Offboarding Is Just As Important As Onboarding

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Organizations of all sizes continue to hear about the importance of new-employee onboarding as it relates to employee engagement and overall retention. But many have found that the days of tracking all of these functions manually or in a spreadsheet are over. They are looking for better ways to organize the new-hire onboarding process and increasingly are moving toward paperless, interactive solutions to do so.

Once an employee is fully onboarded, most companies then utilize an HR and/or Payroll software solution to manage employees through the duration of their employment.  This is often where things like paid time off, pay increases, and performance reviews are kept. Again, keeping these types of records in a single, automated place streamlines the workflow and helps keep employees happier.

But how about when an employee leaves the organization — either voluntarily or involuntarily?  Do you have a definitive process to offboard that person?

Offboarding Defined

Like employee onboarding, employee offboarding will vary significantly from one organization to another.  Along those same lines, because there are a variety of things that must be done/tracked when an employee leaves, there’s a case to be made that automating this process is a good move.

As employees move on from your company, below are some common things that may be part of your offboarding process:

  • Retrieve office keys / entry swipe badge
  • Retrieve company laptop and/or phone
  • Confirm date of last paycheck
  • Provide COBRA information
  • Provide retirement plan options upon termination
  • Conduct exit interview
  • Provide copy of any non-compete or NDA agreements signed by employee
  • Setup auto-forward of the former employee’s corporate email

There certainly are many other things that might fall into this list, but it’s easy to see these are not trivial items.  As with new hire onboarding, you may choose to manage these tasks in a physical checklist or in a spreadsheet.  Likewise, there are solutions emerging to help automate this in the same way as new-hire onboarding.  Whatever methodology you choose, be sure to have a process in place to avoid exposure for your company and to make things as smooth as they can be.

To learn more about how ExactHire can help with your onboarding and offboarding processes visit the resource section of our website or contact us today!

 

Image credit: Delta B-727 (1970’s) by Hunter Desportes (contact)

Indiana Basketball And Hiring – What Can We Learn?

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I live in Indiana, where basketball is king. Whether you attended Indiana University or not (I did not–I’m a proud Butler University Bulldog), IU basketball is a mainstay of conversations throughout the state, especially this time of year.

This year, however, IU basketball is the topic of conversation for the wrong reasons.  Over the past few months, no fewer than 6 of the 13 scholarship players on the IU squad have been arrested or suspended for run-ins with the law…that’s almost 50% of the team!

Naturally, many of the discussions about this among Hoosier fans (don’t ask what a Hoosier is, as even those of us from Indiana aren’t 100% sure!) revolve around how much coach Tom Crean should be held accountable for these incidents.  Regardless of any personal bias one might have for/against Coach Crean, I find myself thinking about the following:

  • He recruited and signed each of these players.
  • They each interact with him on a regular (almost daily) basis.
  • How they perform on the basketball court ultimately determines his success as a coach. 

Sound familiar?  If you’re a business owner or hiring manager, it should.  After all, what do we do in those roles?

  • Recruit talent (i.e., employees).
  • Interact with employees regularly.
  • “Coach” employees to perform at a level that ensures success for the organization.

Given that, let’s look at the IU situation by placing things into a business situation.  Assume that you hire 13 people over the course of a year or so.  Then, assume that those 13 people perform at a fairly average level (if you’ve seen IU basketball over the past year, you know this is a generous statement).  Finally, let’s assume 6 of those 13 people end up arrested or suspended over a period of a few months for various alcohol or drug-related offenses.  As the manager of those people, how likely is that you’d still have your job?

My point here isn’t to pile on as it relates to Tom Crean.  It’s fun to draw these comparisons, as there are some parallels between the roles of a coach and a manager/boss.  But, my overarching point here is how important it is to recruit/hire the right people. 

I know that’s a very simplistic and obvious statement.  “Right” means different things to different organizations.  Talent is clearly important, but it isn’t the only thing.  How well will the person “fit” the organization, the role, the team, etc.?  Will they be a good teammate?  It’s true in sports, but it’s also true in business.

