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The holiday season can cause many routine business operations to slow down or even come to a complete standstill. For many operations, this includes recruiting and onboarding new employees. When you’re in need of new talent at key positions, however, you don’t have the luxury of taking a holiday hiring hiatus.

We all like to use the holiday season to get in some much-needed relaxation and reflection, but at the same time, ensuring your team is ready for the challenges and opportunities of the fast-approaching new year is crucial. That’s why we’ve put together this trio of highly actionable tips to help you make the most of this so-called unproductive season when it comes to recruiting and hiring.

This year, instead of cringing away from the idea of trying to work on hiring during that quiet stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, use the uniquely peaceful holiday atmosphere to your advantage and take the opportunity to get a new perspective on your hiring and recruiting challenges.

1. Strengthen Your Employer Brand
   
   We sometimes think of branding as an explicitly customer-facing concept, but that simply isn’t true. You also maintain a brand as an employer, and you build and shape this brand with every single interaction you have with an employee or candidate, like it or not. Instead of running from that fact or trying to justify your problem areas, lean into the concept of employer branding and turn your employer brand into one that attracts great talent and serves as a blueprint for other companies who want to do it right.
   
   A great place to start is by identifying some marketing principles that have worked well for your company and brainstorming how these same principles could be applied to recruiting new talent. Consider using the holiday lull to build or overhaul the “careers” page of your website, or consider launching an official social media group for your employees. Better yet, create a whole new section of your website that’s just for job seekers and current employees, which will give you a vast canvas on which to start developing brand elements.

2. Reflect on the Past Year and Plan Some Productive “Me” Time
   
   Looking ahead is obviously important when it comes to identifying your staffing needs, but you can also take advantage of the quieter holiday period to assess the previous year’s recruiting efforts (and where they fell short). After all, you probably wouldn’t be trying to find new employees around Christmas time if every hire you made last year had been a home run. Think about what decisions you could have made differently in the past year to improve hiring outcomes, both personally and at an organizational level. If you’re a HireScore user, make sure all of your cycles for the year have up to date information about who was hired. This gives HireScore important information that will make your hiring decisions better over time.
   
   Instead of focusing all of your energy outward and hoping you will somehow stumble across the perfect new staff member if you simply look hard enough, turn some of that inward as well. Once you’ve identified some areas in which you can do better, do actual work towards improving them. Set aside some time for simple activities that can beef up your own abilities: have a “touchbase” call with your HireScore Project Manager, participate in online communities for hiring and recruiting professionals, attend an online seminar, find a continuing education event to sign up for, learn the ins and outs of a department you don’t usually work in, or take some time to evaluate and fine-tune the systems you rely on for your hiring processes.
   
   
3. Predict Future Talent Needs
   
   During our end-of-year “housekeeping,” we can sometimes get caught up in the simplistic idea that we need to replace any employees we’ve lost, but staffing needs change, and staff members don’t always need to be replaced on a one-for-one basis. While technology may make one role obsolete, growth in your business might create opportunities for staff expansion in a totally different area.
   
   The end-of-year break naturally provided by the holidays makes a good opportunity for re-evaluating whether or not your human resources are being deployed in the most effective way. Start from scratch by making a list of crucial roles that need to be filled for your business to operate, then compare how that aligns with your actual staff structure and ask yourself why.

HireScore: Highly Effective Hiring Tools for All Seasons

By using smart strategies like these and bolstering them with innovative technology like the HireScore platform, you can come back from your holiday to a well-assembled staff that’s ready to succeed in the new year and beyond.

In a shockingly short amount of time, artificial intelligence has changed from an idea on the margins of science fiction to an innovative force in many key sectors of human life and the global economy. For better or worse, AI’s reach has already extended to human resources and hiring policies at many large employers.

The landscape of hiring in 2023, significantly influenced and informed by AI, represents some drastic and rapid shifts in how employers find and engage with candidates. Yet, while the efficiency and scalability of AI are undeniable perks, the need for a careful human touch in the hiring process has, in some cases, only become more evident.

