to hiring someone in financial services are simple:- Building the job description – how to make your job opening more attractive than the others flooding the job boards? There are a finite number of candidates and it is important to create a job description that is appealing and unique. This is a critical step and needs to be executed well.
- Reaching out proactively to candidates – in this candidate-driven market, you can’t wait for the best talent to come to you. In this market, employees are less driven to search for jobs when people may be recruiting them already. Good candidates are hired quickly. Get ahead of it by proactively reaching out.
- Screening candidates thoroughly, yet quickly– how do you make sure you’re hiring the RIGHT person without losing them to other offers? Candidates will often accept a role that they find gratifying and well-paying. If your process is slow or cumbersome, then you will have likely lost out on any number of great people.
Why Use a Recruiting Agency
Let’s face it, hiring a great candidate is an exhausting and time-consuming process. Hiring is just one of many aspects of a manager’s role, and it is a different type of effort than what a manager is accustomed to doing on a daily basis. Managers often have strong skills in many areas aside from hiring though. When it comes to financial recruitment, a recruiting agency takes a lot of the stress and worry out of hiring. Most people running a business find it difficult to take the time to hire and vet resumes while still accomplishing all they need to get done. A recruiting agency should go above and beyond for you to help you find the perfect applicant.Good Recruiters Matter
Experienced recruiters who truly care about finding a great hire are key when it comes to financial services recruitment. Finding a great fit has a lot to do with knowing the available applicants well. A good recruiter knows their candidate inside and out. They know their job history, their strengths and weaknesses, and their trustworthiness. They’ve already done the reference and background checks, and they know what kind of job their candidate wants. Then, they bring them to your business, fully vetted. All the groundwork done.Relationship-based Recruiting
Good recruiters get to know the candidates, and they get to know you and your business. They ask all the right questions to know exactly what you might be looking for. Let’s say you are seeking an experienced credit analyst with at least 5 years of experience, but the applicant having an MBA isn’t as important to you. Your recruiter can work through their pipeline of talent – some of whom are actively looking for new jobs, and many of whom are not – and get you interviewing with better candidates, faster than if you wait for applications to come in. Simply posting a job and resting on your laurels while waiting on resumes just does not work any longer. You will certainly miss out on a number of great people by not being proactive. Proactive outreach is more critical now than ever.Financial Services Recruitment
Recruiting a financial services team can be difficult, but it is possible to find a new hire who can complete your team and help you in your company mission. A great way to make it easier on yourself and your team is to hire a recruiting company to find you the perfect match! Reach out today to Brightwing and we can help you find the perfect candidate.let’s talk
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Find Great Employees for Your Engineering Team
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How to Find Great Employees for Your Engineering Team
Creating an effective engineering team is all about choosing the right members. Just like any job, who you work with makes a huge difference. Engineering is a field where the engineering talent of your team can affect every aspect of your growth, output, and production. Finding the right candidates to join your engineering team takes time and effort, but it is definitely worth it to find the right person. This is why most engineering companies use experienced recruiters like Brightwing to bring the talent to them.Attracting Engineering Talent in 2022
Building a team of talent in 2022 can be difficult in some ways and easy in others. In 2021, millions of Americans quit their jobs in search of new opportunities. At this point, there is a large gap in opportunities vs. candidates, which means that the job market for hiring is competitive; however, there are a lot of good candidates to be found. Creating a solid team in 2022 is very possible as a lot of people have left their jobs even after years of working for their prior companies. Finding experienced workers and newly graduated students alike is relatively easy, but attracting them to your engineering firm may be a little easier said than done.Job Offers
Creating a unique job offer to appeal to engineering talent is essential in today’s hiring scene. What does a unique job offer look like? There are a few ways to make your offer the best one on the table:Competitive Salary
Obviously offering a competitive wage is important, but including things like bonuses and room for pay raises and growth will help you stand out among the crowd. Millennials especially tend to take a job that will promise them a career path and scheduled raises rather than a high-paying job where they can’t grow. Offer salary vs. hourly, whatever may work best for you. A competitively priced job offer isn’t just important in this market, it is absolutely essential.Benefits
Offering benefits will help your employees know that you care about their health and welfare. Most large firms are offering benefits like health insurance, dental and vision, and 401ks. Make an effort to offer a benefits package that will be interesting and worth it to your new hires. If you offer a plan that doesn’t cover the basics or has an extremely high deductible, that detracts from your offer. Employee benefits are also tax-free to employers, which can help your business in return.Perks
Fun, exciting perks don’t always have to be fancy or over-the-top. You can offer monthly competitions with modest prizes. Have casual Fridays! Have special gifts for birthdays! Find a way to bring something you enjoy into the workplace, like offering a gym membership to each employee or renting out a theater twice a year for a premiere. Sometimes something simple and enjoyable can make your job stand out over another and often turn the tide for an employee trying to decide between two firms.Show them Your Spark
Help people know that you offer a problem to be solved or a challenge to face in your field. Show your engineering team that you work on something worthwhile and interesting! Engineering is sometimes seen as boring or stagnant. When you have a project that piques the interest of your candidates, you have a great reason for them to choose you over a firm that just isn’t as interesting. If you specialize in something, tell your applicants. Show them what they would miss out on if they didn’t take your offer!Building a Team of Talent
Creating an engineering team doesn’t mean just finding one good individual and building a team around them, it has to do with recruiting members that will work together as a whole. What makes a good team player in an engineering team?Team Players are Leaders
On some engineering teams, younger or less experienced engineers may feel left out or like they can’t make comments, offer criticism, or otherwise contribute beyond expectations. When teams have rigid hierarchies, non-team leads or juniors may self-censor. You certainly don’t want that – you want a team where everyone can rise to the occasion as both formal and informal leaders. Creating a team of leaders helps people to take charge and work together.How to Find the Perfect Match
Many engineering firms have a difficult time finding the engineering talent they are looking for to fill their teams. Engineers are busy and work on many different kinds of projects, and each firm may experience something different when hiring. Using a recruitment agency for engineering hires is a great way to go about building a team of talent. A renowned recruitment agency with a long-standing engineering focus like Brightwing attracts engineering talent along with other workers in design and manufacturing. Recruiting takes significant time and effort, especially when the recruiting process is optimized to get to know each applicant’s goals, strengths, and weaknesses.Easier for Employers
Creating a team has a lot to do with knowing each member, and it’s hard to go about building a team of talent if you don’t know the talents involved. Self-assessment is notoriously inaccurate, and worse, not everyone is completely honest on their resume. If someone says they are organized and collaborative but they really aren’t, it can have a ripple effect that interferes with your projects, timelines, and budgets. Using an engineering-focused recruiting agency to build engineering teams will save time, money and energy for employers because recruiters are experts at bringing engineers’ true soft and technical skills to light.let’s talk
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Resignations Are Contagious: How to Hedge Against Recent Talent Shortages
In 2019, Texas A&M professor Anthony Klotz dubbed the phrase “The Great Resignation” to describe a voluntary, mass exodus from the workforce.