Let me finish my basketball-to-business comparison with two examples relative to IU: the Duke and Kansas basketball programs.  Both programs are run by coaches who  know how to recruit those who “fit” their programs. They also have the respect of their players.  As you get ready to hire for your next opening, be sure to think about what you can learn from Duke or Kansas to more consistently recruit the right people for your team.


ExactHire provides hiring solutions that help organizations find and hire the best talent and the right fit for their company culture. To learn more about how ExactHire can improve your hiring process, contact us today!

Image Credit: Basketball Goal by prettybea (Own work) [GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Test Your Application Through The Applicant’s Eyes

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Finding the right employees can be daunting. Have you ever thought about how equally disheartening it can be to find the right job? I strongly encourage our clients to play the role of job-seeker by searching and applying for open positions at their organization. What they find is often times surprising, but it almost always leads to improvements in their recruiting and hiring processes.

Hiring managers usually do a great job of developing the job description, but they often overlook the application process itself. Having a few applicants who start an application, but then abandon it, is common. But when this trend increases, an organization can benefit from taking a few minutes to go through the application process as a job-seeker would.

With an Applicant Tracking System like HireCentric, you can create a ‘dummy’ account to serve as your test applicant. Some of my co-workers create pseudo-profiles using names of celebrities that include quirky and funny answers to education and employment history questions. You can do the same, or keep it boring, and name your test applicant ‘Company TestAccount’, holding applicant answers to a similar standard.

Concerns may arise about reporting criteria or skewing your data for REAL applicants. It is important that you develop a standard for answering those EEOC and source questions. We suggest choosing the option “I do not wish to answer” for the EEOC and VEVRAA questions; and we always choose the company website as the source. As a best-practice, we also put a note in the applicant record identifying it as a test account, change the status to not qualified, and archive our mock application when testing for clients.

Testing your application process is a best practice, and it can have a huge impact on improving the quality of your new hires. You want the job-seekers to find your open position, apply for it, and be excited about the prospect of working at your company.

Test Your Application – 3 Considerations

Now that you have the basics, and you are ready to test your application, here are a few of the top things to consider when testing the process as a job seeker:

How easy is it to find your job listing?

Most job boards will list jobs by the date they were posted, but most applicants will land on your open position by filtering for keywords and location. Make sure that you are using a multitude of keywords that apply to both the open position and your company. By using specific terminology, you can reduce the number of clicks it takes to land on your open position.

How long does it take to complete the application?

Consider not only how long it takes to complete the application, but what are the implications that arise from an application being too short or too long? If you have a short application, you might find that you receive way too many unqualified applicants. Alternately, if the application is too long, you may find that ideal candidates are abandoning the application. Testing the application to understand how much time you are asking candidates to commit is imperative.

If you find that your application is extensive, but that all points are necessary, it may be time to consider a 2-Step application. This feature makes the initial screening short for applicants and allows you to invite only qualified applicants to complete the second application step.

Are you creeped out by the questions on the application?

Test your application so you can see the process as an applicant sees it. You may find out that some of your questions are throwing red flags to the applicant–like asking for social security numbers. Maybe you are asking for an over-abundance of essay questions. Or, you may just discover that you are asking questions in a confusing fashion.

 

Download our hiring process questions guide

Visit ExactHire’s Resource Page to download a tip sheet with more specific examples of how to test your application and improve the applicant experience. To learn more about our HireCentric Applicant Tracking System, contact us today!

 

Image credit: Job Application 2 by T Hart (contact)

New Mom Motivations – Increase Employee Happiness

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I have a new daughter, and she is amazing! I love having a baby in the house again. My two sons are six and eight, full of energy, and involved in everything. But having an infant in the house has reminded me to slow down and enjoy life a little bit more.

Although my husband and I are often sleep deprived, we’ve learned to appreciate the quiet times and enjoy the first smiles, snuggles, pretty dresses, and bows. It’s safe to say that being home and having the opportunity to enjoy all of this is motivating to me.

