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5 Workplace Issues and How You Can Resolve Them
From communication breakdowns and minor misunderstandings to differences in work styles and competing goals, workplace issues are as varied as the solutions to resolve them. But, if handled correctly, each situation offers a unique opportunity to improve your company’s workplace culture.
Understanding these issues and knowing how to navigate them can lead to improved teamwork, increased productivity, and a more positive work environment. By embracing issueresolution as a pivotal skill, leaders and employees alike can transform potential obstacles into stepping stones for organizational success.
Below, we’ll delve into five common types of workplace issues that arise in the workplace and provide actionable strategies for effectively addressing them.
1. Mental health
Mental health issues are increasingly common in the workplace, with at least 1 in 4 people experiencing mental health problems every year.
Employers may find it difficult to address mental illness, but the support you provide for mental health issues should be no less favorable than the resources you make available for physical ailments.
Most importantly, employers are under an obligation to take reasonable steps to support the well-being, health, and safety of their employees. This means that work practices and company culture should support good mental health and also employees with mental health problems. If an employee’s mental health illness is categorized as a disability, then they will also be protected against disability discrimination by the Equality Act 2010.
Employers do have the right to terminate an employee’s employment due to mental health illness. However, you must be able to show that you have taken all reasonable steps to resolve conflict and keep the employee in employment.
Short-term mental health issues
For employees suffering from short-term mental health problems, you would be advised to:
Give them opportunities to explain their absences
Explain to the employee how these absences could become an issue in future both for them as individual employees and for the business
Set a reasonable review period for monitoring their work performance and any absences related to their mental health issue(s)
Long-term mental health issues
Reasonable steps that you could take to support an employee who has a long-term mental health problem include:
Investigating the mental health condition, usually by asking for medical records, GP report, or occupational health report
Consulting the employee about how their condition affects their role
Exploring with them possible ways of overcoming any adverse impacts, such as adjusting their workload or changing their hours or the type of work
Making reasonable adjustments so that the employee can stay in their role
Anticipating your employee’s recovery and keeping the role open for them for as long as reasonably possible
2. Covid-19
The coronavirus has drawn attention to employees’ rights in an unprecedented way, particularly to the right to get paid according to their contract of employment, the right to health and safety at work, and much more.
With businesses being forced to close down and where it is not possible to work remotely, your employees are entitled to their contractual pay. The U.S. government Furlough Scheme (also known as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme) can help employers during this pandemic.
The financial support provided gives employers a percentage of their employees’ salaries, currently at 80% with a monthly cap of $3,000. But employees must agree to be put on the furlough scheme and, if you are not going to bridge the cap to cover 100% of their pay, accept only a percentage of their wage. So, discuss it with them first.
If employees believe there is an imminent danger in attending the workplace, such as contracting the coronavirus, they can also refuse to come to work. It can be unlawful for you to insist that they attend without first resolving the danger. This also applies to employees suspected of having or showing symptoms of the coronavirus (see S2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974).
We strongly advise that you discuss any dangers with your employees and where possible try to let them work from home, especially where they are vulnerable.
Where an employee is pregnant, you are obliged to conduct a risk assessment and put her on suspension with full pay if necessary. If she is within 6 weeks of her due date, you can allow her to start maternity leave.
If you ask employees to work from home, they are entitled to their full contractual pay. However, if they are not attending the workplace due to coronavirus symptoms or being suspected of having the virus, they’re entitled to Statutory Sick Pay.
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3. Bullying
Bullying at work is destructive behavior usually directed repeatedly at one individual or a small group. It can be vindictive, offensive, belittling, threatening, or a combination of behaviors. Some examples of bullying in the workplace are:
Persistent teasing or subjecting someone to frequent practical jokes
Constant criticism when it’s not justified
Verbal threats and verbal abuse designed to belittle, humiliate, or offend
Intentionally misleading someone about such things as deadlines or the nature of a task
Constant and unjustified monitoring of an individual’s performance
Turning down an individual’s requests for time off without good reason
Bullying can be carried out by an individual’s colleagues or by a manager. It has a demoralizing effect on the person or people being bullied and often adversely affects their performance as well as their mental health. It’s important to nip in the bud any reports of bullying and to deal promptly and thoroughly with any related complaints.
Most employers have policy guidelines for dealing with bullying, but in practice, they are not always used. If you do not adequately handle reported instances of bullying and complaints about it, a bullied employee could resign and potentially have a claim for unfair dismissal.
It is also implied in the employee’s contract of employment that you owe them a duty of trust and confidence and a duty to deal with complaints and grievances without undue delay. If you fail in these respects following a report or complaint of bullying, you could also end up facing claims of breach of contract.