According to recent data, it looks like that’s exactly what we’re living through right now:
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- 11.5 million workers quit their jobs between April and June 2021 (U.S. Department of Labor)
- For every 100 job openings, there are 83 available workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Anywhere between 40-50% of workers are considering leaving their jobs right now (Microsoft & Gallup)
What are employers saying?
If you ask most employers, they’ll certainly say the job market has certainly transformed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to survey data from job board Indeed, 73% of employers are struggling to hire and retain workers. Conversely, only 5% are experiencing the opposite effect. Across the board, here is how employers feel about the job market currently:- 86% believe employers need to take immediate action to reduce churn
- 86% say they should increase concerns about resignations
- 85% agree the pandemic has changed beliefs around what a “good job” is
- 76% say resignations are contagious among the workforce
- 51% believe how they handled the pandemic resulted in subsequent resignations
Why are workers leaving?
According to that same survey from Indeed, the following are the top reasons why employees are resigning:- Higher pay (59%)
- Schedule flexibility (58%)
- Work-life balance (56%)
- Remote work options (54%)
- Focus on personal and family responsibilities (50%)
- After working from home for a year, employees realize that more flexibility and balance is possible in their lives
- Employees value balance, especially time with friends and family, in light of a particularly difficult time filled with serious illness and loss
Isn’t this just typical summer churn?
Given the fact that we just got out of the summer, can’t we chalk this up to the fact that this is just typical summer churn? If that’s the case, we would expect to see these numbers start to go down right about now. But actually, the opposite is happening. Recent data from Pave seems to suggest otherwise. Even taking into account the fact that companies experience higher churn during the summer, 2021 is still seeing a massive uptick in resignations.How should employers respond?
A ping-pong table isn’t a retention strategy. When many employers think about how to retain customers, they often go for the “hip and cool” benefits, like fancy snacks or gym memberships or weekly happy hours. The problem here? These things aren’t actually effective at retaining customers. In fact, in a recent article from Fast Company, Elizabeth Segran argues that The Era of Wacky Office Perks is Dead: For years, companies have spent money on fun workplace perks in order to attract young talent…But a new study finds that these snazzy office benefits aren’t what young workers really want. Instead, workers younger than 35 place more value on respect. The research suggests that companies should invest more in training managers to communicate respectfully and nurture employee well-being, rather than kitting out offices with trendy new accessories. Remember what we said earlier: it’s established professionals that are leading the charge on the Great Resignation. These people (for the most part) don’t care about all the fancy perks that they’re probably not going to use anyway. Instead, they care about how they’re treated at work. Are they treated with dignity and respect? Do you respect their family responsibilities? Do they have flexibility in their schedules? Do you recognize them for their accomplishments? A study of more than 400,000 people published in Harvard Business Review found that when employees believe promotions are managed effectively, employee turnover rates are half that of other companies in the same industry. And according to bonusly.com, 63% of those in a recent survey who said they are regularly recognized also said they are very unlikely to look for a new job. So if you want to get serious about retention, here are some specific, actionable steps you can take:- Spend some time listening to your employees and gather input
- Strive for maximum flexibility in your work arrangements, without sacrificing quality, productivity, and service
- Prioritize workplace safety, instituting and enforcing COVID protocols to mitigate people’s concerns
- Show empathy to your customer-facing teams, who are likely dealing with ugly complaints about delays, errors, or other issues
- Focus on retaining each individual on your team by prioritizing their growth and well-being; each person you lose is a blow to your organization’s effectiveness and morale
- Recognize that resignations are contagious, and work to allay any concerns your fellow team members may have
- Keep a pipeline of potential hires; in this market, it’s never a bad idea to have a few people in your back pocket just in case you lose a team member
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5 Top Tips for Landing Great Talent in Today’s Competitive Market
Right now, the talent market is flooded with opportunities for job seekers.
In fact, as the market stands right now, there are way more opportunities than candidates. This is pretty much the case across all sectors.
You may be acutely aware of this struggle right now. You may be struggling to find great, experienced talent for all your open positions.
If this is the case, you need to change your approach to recruiting, interviewing, and job offers.
Luckily, we’ve had some successes in this area recently, and can offer some first-hand advice. So here are five things you can do today to stand out in this competitive job market.
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1. Define your ideal candidate.
If you want to effectively compete for a certain type of candidate, you have to first define who that candidate is and why they’re a good fit for your organization. Otherwise, you’ll spend time and resources chasing the wrong people, wasting both your time and theirs. To do this effectively, you need to go beyond the standard demographics that everyone looks at: years of experience, qualifications, seniority level, etc. While important, these give you a one-dimensional understanding of the candidate. Here are some questions you can ask to try and go deeper:- Is this a role that will be actively managed, or do they need to be self-reliant?