And my company knows it.

Motivate Your Employees

What Makes Your People Tick?

A successful company knows what makes people tick. People are driven in many different ways. Compensation is important, but it’s not everything. Companies need managers who know what it is that makes their teams happy and what motivates them to help the organization succeed.

I work for a company that believes in a work-life balance and provides flexibility to work from home and to change schedules if necessary. Two years ago, I preferred to arrive after 9:00 AM because I didn’t need to rush out at 5:00 PM (and because I wasn’t a morning person). Today, I arrive at work early so that I can be back home by late afternoon. I am motivated to be as efficient as possible at work so that I can be home to help my boys with homework, make dinner, and have time to hold my baby girl. I am telling you this to illustrate how employee priorities and motivations can change as they reach different stages in life.

Knowing more about what motivates your employees will also help you learn to manage them over the course of their employment within your organization. From the very beginning–as part of the hiring process–companies can utilize cognitive and behavioral assessments to determine whether an applicant is a good fit for both the position and the organization. Later on, you can use these assessment results to help manage and motivate the employee.

Maximize Employee Happiness

It’s About People

For long-term success, the happiness of your employees should matter the most in your organization. Be sure to assess new hires for job fit, get to know your team and what makes them happy through informal conversations, and use company social activities and events to to strengthen relationships. You will find that happy employees lead to greater work efficiency, and the work environment is more enjoyable for everyone.

 

How will you keep your employees happy so that you can retain the best team?

Learn more about applicant assessments tools and other people-pleasing HR Technology at ExactHire.com. Contact us today!

Image credit: mother&child01 by David Bleasdale (contact)

Time Is Money – Paperless HR Makes Money

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Once you find, interview, and hire that new employee, it is time to get started with training. But first, that new employee must complete the new-hire paperwork. Sign this release, pick your benefit package, here is a state form, a federal form, and few more things. That should be all you need until enrollment rolls around again. Then, in the middle of training, here comes that HR representative, bringing even more paperwork.

Now your perfect employee is wondering if this is the company they want to work for at all. The HR department has spent days getting things sorted out, and they still don’t know what is going on. Haven’t I filled out this form already?

Save Time with Paperless HR

Stop wasting your time! Stop wasting your new employee’s time! Improve your onboarding process and get new hires working faster. There is no need to shuffle papers, scan, copy, print things over and over again. With onboarding software, your new hires will breeze through the paperwork process and begin contributing faster. The HR department is going to start saving time too!

Onboarding software provides a platform where new hire paperwork is uploaded, completed, and saved in one area. Employees can be in control of their progress through updating paperwork, and they have a visual representation of their status. Time is no longer wasted on determining which form is the most current.

When the government makes regulation changes and your form is updated, simply upload the new form and have no fear. Employees do not need to look through paper files to see what is missing, they can tell with a simple glance at their digital dashboard–it’s paperless HR.

Time really is money–especially in a business environment. The quicker your company can get  mundane tasks completed with accuracy, the quicker employees can get on to new, high-leverage projects and responsibilities that increase profit.

To save time and increase profits for your organization, learn the benefits of ExactHire’s paperless HR solutions. Contact us today!

Image credit: The Man by Robert S. Donovan (contact)

Applicant Engagement – 5 Quick Tips

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It’s interesting to see how the recruiting landscape has changed over the past  years.  When the 2008 recession began (and even as it entered full swing), applicant engagement was the last thing on the minds of the few organizations hiring at the time.

I recall a frustrated client telling me at the time that he could probably get 150 applicants for a job opening just by posting a 3” x 5” index card in the front window of his lobby!  The challenge then was how to stem the tide of applicants and more easily keep track of who was where in the hiring cycle at any given moment in time.

Even as the recession faded away, many of the reports over the last several months tout the number of unemployed people who have simply left the workforce.  While I don’t doubt this is true, the challenge for employers today is much more in line with what it was prior to the recession…how to find good applicants, make it easy for them to apply and still get what’s needed to make good hiring decisions.  Hence, applicant engagement is again a very important consideration for many recruiting teams and HR leaders.

