6 Ways to Turn Today’s Silver Medal Candidates into Tomorrow’s Gold Medalist Hires

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How often have you progressed through the hiring process and ultimately realized that your final two candidates were almost evenly matched–one just slightly nudged out the other for the gold medal employment offer? While it’s great to be in that kind of position as the employer, it can be tough to turn down a talented second choice candidate.

However, these “silver medal candidates” pose a significant opportunity for your company and great care should be taken to continuously engage them. You never know when you may need them to step up to a gold medal platform in your organization.

Have you already had the opportunity to groom silver medal candidates into eventual hires? Or, perhaps you were previously a second choice candidate that was later given the opportunity to finish first for a different role. If so, then you understand that with thoughtful practices in place, your employer can leverage a silver medalist pipeline to edge out competition by sourcing top talent quickly and in a cost effective manner. In this blog, I’ll share six behaviors that you can implement to foster enduring positive relationships with your silver medalist applicants.

1 – Set expectations from the start

So much of the content I write underscores the importance of setting clear expectations in the hiring process–but it’s so true. This critical step begins before you ever know someone will end up as your silver medalist candidate for a role. An expectation that is a part of any respectful hiring process is that the recruiter or hiring manager should tell the candidate

  • the milestones involved with the hiring process,
  • an estimate of process duration, and
  • the method by which the candidate will be informed of his/her status during and at the end of the cycle.

The added bonus of setting expectations well is that this behavior naturally forces accountability. After all, a recruiter who doesn’t follow through with what he says he’ll do is going to damage his reputation, as well as the employment brand of the organization.

2 – Promptly communicate

To reinforce the expectations set at the beginning of the hiring process, employers should communicate with candidates regularly and promptly. Even with multiple job requisitions open and oodles of candidates, there’s no excuse not to touch base with applicants thanks to the communication automation tools that are capable of candidate personalization available in applicant tracking systems.

While it can induce less stress to communicate with candidates earlier in the process, it can be trickier to do so with the final two candidates…particularly if the top pick is reviewing an employment offer you already extended while the silver medalist waits to hear if she is still in contention. If a deadline passes while you wait on an answer from your gold medalist, message the silver medalist to explain that circumstances have changed and that you will touch base with her again in a reasonable amount of time. Then, make sure you do.

Timely communication shows your respect for the candidate, and even if she doesn’t make the cut this time, she’ll remember how you treated her and the resulting word of mouth will more favorably represent your company.

3 – Reject expertly

No one likes delivering bad news, but when there are only two candidates left in your hiring process and they’ve both invested a great deal of time completing employment applications, taking assessments and interviewing, you owe the silver medalist a formal let-down. Call him–don’t just email (or worse yet, an automated email)!

And if that’s hard, make yourself accountable heading into the final phase interview by telling him (in the expectations period, remember?) that he will receive a phone call either way at the end of the process.

Then, also follow up with an email thank you and let him know of your sincere, continued interest in him for future roles within your company. Tell him how to learn about future job postings via your ATS job alert feature, and be honest about how often you might hire for positions that fall into his wheelhouse.

4 – Connect for future follow-up

During the phone call and email thank you, let the candidate know that you’re open to connecting on social media (if you haven’t already) so that you have an easy means of staying in touch with each other in the future. This is a great way for the candidate to be exposed to future career-related content that you may personally post or that is shared from your company social media profiles.

If your organization isn’t likely to be hiring relevant roles anytime soon, offer to help the silver medalist by connecting her with others in your network through virtual introductions.

To help prepare the candidate to go for the gold at the next job opportunity, make her aware of resources that might help her improve her job-related skills or knowledge (e.g. certification study courses, industry-related member associations, etc.).

5 – Nurture candidates with technology tools

Use your applicant tracking software features to designate talented second place finishers as great future candidates for other roles. Use applicant status codes or tags to mark them as “#silver,” for example. Or, better yet, “#futuregold!”

Then, it will be easy to target this group of candidates to share culture- and job-related content with them periodically. Take it a step further and observe how they interact with social media posts and engage in follow-up. Make note of their connectivity in their candidate profile within your hiring software so that future hiring managers and recruiters in your organization have a rich record of not only their potential qualification for other roles, but also their organizational engagement.

6 – Put silver medalists on the fast track

A surefire way to disengage silver medal candidates is to make them reinvent the wheel to apply to future roles that interest them. Consider that they’ve already gone through your entire selection process, so there must be opportunities to put them on the fast track for certain roles.

If you proactively source them for a new position, do the equivalent of giving them a “bye” in your recruiting tournament and start them at a later stage in the hiring process. The one exception to this may be if your organization/industry must adhere to certain compliance requirements that necessitate each individual experiencing every stage for a position.

Nevertheless, your applicant tracking system should make it easy for them to optionally pull forward previous resumes and standard application questions, while giving them the opportunity to answer job-related questions that are unique to the new role for which they are applying.

If they previously took an employee assessment that you use for many job categories, then there’s no need for them to retake it. And, especially if they are interviewing for a similar position the second time around–and you specifically invited them to apply–consider taking an informal approach with a coffee conversation to gauge the candidate’s interest, and to find out what’s new as it relates to the position and their career.

 

With proper grooming of silver medalist candidates, it will cost fewer staff hours to assess and hire the best candidates for the position because they will already be ready to go in your talent pipeline.

Choose Right HR Software | ExactHire

Employer Considerations for Posting and Managing Evergreen Jobs

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When you think about where you spend the bulk of your time in the employee recruiting process, is a big chunk reserved for a certain type of position? If so, this role is probably an evergreen job.

Just as an evergreen tree appears green and alive all year long, evergreen positions require a constant flow of candidates because they experience high turnover and/or are positions that a large percentage of employees occupy. As a result, many companies keep these requisitions perpetually open on their job listings page in order to populate the candidate pipeline.

Evergreen jobs and turnover

Sourcing a steady flow of candidates to fill evergreen roles is essential–they are the positions critical to business success. Industries such as restaurant, healthcare, retail, call center and non-profit regularly source applicants for evergreen jobs such as server, home health aid, cashier, customer service representative and direct support professional.

Organizations often struggle with high turnover in these positions due to factors such as

  • the role being available on a part-time basis more frequently than full-time,
  • job seasonality (or seasonal availability of candidates),
  • low barriers to entry that make it easy for candidates to get a similar job elsewhere, and
  • low unemployment leading to more accessible wage increases at competitive employers.

Evergreen job hiring challenges

Hiring employees to fill evergreen positions can be tricky for a variety of reasons.

Misleading reporting

If you tend to keep the same job listings open all the time while regularly hiring candidates, it’s easy to unintentionally skew reporting in the name of ease. While the same job listing ID may remain open for a year (which can save time on reposting the job every few months), it will be harder to report on which referral sources, job description text (if you tweak it frequently with overwrites) and other factors lead to the successful hiring of multiple individuals because they are all tied to the same requisition. A good rule of thumb is to close out an existing evergreen requisition when a candidate is hired for that role, and then use the previous requisition as a template for easily creating a new one.

Job boards vs. organic search

While external job boards such as Glassdoor and Indeed favor fresh job listing IDs that aren’t reposted too frequently, search engines like Google spotlight tenured job description pages that have evergreen content (e.g. new imagery, comments, video, and other structured data). So what’s the right answer? Temporary job listing ID pages or persistent job description overviews?

You can benefit from both. Use your applicant tracking system to refresh a job listing for an evergreen role by closing old job listing IDs and using them as a template to create a duplicate job listing (with a new ID) every 60-90 days. Then, consider adding evergreen content pages within your ATS portal or on your corporate website that

  • list details about what to expect in the role,
  • answer frequently asked questions about the job,
  • highlight video testimonials from other employees in that position, and
  • link to a list of the job listing(s) currently open for that role.