- Can this role function as a remote or hybrid, or does it require someone willing to be in the office full-time?
- Can you accommodate on-the-job training, or do you need someone fully qualified and ready to hit the ground running from Day 1?
2. Position your organization to attract your ideal candidate.
Once you’ve defined your ideal candidate, the next step is to position your company so that you’re the kind of place where that person would want to work. In a market that’s flooded with opportunity, job seekers have the luxury of being choosy. If you want to stand out among the other banks and financial institutions out there, you have to have a “hook” that draws them to your company — and away from your competitors. There are a number of factors that come into play here:- Brand recognition
- Reputation
- Manager/supervisor
- Special projects
- Company/office culture
3. Offer upskill & career pathing opportunities.
When career professionals accept a given role, they aren’t taking it because of what it’ll offer them right now. They’re thinking more strategically, about how that role will drive their career forward. As a result of the talent shortage, many savvy professionals are seeing this as the perfect opportunity to find an opportunity that better suits their long-term goals. This could mean upskilling in certain areas to stay ahead of shifting trends in the market, especially among engineers and IT professionals. It could also mean that they’re ready to start taking on more leadership roles and becoming managers. In either case, if you want to stand out and attract great talent, you need to provide them with opportunities to move their careers forward. If not, they’ll simply go with another organization who will.4. Create flexible work environments.
For many, COVID-19 was the perfect opportunity to reset and spend more time at home with family. This inevitably resulted in a shift in priorities, causing the desire for remote work to go through the roof. If you can offer remote work opportunities, you’ll have a leg up when it comes to attracting quality candidates. However, having a 100% remote work environment may not be feasible for you. But you can still create more flexible work environments by allowing hybrid office experiences, flexible PTO, and other benefits that can help promote a greater work-life balance.5. Designate an internal salesperson.
This final tip is one that a lot of employers skip over; which is unfortunate, since it’s probably the one that’s most important. After you’ve defined your ideal candidate, positioned your organization, and highlighted the available opportunities, you need to actually sell the candidate on the experience of working with you. That means that you need someone to function as your internal salesperson. Now this person could be the hiring manager. But if your hiring manager isn’t a natural salesperson, you may need someone to come along and help them during the interview process. If a candidate doesn’t get excited about working with you, odds are they’re not going to take the job.Conclusion: Be clear about what you have to offer.
Different candidates have different motivations. Some want opportunities to push themselves and upskill, others want a dynamic company culture, and others want flexibility. Attracting quality candidates requires that you become crystal clear on what you’re looking for, and what you have to offer them, and whether that fits with their own career goals. So it’s important that you be very clear on what you have to offer them and whether that’s going to be a good fit. If you have a competitive offer for the candidate, and you’re able to effectively communicate that offer, you’ll certainly stand out from the competition. Only then will you be able to attract the best candidates in your territory.let’s talk
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Current Engineering Trends: What Can Employers Learn?
BY STEVE ERMAK
PRACTICE LEAD – ENGINEERING & DESIGN
Are you having trouble finding qualified engineers to fill crucial roles in your company?
If so, you’re not alone.
Talented, qualified engineers are in increasingly high demand right now. This is due to a number of factors, many of which you’re likely already seeing in your firm.
One of these is the post-COVID recovery, which is leading to a booming economy across all sectors. As the economy stabilizes and the future becomes more certain, budgets are opening back up. This is likely why you’re able to start filling those crucial roles now.
There’s also a generational shift that you’re seeing as well. Many Baby Boomers are retiring, and you need qualified Millennials and even Zoomers to replace them.
The problem is that although there are more students graduating with engineering degrees, fewer of those graduates have the necessary skills to succeed at top engineering firms.
With an elevated demand and depressed candidate base, the result is a talent shortage.
So how do you as the employer navigate this market? A great place to start is by understanding the top 2021 engineering trends, and how you can and should respond. Here are four that you should keep top of mind.
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It’s a job seeker’s market.
Just a few years ago, we were experiencing a talent surplus and highly competitive market. In that environment, you as the employer had all the power. Now, that script has flipped. Candidates now have all the power. This means that you’ll be competing against all the top engineering firms for qualified engineers. If you want to attract them to your firm, you need to come at them with an enticing offer. This includes going above and beyond when it comes to:- Salary + benefits (some candidates can ask for $20K more than what they were making just a few years ago)
- Responsibilities and upward mobility
- Specific projects, particularly innovative and leading-edge work
- Additional education and training
Job seekers are looking to upskill.
Given the growing demand and lucrativeness of many specialized skills, there are a number of engineering candidates who are looking to upskill in their next role. This means that engineering firms need to ask themselves the following questions:- Will this role help candidates gain new specialized skills?
- Will this role give candidates experience on projects that are innovative and cutting edge?
- Will this role serve not only as a great job, but a great step forward for their overall career?
- Electrical engineering
- Embedded systems
- Software systems
- Hardware design
- Program management
- Technicians
- Engineering managers
Candidates want to prove themselves as leaders.
Many senior engineering leaders are aging out of the workforce. You may be seeing that happen within your organization. If so, you know first hand that this is leading not only to a skill gap, but a leadership gap. Replacing qualified engineers is one thing. But replacing leaders is a whole different ball game. While you may be able to attract experienced leaders from other organizations, they’re more difficult to convince to make a change. So you may have more success bringing on younger candidates who aspire to leadership. But how do you tell which candidates have that desire? It’s true you could ask them, but someone who says “I want to be a leader” may not be cut out for it. However, there are a number of soft skills you can look out for during the interview process:- Active listening and response to your questions
- Empathy
- Initiative (i.e. they don’t wait for you to ask questions, they’re asking questions too)
- Curiosity (again, they’re ask lots of questions)
- Positive response to constructive criticism (e.g. they ask you if you have concerns about their resume/experience)
Conclusion: Sell the experience of working at your firm.