Leveraging AI in the Modern Hiring Process

In this digital age, the process of recruiting and hiring employees has already seen rapid and remarkable evolution. Traditional methods of seeking employment, such as newspapers, cold phone calls, and “pounding the pavement” with a stack of resumes in hand, have all but been replaced by comprehensive platforms. These platforms (and their gradual integration with the AI revolution) help job seekers zoom in on positions that are a good fit while also helping companies locate and lock down suitable candidates.

One trend that has already gained a lot of traction at more large-scale HR operations is the utilization of AI to quickly scan resumes for particular keywords or other “green flags.” These systems can search for crucial keywords related to job requirements or prerequisite skills, optimizing the initial screening process while human HR staff is free to focus on more detail-oriented work (or getting the next job posting up).

AI and Improved Decision-Making for Corporate Workflows

Data-driven decision-making that can occur responsively at any scale is another emergent AI advantage for companies willing to adopt. Operations can identify deficiencies in their staff or hiring process by analyzing good data, and with AI, this analysis can be done more rapidly and with less human bias than ever before.

For example, if a key open position is seeing a slump in applications, AI analysis can help identify whether the issue lies in the applicant pool, the job posting, or some other element of your hiring strategy. AI can also help analyze the backend of your HR and recruitment processes, such as offering feedback on which recruitment channels and tactics are providing you the best return on investment in the form of qualified, dedicated employees.

The AI Bias Debate

While we’ve already touched on the potential for AI to improve objectivity and impartiality in the hiring process, there’s also an ongoing debate about whether today’s AI systems might actually inadvertently perpetuate, rather than mitigate, existing human biases.

The United States EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has actually released guidance on AI use in the workplace, emphasizing that while these software tools can streamline the hiring process, employers need to remain responsible for ensuring that the methodology behind these decisions remains equitable and uncolored by bias.

You’re likely wondering how this can be, as cold, machine objectivity has been touted as one of the major selling points of AI. However, the crucial thing to understand here is that AI models are not perfectly objective robot brains grown in a sterile lab. Rather, they are human-made computer programs trained on historical data (i.e., human writings). If that historical data carries the implicit biases of its many authors, there is a risk that AI might perpetuate or even exacerbate them.

Striking a Smart Balance

AI in hiring is undoubtedly a powerful tool. Its ability to screen thousands of applications efficiently and offer data-driven insights is hard to deny. Hiring your perfect staff, however, remains a deeply human endeavor in so many ways. Good recruiting and HR revolves around understanding different cultures, gauging the skills and needs of your current staff, and, perhaps most crucially, recognizing a person’s potential beyond the mere text of a resume.

Here are some tips to help you maintain balance and keep the human element present while transitioning to more automated hiring policies:

1. Transparency and Accountability: Implement clear policies detailing the role of AI in the recruitment process—and its limits. These policies should emphasize AI’s use as an assistive tool rather than a replacement for human judgment.
2. Actively Counteract Bias: Engage in regular audits of any AI systems at use in your organization to ensure they don’t perpetuate existing biases or introduce new ones.
3. Prioritize Human Engagement: Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that while AI can identify great matches for open roles or quickly analyze documents like resumes, the nuances of interpersonal soft skills, company culture, and individual potential for growth are better assessed by humans.

Don’t get left behind in today’s fast-paced, highly online hiring landscape. For more great content about hiring and technology, bookmark the HireScore blog.

The hiring process for modern organizations is a far cry from the days of scanning paper resumes by hand. Even the interview and onboarding processes look completely different than they did just ten or twenty years ago, thanks to rapid advancements in the algorithm—and AI-driven technology that is improving workflows across many industries.

All of this recent focus on tech, important though it may be, can unfortunately draw attention away from a key, fundamental fact: at its core, hiring is still a matter of real-world human connections. Viewed through that lens, it would be absurd and impossible to totally dehumanize the hiring process—nor should we want to!

Hiring, by its very nature, is a sort of crash course in practical, hands-on psychology. This brings to light a concern: we’re not psychologists; we’re hiring professionals! Thankfully, it does not take years of rigorous medical training to effectively leverage some well-established psychological insights at the office. In fact, by doing so, HR teams can build stronger, more cohesive staff that drive morale, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall business success.