With the dual approach, job seekers stand to find your recently posted job listing on external job boards, as well as via keyword-specific search queries on search engines.

Hiring compliance can be impacted

Care should be taken with determining how the frequency of evergreen requisition posting may impact an employer’s Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) compliance efforts. If the same job listing ID is kept open for an entire year–and we assume at least one candidate is hired from that requisition–then the entire year’s worth of internet applicants must be included in the applicant pool considered for adverse impact. In contrast, if a single requisition is kept open for only one quarter, and only one person is hired during that time, then the pool for adverse impact analysis is smaller which is generally preferable.

By periodically opening new requisitions–even when a hire does not take place in a period of 60 or 90 days–employers put themselves in a better position for compliance and limit their exposure. NOTE: If no applicants from a quarter’s requisition are hired, then the job ID can be closed and none of the applicants must be reported in the AAP data.

Managers at different locations

In the world of evergreen hiring, the location at which a future employee may work when he first applies to an evergreen position isn’t always apparent. And, depending on the industry and size of organization, different hiring managers likely manage candidate screening and/or interviewing at various locations.

Unless internal expectations are clearly set about how managers access a candidate pool that may be shared by different branches, the candidate experience could be hampered by poor communication from a variety of different locations vying for the same candidate. This can be exacerbated in a tight labor market with low unemployment as general managers compete for workers in high turnover, hourly, part-time positions.

Within the retail and restaurant industries, in which some brands have both corporate and franchise-owned stores, careful attention must be paid to limiting franchisor access to job applicants for franchisee-owned locations in order to avoid vicarious liability. When implementing hiring technology in this situation, it’s critical to understand how different applicant pools will be separated for administrators. At the same time, it’s important to avoid a confusing application process for job seekers who perceive all locations to be one brand.

Best practices for managing evergreen positions

Now that we’ve reviewed considerations for posting and managing evergreen positions, let’s cover best practices to improve the chances of your success in hiring individuals for these roles.

Understand what causes turnover

Only by analyzing factors that cause your employees to leave, will you be able to adjust their experience to prolong tenure and benchmark success. Consider the impact of job factors such as your organization’s

  • work schedule flexibility
  • pay rate relative to competitors
  • ability to communicate the proximity of public transportation, and
  • opportunities for continuous learning and advancement.

With an understanding of the primary drivers of turnover, you can re-imagine the employment experience to mitigate these factors. Proactively communicate how you address these items with job seekers in your career content and utilize an applicant tracking system that makes it easy for job candidates to search positions near their bus route. For example, the new hiring software platform that ExactHire is building allows candidates to optionally enter their address to see nearby locations with open job suggestions.

Geo-fenced Job Listing Search | ExactHire

Set internal expectations about hiring efficiency

Recruiters will have a greater impact on organizational success when they rally hiring managers around what to expect from the hiring process. These conversations include topics such as

  • what the hiring market looks like and which factors impact organizational turnover (e.g. what it’s going to take to keep employees),
  • the current velocity of hire and a reasonable expectation for number of hiring processes that can be managed successfully at once (e.g. should we hire more recruiters or consider Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)?),
  • how promptly assigning statuses to candidates and entering hire dates in an ATS is critical to calculating time to hire and team efficiency,
  • the ideal dollar amount to plan for employee attrition in the operating budget, and
  • how to manage headcount appropriately–is it a set number of positions per job opening or can it flexibly fluctuate depending on need?

Consider job listing duration

Close out aging job listing IDs at least every three months or whenever you make a hire for the position–whichever is sooner. The impact of this practice is two-fold:

  1. By separating batches of applicants for an evergreen job into 90-day chunks–each with its own separate requisition–you limit the likelihood that the OFCCP will take a closer look at your data in an AAP audit because your data pool is smaller (i.e. a separate pool for each job listing ID) and therefore not likely to be statistically significant.
  2. By reposting evergreen jobs periodically with new job IDs, you’re ensuring that the posting date appears relatively recent to potential job applicants. However, even a 30-day old position may deter eager job seekers. Consider including text that describes the role as an evergreen position within the body of your job description. By letting candidates know that you’re always sourcing for this position, they will be less likely to overlook a couple-month-old job listing.

Create a landing page for evergreen jobs

To balance the effects of reposting job listing IDs on a quarterly basis, give your evergreen roles a surge of search engine optimization (SEO) by creating permanent job overview pages (on either your ATS or your corporate website) for the positions that are always (or soon to be) in supply. Include page elements such as

  • relevant keyword-rich content in headers and body text
  • video testimonials from employees in the same role
  • a frequently asked question section to answer common job-related inquiries
  • an overview of the steps involved in the hiring process
  • the unique benefits of the position, and
  • call-to-action buttons directing page visitors to a filtered list of the specific requisitions currently available for this type of role.

Reduce hiring funnel friction

Put yourself in the shoes of a job seeker and assess whether it is easy to find your jobs, easy to apply and easy to communicate with recruiters and hiring managers. While making the selection process efficient is a priority for any kind of job, it is mission critical for evergreen positions since a large volume of candidates must be sourced to meet the company’s hiring needs.

  • Easy to find – Easily share your job listings to external job boards and social media streams within a modern applicant tracking system, but also consider paid recruitment marketing avenues such as retargeting display ads that show content to job seekers who previously interacted with your employment brand.
  • Easy to apply – Utilize two-step applications to allow candidates to provide the basics in the first half of the application process. Shortening an application’s first phase will drive better applicant conversion. Also, select pre-employment assessments that don’t require too much time for an applicant to complete when presented at the point of application. Longer assessments can be utilized later in the selection process.
  • Easy to communicate – Meet job seekers where they are…which often is on their phone rather than a laptop. Incorporate text messaging into the candidate communication process as many individuals interested in evergreen jobs may be screening their calls and failing to set up their voicemail inboxes.

Incorporate pre-employment testing

Know what employee success in your evergreen roles looks like by assessing your current superstars and distilling their results down to the key traits that most heavily predict performance. Then, benchmark for these traits by creating a model profile within your employee assessment tool and use the assessment at the point of application or before a formal interview. To determine placement within the hiring process, consider the impact of a cognitive or behavioral testing tool vs. a job skills testing resource on your candidate funnel–which type(s) would produce the most compelling outcomes?

Nurture your evergreen pipeline

Since employers are always sourcing candidates for evergreen jobs, they must experiment with innovative approaches to engaging past applicants and attracting new job seekers. Create a special experience for people who are interested in being a part of your organization by inviting them to your talent community. These are the individuals who keep raising their hand with continued interest, like your recruiting content on social media and respond to your recruitment marketing efforts.

Here are some ideas for engaging them as applicant VIPs:

  • Use tags within your applicant tracking system to highlight their interest so that you may invite them to apply to specific job listing IDs as roles in their evergreen area of interest open at locations near them.
  • Invite them to opt in to an applicant insider newsletter with articles about new roles, culture and organizational goals.
  • Invite them to join a social media group focused on careers at your organization.
  • Create targeted recruitment marketing campaigns that reinvigorate their interest in your organization.

 

Although your organization has roles which will always be evergreen, your approach to sourcing candidates for these jobs will be ever changing.

Want to learn more? Download our guide!

 

Managing Evergreen Jobs | ExactHire Guide

Reject With Respect: How to Decline Job Candidates

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One of the less glamorous tasks in recruiting and human resources is the responsibility to decline a job candidate when he isn’t the best individual for a role. While it’s not easy or fun, it can and should be done with efficiency, professionalism and respect. After all, if you were in the candidate’s shoes, you’d want to know the final decision on your potential employment status with the organization.