Employees suffering from bullying could suffer mental injury and possibly physical injury. Where it can be medically proven that this was caused by the bullying and has led to financial loss due to being on sick leave, for example, they could have a claim for personal injury.
Employees who have been bullied in the workplace have many potential causes of action against employers who fail to address related complaints or to address them adequately. We advise you to have a legally sound policy in place and to ensure that it is implemented.
Each and every complaint needs to be investigated thoroughly and an open relationship maintained with your employees so that they feel comfortable with company culture and addressing issues like this with you.
4. Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment has a broad definition in law, and there is much debate about the use of terminology to describe sexual harassment. However, it essentially refers to any behavior of a sexual nature that makes you feel intimidated, degraded, or humiliated or being obliged to work in an environment that gives rise to such feelings.
In practice, it can mean anything from unwanted jokes and comments of a sexual nature to displays of material of a sexual nature to sexual assault.
If an employee has been sexually assaulted, one of their first steps should be to report the incident to the police. However, in less serious cases, they’ll most likely raise the matter with you.
Your organization’s Equality and Diversity Policy should give guidance on how the complaint should be handled. Generally, you should take any complaint of sexual harassment very seriously, and investigate it promptly. Action should also be taken against the perpetrator in accordance with any disciplinary policy, with any defenses such as “it was just a joke,” being ruled unacceptable.
If you can show that you took all reasonable steps to prevent such harassment from occurring, you will have a better chance of defending a case of sexual harassment in an employment tribunal. Having said that, many employees who have faced sexual harassment at work would prefer not to go through the stress and delays of an employment tribunal case. They would prefer to negotiate a decent exit package in the form of a settlement agreement, leave their employment, and put the experience behind them.
Where you can show that you have adequately dealt with a complaint, the employee will have fewer grounds on which to negotiate compensation. However, if you haven’t handled it well, it will improve your employee’s negotiating position and probably end up costing your organization a great deal more by way of compensation, whether in an employment tribunal case or by way of a negotiated settlement.
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5. Redundancy
We are seeing an increasing number of redundancies during this pandemic. However, your employees’ rights remain as they were before.
When making between 20 to 99 employees redundant in any 90-day period, you are obliged to consult employees for a minimum of 30 days before any dismissals occur. Making 100 or more redundancies requires you to consult employees for at least 45 days.
There is no statutory consultation period for employers who make less than 20 redundancies. However, there is still a general obligation to consult. This means discussing the situation with employees, particularly those who are being selected for redundancy.
Redundancy is a large and complex legal topic, so the above is just an overview of the basics.
There are many legal pitfalls that an employer can easily fall into when carrying out redundancies but these are beyond the scope of a brief article such as this. We recommend that you have a look at Monaco Solicitor’s page on Redundancy for more.
Next Steps
At Monaco Solicitors, we would advise handling each of the workplace conflicts outlined above with great care.
Organizations with little recent experience in any of these scenarios would be well-advised to carry out further research so as to avoid the prospect of hefty compensation claims being made by employees who have done their homework and/or have legal representation.
Most importantly, remember your employees’ rights and start off by engaging in informal discussions. A formal route is not always the most effective in handling the personal circumstances that employees face in the workplace.
You never know, it may be that your employee merely wants an apology for bullying, wants to offer themselves redundancy to start a new career, or simply needs a supportive environment and company culture to help them cope better with their mental health issues.
About Author:
Monaco Solicitors are a specialist employment law firm. We are based in London but handle cases for clients across the country. Because we only work in employment law, we are well placed to tackle some of the increasingly common workplace conflicts and to suggest how you might consider addressing them.
Six Ways to Achieve Employee Satisfaction
Achieving employee satisfaction is important for every organization for a variety of reasons. And there are as many as six superb ways to achieve employee satisfaction within your organization. In fact, employee satisfaction is useful for all businesses- whether it’s a small business, new startup or a multinational corporation.
So how does one go about to ensure employee satisfaction? To do so, we first need to comprehend what this term “employee satisfaction” actually implies.
Defining Employee Satisfaction
In simple terms, employee satisfaction is a yardstick that companies utilize to know whether their staff at all levels are happy doing the job and with workplace conditions.
What most human resources managers aren’t aware of is that employee satisfaction has more to do with psychology instead of simply providing good pay and excellent working conditions. In fact, employee satisfaction is all about the state of the mind of an employee at workplace that also extends to their personal lives.
Therefore, it’s not easy to measure employee satisfaction levels. There Are several factors that go into determining employee satisfaction.
Overall liking of the job by an employee.
Satisfaction over levels and quality of supervision.
Feeling safe and secure at workplace.
Ability to perform the role well.
Adequate resources necessary for daily working.
Commitment to making a long career with the employer.
Career advancement opportunities.
Prospects for financial growth.
