Kathleen McCoy-Anderson – Client Success Manager

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Kathleen Anderson joined ExactHire in May 2017 and currently serves as Client Success Manager. She is assisting our clients with our software applications as well as implementations. Kathleen holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Purdue University. Prior to working for ExactHire, she spent over 5 years working for Firestone Building Products as a Project Coordinator with the SAP Implementation Project Team and as a National Account Coordinator. Before joining Firestone, Kathy was an HR Manager for REM-Indiana.

While not at work you can usually find Kathleen spending time with her family, friends and dog! As a family, they enjoy spending time outdoors, riding bikes, hiking and playing basketball. They love concerts and traveling whenever possible!

Working From Home

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Most Americans wake up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, pack lunches, drop off the kids, drive to work, work, eat lunch, work some more, drive home and pick up the kids every day. The rat-race, Groundhog Day, déjà vu…. whatever you call it — it can be a drag. And if the employee is dragging, his/her work most likely is too. In this modern day and age, telecommuting is becoming a major benefit to employees and employers. Since the vast majority of the workforce is already using technology and SaaS (software as a service) programs, it is easy to transfer the daily workflow into the home office environment.

Gone are the days of loathing traffic every day! You can even work in pajamas!

You can mow the grass, go swimming, buy groceries, clean the house, or any other number of activities on your lunch break. Some practical benefits include reduced transportation costs, elimination of travel time, and comfortable clothing. These simple pleasures are translating into employees working longer hours, enjoying that work more, reducing personal stress-levels, and increasing productivity. To the dismay of some traditional thinkers, employees will work without micro-management. They might even work better that way.

Rush-Hour Relief

It is common to lose an hour or more each day during the commute to and from work. After an hour of public transit or driving alongside a myriad of road-rage, close-calls, and stop-and-go traffic the average employee can be grumpy or worn-out by 8AM. The employee has been up for hours without producing any work yet. On the other hand, an employee that telecommutes merely rolls out of bed and opens a laptop while brewing that first cup of coffee. Emails can be read in leisure while awakening the body and brain for a great day of working from home.

Balance

Job satisfaction is much higher when the employee has some control over the environment and daily schedule.  Working from home can make the joys of juggling children, a relationship, and work a lot easier.  Doctor appointments? Kids have school/ activity obligations? Need to get dinner started early? Somehow, these tasks are a lot easier to accommodate when you are operating from your home. Telecommuting is a wonderful way to ease the responsibilities of adulthood. However, going into the office two – three days a week can really improve the general office demeanor. Most of us like some personal interaction with our co-workers, at least when we aren’t missing our child’s game just to ‘show face’ at work. Workers are happy to get into the office and see their co-workers, maybe go out to lunch or meet up after work. And the office can be fun, especially on those days when Martha brings homemade cookies or Katie brings her famous lemonade. Balance can be just as important for the workplace as it is for the home life.

Technology

Smart phones, tablets, 3-D movies, touch-screens, and a little thing called the internet have all made our personal lives better. Businesses are also benefiting from the new technologies that are available today. Companies that utilize cloud-based data centers and SaaS applications are saving money on hardware and equipment. At the same time, these types of technologies allow employees to save time and money by working from home.

ExactHire provides SaaS recruiting and employee onboarding applications. For more information, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

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When Should I Buy Applicant Tracking Software? – Whiteboard [VIDEO]

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If your organization has never used an applicant tracking system before, you might be curious about the telltale signs that it might be time to buy applicant tracking software. In today’s Whiteboard Chat, Jeff Hallam shares his insight on the most obvious indicators that it may be appropriate for a small- to medium-sized business to implement a recruiting software solution for the first time.

Video Transcript:

Hi there! Today we’re going to take a look at something that comes up quite a bit as I’m out talking with organizations. And that usually kind of revolves around, for those who aren’t already very large…how do I know if I’m large enough; or, how do I know when the time is right for me to need an applicant tracking tool?

