Building a dream team requires careful planning and execution. Here are some steps you can take to build a successful team:
Define your goals: Start by clearly defining your objectives and what you hope to achieve as a team. This will help you identify the skills and expertise you need in your team members.
Hire for cultural fit: It’s important to ensure that the individuals you select for your team share the same values, work ethic, and goals. This will promote a positive and productive work environment.
Assess skills: Look for individuals who have a strong skill set that complements the rest of the team. Ideally, each member should bring unique strengths and talents to the table.
Encourage diversity: Diversity of background, experience, and perspective can bring new ideas and approaches to the team. It’s important to create an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and respected.
Foster communication: Open communication is essential to any successful team. Encourage regular check-ins, team meetings, and opportunities for feedback and collaboration.
Empower team members: Give team members the tools and resources they need to succeed. Encourage autonomy and provide opportunities for growth and development.
Celebrate successes: Finally, celebrate the team’s successes and achievements. This will foster a positive culture and motivate team members to continue working towards their goals. Success also breeds success which makes it easier to attract better talent.
These days (as the writing of this article) ask employers in any sector as to what is their main pain point and you will most likely be told that staffing is definitely the one. Barely a sign that it is an employer’s market. However, changes in job vacancies will vary much by industry, geography, specific skills, educational level, and other factors.
Seems that during the Covid-19 period, many open job positions actually pay less than the expanded economic relief unemployment benefits many people receive(d) under the March 2020 CARES Act in the U.S. and CERB financial support in Canada to employed and self-employed Canadians who were directly affected by COVID-19. In fact, an estimated 68% of unemployed workers are collecting more on those programs than they earned while working. That said, there is not much, if any, incentive for such employees to return or gain employment as long as they are receiving such payments. This is a dilemma which many employers are reporting with a lack of applicants and an increase in interview no-shows.
Possible solutions and recruiting strategies to make your business stand out to job seekers during the pandemic, and beyond, should include:
1) Apply a Timely Hiring Process
Consider new methods for interviewing such as virtual interviews like Zoom or Teams, virtual job fairs, along with scheduling technology such as Calendly and text-messaging to make communication with candidates more effortless.
Utilize a third-party recruiting/staffing agency, specializing in your domain, to help source employees on a permanent or temporary basis. This is a way to spend less time, resources, and money on the sourcing and hiring process to allow more time focusing on the operations.
3) Offer Hourly Wage Increases or Bonuses
Consider offering a temporary (or permanent) pay increase for roles with essential duties and in high demand and offer a bonus for high demand jobs to attract talent. Although this increases payroll expenses, it may be necessary to attract and retain the right talent.
4) Offer Flexible Work Hours/Schedules
This may include offering longer days or staggered shifts to allow for an additional day off during the week.
5) Offer an Opportunity to Work Remotely (with Jobs That Typically Can)
Since the Covid-19 pandemic shook the standard workplace, the physical office ambiance was quickly ─ and at some businesses, reluctantly switched to working remotely. Many employees had to adapt swiftly which they eventually did and now wish to continue with this convenience. Consider either carrying-on, offering the remote home office option or proposing a hybrid whereby some days during the week or month will require a commute to the physical work location.
6) Emphasize Mid-To-Long-Term Career Growth Opportunities
To help candidates recognize the temporary nature of collecting their economic relief unemployment benefits, highlight the long-term growth opportunities available at your company. Consider including the opportunities with your posted job descriptions.
7) Ensuring A Good Candidate Experience
Candidate experience isn’t only important for employer reputation, but it is also a factor when your top candidates are evaluating your job offer. The way you treat candidates during the hiring process is a good indication and impression you convey the way a candidate may be treated once hired. positive candidate experiences can enhance an employer brand and reputation and encourage good candidates to join, as well as existing employees in providing you with additional good candidate referrals.
8) Consider Hiring for Attitude and Training for Skills
Don not solely hire well educated and experienced people. More importantly, seek motivated, dedicated, coachable and candidates with interpersonal skills. Moreover, make certain that the people you hire fit-in with your corporate culture. Your organization should also foster an atmosphere of innovation and creativity through leadership. These conditions can’t help but breed success.
In the end
Some of the above do not apply to every type of job. Though the hiring challenges during a pandemic are a temporary issue, it is frustrating enough when taking into account job seekers who may be earning as much or more money through economic relief benefits. But with the above recruiting strategies in mind, employers should be able to attract more candidates, make the right hires and return promptly to a new and refined “normal” type of business and beyond.
How often do we hear employers, of all sizes, complaining that there is a dire shortage of good talent out there? What should we really make of this? Is there anyone to blame – everyone but the employers themselves? Consider the daily hiring procedures and habits of most employers to realize who is at fault for the hiring dilemma. Engaging prospective employees by utilizing mainly the human resources staff and/or relying solely on a plethora of job boards, automated hiring/”big data” or software to scan and screen-out resumes is not only irresponsible but rather a wasteful practice, totally impersonal, as well as a thoughtless and a lazy way to bring, supposed, qualified people on board.
Through third parties and automated systems, how is a hiring manager going to discover candidates who bring more than just skills to the table – ones who also bring about an ideal attitude and character? Think soft skills/emotional IQ. The job of hiring should be conducted by none other than the person to whom the potential new employee will be reporting to – or rather be assigned with tasks.
If there is a list of ideal and practical methods of properly hiring employees, which I fully subscribe to, then you ought to read the article “How To Hire: 8 stunning tips“ in Nick Corcodilos’s blog “Ask The Headhunter®.”
Recruiting done properly and effectively is not an occasional task but an on-going process. Potential candidates can be discovered anywhere. Even if the hiring manager is not actively seeking a candidate, he or she should be doing so proactively by keeping his or her ears and eyes open at all time and literally anywhere – whether during networking, social activities, or during his or her time off. I am aware of two such cases; whereby a business owner and a recruiter, respectively, both came across their potential candidate while dining at a restaurant. In either case, they were impressed when they overheard an individual, at the table beside them, talking about his/her career goals and aspirations. The pleasant personality and discussion drew them in impressive ways that the hiring managers could not help but engage with this person. In the end, the eavesdroppers extended the individual an invitation for a job interview. Eventually, they were hired by their respective employers.
Unconventional Business Wisdom for the refined entrepreneurial mindset - by James D. Roumeliotis 