Let’s dive into five key psychology concepts that you can apply to your hiring processes, onboarding policies, and day-to-day workflows to make them more effective:

1. The Power of Personality – Respected tools like the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator or the SHL Occupational Personality Questionnaire can help you understand whether a candidate will be a fit for the role and/or for your existing staff. While they certainly don’t tell you everything about a candidate or their on-the-job capabilities, personality tests can do a good job of predicting how well an individual might integrate with your existing team, their likely response to workplace challenges, or even their potential in leadership roles.
2. Understanding Emotional Intelligence – Today’s successful businesses understand that attempting to quantify an applicant’s emotional intelligence, or EI, can be just as important for long-term success as other tests. EI is a measurement of an individual’s ability to recognize, interpret, and respond to emotions—both their own and of others. High EI scores often correlate with better teamwork, leadership qualities, and conflict resolution.
3. Minimize Bias With Structured Interviews – Psychology in hiring isn’t just something to apply to your applicants; you can also use it to improve your own processes. We all have biases, and that’s okay to admit. While some old-school “firm handshake” business types love to conduct interviews on the fly to “get a real feel” for a candidate, this decision is often driven by ego rather than by someone considering what’s best for the organization. Standardizing your interview questions and delivering them in a consistent way ensures that all candidates are evaluated on a level playing field. This applies not just to asking questions but also to evaluating your candidates’ answers afterward.
4. The Self-Awareness Quotient – The self-aware candidate is one who understands their own strengths and weaknesses and can articulate a clear picture of how they feel they would benefit your operation and fit into your team. Self-aware candidates who also have solid skills tend to drive rapid organizational growth because they understand how their individual actions can impact the company’s overall operations. This one also goes both ways, so make sure you’re being a self-aware interviewer.
5. Stay Positive and Celebrate Every Victory – By focusing on a candidate’s strengths and positive attributes rather than obsessing over skills gaps, you give quality people a chance to shine in unexpected ways, as well as allow yourself greater insight into what really motivates and drives today’s professionals. This dedication to positivity needs to remain in place post-hiring. Hiring the right people won’t mean much if you can’t effectively nurture those relationships over the long term to build a cohesive team.

In conclusion, psychology can play an indispensable role in the hiring process across all industries. By tapping into psychological insights, hiring managers and HR professionals can make informed and unbiased decisions that drive organizational success and staff contentment.

If you’re ready to elevate your own hiring processes with cutting-edge insights, learn more about what the HireScore platform can do to improve your hiring workflows.

In the midst of ongoing discussions about the national employment landscape, adjusting to remote work, and the post-Covid hiring challenges still faced by various sectors, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned from a somewhat unexpected source: remote cities.

Communities in the far northwestern reaches of Minnesota, for example, have been struggling with worker shortages for some time. While the great State of Minnesota is hardly an untouched frontier, we’re talking about towns that have more in common with the neighboring Canadian prairies and rural North Dakota than they do the modern business meccas of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Chris Farrell, a senior contributor for the public media outlet Marketplace, recently did a piece looking into how such communities have adapted unique hiring practices–and how struggling businesses in other markets might be able to use the same strategies.

Successful remote cities seem to have one thing in common: one or more so-called “anchor companies” that provide consistent, quality employment, usually on a large enough scale that a sub-economy can exist around the workforce. Examples of these anchor companies in rural northern Minnesota include Marvin Windows, Polaris Snowmobiles, Central Boiler, and Digi-Key, a top domestic producer of electronic components.

While these operations can provide an answer as to why these remote cities work, that doesn’t solve the riddle of their own existence and success. Why have these large-scale business endeavors succeeded in the so-called “middle of nowhere” when so many other businesses of all different sizes have struggled to grow or failed entirely in similar geographical and cultural climates?

Anchor Companies and Remote Cities: A Symbiotic Economic Model

The Marketplace piece we referenced earlier astutely points out that the hiring practices which have developed in these far-flung rural cities may provide a glimpse into the future of hiring on a wider scale. As immigration and birth rates dwindle across much of the United States and the average age increases, labor force growth could be headed for long-term deceleration unless the employment landscape–meaning employers and their policies–are able to adapt effectively.