And so today is really just designed to give you some helpful things to keep in mind or some considerations so that you’ve got some warning signs to consider as to when might the time be right for your particular company. So, the obvious one is if you are doing more hiring. And there is no set benchmark, there is no set number of hires. If you hire more than this or fewer than that, it is or isn’t right for you. More often what I find is that it’s relative. It’s relative to what we’ve done before, it’s relative to what we’ve done up to this point, and so for everyone there seems to be this line of demarcation that once we cross that, this becomes a lot more problematic than it has been prior.

So as you continue to grow and you have more openings out there, that is almost always going to be a surefire way to help you kind of keep that in mind. Secondly, if you are seeing instances where candidates are applying, and you’re finding yourself kind of scratching your head and saying I think I’ve heard of this person before. Or, I think we considered them before. Or, other people are looking at the resume and saying “oh, we’ve talked to this person prior.” That’s almost always a good sign if you don’t have a ready way to keep track of that, and if you think about an Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft Outlook folders, or worse yet even just a stack of resumes you might be keeping in a file folder somewhere…that becomes really difficult to cross reference when you have more than a handful of those in there. So again, that’s almost always a good way to know that if that’s happening with more frequency, that means you probably have more openings, you’re getting more candidates. It might be time to look for a more effective way to keep track of those folks.

This is one of those things that comes up a lot…this need to involve hiring managers. So, when you find yourself at a point where it’s becoming more cumbersome to let hiring managers weigh in on certain candidates, it’s becoming more difficult to track and log what their feedback is…who we interviewed, who did we not, why do we not want to interview them or why do we want to interview them…again, that’s typically where Outlook spreadsheets, Excel spreadsheets, Outlook subfolders I should say…those types of things become very difficult to share bits and pieces of with hiring managers who are only focused on a certain opening. So, in other words if I have three openings and I only want Manager One to see this list of candidates, Excel and Microsoft Outlook folders aren’t really designed to do that in a very efficient way.

So again, as you’re finding yourself getting to that point, others are getting involved, and you want their input…almost always going to be something that will tip your hand that it might be time to look at a solution like ours. And then finally if your applicants are hearing crickets. And again, just by way of notice, that is a cricket. The idea here as much as we make light of it is that can be problematic at two different levels…so certainly it can be problematic if you have good candidates and you want to move them along in the process but you’re not getting to them quickly enough. Those folks, if they don’t hear a response very quickly, they’re likely moving on to the next opportunity. And you certainly don’t want to lose access to them. So that’s what we mean on the one side of the fence when we talk about them hearing crickets.

On the other side of the fence though, are the people that you are clearly not moving forward with. When you don’t have an automated tool like an applicant tracking software piece available, it becomes very difficult to keep applicants up to date with where they are and communicate with them effectively. And so even though you may not be worried about them as a potential hire, you don’t want to give those folks incentive to speak poorly of you out in the employment marketplace. Certainly we all have a brand to our potential customers, but that branding also extends over to the employment side of things. So, whether you are talking about your better applicants or your not so good applicants, having a ready way of keeping them apprised of where they are, what the next steps are, and where they fall in that process…is going to be very critical to making sure that you maintain a good presence in the employment brand space out there, and avoid giving people incentive to speak poorly about you to others. So again, hopefully this has been a nice help just to give you a few quick indicators. These aren’t the only ones by any means, and they may not be the exact ones for you…but certainly something to keep in mind as you continue to grow and your business gets to points where you might be considering something like this.

For more information about how ExactHire’s HireCentric applicant tracking system, please visit our resources section.

Applicant Tracking Systems for Not-For-Profits

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Applicant tracking systems (ATS) can be appropriate for many different industries and many different business sizes…the right system for your organization will depend on the unique needs or your business as features will vary depending on the software application. In this blog, I would like to focus on how applicant tracking software can be beneficial to a not-for-profit organization.  Many think that a nonprofit means that an organization has little money or no budget, this is not necessarily true. Not-For-Profits are run similarly to many other organizations when it comes to their financial controls and hiring processes.  Most however, do a have strict set up guidelines and a board of directors to monitor and regulate key business decisions.