 

5 Tips to Improve Applicant Engagement

 

1. Be Concise & Truthful in Your Job Descriptions

Applicants don’t need to know all the fine print for a given opening. They won’t read it anyway. Provide a short summary and focus on what someone might really want/need to know before applying for that position.

2. Create a Simple, Attractive Career Page

Avoid the temptation to simply list your open positions. Provide links to your benefit plans, time off policies, company culture, etc. These are things that are important considerations for applicants and they expect to have access to them before deciding to apply for your openings.

3. Make the Application Process Easy

 There are lots of ways to do this, but the key is to stay away from requiring a full application just to be considered for a job.  This is a major topic of complaint among applicants, so take a look at what type of message your current process sends.  If it takes more than a few minutes (5-10, at most), you’re probably losing out on applicants.

4. Let Them Opt-in for Future Job Openings

This is just as important for you as it is for them.  Allowing applicants a simple way to be notified when you have openings in the future shows them you have a desire to help them find the best opportunity for their particular situation.  Of course, it also helps you draw applicants back to your site on a more regular basis.

5. Keep Them Connected

This is most often done via social media.  Like it or not, this is how most people communicate today.  For many applicants, opting in for social updates is a great way to keep you and your openings on their radar.  It also sends the message that you’re current with trending technology.

By taking these extra steps (whether you have your own recruiting site or use an applicant tracking software tool), you will stay in the hunt for top talent and improve your employer brand with applicants.

 

For more information on how to engage your applicants through the use of an applicant tracking system, contact ExactHire today!

Image credit: Project 365 by Gabriela Pinto (contact)

Email Your Network to Find Applicants — Avoid This Mistake

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Referrals that come from your network are likely the most reliable and best-suited for your needs.*

*There is always an asterisk, isn’t there? If you are selective about who you request referrals from, their recommendation can be well-suited for your needs. This applies to appliances, restaurants, and yes, even applicants. Let’s focus in on recommendations for applicants.

How You May Email Your Network Now

We’re seeking talented individuals. We spend time putting together a glamorous job description. We make sure the job is published on our website through our applicant tracking software. We then scour our contact list for those in our network that are the “connectors”–to borrow a term from Malcolm Gladwell. Now we email our selected list of connectors.

“Hi! We have a position available. Let me tell you about it, and if you know of someone who would fit, please send this to that person. Tell them to email me at xyz@mycompany.com.”

Congratulations! You have now created more work for yourself.

Improve How You Email Your Network

This is one of the big mistakes made when emailing our networks, especially when we’re in a hurry. The basic improvement is to switch out your email address for the url of the online employment application. Rather than manually entering in an applicant’s information after you receive it via email, have the applicant enter the information in directly themselves.

Usually, you track applicant sources with applicant tracking software. Then, you can even run reports based on those sources. ExactHire ATS does something even cooler: it allows you to customize the referral information into a unique link. By using our job listing promotion tools, you can enter specific text to create a customized link.

For example, I might enter “RShuck Professional”, and then “RShuck Personal” on another, so that I generate two links to send to two different batches of contacts. When the referred applicants apply, their sources will appear in our ExactHire applicant tracking software as having come from RShuck Professional or RShuck Personal.

If you are so inclined, you could send out individual links to your contacts such as “RShuck to JTimberlake”. In this way, anyone who received JTimberlake ‘s link could apply and it would be tracked back to him as being the “connector”. This is extremely valuable when seeking applicants for hard-to-fill positions, especially when trying to offer a bonus for the referral.


For more information on how to engage applicants using custom links: ExactHire clients can visit our Knowledge Base, and prospective clients can schedule a quick consultation.

 

Image credit: Networking by Ricki888c (contact)

5 Ways to Get Your Recruiting Emails Noticed

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Are  you constantly sending out recruiting emails that receive a lackluster response? Here are five ways you can grab the attention of that uber-qualified employee and get them on the track to working for you!