All of these market trends boil down to one thing: you can’t just expect engineers to come flocking to you. Instead, you have to sell the experience of working at your firm. This involves collaborating with the marketing department to work on building your brand. If you’ve had bad experiences with employees in the past, some reputation management work is also in order. And if you don’t consider yourself the best person to “sell” someone on your company, then you need to find someone else in the organization who is. Overall, engineering candidates are going to need a great reason to choose you over the competitors. If you put some work into the process, offer a great package, and present them with the chance to work at a top-tier, cutting-edge firm, you’ll have some stellar candidates lining up to take the job.let’s talk
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How to Compete for the Best Engineering Talent
BY STEVE ERMAK
PRACTICE LEAD – ENGINEERING & DESIGN
Right now, the engineering market is white hot.
Although there are plenty of students with engineering degrees, fewer and fewer candidates have the requisite skills to succeed as engineers in top organizations. This is resulting in a growing talent gap: too many jobs and not enough qualified candidates to fill them.
So if you want to attract and land great engineering talent, you have to get serious about competing for that talent.
Paying above-market rates is a good place to start; the old adage “you get what you pay for” rings true here. If you want top-tier talent, you’ve got to pay the top tier bucks.
But there are a number of reasons that factor into an engineer’s decision to take a new job, and pay isn’t the only factor. Here are some other ways your organization can compete for top engineering talent.
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Move fast.
In a highly competitive market, engineering candidates are fielding job offers left and right. That’s why speed is an important factor in getting a candidate to accept your offer. I know that a lot of companies want to be absolutely sure before they make an offer. After all, hiring someone is a big investment. It makes sense that you’d want to take your time. But consider this: let’s say you have engaged an ideal candidate but haven’t made an offer yet. At the same time, they’re entertaining an offer from a competitor. Which company do you think they’re going to go with? Who would you go with, if you were in their shoes? Clearly, it would be the competitor who’s already made an offer. My advice is to always assume that there’s another offer on the table. That way, you’ll move as fast as possible and won’t miss the opportunity to work with your ideal candidate.Showcase your state-of-the-art projects.
There’s a lot of demand for engineers with niche skill sets. For example, in the automotive sector, experience with autonomous vehicles or electrification is a massive plus. As a result, engineering candidates are looking for jobs where they can pick up these skills. If you have state-of-the-art projects that you’re working on, be sure to showcase that in the interview process. Technical recruiters should highlight projects that provide opportunities for engineers to learn, grow, and upskill. It gives them a compelling reason for them to accept your offer, rather than a competitor’s.Manage your market reputation.
People want to work for reputable companies. So if you have a tarnished reputation, you’re going to have a hard time attracting and landing top engineering talent. Anyone can Google your company, read reviews on sites like Glassdoor, see what people are saying about you on social media, and will certainly call anyone in their professional network who’s had experience working with you. Bottom line: you can’t get away with anything anymore. Hopefully, your reputation is so great that you won’t have to worry about this. But that’s not always under your control. Sometimes, you’ll be a part of an organization that has had a shady past and you’re trying to turn it around. If that’s the case, then reputation management has to be part of your recruitment strategy. Here are some intentional steps you can take:- Own your mistakes. Don’t try and pretend like past mistakes never happened. Your candidates are smarter than that. Instead, own up to them and show that you’re ready to make a change.
- Proactively respond to complaints. Don’t wait for the candidate to bring up the bad reviews. Show that you’re proactive by letting the candidate know that you’re taking steps to turn things around.
- Show that you’re serious about moving forward. Don’t just talk the talk: walk the walk. Provide tangible examples of new policies or benefits that will reverse the negatives of the past.
Provide upward mobility.
Top engineering talent isn’t just looking for a J.O.B. They want to work in an organization that they can contribute value to, but will also contribute value to them in their career. This includes salary, benefits, and office culture, but also upward mobility Granted, this is something they have to work for. But if you’re talking to great talent, they know they’re going to have to work for it. Odds are, they’ll work extremely hard for it. They just want to know that, at the end of the line, there’s going to be a reward for all of that hard work. No one wants to take a dead-end job. By showing that you’re a place where engineers can grow in their careers, you’re going to set yourself apart from the competition.How to “sell” the experience to top engineering talent
Having all of these benefits is great. But unless you can communicate them to the candidate, they’re not going to help you land that great talent. In a typical job interview, the onus falls on the candidate to sell themselves. But on the flip side, you need someone who can sell your organization and present all of these reasons why an engineer would want to work with you. If you aren’t a natural salesperson, then you need to find someone within the company who can provide this support. Remember: the key to finding and landing top engineering talent is to proactively sell your company to the talent market. If great engineers see that you’re an exciting place to work, you won’t have a hard time landing them.let’s talk
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Brightwing Named G.R.E.A.T. RECRUITERS CERTIFIED 2021
Brightwing, the Talent Expert company, is pleased to announce that they have been named G.R.E.A.T. RECRUITERS CERTIFIED 2021 by G.R.E.A.T. Recruiters, a leading recruiting experience and rating management platform.
Brightwing has earned this distinction by proving that their teams guide both jobseekers and employers through a consistently high-touch, high-quality experience throughout the recruitment life cycle.
“It’s an honor to be recognized by an industry leader like G.R.E.A.T. Recruiters for providing a recruiting experience that exceeds the highest industry standards,” says Aaron Chernow, CEO of Brightwing.
By continuously soliciting feedback and then sharing that feedback publicly, Brightwing has demonstrated its commitment to transparency and excellence.
In order to earn the distinction of becoming G.R.E.A.T. RECRUITERS CERTIFIED, recruiting firms were required to meet a set of criteria which included: 1) regularly soliciting feedback from jobseekers and placed talent; 2) achieving an average Great Recruiters rating of 4.6 or higher; and 3) at least 33% of the recruiting team achieving G.R.E.A.T. Recruiter certification.