Here are several reasons why Not-For-Profits would benefit from having an ATS:

Applicant tracking systems make hiring more efficient

Often, these organizations run pretty lean on manpower so it’s important that every aspect of their processes are efficient. This is no different when it comes to hiring. Using an ATS will help quickly launch new job postings with minimal manual effort; as well as, sort out applicants that best fit the needs of the organization based on custom filters that may be predetermined by the organization.

Having the right software makes hiring less costly

It’s no secret that hiring a new employee can be costly so it pays to make the correct decision the first time around.  Our applicant tracking software is especially budget friendly to nonprofit organizations and is suited well for small- to medium-sized companies.  Hiring right the first time keeps costs down, as well, and allows HR staff to spend less time re-training and on other busy work activities that cause an organization to be less productive in the long run.

Leaves applicants with a positive impression

Using ATS software allows you to have a streamlined and consistent hiring process. This is a bonus for your employment brand, as well. More specifically, your jobs portal will make it easy for applicants to search for available positions and then apply in a consistent, standardized manner each time. You may even include an FAQ page on your career site to answer common questions so that your potential applicants know what to expect from your hiring process. Your company, big or small, will be seen as professional and attentive to the needs of its applicants and employees. That’s a huge plus when you want to create a working environment that is engaging to employees who are passionate about the mission of your nonprofit organization.

Grows your passive applicant database for future reference

Any applicant that has applied to a previous job in your application will be stored and may be easily referenced by searching for items such as name, email, phone, and various keywords. If you are trying to source candidates for a specific position, you can always search your database of previous applicants to see if one of them fits well with the needs of the new job.  Contacting those people that were finalists for previous jobs can be a great way to reduce your time to hire for critical positions for which you need to make hiring decisions quickly.

These reasons are all noteworthy for not-for-profit businesses, but can certainly be applicable to other industries, as well. As with any potential change to your recruiting and hiring process, keep your company culture top of mind when implementing software tools and designing screening process steps to make the overall experience a positive one for the candidate and the company.

For more information regarding our HireCentric applicant tracking software and our other hiring software solutions, please visit our resources page or contact us today.

Make Hiring More Predictable

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We recently hired another staff member, and as we wound down the process, one of the key factors in choosing the person we did was based on the type of work they had done previously and the positive feedback from others who had worked with that person in those prior positions.

This made me stop and think about an old, but mostly true, saying:

“Past performance is the best predictor of future performance.”

As you likely know from prior blogs, I’m a big believer in employee assessments — both in the hiring process and for post-hire development. Assessments (when used properly) are an excellent way to gather very valid and objective data about applicants that you otherwise would not access until after they’re hired. Likewise, the better assessment providers allow you to create benchmarks of common traits among your better performers. In turn, this helps you get a better sense of how well a potential hire matches up to those existing good performers.

At the same time, if you think about the hiring process for most organizations, there’s another component that can significantly improve the likelihood of better hires. That component…the reference check.

Before your mind wanders to the frustration and time spent chasing down references, let me qualify this a bit. I’m talking about reference checks that can actually be quantified and used for ongoing review of your hiring successes and disappointments.

There are solutions available that allow you to not only automate the process of procuring references from employees — they also allow you to gather information from those references in a way that produces more responses, more quickly and with better information.

Targeted Reference Checks

By utilizing this type of approach, you are able to determine the types of specific characteristics for which you want feedback from references. Instead of simply confirming employment dates and job titles, you can now allow references to rate a given applicant on these specific things that you know from experience are important for your particular position. Since the process is anonymous for the references, they consistently provide more truthful responses and more relevant information.
Any applicant can put down 3 references on an application — especially if you don’t quantify what type of references you require. With this automated alternative, however, you may dictate whether you want former bosses, former peers, former direct reports, current peers, etc.

