It’s a strange time that we’re living through.
That’s something of an understatement.
Although it might seem like the world is standing still, we know that many of our clients and candidates are continuing to work, albeit remotely.
If your business is still operating in these highly unusual circumstances, you may find yourself in need of some superstar talent to fill already-vacant positions – or perhaps a brand new role you hadn’t foreseen needing.
For some businesses, remote work and online recruitment will seem like a daunting prospect. Yet experts predict it likely to become the new normal.
That’s why we at Iconic Resourcing have put together this helpful blog, to demystify the process and offer useful advice for recruiting candidates in a socially distance world.
Video Interviewing
Firstly, it’s important to note that not every industry has ground to a halt in the wake of the current global pandemic. Many companies have a head start and have embraced some level of remote working for some time.
Others will be equally quick off the mark due to the nature of their industry, or excellent preparedness planning.
None of this is to make anyone feel inadequate about their own preparedness, but simply to point out that other businesses in your sector will be interviewing.
This means that, if you’re not filling positions that you need to be filled during this pandemic, you’re missing out on talent that’s potentially going to your competitors.
It’s not just about what your missing out on, though. Remote recruitment means that you’re no longer confined to candidates who are local to your offices or willing to quickly relocate.
You can interview and employ from a much wider pool of candidates, making sure that you really do hire the best person for the job.
Video interviewing can streamline your hiring process, with some estimates hire suggesting an increased hire ratio of up to 70%. While phone interviews are necessarily imperfect, and inefficient, face-to-face interviews require significantly more planning and time commitment. Video manages to take the best of both worlds and produce better results.
You also have the option to keep video interviews shorter, avoiding excessive small talk and drawn out periods of questioning. It can seem rude to end a face-to-face interview early, especially as the client may have travelled some distance to meet you. With video interviewing, no such problem exists.
At Iconic Resourcing, we’ve partnered with a leading tech business – a video interviewing platform specifically designed with recruitment in mind. This allows us to shortlist candidates and conduct preliminary interviews on your behalf.
If you’d like to know more about video interviewing, or find out how we can make it easier for your business to recruit online, get in touch with us today on hello@iconicresourcing.com.
Onboarding
So, you’ve taken the plunge and hired your first remote employee. But this is only the beginning of the journey.
It’s easy to take for granted the comparative ease of introducing a new employee to co-workers, company policies, systems and processes when all of this takes place in a single location: the office.
In a socially distant world, we’re avoiding offices and other workplaces. So it’s worth considering some of the challenges, and the advantages, of onboarding new colleagues remotely.
Firstly, it’s important to be upfront and honest about your expectations of remote workers. Do you require employees to work rigidly to their contracted hours, or are you interested in results, and willing to allow workers to set their own schedule?
It’s worth considering in advance where you can afford to be flexible. Without the necessity of office opening hours, employees may be able to increase productivity and reduce stress by working at times tailored to their own individual situations.
Flexibility could be key to employee retention while schools remain closed, as many workers struggle to balance child care and even home-schooling with professional commitments.
The next thing to consider: systems and processes. It’s a good idea to build a checklist for new employees (if you don’t have one already), explaining what they need to get set up on and who to contact with any queries or problems they might encounter. If you already have an onboarding document, now is the time to review its usefulness for remote workers.
The goal at this stage is to get your new employee up and running as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Remember that you are still making first impressions at this stage. There’s nothing quite so demoralizing as beginning a new job and feeling cast adrift with nothing to do and no direction.
Make sure that you prepare some fall-back work for when tasks are completed early or meetings/training have to be delayed.
Do you have a series of documents you’d normally provide to new employees? You could consider sending them through the mail. This gives you the added opportunity of adding in some of the branded (or non-branded) stationary, pens, or notebooks that employees would otherwise be given in the office.
You can even organise a small welcome gift, to make sure your new hire feels a valued part of the business, especially if they’ve never visited in person. A bunch of flowers, or a small work-from-home hamper would be a nice addition to anyone’s first few days in a new role.
Perhaps most importantly, you must make sure that remote workers are introduced to, and made to feel part of, your team. It’s best to arrange a video call early in the onboarding process, and ensure that people take the time to introduce themselves and welcome new colleagues.
It can be hard enough putting faces to names, or asking for help, when moving job, but it’s infinitely more daunting in a remote working scenario. This is a great opportunity to sell your company’s culture, and promote team building and working together-but-separately.
One great way to foster team spirit in a socially distant work environment is to organise after work drinks on a Friday (via video call), or set up a quiz night for your department. Encouraging the social element of sharing a workplace will help all employees, new and old, as we navigate these unprecedented times.
Finally, we recommend you ask new employees for feedback as they navigate the onboarding process. It may well be that remote workers will make up a significant portion of your future workforce and finding ways to improve will set your business apart in a changing employment landscape.
Let us know in the comments how your business is coping with home-work and online recruitment.