These successful but remote operations in northern Minnesota are each very different in terms of their respective industries and the sort of business they do, but all seem to have one important thing in common: they have honed their hiring and recruitment strategies to attract and retain the right talent within a consistently scarce labor pool. Certainly, this can be accomplished in a variety of ways, but one key takeaway from these successful Minnesotan companies is their shared emphasis on treating employees as valuable assets and fellow stakeholders in the operation as a whole.

To build and retain a skilled workforce, these companies invest in the long-term development of their hires through continuing education and skill enhancement programs. In short, they are willing to invest time and money in the project of hiring the right person and developing the necessary skills rather than holding out for the perfect applicant who already has those skills. In the far corners of northern Minnesota, with its modest labor pool, that’s a resume that might never come across your desk.

Of course, building the skills your operation needs is only one part of treating employees like key assets rather than an infinitely replaceable resource. These companies have also adapted to meet many modern worker concerns in terms of flexible scheduling and other morale-boosting policies.

For more fresh content about hiring, recruiting, and cutting-edge HR practices, be sure to follow the Stang Decision Systems blog.

By now, we can all see the lasting implications of the Covid-19 pandemic on the business landscape, both at home and globally. Hiring is just one major area of doing business that is still adjusting to this brave new world of remote and hybrid work options, fluctuating talent pools, and a generation of employees who have essential tech skills and no qualms about perpetual job hunting if they’re unsatisfied in a role. To say the least, the post-pandemic world has brought about some unique challenges and pressures for employers.

As all of these dynamics continue to shift and settle, employers in many sectors are feeling unprecedented pressure to get key roles filled with the correct talent — and to retain that talent once they’ve found it. As we find ourselves at the intersection of the unpredictable post covid employment landscape and the traditionally slower late summer and early autumn months, it can be difficult to know when it’s the right time to recruit aggressively and when it’s better to step back and take a breather.

Some traditional wisdom says to slow down hiring during the periods when everyone else does, such as holidays and midsummer, or to wait out periods when there are too many available jobs in your industry, as you might risk getting lost in the shuffle.

The reality, however, is that any time of year, and any economic situation, can present unique challenges for hiring but unique opportunities as well. It all depends on your individual goals and what hiring strategies you’re comfortable deploying.

Think back to the two examples above: hiring during a traditionally slow season and hiring in a crowded market. We can invert each of these readily, turning a challenge into an opportunity with a shift in perspective. While slowing down during the summer while your competition does the same can indeed allow everyone to take a much-needed break, it also gives you the opportunity to reach job seekers while your biggest competitors are asleep at the wheel. In the second example, competing for good applicants in a crowded market does indeed require skill and strategy, but it also allows you to cash in on the energy and enthusiasm of a time when your field is buzzing.

Overcoming Remote Work Anxieties

Perhaps the single biggest post-pandemic workplace paradigm shift, and one that some of us are still struggling to adjust to, is the shift toward remote and hybrid work positions. The last few years have proven that a significant number of roles that were completely in-office five years ago can be effectively performed by remote workers using various networking, productivity, and videoconferencing technology.

While this can feel like a loss of control, there are actually a lot of potential upsides to embracing remote work. Consider:

• Expanded Talent Pool – Opening up your recruiting to remote candidates lets you look beyond your city to bring on top talent from anywhere in the world. Some of today’s job-seekers are only interested in remote and hybrid work, so those who stubbornly remain behind the curve here are limiting their own staff’s potential.
• Increased Productivity – While some bosses worry that workers will goof off and abuse company time if left unsupervised, some research by the Harvard Business Review and others has actually suggested the opposite: a marked boost in productivity for remote workers. Flexible schedules can improve morale and overall effectiveness, and many workers find that they actually have fewer distractions, rather than more, at their home office.
• Cost Savings – In the most extreme cases, transitioning your workforce to a fully remote model could save thousands of dollars every month by allowing you to move out of large, brick-and-mortar facilities with expensive leases. However, even those companies who are simply entertaining a few remote positions or hybrid work option days can see savings in office supplies and utilities.
• Work-Life Balance – Perhaps the biggest reason to consider embracing remote work is the benefit to your employees. Remote and hybrid employees are better able to manage their work and personal lives so that their career does not feel like an imposition or burden that they will begin to regret. Remember, your employees have lives to live outside of work, and respecting that reality is one of the surest ways to keep satisfaction high among your staff.