My point here isn’t to lobby for reference checks over assessments. Ideally, you can use both. Instead, this is simply an option that many folks don’t know exists. By utilizing it properly, you have the opportunity to make hiring decisions more predictable and continue to bring a larger number of good performers into your organization. After all, isn’t this the primary objective of any talent acquisition process?

To learn more about how employee assessment and reference check options available through ExactHire can make hiring more predictable for your organization, please contact us today.

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How to Make Sure an Electronic Signature is Valid – Whiteboard [VIDEO]

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If you’re trying to determine how you can use technology to make the employee onboarding process paperless, then there are some things you should know about e-signatures. In today’s Whiteboard Chat, Jeff Hallam discusses the elements that are included in a legitimate electronic signature.

Video Transcript:

Hi! Today we’re going to talk about electronic signatures. And this is something that comes up a lot in today’s world as more and more organizations are looking for solutions that can help expedite collecting signatures, and really, the idea today is to make sure that we can help you better understand some of the essential items that have to be there in order for an electronic signature to be as valid as a regular physical signature.

And again as a quick precursor, none of this is meant to be legal advice. If you have more detailed questions, I would always recommend that you seek your attorney of choice. But hopefully this will at least give you a pretty good checklist of things to consider as you go down this path. So really everything starts with a piece of legislation passed back in 2000 called the E-Signature Act. More commonly know as the E-Sign Act. So as you go down this path you’ll probably hear that terminology used and really all that was designed to do was to lay out a common set of protocols that all providers and organizations could use to make sure that key elements of an electronic signature were consistent across the board.

So really, what we’re going to start with are kind of just these four common things that have to be present in order to make sure that you are in compliance from an e-Sign Act perspective.

So the first one is review. As you would expect with any kind of typical physical document, nobody’s going to sign that until they actually have a chance to see what it is that they are signing. The same thing applies with electronic signature. You have to give the person who’s being asked to sign the document access to that document so they can confirm what’s on it, and that they can indicate that they are in agreement with that. Pretty standard, but again, just to make sure that that would be part of what’s offered and to check on that.

Secondly, and this is really more at the core of the technology side of things, is the ability to prove that the signature is unique and verifiable. And, there are different ways to do this and I’m going to hit on more of the best practices approach. Really there are three elements involved in making sure that this signature becomes unique and verifiable. Number one, you have to be able to record something that constitutes a signature. And, that can be anything from checking a box, filling their name into a box of text on a screen, all the way down to an actual mouse pad signature where somebody would attempt to replicate their signature electronically. Whatever approach somebody uses doesn’t really matter at that point as long as that is recorded.

Secondly, you’re typically going to want to make sure that there’s a date and a time stamp to that signature so that it can be found and tied back to when this actually occurred. And then finally, in most instances you’re going to want to record the IP address of the computer or the device where someone was when they issued that signature. And now as you combine all three of those elements, it is very easy to go back and confirm that the person who appeared to sign the document actually did.

Thirdly, we get to consent. If there are documents that are longer, or a little more complicated, and/or those that have repercussions if certain conditions aren’t met or rules aren’t followed, its always a good idea, again best practices-wise, to have a way to make sure that the person is really clear on what that consent means. So, for instance on the I-9 form, which is something we run into very frequently, there are certain penalties that may be imposed if you’re found to have been untruthful in documenting somebody’s citizenship status. Well, as the person being asked to sign off on that, while it is in the document, the I-9 is several pages long. So, what you might do in those instances is look for an opportunity to either highlight those key areas so its very clear to the person and those are called out; or, perhaps even bring a copy of those key elements down into the signature area where they are being asked to sign so that its very clear again that they understand what it is exactly that they are consenting to at that point.

And then finally, access and change. This kind of works both sides of the street – access means the person that we have asked to sign the document has to have the ability after that transaction is complete, to download and access a copy of that for their records. Print, save, whatever it might be. Likewise, on the other side of the street, the group that originated the transaction, is prohibited from making any changes to that signed agreement unless its approved by the person that was asked to sign it in the first place.