Brightwing met this criteria as part of their larger commitment to cultivating a growth culture. Brightwing is committed to delivering the highest quality experience to every candidate and client — a promise that translates into constant efforts to improve and to grow on the part of each individual Brightwinger, of each team, and of the organization as a whole.
“The feedback provided by G.R.E.A.T. Recruiters has proved invaluable in our ability to go above and beyond for those we serve,” explains George Optiz, President of Brightwing. The organization is proud to achieve excellent results for its clients and candidates and looking forward to continuing to refine and improve over the coming years.
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What NOT to Care About at Work
2020 could have sent our outlook plummeting. But it looks like many of us have resisted the temptation to expect the worst.
Hope springs from many sources. Perhaps our resilience – as well as our ability to takes things remote and virtual – has opened up new ways of looking at the economy and all the possibilities it holds.
HERE’S TO A YEAR AHEAD THAT’S BETTER THAN THE ONE NEARLY BEHIND US!
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The pandemic and recent economic hardships have affected more than just the “where” and “when” of our work days.
It’s changed our work values.
We’ve all spent a lot of time thinking and talking about remote work – especially whether it’s desirable once its urgent necessity fades. It’s an important subject, but it’s only a small piece of a larger discussion. Hardship can shine a strong light on the things that really matter and leave everything else in the shadows. It can be a clarifying experience that helps us reset and refocus. What’s important to us in our work lives? And how do our current models and structures support those work values? If you found yourself struggling to find meaning in your work – why? And what should you do about it? If you found that working for a big name in your industry didn’t save your position when their bottom-line was under threat – how do you conceptualize job security now? And what are you looking for from your next employer? We need to ask ourselves and each other these questions in order to get a broader perspective and make better decisions about the opportunities that lie ahead of us. To get the conversation going, we surveyed professionals in financial services, engineering, operations, and IT who hold FTE (full-time employee) and contract positions. The results were interesting. Here are three insights into which work values matter, and which ones don’t:#1 — Working on “Significant” Projects > Opportunities for Promotion
When asked how they’d rank the following aspects of work, in aggregate, respondents chose the following order:1. WORKING ON INTERESTING, SIGNIFICANT PROJECTS THAT PUSH YOUR CAREER FORWARD 2. FLEXIBILITY: SCHEDULE AND LOCATION 3. A ROBUST BENEFITS PACKAGE: MEDICAL, 401K, PROFIT SHARING 4. OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROMOTION 5. GETTING PAID OVERTIME 6. WORKING FOR A NOTABLE COMPANY IN MY INDUSTRY – A BIG NAMEWhat does this order of priorities telegraph? For one, 52% of respondents said that doing “interesting,” career-propelling work outweighs all the other options. That is a striking statistic, especially as compared to the second-runner up: “flexibility” was ranked 1st by 20% of respondents. What does it mean to value “significant” work so highly? It very well could signal a shift to an employment model growing in popularity across all industries: project work. Rather than let their careers take shape around the organization they happen to join, perhaps more professionals are going to take a more active or assertive role and carve out a career consisting of a series of meaningful challenges. Thanks to its defined scope and – you guessed it – flexibility, project work may prove the most satisfying option for more people in the very near future.
IN FACT, WHEN ASKED IF OPEN TO CONTRACT POSITIONS, 68.8% OF RESPONDENTS ANSWERED “YES.”One respondent elaborated: “It helps you keep work / life priorities in check and avoid the false sense of security that comes with FTE. Further, I think it helps keep skills up and you’re able to have a lot more experiences with different companies, technologies.”
#2 — 1/3 of Survey Respondents Believe Job Security is a Myth
When asked about their take on job security looking ahead to 2021, this is how survey respondents answered:44% – JOB SECURITY IS REAL, AND IT’S HIGH ON MY LIST OF PRIORITIES 33% – JOB SECURITY IS A MYTH. TALENT IS WHAT MOVES YOUR CAREER FORWARD. 21% – JOB SECURITY IS PRETTY RARE. IT’S A “NICE TO HAVE” NOT A “NEED TO HAVE.” 2% – OTHERTaking a deeper dive, it seems that for just over half of respondents, job security takes a back seat to other priorities. Perhaps 2020 exposed the fact that even the most secure-seeming jobs are not impervious to economic downturns.
#3 — 80% of Respondents Report a Neutral or Positive Outlook on 2021
The majority of our survey respondents were decidedly NOT pessimistic about what 2021 holds for them at work. |
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| 2.7% | 17.3% | 42.7% | 30.7% | 6.7% |
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Has Remote Work Lived Up to Its Promise?
On our worst days in years past, remote work was like a mirage. An image of perfection – of cool breezes and comfortable freedom hidden away from the monotony of the cultural desert called the “office.”
It functioned like a paradise mostly out of reach. We could step inside the cool, calm hush for a day here and there. But the next morning, parked back at our desks, it might as well have been a dream.
Fast forward to now, and the mirage has evaporated. The sweet, clean promise of remote work has slipped into the grimy reality of every day.
Now that we’ve lived it for more than a few months, is remote work a savior? Or has easy couch-lounging transformed into a hunched living room prison sentence?
We surveyed a diverse cross-section of professionals with backgrounds in financial services, engineering, manufacturing, information technology, and marketing, among others. Here’s what we found out.