Unfortunately, many employers procrastinate on or even skip this essential candidate communication due to apathy, a lack of organization and/or a poor system for managing candidate follow-up during the hiring process. Not only does this damage the company’s employment brand (and likely the consumer brand), but it also impedes its ability to source a sufficiently stocked candidate pipeline in the future. In fact, according to The Candidate Experience Study (WorkplaceTrends), candidates are 3.5 times more likely to re-apply to a company if they were notified when declined for a previous position.

Put yourself in a position to professionally decline candidates by forming your candidate rejection strategies before you find yourself in the moment. Craft email template options, brainstorm bullet points for phone scripts and role play a “no thanks” conversation with a coworker. In this blog, I’ll share ten employment brand-friendly strategies for passing on job candidates.

1 – Set yourself up for success by setting expectations

I’m a huge believer in setting hiring process expectations with candidates so they understand

  • how long it may take to fill the job,
  • how many stages are involved,
  • whether they will receive an answer on their candidacy regardless of decision made, and
  • in which format the answer will be sent.

The desirable impact of this habit is that it forces you–as a recruiter or hiring manager–to stay accountable to telling candidates when they aren’t selected. You wouldn’t want to go back on your word and damage your professional reputation (or that of your organization) by dropping the ball.

2 – Personalize follow-up by hiring stage

Applicant tracking systems make it easy to personalize fields such as name, job title and company in email templates, and employers should create templates for each stage a candidate navigates during the hiring process. For example, while I rely on automated personalization in emails sent to candidates that don’t progress past the application, I make a personal phone call to a silver medal candidate who finished second after the final interview.

However, there are many nuanced approaches that fall in between those opposite ends of the hiring process. I explore them in the following sections.

3 – It’s not never, just not now

How many times have you interviewed a sharp candidate for a specific position who didn’t have the same amount of experience as the individual who finished first? Or, perhaps the personality of the silver (or even bronze) medal candidate wouldn’t have been the perfect match with the hiring manager involved?

There are situations when you really believe in the potential for the rejected candidate to do something at your organization in the future–the timing just isn’t right now. Don’t lose track of these individuals. Instead, engage them in a targeted campaign for future job opportunities, invite them to subscribe to your future job alerts and send them a thank you email with links to follow you on social and read your corporate blog.

4 – We’d love to leverage your strengths elsewhere

I’ve sourced candidates for many sales positions and I always encounter candidates from a wide variety of sales specializations. Some are amazing new client hunters, others excel at managing and nurturing an existing client base, and some would be better suited to driving client acquisition behind the scenes by developing lead acquisition techniques.

When I find a talented individual with the wrong specialization for my current role, I do my best to reroute her to an opportunity that better aligns with her strengths. If your organization is large enough, that may be as easy as inviting her to apply to other roles internally, or making it simple for the candidate by teeing up an introduction to another hiring manager.

If you’re not currently hiring for any other relevant roles, then tag that candidate for future consideration for other job categories with a meaningful status in your applicant tracking software. Then, periodically touch base with her to let her know she is of continued interest to your organization.

5 – You have potential, keep at it

When you encounter an inexperienced candidate with a long runway of potential future performance, invest in a targeted communication approach with that individual. Tag that candidate to receive communications about

  • how to prepare for your hiring process,
  • the skills and education you require in various job categories,
  • opportunities for internships and temp-to-hire roles, and
  • future hiring events such as open houses and career fairs where your organization will be represented.

Relative to the other strategies listed here, this tactic is a slow simmer; however, six months to two years down the road that greenhorn candidate may have professionally matured into the best option for your future job listing. Plus, the opportunity cost of nurturing her via email and social over time is usually far exceeded by the short-term costs of paid job board listings and external recruiter fees.

6 – Can I help connect you?

Sometimes the final group of candidates for a position are in a neck-to-neck race to the employment offer. While almost negligible differences may separate their final qualification for a position (e.g. the recommendation of a colleague, a slight difference in pay expectations, their availability to start by a certain day), there’s only one first place finisher.

Don’t lose sight of your opportunity to not only engage those not selected in future opportunities with your organization, but also your privilege to help connect them with your network in the hopes they may land something spectacular elsewhere. This could be as simple as an invitation from you to connect on LinkedIn so that you may facilitate introductions between them and your friends at other organizations.

I’ve employed this approach successfully in my own career when I wasn’t the final choice for an available position. In fact, I’ve sourced new clients as a result of the relationship I maintained with an employer despite being its silver medal candidate for a position. You never know when your path may intersect with an organization again.

7 – Circumstances have changed

Perhaps more frustrating than not finishing first is the feeling a candidate experiences when an employer decides not to fill an open position. After all, the candidate has already invested the time and energy in applying, interviewing and waiting only to not find out whether he was ever qualified to be selected!

While some employers will send a communication to candidates when circumstances prevent the company from filling the position, many have the opportunity to improve that message by commenting on whether the candidate should pursue the position should it become available once again. If a candidate was not a fit for the role even though the role wasn’t filled, be respectful of that candidate’s future time by thanking him for his interest and encouraging him to either develop himself more in specific areas or pursue different avenues in the future.

8 – Thank you with a parting gift

If you feel like parting ways with a job candidate isn’t the sweet sorrow you were seeking, then offer a consolation prize. NOTE: This isn’t for everyone and should be approached with a delicate analysis of the candidate audience relative to your consumer brand. However, particularly if you are a retail brand sourcing part-time positions for various locations, a parting discount or coupon can sweeten the sting of rejection.

For example, as long as I was communicated to and treated with respect during the hiring process, a thoughtful decline note that asks me to keep an eye on future positions and includes a coupon could prompt future job applications from me. In the hourly, part-time employment world, five dollars off my next pizza would encourage my continued patronage of a retail brand I probably already enjoy.

9 – What can we do better?

When we recruit in a vacuum, we can’t expect to improve our process or our hiring outcomes. Therefore, choice employers incorporate a continuous feedback loop into their recruiting workflow by surveying their job candidates.

The key to success with this approach is to customize the feedback request based on both the status and stage of the candidate. After all, an applicant rejected after an initial phone screen will have a different scope of experience than the final candidate who receives the employment offer.

Take action on the nuggets of wisdom uncovered in candidate surveys by stage and produce content that explains how you’ve improved the hiring process. And, because you’ve stayed in contact with previously declined candidates based on strategies mentioned earlier, your future conversion of these boomerang candidates will certainly improve.

10 – A reverence for referred candidates

In the same way that employers have a responsibility to follow-up with all candidates to preserve their employment brand, employers have a duty to follow-up with existing employees who refer candidates. While the explicit details of the employment decision may not be appropriate to share with the referring employee, a general comment about the candidate’s status in the hiring process will always be appreciated.

In addition to sending a sincere thank you to the employee, providing closure about the status of the referral will help ensure that employees continue to make an effort to promote your organization within their networks.

 

The communication strategy you employ within your hiring process is critically important to the long-term success of your organization. Keeping people respectfully informed of their candidate status will go a long way toward populating your talent pipeline in the future.

Download our hiring process questions guide

How to Use Video to Engage Applicants and Employees

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There’s no denying the appeal of video. When I’m doing research for a home project, planning a purchase or trying to teach myself how to play a new board game, I prefer to watch an engaging video rather than read through text or scan images. Not surprisingly, many job seekers have the same preference as they research and engage with potential employers to determine which will suit their career aspirations.

How can employers use video in the hiring process and throughout the employment lifecycle to entice job seekers to consider a position? How can video engage employees to remain employed? Consider the following tips to leverage the strengths of video throughout your employment experience.