To get more informative, actionable tips for hiring, recruiting, and onboarding new employees, please visit the Stang Decision Systems blog regularly, and be sure to follow our social media.

In the world of hiring and recruiting, the summer months are sometimes looked at as a time of reduced hiring activity, with springtime and the turn of the calendar year conventionally seen as the times of the year when candidates are there looking for new roles. There is some logic to this—the idea of a summer break transcends almost every type of industry, after all.

In the modern employment landscape, however, observing this unofficial lull may not always lead to the best outcomes. When operations postpone their recruitment efforts until later in the year or even set their staffing or restructuring focus at the beginning of next year, they miss out on several potential advantages that the summer season can bring for landing top talent. The reality is that people’s lives are not all on a consistent, predictable schedule, and highly qualified candidates are out there looking for jobs year-round.

Here are some of the unique advantages you can leverage by ramping up, rather than slowing down, your hiring campaigns and onboarding activities this summer:

• Less Competition – if your competition is still following an old-school policy of slowing down their hiring during the summer, this creates a unique opportunity for you to attract exceptional candidates. Contrary to popular belief, the summer months offer a distinct advantage for companies in terms of reduced competition for top talent. Of course, some job seekers also adhere to the misconception (or their lived experience) that says hiring slows down during this time, which can lead to a decline in applications and a bit of a vicious cycle. By actively promoting job opportunities during the summer, however, businesses can attract these high-quality candidates who are receptive to opportunities but not actively looking, as well as gather great applications from summer job seekers who are themselves strategizing and looking to stand out in a less crowded pool. In short, there are plenty of great summer candidates out there if you put in the effort to reach them. If you do so effectively, embracing the summer season will allow you to gain a competitive edge and secure top talent before competitors ramp their hiring efforts back up.
• Making the Most of the Slow Season – Even operations that don’t deliberately plan to slow down their hiring activities during the summer can be affected by the season. Vacations and scheduling challenges at small and mid-size operations can drastically lengthen the job posting, interviewing, and onboarding processes due to waiting for one key person to get back from their family vacation. Even this disrupted pace can be leveraged strategically, however. Companies can use these longer wait periods to conduct more thorough evaluations of candidates, with in-depth assessments and comprehensive background checks, or simply by using the extended timeline to bring in more candidates than usual. All of this can lead to more thoughtful and deliberate decision-making and, in turn, better staffing outcomes. In this way, the slower summer pace actually enables hiring managers to invest more time in each candidate, leading to better hiring decisions and ultimately securing top talent for their organizations.
• Making Summer Vibes Part of Your Employer Brand – While every season has its charms, the summer months are generally known for fostering a positive and relaxed atmosphere, which can be advantageous for hiring campaigns. In the summer, people are generally just in a happier, less stressed mood and more focused on enjoying and enriching their personal lives—or at least this is the perception when people think about the season. By capitalizing on this energy, businesses can create an engaging and appealing recruitment experience aimed at people who want to level up their lives (by way of their career situation) this summer. Lean into that summer feeling to showcase company culture and create a favorable first impression among your new hires.
• Expand Networking Opportunities – With professionals in some key positions having more flexibility in their schedules or workloads, summer presents an opportune time to expand networking efforts and tap into a broader pool of potential candidates through having a presence at job fairs, community events, and industry conferences. Hosting your own events or networking sessions is another great way to achieve this, and in today’s remote-friendly employment culture, utilizing online platforms to connect with other professionals is an option as well.

All things considered, the annual summer “lull” in the business world actually offers unique advantages for strategic hiring. For more great recruiting tips and actionable insights into hiring, keep following the Stang Decision Systems blog.

Experts across just about every industry have come to accept that ChatGPT could represent a paradigm-shifting disruption to all sorts of processes and practices. At the same time, those of us who have played around with ChatGPT (and there are apparently over 100 million of us at this point) have also come to realize the limitations of the tech pretty quickly.