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State of Remote Work, 2020
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in 2019, 16% of the US workforce worked remotely at least part of the time. As you’d imagine, remote work in 2020 so far has taken a giant step up. 82% of the 172 people we surveyed worked remotely at least part of the time in 2020.Significant Upsides…
Our respondents say the most important benefit of remote work has been cutting out the commute (43%). Schedule and location flexibility come in close behind at 37%. Not needing to leave home appears to have a huge impact on our satisfaction. That could be for several reasons. Perhaps we enjoy the extra time we “get back” in our day, however we may use it. Maybe navigating traffic or crowds takes a toll on our energy or happiness. Less obviously – maybe we relish staying still. Flexibility – the runner up – has everything to do with autonomy. Even as the “where” becomes less and less flexible under lockdown orders, the freedom to choose “when” you start, end, and pick your day back up gives remote work a lot of its shine.…and Decided Drawbacks
Remote work is not all upside, however. The top 3 drawbacks of remote work are neck-in-neck with each other… 31% pointed to a feeling of isolation or disconnection from their organization. 29% indicated that remote work has created longer workdays with fewer clear stopping points. And 25% experience systems issues that highlight an undercooked remote infrastructure. These popular problems could reflect how quickly and unexpectedly organizations were forced to go remote. Whether through culture-building efforts, more frequent communications, or just plain old investment in technology, leadership could theoretically mitigate these issues over time.The Future of Remote Work
How do the negatives stack up against the positives? It all comes down to a question of how people would prefer to work going forward. And their answer is loud and clear. Remote work HAS in large part lived up to its promise. 94% of respondents prefer to work remotely – at least part of the time. 51% of survey respondents said they’d want a combination of remote and in-office work. 43% said they’d like to go all-in on remote. And only 6% preferred that they work in the office all the time. What does this mean for the future of our working lives? These results – as limited as they are – lead one to believe that remote work isn’t going anywhere. Organizations do need to embrace it as an undeniable feature of our new working landscape. And that means they’ll need to do their best to optimize it. As employers, how can we devise a framework that maximizes the value of in-person collaboration and of remote-style autonomy? Our consultants have some ideas…contact us:
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Transitioning Back to the Office: A Legal Perspective for Michigan Employers
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Transitioning Back to the Office: A Legal Perspective for Michigan Employers
Featuring Michigan Attorney A. Vince Colella Plans for the future of working life vary immensely from company to company. Some organizations have announced permanent work from home plans, while others have announced their intent to return to the office in waves or shifts. Some are sticking with remote work until they have more information, planning to make decisions sometime next year. Given how much is at stake, we reached out to A. Vince Colella, founding partner of Moss & Colella, P.C., a Southfield, Michigan-based law firm, for his legal perspective on the issue. Are employers liable if an employee gets COVID-19? What if a visitor to the office contracts it? How should employers handle employees who don’t want to return to the office? Without further ado, here’s what we learned:How do I protect my employees’ health and mitigate my liability as an employer?
“If you do open the office, you’ll need to follow guidelines from the CDC and OSHA closely,” Colella says. “To protect your employees and any visitors to your offices, and to mitigate your liability, you’ll need to take temperatures, keep health logs, disinfect surfaces, wear masks, practice social distancing, and so on. In Michigan, you’ll find all relevant guidelines under Executive Order 2020-70, section 11a.” You can find the Executive Order here. If you follow all the guidelines, being held liable for the contraction of COVID-19 by any of your employees or visitors will be unlikely. Why? As long as you’re following the recommended procedures, you’ll have done everything reasonably expected of you. Not to mention – it would be very hard to prove that your office is the ONLY place a person could have contracted the virus. Colella adds: “Just because you won’t be held liable doesn’t mean your employee won’t be taken care of in the case that they contract the virus. They’ll be covered by the Worker’s Compensation statute.” Their medical expenses will be covered, and you’ll hold their job for them until they recover. Once they do, you restore them to their job, and they won’t be able to sue you for pain and suffering. Colella goes on: “Of course, you’ll want to weigh your options. Will the benefits of returning to the office justify the expense and disruption brought on by new safety procedures?” For some offices – especially the really large ones – the rigors of the safety procedures may make it impossible to bring everyone back. In many cases, sticking to remote work may be the more reasonable option until the threat of COVID-19 passes.How should employers handle employees who don’t feel comfortable returning to the office?
As you make the transition back into the office, you can expect some employees to voice concerns. Colella explains: “First, you’ve got to take their concerns seriously. People may have co-morbidities that make returning to the office a scary prospect.” Even without co-morbidities, many people are working through a lot of fear. So, how tolerant do you need to be of people who want to stay remote? The answer depends on how reasonably you can accommodate them. “If productivity depends on employees’ physical presence, then it’s reasonable to require their return,” says Colella. “If their job can be done remotely – and in the past few months, it’s been proven that many jobs can be done remotely – then it’s in your best interest as an employer to accommodate them.”When can we expect work life to return to normal?
Of course, it’s the standard answer: we have no crystal ball. But be sure to check on the CDC and OSHA guidelines periodically, as they will change and presumably relax as the virus becomes less of a threat. In Michigan, Colella points out, the executive order incorporates the CDC’s and OSHA’s guidelines into law – so, if you follow the guidelines (however they change over time), you’ll be following the law.let us know if we can help
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Will We Work from Home Forever?
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Will We Work from Home Forever?
by Aaron Chernow • 06/01/2020 There’s nothing like looking up after a few hours of deep focus—head still very much in the work—only to be yanked back into reality by a request to take out the garbage. Over the past couple of months, work and personal life have co-mingled more than ever. I think “work-life balance” has never been a useful concept. Achieving work-life balance is a lot like trying to balance time spent thinking with time spent breathing. Work is not separate from life – it’s a part of life. That’s always been true. But we feel it more now. There’s a great quote attributed to James Michener: “The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.” The specifics of our lives shift – where and how we spend our time can change from second to second. But when we’re the masters of our lives, all our activities in their many forms are bound together and made cohesive by our “vision of excellence.” Or, in other words, by our foundational values. On a practical level, the order of our priorities fluctuates from day to day according to urgency and importance. If an employee calls me and needs my help, I’m going to help, whether it’s outside work hours or not. And when important personal events happen during working hours, I’ll shift to give them my full attention. Feeling good about how you prioritize comes down to being sure that you have clear values. Our values as leaders, employees, and as people have been put to the test. Some values we held closely before the pandemic are going to fade, while others have already begun to loom larger and larger. Here’s a set of (obvious) conflicting values: how do you weigh the power of in-person community against the fear of disease? Your answer will also color your response to this question: Will the office return to its central position in our working lives, or are will we mostly work from home… forever?The last couple months have put the #WFH movement to the test.