Recruiting

Employee testimonials

Identify your true employment brand ambassadors and invite them to produce testimonials for your career site. Ask them to speak about the invigorating challenge of their work and the unique, tangible and intrinsic benefits that your organization offers to employees. Most of all, make sure they convey the specific reasons they choose to work for your organization.

Job description overview

A key aspect of successful candidate recruitment is not only selecting the right individual for the company, but also allowing job seekers to understand what they are getting into when it comes to job responsibilities.

Create a video that summarizes the key responsibilities of a position, but then go a step further and discuss what job success looks like for a new hire at three months, six months and one year of employment. These career opportunity digital assets are excellent content resources to share on company social media channels, too.

If you use an applicant tracking system to manage your recruitment process, you may already have access to easily embed videos into job descriptions and share them with third party job boards. Other ideas for video overviews include having a top ten list of reasons to work in a specific role for your company; or, a short segment on what to expect from the hiring and selection process. For example, will the candidate be asked to take any assessments and how many interview stages are involved–and with which company staff members?

Here’s an example of how ExactHire used video in the hiring process when we were looking for web developers. Make sure that the tone and style of your video aligns with your organizational culture. For us, quirky is appropriate!

You could even automate a video email that outlines next steps to send to the candidate after applying online.

Interviewing

Candidate communication

Remember that the quality of your organization’s candidate communication is being closely evaluated by job seekers. It is the first impression that will indicate how responsive and communicative the employer will likely be once a candidate is hired as an employee–it’s the perception of job seekers (and, in my experience, often the truth).

Make applicant correspondence personal by using video email to invite applicants to progress in your hiring process. If you enjoy a remote work culture, using video to facilitate interviewing is critical in moving the selection process along quickly enough that you don’t lose qualified candidates to other offers.

Even if your office isn’t full of telecommuters, if you involve multiple employees in group interviews, video conference calls can open up additional calendar slots by eliminating the need for stakeholders to buffer schedules for commute time.

Closing the deal

In this competitive market, your top candidate will often have another offer when they are considering a position with you. While compensation, benefits, and role will heavily influence the candidate’s choice, you can use personalized video messages to encourage the candidate to join your team and share examples of how your employees embody organizational culture.

Consider sending a team video highlighting a recent company potluck, holiday event or fun competition. You could even send a personalized video email from the CEO to let the candidate know that leadership is excited to invite them on board. Make sure the candidate understands that by accepting an offer with your organization, he or she could enjoy these same moments with co-workers who care, too. It is these seemingly little gestures that often make or break the deal when another offer is on the table.

Pre-boarding

While many organizations pull out all the stops to woo candidates during the interviewing process, unfortunately too many then fail to keep the momentum going with frequent connections with new hires during the pre-boarding phase. Pre-boarding is comprised of the time period between when the candidate accepts an employment offer and experiences his first day on the job.

Office orientation

Even if you previously gave an interviewee an office tour, sharing a virtual video office tour helps incoming new hires orient themselves with the location of various office items before they experience their first day. Check out MOBI’s compelling virtual tour of their headquarters building:

Setting expectations

To minimize new hire jitters for your new teammates, create videos to help identify what the new employee can expect in her first week of employment. Preview the types of activities she’ll be experiencing and consider inviting mentors or other people with whom the new hire will be meeting to have a segment in the video. Other discussion points might include information about

  • dress code,
  • location of bathrooms and gym,
  • availability of office snacks,
  • beverages and the location of the kitchen, and
  • an overview of the types and frequency of company and department meetings that occur throughout a month.

Make sure that the new hire’s supervisor engages with him during the pre-boarding phase as well. While a phone call or interactive video conference is great in this scenario, if schedules make connecting difficult then a thoughtful video welcome message from the hiring manager can serve as an attractive alternative. Leveraging video during pre-boarding may help to reduce the likelihood of new hire ghosting!

Onboarding

Once your new hires officially begin work, make sure that their employee onboarding experience excites them and prepares them to be productive as soon as possible. Effective employee onboarding involves activities that introduce new hires to teammates and the organization, allow them to become familiar with the resources they’ll need to do the job, and further set expectations about performance and pace.

Training

To support these activities, offer videos that help train new hires on organizational procedures and teach them how to use different tools necessary for their role. If you use employee onboarding software to automate your onboarding workflow, then use the platform to create employee tasks that prompt new hires to watch these videos at the appropriate time during their onboarding phase.

Video is also a great way to facilitate introductions between new hires and remote workers when an in-person “nice to meet you” isn’t practical.

Employee Engagement

Daily connections

Speaking of remote workers, my organization is quite remote friendly and therefore we have to be intentional about creating opportunities for employees to regularly connect with one another. While we used to rely heavily on email and instant messaging tools to catch up on a daily basis, in the past year we’ve started regularly doing video calls with one another for daily “stand-up” meetings in various departments. Even though these meetings often last only five minutes, the chance to make eye contact with your peers and sneak in some “water cooler” type talk has been an important enhancement to our remote work culture.

Open window

Some of our departments take video calling a step further and have weekly “open window” time when they all log in to a video chat for an hour to simulate what it would be like to sit in cubicles next to each other. They use the time to catch up, but sometimes they just work silently until someone has a comment or inquiry.

Offboarding

While the hope is that employees will be successful and engaged for an extended period of time with your organization, the reality is that circumstances sometimes call for offboarding employees. Whether it is a voluntary or involuntary termination, there are opportunities to positively support your employment brand based on how you approach the situation.

Voluntary

In the case of someone who has resigned, solicit teammates to put together a best wishes video to send off your departing employee knowing that he was truly valued. After all, you never know if you’ll have the opportunity for a boomerang employment situation in which the person returns to work in your organization at some point in the future.

Involuntary

In the event that the employment separation isn’t voluntary, a video message to existing department members can be an effective means to properly communicate the tone of the situation and assure existing employees that everything will be okay despite the seemingly sudden departure of another employee. This approach is preferable over a static email in which tone can be interpreted inconsistently by various recipients.

Video: An Employee Engagement Tool

These are just a few tips for using video in your hiring process and for employee engagement. Experiment with different video themes for your own organizational processes.

Your culture, core values and current business opportunities will guide you in a direction that aligns with the interests of your applicants and employees.

This content was originally published on Covideo’s Blog.

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Spreadsheets for Hiring | A Modern Alternative

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A while back I wrote about the employee onboarding process and its movement away from spreadsheets. In that post, I shared my love for spreadsheets, but I also pointed out the shortcomings related to their use with onboarding new employees. In this post, I would like to look at another area where, in many cases, HR also relies too heavily upon spreadsheets: spreadsheets for hiring.

Spreadsheets for Hiring

Despite the rapid adoption of SaaS software by businesses across the world, the spreadsheet maintains an important role in many organizations. Most HR departments still rely on shared spreadheets for hiring and other HR processes–even those organizations that have deployed an “all-in-one” HR solution (really, all-in-one?). So all you Excel warriors out there need not fret; your skills will remain in demand and valuable….for a while at least.

The issue today is not whether organizations should ditch spreadsheets completely, it’s whether they should seek to use the best tools for the job. And spreadsheets–love them as I may–are simply not the best solution for managing the many aspects of hiring employees.

Let’s take a look at how a hiring process driven by spreadsheets stacks up against one driven by hiring software.

Tracking Your Sources

It’s important to continuously analyze what’s working and what’s not. This is true for most things in which someone wants to excel. As it relates to improving your hiring process, recruiting sources, or channels, are one of the first items an HR leader will want to analyze.

A spreadsheet can certainly help in recording and comparing the effectiveness of your recruiting channels. The difficulty arises in how you populate the data. In most cases, this will mean manually recording the data for each applicant into the spreadsheet.