And again, nothing different than what you would see in a regular contract or signing arrangement physically, but again, making sure that these four elements are all there, and that those criteria exist, and that whatever vendor or developer you’re working with can prove those items will make sure that you can stay in compliance and that your electronic signatures are every bit as valid as a physical signature. Thanks!

For more information about how ExactHire’s employee onboarding software utilizes e-signatures, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

Should Companies Bother Doing Exit Interviews? The DOs & DO NOTs!

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Have you ever conducted an exit interview that was laughable? Or, maybe you had to endure one as a departing employee that you felt was a complete waste of time…or that you fibbed your way through in an attempt not to burn any career bridges on your way out the door. Personally, I believe in the value of exit interviews when they are designed carefully, and more importantly, when they are just one part of a broader effort by a company to regularly gather feedback from employees throughout the year, AND then actually do something with that feedback. The point I’m making…if the exit interview is normally the first time your organization actually asks an employee about his/her work experience, then just forget it because it will be a waste of your time and perceived as a feeble effort by management to the existing employees.

But because I’m a half glass full type person, let’s talk about ways to make it work – the DOs! Then, a few do NOTs you’ll want to avoid, as well.

The Right Way to DO Exit Interviews

  • Do discuss with the individual how the information gleaned from the exit interview will be used in the organization, including people with whom the data will be shared. Indicate the level of anonymity that the person should expect and then follow-through on your promises when processing the feedback.
  • Explain the possible positive outcomes of the exit interview; such as, additional training opportunities for existing employees, reduced turnover, investments in more resources and making strides toward the chance of winning back company alumni as employees again in the future. In addition, a smooth exit for an employee may improve your organization’s chances of winning new clients by referral down the road.
  • Open the interview with an invitation for the person to give you an overview of his/her career progression through the company leading up to the decision to resign. You may find that many of your questions are answered just by listening to this account, and it will help guide your own line of questioning more organically moving forward in the interview.
  • Keep in mind the typical reasons that someone will choose to leave an organization, listen to your departing employee’s answers, and then be flexible to adapt the interview based on his/her core reason(s). If the questions seem to flow well to the interviewee, then he/she is more likely to be candid with you in his/her responses.
  • When organizational changes are made as a result of feedback from employees (both from exit interviews and just from periodic employee surveys and/or focus groups), be sure and shout it from the rooftops so that your company knows that management is serious about actually doing something with employee comments. What a powerful way to build employee engagement!
  • Consider conducting the interview at an off-site location such as a coffee shop or restaurant. The employee may feel more at ease away from the office, especially if he/she has a lot of detailed comments to share about what could have caused him/her to stay with the company.

The Exit Interviewing DON’T List

  • Don’t have hiring managers conduct an exit interview as the candidate will not be as candid with the person who was responsible for managing him/her. Have a trained representative from Human Resources at the helm, instead.
  • If expectations happen to be set with the interviewee that the information will be truly anonymous (which is easier in a large organization rather than small businesses), then don’t do things like record notes on that person’s own record in an HRIS, performance management system or applicant tracking software (ATS). Automating the process of note recording through hiring software platforms may be permissible in some circumstances, but ONLY if the candidate understands how the information will be disseminated prior to divulging his/her comments to you.
  • Don’t put in the effort to collect the information during the interview only to put it into a report that gets shared with the right people just once. Make sure your organization has mechanisms in place to prompt you to periodically review comments and actually come up with action steps for bringing about change as a result of the more compelling feedback received from departing employees.
  • Consider your interview questions carefully, and don’t hammer away at the interviewee with a line of questioning that makes him/her feel attacked or uncomfortable…particularly if you haven’t done a thorough job of setting expectations about who will see the feedback and how it will be used. This is the quickest way for an exit survey to go south if the person feels like you are trying to get him/her to rat out other employees, etc. However, by asking appropriate questions and assuring the individual that he/she may skip any that cause alarm, you will be more likely to find out about the systemic situations in the organization that may need to be addressed…and before some of the bad ones may spread like a cancer across your workforce.
  • If you realize five minutes into the discussion with someone that the interview will be weak, don’t try to lengthen it and force it to be helpful. Not all exit surveys will be as important as others, and that’s okay.