While ChatGPT has a legitimately uncanny ability to “talk” to the user—at length and in real-time—about an endless variety of topics, it is fundamentally limited by the fact that it has been trained on existing, human-made content. This means that when it comes to actually “creating” something… well, it sort of can’t.

You see, ChatGPT isn’t actually “thinking” or doing research for you. It’s merely running a complex routine against a huge database of text in an effort to put together words that make sense as a response to whatever prompt you gave it.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t useful, however—far from it. While ChatGPT can’t truly “create,” it’s great for other purposes, such as quickly and coherently re-organizing or synthesizing various types of information you feed it. This could be used to take a long list of overly wordy job requirements and turn them into a concise first draft for a job listing, as just one example.

It can also evaluate text (like resumes and CVs) at incredible speed and do so in whatever fashion you’d like (e.g., searching for keywords). Furthermore, changing the query parameters doesn’t require learning SQL or some proprietary software system. With ChatGPT, it’s as simple as changing what you’re asking for in plain English.

Because of the broad applications for these sorts of tasks, are many specific ways recruiters, hiring managers, and HR pros can effectively leverage ChatGPT. So many, in fact, it’s hard to know where to start.

So, why not get it directly from the robot horse’s mouth?

When asking ChatGPT, “what are some ways you might prove useful to a hiring manager?” it is interesting to note that we did not get back the expected short blurb in the program’s usual wishy-washy, redundant style. Instead, it offered an exhaustive list. That list is summarized and analyzed below, with the exception of less supported claims.

1. Job description optimization: As mentioned earlier, ChatGPT can also help you create clear, compelling job descriptions to attract great candidates. It can quickly synthesize long lists of job duties and requirements into a more digestible form. Remember, however, that ChatGPT is not a great writer, so you’ll still want to edit the output carefully. Use ChatGPT output as an outline or first draft when creating highly formal documents like job postings and descriptions.
2. Interview prep: ChatGPT can provide near-endless lists of potential interview questions sourced from its vast mound of textual data, which no doubt includes many an eBook and blog post about corporate practices and interview techniques. You might even ask it to provide ideal sample answers for those questions if you’re not sure exactly what you’re looking for from your candidates.
3. Onboarding and training support: Depending on your industry, it is likely that ChatGPT contains a wealth of industry info that could be helpful to you. When it comes to actually writing employee policies and educational materials, however, you won’t want to use ChatGPT for anything more than generating outlines and ideas. The best way to use ChatGPT in this area is to upload your hand-written documents and ask ChatGPT to provide feedback on problem areas you may be struggling with.

In short, ChatGPT’s impressive natural language AI text generator can be a great tool, as long as you’re not using it as a text generator. Instead, treat it as an all-in-one easy-to-use, organization, and proofreading tool. Applied effectively, ChatGPT will have you saving time on your most tedious tasks, but it cannot replace human creativity in the hiring process.

Stang Decision Systems – Your Trusted Partner for Hiring and Recruiting Tools

For help landing and retaining the right candidates, look no further than Stang Decision Systems and our comprehensive suite of high powered tools.

As we continue to navigate the changes to business that have occurred over the past few years, it’s clear that remote work has become a new norm for many. The remote work paradigm shift has changed the entire culture of work for two primary reasons. First, it allows employees to work from the comfort of their own homes, saving time and money (and the environment) on their daily commute. Second, remote work can cut down on certain office expenses, like supplies and utilities, for the employer.

Just because it’s currently a red-hot topic among business analysts, HR professionals, and employee advocates, however, that doesn’t mean remote and flex work is right for every business. Let’s explore some key factors to consider when deciding whether to implement remote work policies at your operation.

Pros of Remote Work

As you might suspect, there are numerous benefits to remote work, including:

• More Flexibility – Remote work allows employees to have greater control over their work-life balance. Many remote and flex workers are given some freedom to adjust their schedules to fit their personal needs, which can result in a huge boost in job satisfaction for professionals leading busy lives.
• Savings – The direct savings made available for workers facing long commutes are obvious, but that’s not the only financial benefit of remote work. By eliminating the need for physical office space, employers can also save on rent, utilities, and other office-related expenses.
• Access to a Wider Talent Pool – When employers get on board with the remote work revolution, they can hire employees from anywhere in the world rather than being limited to a specific geographic location.