Hiring software, on the other hand, will automatically pull the applicant’s source. Built-in reports and dashboards can be configured to provide you with a thorough applicant source analysis in just one click. This makes the job of source analysis so easy, that it virtually eliminates the possibility of it being overlooked.

Summarizing Applicants

All applicants are not equal. But what are the factors that reliably differentiate applicants? There is no single answer to this question, as it will vary based on role, location, and job market conditions. This makes it difficult to standardize a screening process.

Spreadsheets are best used in summarizing standardized sets of data. Standardized data is a natural product of a standardized process. So what happens when a hiring process produces highly variable data? You get an unwieldy spreadsheet or multiple spreadsheets that make analysis and comparison a nightmare.

Hiring software simplifies the task of summarizing applicants by allowing you to review applicants based on custom criteria. This eliminates confusion and facilitates efficient applicant screening and information sharing.

Rating Applicants

When it’s time to screen applicants for an open position, HR professionals will want to look at a standard set of criteria for each candidate, and then apply a rating. Often times there will be multiple people involved in this process.

Organizations that rely on spreadsheets for the rating of applicants will run into a number of obstacles when trying to record, compare, and share those ratings. Some of the more common challenges are:

  • Manual data entry is often the only option.
  • Multiple spreadsheets for different roles and criteria–or lots of filters.
  • Complex sharing/viewing permissions or, again, multiple spreadsheets.

Contrast the above challenges with the value-added opportunities that hiring software can provide. Once again, the system will hide the messiness and confusion inherent in a spreadsheet-driven approach. Hiring software will allow for:

  • Automated data entry. Data flows from the application to the database.
  • Create rules to automate initial ratings based on customized criteria.
  • Quickly drill down to a set of applicants you wish to compare and refine ratings.
  • Invite colleagues to view limited sets of data based on predefined permission rules.

Managing The Candidate Experience

There are a number of ways to enhance the hiring experience for job seekers. One way is through personalization. Over the past decade, consumers have become accustomed to highly personalized marketing, sales, and customer service experiences. This has created the expectation of a personalized experience in almost everything–including the hiring process.

However, maintaining a personalized experience for your job applicants and candidates can be difficult. It, naturally, requires collecting a lot of personal information. But, perhaps, what’s even more challenging is the integration of personal information into your hiring workflow.

It’s likely a given by now that some of the barriers to managing a candidate experience with spreadsheets include manual data entry, role and location-based nuances, and information sharing. However there are a number of additional challenges that spreadsheets present in this scenario as well, like:

  • Exporting required data to communication platforms
  • Delivering reminders of incomplete internal tasks
  • Managing the timing of action items against delays

It’s in addressing challenges like the ones above where hiring software really shines. Integrated communication channels allow for instant communication with applicants right from their digital file. Customized permissions ensure that all internal stakeholders have the necessary (and only the necessary) access to candidate data and statuses. Finally, task reminders can be triggered from within the system and pushed via email and text. In this way, hiring software can do more than assist with the tasks of hiring, it can elevate job seekers’ perceptions of your entire organization by ensuring that your processes are timely and seamless.

Facilitating Employee Onboarding

Too often, job seekers enjoy an impressive experience in moving from applicant, to candidate, to hired employee…only to face an abrupt and troubling reality; they’ve landed in a mess. Employers–not the seemingly friendly, competent faces of the hiring process, but the actual people and faces–are not prepared to onboard new employees in the same seamless, timely way as they hire them.

Those employers that rely on spreadsheets and deal with low-volume hiring can sometimes survive by adding more columns, adjusting viewing and sharing permissions, and maybe dipping their toes into some more advanced areas like VBA. Unfortunately, this approach still leaves an organization open to the metaphorical risks of “dropping the ball” and “letting items fall through the cracks.”

Hiring software ensures that the information initially collected through the hiring process is passed through, intact, to the appropriate onboarding forms and documents. From there, it’s a simple matter of having the new hire complete electronic signatures and check boxes for consent. There is no duplicate data entry on the part of HR personnel or the new employee.

A Modern Alternative to Spreadsheets

As I said at the top, spreadsheets aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. There is a whole generation of workers that has embraced their utility and flexibility. Furthermore,  with spreadsheets, organizations don’t have to worry about whether a vendor will maintain the code and integrations, or raise prices at a later date. Spreadsheets are a safe bet.

However, for employers that find themselves in a competitive job market, any risks associated with implementing hiring software should be weighed against the risk of losing good talent and the costs of maintaining a revolving employment door. Successful employers will exercise great diligence in choosing the right vendor for their organization.  With a trusted vendor in place, the risks of implementing hiring software fall away. What’s left is a modern alternative to spreadsheets that keeps the energy and focus on people and not the processes.

 

ExactHire provides hiring software for small and growing businesses that are seeking ways to enhance their hiring and employee onboarding experiences. We’re often the first step in helping businesses move away from spreadsheets for hiring and other HR processes. To learn more about our current and future solutions, contact us today!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Improve Employee Experience by Starting a Book Club at Work

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If you want to create a consistently, stellar employee experience at your organization (and why wouldn’t you?), then finding ways to foster personal and professional development should be an integral part of your plan. Implementing an optional office book club is a fantastic way to encourage employees to try something new, improve themselves and connect with one another. For other ideas, or more tips on building work culture, check out our Free ATS Guide!

We recently hosted our inaugural book club session at ExactHire and read Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I had wanted to start a book club internally for quite awhile, but the timing just hadn’t been right until now. However, one chance conversation with a co-worker about interesting books ignited a spark of interest and our subsequent plan to meet 1-on-1 to discuss our first book. Naturally, I advertised the opportunity to the rest of our small organization and…voila! Traction. Before I knew it, six of us were signed up and ready to read!

This plan fit in perfectly with my own new year’s resolution to read twenty-six books in 2019; however, I was more excited to connect intentionally with co-workers in other departments and share different perspectives on something new and something more universally safe. What do I mean by “safe?” When you can look at other companies’ experiences, successes and tribulations, then it’s easier to challenge convention and have a strong opinion because it’s someone else’s situation.

However, the great thing about a book club in which people organically contribute is that you naturally start applying the concepts from the books to your own work environment. With internal trust, you can reflect on what has worked well (and what hasn’t), as well as use the book to reference a common foundation for handling scenarios in the future. For example, it will be easier to be more “radically candid” with each other at ExactHire moving forward–as many of us have studied the approach for doing so together.

Why we started an office book club at ExactHire

There are so many benefits to reading, such as gaining new perspective and improving your vocabulary; however, these basic benefits are multiplied when you also have the opportunity to discuss books within a comfortable group setting. Even though we’ve only had one discussion so far, I’m already seeing internal advantages such as

  • climbing out of a creative rut that can strike during the post-holiday gloom that often characterizes mid-winter,
  • breaking down communication silos by inviting members from all departments to participate,
  • feeling more connected with each other considering we have a very remote-friendly workforce,
  • better relating to the perspectives of co-workers at different position levels,
  • higher participation rates in development because it is opt-in-oriented with low barriers to entry,
  • giving more people the chance to have a voice, and
  • providing the perfect opportunity to practice listening more effectively.

How to start your own employee book club

When planning your office book club, think about how your culture will impact the level of formality in your discussions, and whether you use consistent discussion questions or switch it up every time. Additionally, the size of your organization may determine whether it makes sense to have many cross-departmental groups or champion department-specific groups. ExactHire is a smaller company and so I will share the steps we took to launch our book club.

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Generate interest and make it optional

The catalyst for our own ExactHire book club started with a conversation; however, yours may begin with a group email, a post to your company Slack channel or an agenda item in a company meeting.

Don’t write a novel of expectations for how it will operate at the onset (though some of you might think my invitation is quite lengthy below), but do emphasize to employees that the club is optional and should be educational and fun.