Remember that an exit interview is not a last ditch effort to get an employee to stay with your company; but rather, a means to mitigate future turnover and to prioritize the list of items that may need to be fixed in your organization to improve existing employee morale.

ExactHire provides hiring software solutions for small and medium companies. For more information about our products, please visit our resources page or contact us.

 

Download our hiring process questions guide

Image credit: EXIT by Ann Hung (contact)

How Do I Get More Applicants?

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We hear this “how do I get more applicants?” question, or something similar, often. The problem with answering this question is the variety of answers we could produce. This question is in reference to a symptom and not a problem. We first must identify what the problem is – WHY are you not getting applicants? This question can still produce a wide array of answers.

Identify the Problem

Take a few minutes to ask yourself some specific questions to help identify where you think the problem may lie.

How well is the job listing written?

  • Are you first posting with a description of the company and then the job description? Often applicants will see a preview of the first few lines and make a judgement call from that. Begin your job listing with the position description.
  • Are there keywords within your job listing? Are the keywords standard “lingo” within the industry? This will help you get more visibility and higher credibility. Have you entered keywords into the job board push area? This can help.
  • Is the length of your job listing over- or under-whelming? Length can be a balancing act. Certain positions and the employees who would fit perfectly into those positions would prefer succinct bulleted communications and others would need more descriptive, in-depth communications.

Where are you marketing the job listing?

  • We will assume you are posting your job on your own company website, but if you are not, call us and we can discuss the benefits of applicant tracking software (ATS) that you can link to your website.
  • State workforce sites (unemployment offices) have job boards with quite a bit of traffic. Take advantage of this pool of applicants by getting your job in front of them.
  • Are you using your company’s social media presence? And your own? And your employees’? Social media can go viral in the blink of an eye. Before you know it, your job listing could have been seen by thousands of people. Think Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
  • Do you have a referral program in place? If there is an incentive, employees are more likely to share the job. Our HireCentric applicant tracking system makes it easy for applicants to name a referring employee during the application process.

What does the general public think about your company and/or the job?

  • The most difficult item to measure is what the public thinks of your company or the job in general. Try your best to highlight the truth and positives about the company and/or job.

Do Not Confuse Views With Potential Applicants

One thing you may initially find confusing or misleading are the amount of viewers for a particular job listing and the number of started applications. Your focus should be on 1) increasing the number of completed applications to more closely align with the number of started applications; and, 2) increasing the number of started applications.

I think things are easier to understand when we talk about them in situational terms. Pretend you are an applicant and you have found a job listing to which you might be interested in applying. You may send it to your partner and ask for his/her opinion. Maybe you send it to a friend, mentor, reference, etc. as well. Boom! That job listing has now had FIVE views and no applicants. This is why you should be cautious about putting too much emphasis solely on the number of views.

Morphing Viewers into Applicants

With the above pretend applicant who sent the job listing out to others for opinions, we still want to get this original “applicant” to go from viewer to applicant. There are a few different ways to encourage this behavior.

  • Turn on the “Apply On Job Listing” feature. This would at least get the person into your database as a started applicant even if he/she hasn’t completed the entire application yet. This would allow you to nudge him/her into completing the application.
  • Try using a two-step application where the first step asks the most critical pieces of information that you would need in order to take another step with an applicant. This allows the applicant to quickly maneuver through the application submission process.

Trial and Error and Time

Try implementing some of the above suggestions and see what type of impact this makes over a few weeks. Give the changes enough time to produce results. Some of these suggestions may work for certain industries and not others. Often it’s the tiniest changes that make the biggest impact.

Fore more information about the HireCentric applicant tracking system from ExactHire, please visit our resources section or contact us today.