Drawbacks of Remote Work

Of course, remote work isn’t a perfect solution. Every business is unique, but drawbacks of remote work may include

• Communications and Monitoring Challenges – It can be more difficult to communicate effectively and track employee workloads when everyone is logging in from separate locations. Collaboration and teamwork can also suffer without a good technology framework in place to keep everyone connected virtually.
• Isolation – Working from home can be freeing for many people, but it can also be isolating, particularly for employees who live alone. This can have a negative impact on the mental health and morale of certain workers.
• Technology Issues –Remote work is very susceptible to technological hiccups. When technical difficulties do arise, it can be challenging to get the IT support needed to resolve the issue because your employees and equipment are scattered rather than all being together at a centralized office.

Key Remote Work Factors to Consider

If you’ve been considering whether remote work may be a solution for some or all of your employees, keep these factors in mind.

Consider the Nature of the Work

Not all positions are well-suited for remote work. This is true even in companies where the remote work model might be great for most employees. Certain key roles that require face-to-face interaction with clients or in-person management of sensitive equipment are likely better suited for the traditional office setting.

Communication and Collaboration

When poorly implemented, remote work models can create a lack of communication and collaboration, leading to issues like confusion, duplication of effort, or missed deadlines. To mitigate these risks, businesses must ensure that their remote team members have the necessary tools (often in the form of software and cloud-based services) to collaborate effectively with you and with each other. For example, you might implement video conferencing software to conduct team meetings and one-on-one sessions or instant messaging tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams to check in throughout the day.

Productivity and Motivation

Due to the lack of direct oversight, remote work may have a negative impact on employee productivity and motivation for employees with certain personality types, leading to decreased output and quality of work. To avoid this, businesses can offer opportunities for professional development and training for team members who are struggling with the transition to remote work and consider implementing flexible work hours to allow remote workers to manage their time as effectively as possible.

Are You Going Remote or Going Back to the Office?

While remote work is growing in popularity and offers many benefits to certain types of employees and businesses, it won’t be suitable for every situation. By carefully addressing the key factors outlined above, businesses can determine whether remote work policies are a good fit. Consider the nature of each employee’s role, your overall company culture, and the preferences of employees, and your company can make an informed decision that works for everyone involved.

For more information about current business trends and hiring insights, consult the Stang Decision Systems blog.

In today’s competitive, dynamic markets, finding and hiring the best employees can be a challenging and time-consuming process for operators in any line of business. Business owners and hiring managers who want an edge when it comes to recruiting and hiring are looking in all sorts of unexpected places for new tools that will help in this endeavor.

Psychology is one such often-overlooked tool. While specialized health fields might not seem to have anything to do with your business at first glance, the fundamentals of psychology actually offer valuable insight into what makes a great employee, as well as how to identify those traits during the hiring process. By incorporating these insights as a foundational part of your hiring practices, you can build a strong and successful team that will help drive your business forward.

Understanding Personalities

One of the most important factors to think about when hiring new employees is personality traits. According to the Hogan Assessment Systems personality inventory, which is already ubiquitously used by some larger HR operations, certain personality traits can be extremely good predictors of job performance for certain types of roles.

Some of the best, most broadly-applicable traits you will want to target when recruiting include:

• Conscientiousness – reliable, responsible, hard-working
• Emotional stability – stress management, performance under pressure
• Openness to new experiences – creative, adaptable

Psychology and Cognitive Ability

Everyone learns and thinks differently. Sometimes this can cause misunderstandings or tension, but this is also one of the core reasons diversity is so beneficial for your workforce and other types of communities.

That being said, certain indicators of certain types of cognitive function can be another key psychological consideration when hiring employees. A study by the University of Iowa found that various markers of cognitive ability can be strongly linked to job performance across a wide range of occupations. For the purposes of such studies, “cognitive ability” includes things like problem-solving skills, analytical thinking, pattern recognition, and the ability to absorb new information quickly. By assessing candidates’ relevant cognitive tools during the hiring process, you can identify job seekers who are more likely to be strong performers within your organization.