Office Book Club | Work | ExactHire

Stick with appropriate book genres

Give people a framework of what types of books should be expected and which genres would work best for a company book club. For example, titles about leadership, business, entrepreneurship, professional development and even some self-help books are all great options.

I recommend that the founder(s) of the book club select the very first book. Then, have all members vote on future sessions’ selections. Remember to keep book topics diverse and push yourself to read things that you wouldn’t necessarily pick up on your own–that’s a significant driver for many to participate in a club so that they are accountable to expanding outside the box of their typical reading preferences.

Make it easy for people to participate

The company should buy the books (or digital titles) for participants. It’s fine to encourage people to use any existing unlimited e-book/audiobook subscriptions they may have or to check their local library first, but ultimately the organization’s investment in a few books is a small price to pay for the employee development return on investment it stands to gain.

We pay for copies of our book club books, and we offer an optional employee benefit that pays for a portion of employees’ subscriptions to an unlimited online book service in exchange for their commitment to write a book-inspired blog quarterly.

And, remember that the book club itself is an employee benefit. Don’t forget to list it as such on your employment offers and the benefits list on your career website.

Make it convenient and accessible

Plan your book club discussion for a day when there are already a lot of people in the office. For example, at ExactHire we plan our book club to immediately follow the “Monthly Nom Nom” during which we all gather to share a catered (or potluck) meal together. Since many of us frequently work remotely, this is usually the day of the month with the most people in the office (serve them food, they will come)! Be mindful that the day you schedule your event isn’t already too packed with other meetings, and consider serving a light refreshment…or caffeine boost if it is immediately following a meal.

At ExactHire, we can never have everyone available to meet in person because we have teammates from Utah to Indiana to Germany! Therefore, we use Google Meet to video conference with our truly remote employees so they can participate, too. If you need to accommodate different time zones, be as inclusive as possible when scheduling the time of day for your book club session.

Finally, be intentional about the frequency for your discussions. Does it make sense to meet for shorter discussions bi-weekly to discuss a few chapters, or longer discussions that encompass the entire book on a monthly or quarterly basis? Within our book club, we’re starting with a quarterly cadence and discussing the entire book each time.

Do basic discussion preparation

The club founder(s) should lead the first discussion and should create an editable, shared document with ideas for discussion questions. This document should be visible to participants in advance of the meeting. Invite participants to throw question ideas on the document as inspiration strikes them, too. Also, remind people about the event about a week in advance in case anyone needs an extra nudge to finish the entire book on time.

Include questions about concepts within the book, but also list questions that will cause the group to take time to apply the concepts to real life examples from your organization, too. If you struggle to come up with questions on your own, do an internet search for notes and summaries on the book you are reading, and look for discussion guides that already exist online so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. This approach is particularly helpful if you are designated to lead a discussion after you listened to an audiobook while driving or working out (without the ability to take notes).

Here are some question ideas to get you started.

  • What did you encounter in this book that you weren’t expecting when you first took interest in it?
  • Which parts of this book did you dislike?
  • What is one thing you are going to implement or do differently now that you’ve read this book?
  • Pick your favorite passage/story, read it out loud to the group and explain why it’s important to you.
  • What was your “aha” moment while reading this book?
  • What was missing from the book in your opinion?
  • Thinking about the concepts within the book, how have we already applied them well within our own organization. Give examples.
  • Which book concepts do we need to better incorporate within our workplace? What are the appropriate next steps for doing so?

After the first book club event, ask for volunteers to take turns leading different future sessions. Don’t force participation, but let people rise to the occasion. When people vote on future books on a survey, consider asking them to indicate if they’d also like to lead that discussion if their suggested book is chosen.

“Don’t force participation, but let people rise to the occasion.”

Encourage active participation

Fortunately, it isn’t too difficult to get a variety of people to join the discussion at ExactHire. Our first book club included comments from all participants and there was a healthy banter during a variety of questions. Of course, perhaps this was because our first book was all about candor.

If all your attendees aren’t as willing to speak up, be patient and keep discussion questions focused on the book concepts initially rather than how they specifically apply to your workplace. As confidence grows among the group, you may find that discussion naturally moves to how the concepts can be applied to your workplace. As trust grows within the group, you’ll see that more inclusive, engaging conversation emerges.

Include everyone in future book planning

At the close of your first meeting, invite everyone to send suggestions for future books to one person who will compile them into a survey so that people may vote on a winner. This person may be the designated leader of the next discussion, or a consistent point person within your organization.

I’ve already received a number of intriguing book suggestions for our next discussion in April, and I’ll be using a survey to allow employees to rank their favorites. Be sure and share your survey with the entire company for each future session in case different employees prefer to participate at different times of year. Attendance will vary based on schedules and interest in the chosen book.

There are a variety of digital tools you may use to collectively keep tabs on books of interest for future discussions as well. I enjoy gathering ideas from posts on Pinterest and podcasts and blogs. Then, I keep track of books on my “to-read” list using Goodreads–an online community of book lovers.

Happy reading!

While these steps have worked well so far for my company, don’t be afraid to experiment with different formats for your own organizational book club. Your company culture, core values and current business challenges will guide you in a direction that resonates with your own employees.

Just remember to keep it fun and leverage the events as an opportunity to foster employee development and maximize the employee experience!

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Moving The Onboarding Process Away from Spreadsheets

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There are two types of people: those who love spreadsheets, and those who are hopelessly disorganized. Ok, perhaps that’s an over simplification, but I’ve yet to come across a highly organized person who doesn’t have a solid grasp–and a tinge of excitement–for creating and using spreadsheets.

That being said, in some instances your favorite spreadsheet application, whether it be Sheets, Excel, Numbers, or something else, is being made obsolete by the emergence of new SaaS platforms. These process-specific solutions can organize data and present insights far easier than through the use of spreadsheets. Employee onboarding is one of the latest processes to transition from a spreadsheet-driven labor of love to SaaS empowered, laborless process.

Employee Onboarding with Spreadsheets

Listen, I get it. I still love spreadsheets too. I can control how my data is organized and who can change the document. I can always build onto a spreadsheet as my processes change and, more than anything, I’m comfortable with my spreadsheets. But control and comfort aren’t everything!

Sometimes you need to let go of absolute control, get a little uncomfortable, and take a step (or leap) forward to improve your outcomes. Let’s take a look at how employee onboarding software can help you get better results by abandoning spreadsheets, back-and-forth emails, and the timesuck of data entry. To illustrate, we’ll use a dramatized scenario of employee onboarding that you may find familiar.

Monitoring New Hire Progress

You’ve just finished hiring for a hard-to-fill position and as hiring manager you couldn’t be happier. The new hire meets all your requirements for qualifications, fit, and potential. In order to ensure that your new employee’s onboarding experience goes as smoothly as possible, you turn to you trusty spreadsheet.

Your organization has a number of activities and tasks planned for new hires. You and others will use the spreadsheet to monitor each employee’s progress through the  onboarding process.

Tracking New Hire Paperwork

The first step is for the new employee to complete the new hire paperwork. You’ve organized this paperwork in nice little packets that you deliver to the employee. After delivering the paperwork, you enter “yes” in the appropriate cell under the column heading “Delivered”, followed by “in progress” in the cell under the column heading “Paperwork”. Progress!

Delivering Reminders to New Hires

You’ve asked the employee to complete the paperwork in two days and submit to the HR coordinator. But on the second day, you receive an email from the coordinator stating that she hasn’t received the paperwork–she’s colored the “in progress” cell yellow in your shared spreadsheet. So you send a helpful reminder via email to the new hire. And cross your fingers.