Image credit: Joyful Runway by Ian Sane (contact)

4 Ideas for Better Promoting Disability Inclusion in Your Workplace

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If you have a culture of universal inclusion, then many individuals and employees may not be as likely to see the need to self-identify their disabilities. With a company that willingly and proactively embraces teammates with disabilities, an environment may already be conducive to the needs of someone without the necessity of a reasonable accommodation. I’m paraphrasing this comment after hearing the statement from a very engaging speaker this week.

I had the pleasure of attending a joint meeting between my local SHRM chapter, IndySHRM, and the Indiana Industry Liaison Group (Indiana ILG) yesterday that featured Jennifer Sheehy as the keynote speaker. Jennifer is Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor. While the presentation was quite informative, especially regarding new reporting and posting requirements as the result of recent updates to Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, she also powerfully conveyed the impact that inclusion can have on the careers and lives of individuals with disabilities by sharing her own story of how she became a quadriplegic earlier in her life during an accident.

And during a time when many contractors are rushing to stay on top of a now more expansive list of technical regulations related to hiring and employment benchmarks and practices, it is important to see beyond compliance requirements and focus on getting your organization to the next level…a level on which you proactively encourage inclusion as a way of life. Here are some collective ideas I heard at this morning’s presentation on how you can proactively make your company an employer of choice for individuals with disabilities.

Create a website focused on disability inclusion efforts

Have you thought about having a devoted microsite, or an area on your existing corporate site or branded job portal that provides visitors with information about what your business is doing to set the example for other companies when it comes to welcoming and assimilating employees with disabilities into the work environment. The website might include videos with: a virtual tour of your office and all its accessibility features; commentary from existing employees about your company’s inclusion initiatives; and, footage of different assistive technology that you have made available to employees.

Think about the words you use to explain initiatives

Our speaker brought up an interesting point that reminded me of the “groupthink” phenomenon in which members of a group will, in the effort to reach a consensus, will tend to go along with what everyone else is saying because it is easier; or, because they are simply following the crowd. She indicated that it may be easier for corporations to look at statistics about what percentage of other organizations are perhaps in the same boat…the boat in which companies are simply trying to do the minimum of being compliant but not necessarily stepping outside their box when it comes to innovation in inclusion. They rationalize that since there are so many other organizations in their bare minimum cohort that they are smooth sailing.

She challenged us to rephrase those messages that tend to “make it okay” for organizations just to go along with the norm. Think about how you craft your content on marketing material, websites, in-person communication, and social media…make sure it keeps your business challenged to push the envelope to improve others’ awareness of your inclusion efforts rather than suggesting that you are simply compliant.

Use imagery that makes your inclusion initiatives clear

Make sure that the images you use in your employment brochures, marketing material, on your website, social media banners, etc. are truly representative of your outlook on hiring a diverse population of individuals from different backgrounds. As mentioned above, include photos of assistive technology available to help employees do their jobs. Also, if your organization does any community outreach efforts, regardless of the focus of any external partners involved, make sure to include pictures of those activities and content promoting your company’s commitment to supporting such events.

Partner with resource organizations

Proactively partner with agencies and non-profit organizations that assist individuals with job placement and workforce readiness. The ODEP site has a resources area that lists a number of other entities that work in this arena and that are endorsed by ODEP:

  • JAN (Job Accommodation Network)
  • LEAD Center (National Center on Leadership for the Employment and Economic Advancement of People with Disabilities)
  • EARN (Employer Assistance and Resource Network – AskEARN.org)
  • NCWD/Youth (National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth)

Also, you may narrow your resource search topic on the ODEP site in order to find statistics and other documents that may be of assistance to your organization.

I’m thankful for having had the chance to attend this informative event and appreciate the actionable ideas that organizations of all sizes can implement to improve their inclusion focus.

ExactHire offers applicant tracking software that helps small- and medium-sized companies collect applicant data and generate reports for use in compliance efforts. For more information about ExactHire’s HireCentric ATS, please visit our resources page or contact us today.