 

Specific Subject Lines

Subject lines are the little previews that help the recipient decide to open the message or not. By sending emails with a personalized and clear subject line, you are more likely to gain your target’s attention.

Introduce Yourself

Do not spend a paragraph explaining what you are doing before you explain who you are to the recipient. If you are lucky enough to have a highly qualified candidate take interest in your efforts, you will want to prove you are a real person and that you truly are interested in them specifically.

Describe the Open Position

Do you really think that this person is going to respond to you now, when they don’t even know what the open position is all about? It may seem obvious, but you have to very briefly describe the opportunity. If you have any hopes of getting the right person into the company, you need to be realistic about the position and include that short synopsis information in your initial email.

Connections to the Candidate

Using connections is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and that is because it works! Just like an applicant that comes by referral might get an interview, you might get some attention if a mutual acquaintance introduces you first.

Wrap it Up

Remember, you want this person to work for you because they he or she is awesome. That probably means that he/she is also busy. So spit it out and say goodbye. Make sure you tell the candidate how you plan to follow up. You may want to leave it open, but most likely you will want to ask to speak in person or over the phone soon. This way you can answer any questions or ease any concerns he or she may have about pursuing a new job.

 Following these simple steps will help you achieve a greater response to your recruiting emails. Good luck on your hunt for talent!

 

Looking for a better organized way to keep track of your applicant management efforts? For more information about our recruiting software solution, please visit our resources section

 

Image credit: Standing out by MaxIFaleel (contact)

New Jersey’s Opportunity to Compete Act

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Over the past few months, the ExactHire team has shared information with you through our blogs on the “Ban the Box” movement and the legislative changes that have been implemented.  Illinois, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Hawaii are states that have enacted legislation in both the public and private sectors relating to when a background check can be incorporated into the applicant review process.  The “Ban the Box” movement is running full speed ahead, and New Jersey is the newest state to pass legislation to “ban the box” on both public and private sector employment applications.

On August 11, 2014, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed New Jersey’s “The Opportunity to Compete Act” which requires public and private employers to remove any questions related to the applicant’s criminal history (AKA “ban the box”) from employment applications beginning March 1, 2015.  This legislation does not mean that employers cannot conduct background checks on applicants; however, background checks must come later in the hiring process and/or when a job offer is extended unless the company/position meets certain exceptions outlined in the legislation.

To keep abreast of States and Cities who enact “Ban the Box” legislation, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) has an interactive map that provides an overview of the current legislative status.  An overview of the legislation for the locations with “Ban the Box” legislation can be found here.  For the actual legislation, you will need to go directly to the state or city government website to access the passed law(s) in its comprehensive language.

Employers need to be aware of the legislation that exists and which is pending to be prepared for the potential impact on their organizations.  If your organization currently has hiring practices in multiple states and cities, or posts job listings nationally, it is important to be cognizant of the locales’ legal expectations.  At ExactHire, we take pride in doing our best to ensure our clients’ satisfaction is the highest possible. We do whatever we can to resolve clients’ current needs and identify potential needs.  After you speak with your legal counsel, and if you and your legal team decide changes need to be made to your employment application(s) to comply with legislation, the ExactHire team can work with you to create a new application with the verbiage you specify for compliance.  Also, please know that one of the benefits of using ExactHire’s HireCentric software as your applicant tracking system is that you can create multiple employment applications, each specific to your needs.  If you’re an existing client looking for more information about updating your current employment application(s) and/or creating additional employment applications, please email support@exacthire.com.

Please note:  The ExactHire team is not legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice, so any questions regarding your company’s eligibility for exemption with the “Ban the Box” legislation and/or proper verbiage for your company’s employment application(s) should be discussed with your company’s legal counsel.  To learn specifically how New Jersey’s “The Opportunity to Compete Act” affects your organization’s hiring practices, please contact your company’s legal team.

If you are not yet an ExactHire client, for more information about HireCentric ATS, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Image credit: Jersey City Skyline at Sunset (Explore) by geezaweezer (contact)