True, it hasn’t been a clean experiment. The Coronavirus and all its consequences are confounding variables. The virus has dragged all sorts of fear, hardship, and grief into our lives (and home offices) that aren’t usually there. When people are productive working from home in these circumstances, it’s despite many, many obstacles. But I wonder, as many have: once stay-at-home orders are lifted and the economy opens back up, how will our newly formed fears and desires reshape the workplace? Will we give up the office and embrace distributed teams as a permanent and logical way to operate? Before the pandemic, I never fully embraced the WFH movement because I thought it would lead to too many losses – of energy, culture, community. For some leaders, working from home is a scary proposition because they think accountability disappears as soon as employees know their boss can’t surprise them by walking in the room. But that’s really a hiring problem, not a remote work problem. This time has certainly proven that I have the right people on my team. My concern has more to do with understanding the people with whom I work and sharing in the collective energy. I love walking around my office, reading people’s faces and body language. Management by walking around – for me – isn’t about making sure people are at their desks working. It’s about intuiting their wellbeing, figuring out if they need something to help them thrive, and sharing in the momentum of the group. I miss being able to do that. As an “essential” worker, I’ve spent many hours over the past 7 weeks at an office that usually houses 120 employees, but instead has had only 4. The experience has thrown into sharp relief what a difference a community makes – without one, there’s so much less spirit and drive. The Brightwing team has already spent so much time together building relationships, and that has made the abrupt transition to remote work easier. We have video calls. We even use Zoom or FaceTime to be together while working separately. Telepresence has absolutely helped us through this big change. But it’s a very different story when teambuilding is virtual from the start.The WFH movement has had its ups and downs over the last few decades.
IBM had a highly distributed work force from the 1980s until they worked to bring them back on-location in 2018. Yahoo had a remote work policy until Marissa Mayer ended it in 2013. #WFH evangelists are shouting from the rooftops, now, about how finally we’ll all experience what they’ve been preaching. On one hand, it’s been shown that remote workers are on average more productive than their in-office peers. But on the other hand, sharing an office allows for spontaneous collaboration and innovations that could outweigh gains in productivity (named the “water cooler effect”). Distributed teams allow you to cut overhead costs, but team- and culture-building become significantly more difficult. A hybrid model may be the right solution. We’ve had a flexible model at Brightwing for years, but it’ll require some tweaking as we re-open the office. Here are a few considerations: WFH days could be reserved for deep work and in-office days for collaboration and coordination. Company- or department- wide WFH schedules may be set. When everyone can choose their own WFH day(s) of the week, the office can feel half-empty every day. If everyone works from home on Wednesdays, the office is full and energetic for the other 4 days. Make your sick day policy generous, and genuinely encourage staying home at even the first sign of illness.I do know this – whatever answer we arrive at for Brightwing, it won’t be permanent.
Like we’ve learned and recently felt so acutely, circumstances change quickly. And we need to recognize the change and respond as well as we can. In a month we may mix remote and office work, and in a year, we may need to throw in options for working from the moon. But as a team with a clear set of values, I know we’ll rise to the occasion.let us know if we can help
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3 #WFH Tips from the Experts
Everyday, we hear another announcement that a tech giant’s employees can expect to work from home permanently.
Even for those who still plan to return to the office, the road back may be longer than we thought.
How do we adapt to our new circumstances?
Watch the video below for 3 pieces of advice from the experts. And keep scrolling for some of the best resources on how to thrive in remote work.
Transcript of the Video
Remote work isn’t going anywhere. And that raises a lot of questions.
How do you avoid burnout over the long term? How do you strengthen team bonds? How do you motivate (and stay motivated)?
Here are 3 pieces of #WFH advice from the experts…
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1. It’s all about the boundaries, baby!
The pre-pandemic commute was useful. It helped you shift mental gears. Dr. Sara Perry of Baylor University says you need to preserve that mental shift when you’re at home — “even if you’re just moving from one spot on the couch to the other.” Set a time to end the workday, and stick to it! Put your work things away and make room for home life. Dr. Perry says it’s critical to do this because “you’re already being challenged in terms of your personal resources. You still have to take that recovery time from work.” (Jen A. Miller, “How to Work From Home, If You’ve Never Done It Before,” NY Times)2. All you have to do is call… you’ve got a friend!
“When there’s no office to influence spontaneous informal communication, you must be intentional to weave it into your day. Create an always-on video conferencing room that your team can work from. (And remember, in a remote setting, it’s OK to look away! Schedule regular virtual coffee chats and happy hours using a video call.” (The Remote Playbook from the largest all-remote company in the world, Gitlab)3. Eyes on the prize!
“In remote work, we don’t need micromanagers. We need ‘macromanagers‘ to highlight our contribution to the team and reinforce the broader purpose of our work. One of the most meaningful parts of a manager’s job is making other people’s jobs more meaningful.” (Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist at Wharton School of Business) As a leader, connect projects to the larger story. Why is it important? How does it get us closer to achieving our goals? What progress have we made? As a team member, ask the questions that get you (and the rest of the team) to see the “why.”Great Resources for Remote Work
- Gitlab is the world’s largest all-remote organization – with more than 1200 employees across 67 countries. They offer a wealth of WFH resources, including: The GitLab Remote Playbook: Covering Fundamentals to Long-Term Strategy. Leadership teams and employees alike will find useful explanations on how to build culture remotely. No surprise here: they’re very focused on documenting cultural standards. No rule shall go unwritten!
- Gitlab also offers this more tactical take on adjusting to working from home: Remote work starter guide for employees: how to adjust to work-from-home
- Zapier is a 100% distributed company with over 300 remote employees in 17 time zones and 28 countries. They’ve compiled a huge compendium of remote work resources: Zapier’s guide to working remotely
- This Career Karma Guide to Remote Working busts some common myths about remote work, including the myth that you need to work longer and harder to compensate for being remote.