Coordinating Oboarding Duties for HR

Alas, on the third day you see that the shared spreadsheet is still showing paperwork as “in progress”. So you color fill your “in progress” cell with red and craft another message to the new hire, letting him know that the paperwork must be completed today. Drats!

Fifteen minutes later, you receive a reply from the new hire stating that he has, in fact, submitted his paperwork. So you email your HR coordinator to confirm this. She confirms via email and apologizes for not updating the spreadsheet. You go back to the spreadsheet, change “in status” to “complete”, color the cell green, and move onto the next item…but not before sending another email to your new hire, apologizing for the mix up.

Recap

Emails: 4
Data Entry: 5
Outcome: New hire completes paperwork on time, but questions whether HR has it all together. You’re stress level is high and you haven’t even finished your morning coffee. You curse the stars.

Employee Onboarding with Onboarding Software

After hiring your new employee, you change the candidate status to “hired” within your applicant tracking system and the new employee immediately appears in your employee onboarding software. Your new hire receives an email that invites him to login to the platform.

Upon logging in, the new hire sees a dashboard with a list of required tasks to complete and their respective due dates. As the employee completes each task, the associated status changes to complete. If the new hire is close to missing a deadline, an automated email and in-system reminder is triggered.

As hiring manager, you can easily see the status of all items. Your HR coordinator has visibility as well, ensuring that your entire onboarding team is on the same page.

Recap

Emails: 1, plus any reminders (all automated)
Data Entry: 0 (after initial setup, new hires receive required tasks based on role, location or other criteria).
Outcome: New hire completes paperwork on time and is impressed by simplicity and ease of system. You smile behind your warm mug of coffee as you review the real-time status of multiple new hires at a glance. Success!

Beyond the First Few Weeks with Spreadsheets and Calendars

As a forward-looking HR professional, you know that onboarding is more than just the first few weeks. So in your spreadsheet you’ve included line items for employee engagement activities to occur over the course of each new hire’s first year. And you’ve even gone one step further: you created calendar events and reminders that align with the activity due dates in your spreadsheet. The calendar will alert you of upcoming tasks,  and the spreadsheet will help you report on your team’s efforts. Very slick!

Recap

Data Entry: Track activities for each new hire in spreadsheet. Create calendar events and reminders for each new hire.
Email: Compose and send emails with instructions/calendar request to each new hire. Remind and support HR team via email ahead of each activity.
Outcome: You succeed (sometimes) with engaging your new hires within the first year, but you’re constantly managing calendars, emails, and your master spreadsheet.

 

Beyond the First Few Weeks with Onboarding Software

When initially implementing your onboarding software, you replicate your existing onboarding process for new employees within the system. This includes scheduling all engagement activities, reminders, and emails for both new hires and other employees involved in the employee onboarding process. Once this work is completed up front, the system automates all necessary communications and status changes. Additions and edits to your onboarding process are easily achieved by adjusting workflow settings, and you can easily report on your efforts through the system.

Recap

Emails: Compose as many email templates as you need, once. Edit templates as needed.
Data Entry: During initial setup, plan employee engagement activities based on role, location and other criteria. The system takes it from there.
Outcome: HR saves time and effortlessly ensures that the onboarding team is ready and prepared to execute on an employee engagement strategy. New hires are never blindsided by calendar or email requests on short notice.

Choosing Employee Onboarding Software

Whether you’re ready to move your onboarding process away from spreadsheets or not, it’s probably a good time to start looking at your options for employee onboarding software. This is especially the case for organizations that are battling employee turnover. The use of spreadsheets is time-consuming and will take away valuable HR time that is better used in engaging employees. So if your organization is looking to deploy a comprehensive employee engagement strategy, employee onboarding software is likely a must.

On the other hand, if you’re organization does little in the way of employee onboarding or engagement, you may not need onboarding software–though you better have one heck of an ATS to deal with a lot of rehiring!

 

ExactHire provides applicant tracking software and employee onboarding software designed to help SMBs grow efficiently by reducing turnover and maximizing the time of HR professionals. To learn more about our solutions, please contact us today.

Hiring in Healthcare: Does a Nursing Shortage Exist?

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There’s a nursing shortage! I don’t know when I started hearing about it, but it was probably in the early 2000’s right before I set off for college. I distinctly remember hearing that nursing was a great career choice. And I once considered pursuing it–even after the movie, Meet the Parents, played up the stigma around male nurses. There was a shortage of nurses, I was told. There was good pay and job security, and it was a respectable vocation.

I didn’t go into nursing, but I continued to hear about the shortage of nurses, and I believed the stories. In fact, I still hear about it today. So I thought I’d take a closer look at what’s driving the shortage , since employment trends and hiring challenges are kinda my thing.

The Nursing Shortage is Complex

I had no reason to doubt the nursing shortage. I expected to find clear reasons behind it, and I was hoping to come up with a few solutions to address the challenges. Most articles made a simple, straightforward (and quite urgent) case that there is and/or will be a shortage of nurses. It’s an easy story to tell that gets people’s attention–the type of story that when told frequently will eventually evolve into common knowledge.

However, I quickly discovered that the nursing shortage is not straightforward. It’s a multifaceted issue with many viewpoints and considerations that don’t make it into our newspapers or favorite news sites. Trying to make sense out of the disparate views was challenging. Researching this topic was confusing to say the least.

Past studies predicted a shortage that never came. There are stories of nurses who left the profession because they could not secure a position. Some studies are conducted by organizations that likely have a conflict of interest. And in 2017, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) predicted a surplus of nurses for 2025! And yet, the prevailing coverage is: “it’s a well-known fact that the U.S. suffers from a nursing shortage.”

To be fair, predicting the future is not easy. You use the information you have at hand, and your predictions can only be as accurate as that information. However, it seems that too many stories on the nursing shortage are either omitting crucial information, or worse, misrepresenting the facts.  To better understand the nursing shortage (or lack thereof) it’s helpful to consider the following perspectives:

Delayed Retirement of Baby Boomers

“The nursing shortage is real…or at least it will be.”

Proponents of this perspective believe that all the talk in the early 2000’s and today about a looming nursing shortage was accurate; however, a generational change in views on retirement combined with the economic realities of a post-recession world caused many veteran nurses to delay retirement or rejoin the workforce.

It is true that the baby-boomer generation is retiring later in life than predicted. This is the case for the majority of occupations, not just nursing. However, they will retire at some point (and eventually require more healthcare). According to a National Nursing Workforce Study, 50% of nurses are age 50 or older, which means a significantly larger portion of nurses are closer to retirement than are not. So it makes sense that a shortage could occur when a large increase in healthcare demand coincides with a large decrease in nurses.

Underserved Areas

“The nursing shortage is real…but it depends on location.”

Smaller towns and rural areas often struggle to find workers when compared with larger, metropolitan areas. Many nursing graduates or re-locating nurses may find it difficult to secure a job in a particular metropolitan area. This does not mean that a shortage of nurses doesn’t exist, it simply means that to find job opportunities, job seekers must be willing to commute or relocate–many are not.

Unfortunately, this fact is seldom disclaimed alongside proclamations of a nursing shortage, and nursing graduates are often blindsided when local demand for nursing is non-existent. According to the HRSA, only seven states are predicted to carry a nursing shortage through 2030: California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.

Artificial Shortage

“The nursing shortage is FAKE NEWS…hospitals want to ensure a surplus of nurses.”

Some of the more cynical may posit that the nursing shortage is part of a conspiracy led by hospitals. The thinking goes that if a hospital can ensure a surplus of nurses (its largest employment cost), then it can better control overall operating costs. Without a single, unified nurses union in the United States, a labor surplus provides hospitals with leverage in establishing wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions.