Bias: The Other Side of Hiring Psychology

Lastly, let’s turn things inward on our own psychology—as both an individual leader and as an organization overall. It’s of critical importance to always consider the impact of bias on the hiring process. Unconscious biases can influence the way we evaluate job candidates and can lead to unfair hiring practices and bad outcomes. For example, research has shown that hiring managers of any background are more likely to select candidates who are similar to themselves in terms of race, gender, and other characteristics. Using well-designed applicant screening technology in the early stages of hiring and recruiting can help mitigate some of these unconscious biases. Whether you are scanning resumes by hand or using algorithms to ensure all applicants are treated fairly, it will be important to be aware of any potential bias in your processes and to take steps to minimize the impact of those biases on the hiring process.

Overall, incorporating principles of psychology into the hiring process at various stages can help you find quality employees for your business. By using cognitive ability tests, emotional intelligence assessments, personality assessments, and working to minimize the impact of bias within your organization, you can increase your chances of hiring employees who are a good fit for your company. Hiring the right employees can have a significant impact on the success of your business, so it’s important to take the hiring process seriously and use all the tools at your disposal to find the best candidates.

Stang Decision Systems – Trusted Experts in Hiring and Analytics

For even more high-quality tools that will help you land the right candidates, contact Stang Decision Systems today. We can help you improve your processes and build a winning team for any industry.

Nearly every successful business model depends on placing the right personnel in their most effective roles. This process starts by convincing the ideal candidates to click on an ad or job posting.

That’s why major corporations invest millions of dollars in improving their recruiting and onboarding processes. Thankfully, the vast resources of a Microsoft- or Amazon-sized company aren’t necessary to create snappy, effective advertisements and job postings that funnel the right job seekers to your organization.

Creating a Job Ad that Connects with the Right Candidates

When writing a job advertisement, you must always have your target in mind. Imagine your ideal candidate for this role. What is their:

• Work history?
• Educational background?
• Attitude?
• Personality?
• Geographic location?

Knowing the answers to these questions allows you to effectively target your ad and deploy it strategically where your ideal candidates spend time online. Even a high-quality posting can be lost in the shuffle of the major job search sites. Appealing to a specific audience requires speaking a precise language and understanding a particular set of values. If you’re unsure about the skillsets or the typical CV someone should have in a role you’re trying to fill, don’t hesitate to contact consultants or experts for more information.

Branding Matters

Unless you’re a major corporation or a large employer in your region, it’s possible that many candidates haven’t heard of your company before seeing your job ad. Even if an applicant has ordered a product from your company or used your services in the past, they likely know very little about your organization.

A job ad is an excellent opportunity to build your brand by directly referencing your company values, history, and mission. Don’t use your job ad as an essay about your company, but make sure anyone who clicks “apply” will do so with a solid understanding of who you are and how they might fit into your operation.

Make Your Ad Valuable to Job Seekers

Don’t merely talk about your values in your job ad; use it as an opportunity to demonstrate them. One of those values should be transparency if you want to compete for the best candidates in today’s fast-paced climate.

Include elements like:

• An accurate and complete job description: Use concrete language and thoroughly (but concisely) explain what the job will entail.
• Bring the company to life: While explaining the job itself is crucial, you’ll also want to tell your organization’s story.
• Compensation and benefits: There is a minimal upside to being mysterious about what you offer candidates. It’s better to be upfront about pay and benefits in today’s competitive staffing climate.
• Growth potential: Don’t hesitate to mention if the job you’re posting makes a good potential starting place for a long-term career.
• Be visual: Ensure your ad adheres to your company’s branding and style guide. Include photographs of your workplace to help candidates better understand what a workday with your company will look like.
• Organize well: Use engaging headings and subheadings to effectively break up the sections of your job posting in a way that makes sense. For example, you wouldn’t want your company mission statement running directly into the job duties for the specific role.

Assembling a great staff is vital to getting work done efficiently and at a high level. A carefully planned and crafted job ad can attract ideal candidates, helping you build a talented and capable workforce.

When it’s time for you to hire, let Stang Decision Systems help. We can help ensure you get the right candidates for the right job.