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How to Build Trust & Confidence in the Virtual Hiring Process
The interview and hiring process has gone completely virtual.
For most, this marks a big change in the way hiring gets done. Sure, we’re all used to preliminary screening phone calls and even first interviews over video conference calls. But the process usually culminates with an in-person meeting.
In the recent past, we’ve had the means to hire virtually, but not the will.
Why? We often avoided going all-virtual because some of the data we process when we make hiring and career decisions comes from non-verbal cues that are easier to decipher in person.
We ask: How well would we get along with this person? How well would they get along with the team? And the answers can depend a lot on the quality of in-person interactions.
Now that hiring needs to happen virtually, how can employers learn enough about their candidates to feel confident making an offer?
And on the other side, without visiting the office and meeting the team in person, how can candidates get comfortable enough with a new employer to accept an offer?
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Getting to the Offer
The basics of an excellent hiring process remain the same, virtual or not.FOR EMPLOYERS
Get very clear on which skills and strengths are most important in the role; use assessments to check on required skills; check references and use interviews to assess soft skills and personality fit.
FOR CANDIDATES
Know what your strengths are and what you need in an employer to perform at your best; use the interview process to investigate what the employer’s goals are and discover how you would help to achieve them as part of the team.
Here’s what’s changed: with virtual hiring, the hard part is getting comfortable with the “get to know you” part.Building Trust Virtually
Video calls can be awkward – people accidentally talking over each other, unnatural pauses, accidental distractions. Whatever you do, don’t rush. Give yourself the time to get to know the person on the other end of the call. Start with a short video interview – enough to get a first impression. Then, with your best candidates, schedule a longer video call. When you’re in the same room, it’s a bit easier to get an understanding of what someone is like. Even without explicit questions, you can sense their communication style and respond to their body language. In a video call, you don’t have access to that kind of non-verbal data. So sub in a different but similar data set: ask them about their interests and about what they do in their free time and volunteer that information about yourself. Adjustments to your video call technique will help you come across as more engaged and present. It’ll also bring the virtual interaction closer to the real thing, and comfort on both sides of the interview will increase.- Get the set up right. If you’re using a laptop, put it on a box or a stack of books and set it a bit back. You want your head and shoulders in the frame so that it feels like you’re sitting across the table from each other. Natural light is best, and make sure you’re not backlit. That way, the other person can see your face and read your expressions easily.
- Minimize distractions. That means not only silencing your phone, but also turning off email notifications, as well as anything else that could interrupt your conversation. Wearing bright, solid colors helps your face to pop on camera. Patterned or shiny fabrics work fine in in-person interviews, but in the two-dimensional world of virtual conversations, they siphon attention away from what you have to say.
- Perfect your video call body language. It’s natural when you’re on your computer to sit back and curve your head and shoulders toward the screen. In an interview, don’t. Whether you’re the one asking or answering the questions, you want to exude a strong presence. Sit on the edge of your chair. It’ll be easier to have good posture and project your voice.
- Eye contact on a video chat can be tricky. For more natural-feeling conversation, it’s easy to look at the other person’s face. But to simulate true eye contact, you’d have to look directly into the camera. Consider looking into the camera when you’re talking and looking at the screen when the other person speaks.
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[VIDEO] How NOT to Lose a Millennial in Two Years
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Jonathan Gourwitz, Brightwing’s VP of Sales & Delivery, weighs in on how to retain Millennial talent:
The recruitment of Millennials is a hot topic in our industry right now. Every couple of years a new generation gets carved out, and there’s a great deal of analysis in terms of “How do we hire these individuals?” and “What are they looking for?” Here are some key takeaways: → Millennials don’t expect to be in the same role, or even in a similar role, for more than 2 or 3 years → Develop a zig zag growth path that will keep Millennials engaged in your organization over the next 10 or 15 years, instead of just the next two. → Clearing the way for upward and sideways mobility will be worth the investment. The alternative—replacing talent every two years—is expensive.Get to know more about Brightwing
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[VIDEO] Will Millennials Kill the Traditional Office?
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Jonathan Gourwitz, Brightwing’s VP of Sales & Delivery, weighs in on Millennials’ influence on the American workplace:
“If a job does not need to be done in a traditional 9-5 environment, then Millennials want to go to work on their time, in their way, in whatever location they want to work. I don’t think that it’s just Millennials that want to operate that way. I think that it’s become something that many generations are looking for. But what’s funny is we also find that there is a strong desire to be a part of a team. And so while very often Millennials want to work independently and remotely, they also don’t want to be alone. So they like teamwork.People want flexibility. But they also have a strong desire to be a part of the community. The key is to give employees the power to decide where to work, instead of mandating it.
Years ago I was with an organization, and we hired several Millennials. We built an office space for them that was really kind of a hotel space where they had the option of coming in every single day or working remote every single day. Our expectation was that we would never see these Millennials again once we brought them onboard. What we found very quickly was about 80% of them showed up to that office every single day because they liked the community, they liked the team environment. They also liked the ability to not be there every single day and to have the flexibility, but they liked the fact that it was their decision. It wasn’t mandated. They had the ability to determine what their career looked like. I think we spend too much time focusing on flexibility. I think it’s something people want, but I think that there’s also still a strong desire to be a part of the community, to be a part of a team, and to have that interactionThe best organizations are going to find a healthy balance of remote work and in-person community building.
It’s very difficult to recognize your purpose when you don’t see the rest of the organization. To understand how you fit in and how you contribute if you never see your colleagues or your bosses in person — it’s difficult to do. So I think the best organizations are going to understand what work can be done remote, but always give the option to let their employees come in and be with each other every single day. There’s value in team building, there’s value in relationship building, and I think the goal for every organization moving forward is to find that healthy mix — flexibility along with community buildingGet to know more about Brightwing
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