Would hospitals prefer to have too many nurses rather than too few? The answer is most certainly, yes. Are hospitals overselling or even lying about a shortage? With changes in healthcare legislation, an economic recession, and a generational movement away from previous notions of retirement, it is more likely that the complexity of the issue has caused the disconnect between studies, predictions, and reality.

So…does a real nursing shortage exist? Is it looming?

The above perspectives are just a few examples that add color to stories around the nursing shortage. While claims of a nursing shortage may sound like “crying wolf” to some, healthcare continues to grow faster than any other industry, and any change in the supply of nurses (entry of new graduates or the exit of retiring nurses) could quickly make a nursing shortage a reality.

So I predict that we will continue to see news stories and press releases that announce an emerging nursing shortage. I also suspect that the reasons for the shortage will begin to vary–a lack of nursing faculty and lower acceptances/enrollments at nursing schools seems to be the popular cause for concern today. However, regardless of how the story trends, there are a few key takeaways for employees and employers.

What you need to know about the nursing shortage:

  • For aspiring nurses: Understand how the demand for nurses will vary by region. Finding the right job may require moving to the right region. Additionally, depending on the area, available nursing positions may vary by specialty; it may be necessary to target more niche areas of nursing and to look beyond hospitals, especially for those who are just starting their careers.
  • For employers: Invest more resources in recruiting qualified applicants to “shortage areas.” This could include partnering with local governments and educational institutions to develop strategies for attracting talent. Of course,  more attractive and competitive compensation packages will also be necessary to retain talent. This is especially true if nursing shortages begin to develop in more attractive areas.

Both employers and employees alike must understand the reality as it relates to their particular set of circumstances. When employers, employees, job seekers, and students can separate crisis from “crying wolf”, everyone is in a better position to make employment decisions that advance their respective goals.

 

ExactHire provides hiring technology for the healthcare industry to help streamline the hiring and onboarding of new employees. To learn how our solutions can help your organization, contact us today.

Filling a Skills Gap in Manufacturing

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Throughout 2018, the U.S. economy has continued to add jobs. The Jobs Report for July 2018 showed employers adding 157,000 new jobs and pegged the unemployment rate at 3.9%–which hovers around an 18-year low. This is in drastic comparison to a decade ago, when during the Great Recession the unemployment rate began its steep rise (it would ultimately top out at 10% in October 2009).

Of course, the unemployment rate is not the only indicator of a healthy economy. And recovery from the Great Recession did not progress the same for every industry. Even after the official end of the recession, many industries and unemployed workers struggled to recover. Manufacturing, in particular, has been hard hit.

The Slow Recovery of Manufacturing

Manufacturing companies were the first to feel the pain from the Great Recession with a crash in production. Next, workers experienced mass layoffs, which led to the subsequent increase in unemployment. But while manufacturing production rebounded sharply at the official end of the recession in June 2009, the lost jobs did not return as quickly.

Indeed, even with annual job growth in manufacturing reaching a 23-year high this month (327,000 from July 2017- 2018), employment within the manufacturing sector remains below pre-recession levels–and for that matter, so does manufacturing production (see chart below).

As the chart above illustrates, economic recessions impact both production and employment. However, production and employment do not necessarily rise and fall together. Advances in technology increase efficiency–production per labor hour–making it possible to do more with less. This explains why from 2002-2008 production increased while employment levels decreased. It also helps explain why manufacturing employment has struggled to recover.

The Skills Gap

Over the past two decades new technologies have increased manufacturing efficiency and production, but they have also also created a skills gap between what manufacturing needs and what the available labor pool can offer. Economic recessions have masked this problem in the past, but as manufacturing production continues to increase, technology efficiencies will be unable to compensate for a shortage of skilled labor.

According to a 2015 study by Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 70% of manufacturing executives reported shortages of workers with adequate technology, computer, and technical training skills. Because of this skills gap and a predicted increase of 3.4 million manufacturing jobs by 2025 (due to baby-boomer retirements and economic growth), the study predicts there will be 2 million jobs that will go unfilled.

Filling the Skills Gap

Manufacturers have taken a number of measures to fill the existing talent gap; however, there is no guarantee that these efforts will be enough to address the forecasted labor shortage. The challenge is difficult and complex because it involves not only training existing employees to learn new skills, but also partnering with leaders in education to prepare and encourage a new generation of manufacturing workers.

Let’s look at a few ways the manufacturing industry can address talent demands in the next decade:

1. Forecast required skills on a consistent basis.

At an organizational level, skill gaps can form when leaders decide to delay investment in ongoing training programs in order to realize the short-term gain of technological efficiencies. This works well to pay off the capital costs of technology, but it also sets up a future need for new skills. When a sudden increase in production requires a round of hiring, the neglect in training will result in a shortage of labor with the required skills.

Organizations that are able to forecast the skills required for future growth will be better positioned to develop a talent management program that maintains a continuous supply of skilled labor.

2. Invest in training for new and emerging roles (require it when necessary).

In order to provide a positive work environment, it’s always a good idea to give employees options as it relates to professional development. Empowering employees to take ownership of their career trajectory is an important component of employee happiness. However, if it becomes apparent (after a required skills forecast) that a particular role will soon become obsolete, then employers can avoid a labor shortage, costly hiring, and poor employee morale by proactively requiring training for new or emerging roles.

3. Open factory doors to the community and engage it.

Manufacturing has suffered from an image problem. The stability of a career in manufacturing has been in question. The benefits have been overlooked. The complete nature of the job is misunderstood. Manufacturers can set the record straight by engaging local communities–neighborhoods, government, and institutions–and inviting them to learn what a manufacturing career is and what it’s not.

Efforts to promote the benefits and dispel the myths of a career in manufacturing should go beyond print, digital, television, and radio. To reach a new generation of manufacturing talent and really spark an interest, employers must be willing to show them the reality.

4. Establish scholarship and internship programs beginning at the middle school level.

Children begin thinking and dreaming about “what I’m going to be when I grow up” at a young age. Through middle school, those thoughts and dreams become more refined as they receive more information from parents, teachers, peers, and the media they consume. At this point, most of the information sources that hold a child’s attention are likely misinformed at best, biased at worst.

Just like in point #3, employers must be willing to get in front of young people before they develop a flawed understanding of a manufacturing career. Scholarship and internship programs–some could span several years–that engage students early and provide them with a true understanding, hands-on experience, and a clear path to a rewarding career will go a long way toward fighting long-held misperceptions.

5. Promote the people behind the products.

Too often it’s the  products–features, benefits, and functionality– that are promoted. There is rarely a reference to how products are made or who makes them. This is not to say that every ad or commercial should have a story behind how the product is made. But telling that story can influence the minds of both consumers and individuals who are still deciding on a career path.

When manufacturers have the opportunity to present their business to a larger audience, whether through product advertisement, conventions, trade shows, community events, or even small meetings with public officials, it’s a great opportunity to promote the reality of a career in manufacturing. Lead with people not the product.

In the Year 2025

The U.S. manufacturing industry is not waiting for the year 2025 and a deficit of 2 million skilled employees. Many of the points above are already being implemented in one form or another. Other actions are being taken as well. Unfortunately, decades of industry misperception is not easily overcome. So it’s yet to be seen whether or not these actions will be enough to fill the forecasted skills gap.

And of course there’s always the huge factor of the economy. The strength of the American dollar, trade tariffs, trade agreements, and a host of other variables beyond the scope of this post will all impact manufacturing production and the demand for manufacturing labor. But ultimately, whether the 2025 forecast holds or not, the manufacturing industry must ensure that its future workforce is adequately trained and available to meet the demands of a global economy.

ExactHire provides hiring software to help manufacturing companies quickly recruit, hire, and onboard new employees. To lear more about how our solutions create new efficiencies for growing companies, contact us today.