All these factors have a close link with one-another and are some of the common factors that HR managers and employers worldwide use to measure employee satisfaction.
Here it’s also important to remember that an organization’s goals should correspond with its desire to achieve employee satisfaction. Focusing merely on employee satisfaction without concern about the organization’s goals for growth, expansion and greater profitability can prove disastrous.
Reasons to Aim for Employee Satisfaction
At the same time, there’re very strong reasons why any business serious about staying in business and growing needs to take steps for ensuring employee satisfaction.
Rising Cost of Hiring
The cost of hiring an employee ranges between $7,000 and $50,000 depending on the role they’ll play. This includes the various hiring processes such as advertising online or offline for a vacancy, shortlisting the right candidates, tests, interviews and training before the new hire fits into the role and starts performing well. These expenses don’t calculate man-hours an organization spends on such processes and training. Nor does it consider the costs of lower productivity of a new hire. This makes it imperative to retain existing employees, especially top talent within the organization.
Lowering Attrition Rates
Employees tend to leave an employer if they’re unhappy at a workplace for any reason. And this leads to hiring costs, for obvious reasons. However, high employee satisfaction is known to help retain the best talent while developing loyalty to your organization. It’s well known that loyal staff exert extra efforts to ensure the organization achieves goal. And in most cases, they’ll stand with their employer, if the company runs into doldrums for any reason. Loyal employees won’t leave an employer merely for a bit higher salary.
Healthy Reputation for Employers
Employee satisfaction directly translates to a healthy reputation for employers. Because, this satisfaction reflects on their lifestyles. Satisfied employees also spread a good word about the employer through word-of-the-mouth publicity. This makes it easier for organization that’ve a high level of employee satisfaction to attract the best talent and sometimes, wean away people with vital skills from competitors to their own companies. Workplaces with high employee satisfaction rates also find it easier to get fresh recruits quickly whenever they announce a vacancy through job boards, LinkedIn to explore more and newspaper ads or their own websites.
These three benefits of achieving employee satisfaction are something that every organization would definitely desire. And there’re some simple ways to try and achieve employee satisfaction.
Six Ways to Achieve Employee Satisfaction
Before we discuss these six best ways to achieve employee satisfaction, it’s important to consider the “new normal” of work the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic dictates. The “new normal” as it’s known, is rapidly changing the way we work. This means, ways and means to achieve employee satisfaction also need to adapt to the newer ways of working.
In this article, we will look at six ways to achieve employee satisfaction in 2021 and beyond.
Christopher BaggottChief Executive Officerator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.
“Our staff has praised the increased communications level Workmates delivers. We use it to communicate important project matters and give staff specific ‘kudos’ or even recognize their birthdays. More importantly, we use Workmates to clarify important project details that needed rapid dissemination among the entire team.”
Work from Home Facilities
Work from home is the new normal for countless organizations and their employees. That’s because of the need for social distancing to prevent getting the Covid-19 infection. In fact, most employers are encouraging work from home while employees are utilizing this facility happily.
However, anyone that works from home would testify that it comes with a bunch of inherent flipsides. An office-going employee could relieve the day’s stress at home. Nowadays, with home and office becoming one, there’re few ways to alleviate such work related stress.
Any organization that wishes to achieve employee satisfaction will therefore have to see how to make work from home a more pleasurable while ensuring lower stress levels. Providing flexible hours may be one solution but that might not be possible for all employers due to the nature of their business.
However, it’s important to ensure that work from home is less stressful and more pleasurable in the present circumstances.
Better Communications at Every Level
Remote working or work from home also makes it necessary for employers to have better communications with employees and among one-another. Such seamless communications through video conferencing helps employers to detail their objectives clearly to employees while leaving nothing to ambiguity.
Elimination of ambiguity combined with excellent communications between a team of remote workers helps achieve employee satisfaction. Every employee is clear about what they need to do and the processes they have to follow. This results in better productivity and could help remove misunderstandings and confusion that can prevail among employees due to poor communications at different levels.
However, better communications can sometimes be misunderstood as micromanagement. And this is something an employer should avoid. The trick here is to set clear objectives and get the work done seamlessly instead of micromanaging a team of remote employees through better communications.
Online Training Programs
Training ranks among the most effective ways to achieve employee satisfaction. And it helps the employer too. We live in an era where technologies are rapidly changing. This also means the way we work has to evolve around newer technologies. The best way to ensure this is by training employees to work with latest, more efficient systems that would see the business record greater profits and customer satisfaction.
The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a surge in demand for online training courses for employees. Therefore, organizations need to look at employee training very seriously if they wish to achieve employee satisfaction. It’s a well-known fact that employees will leave an organization if they find their skills going redundant or outdated for the job market. And having employees with older skills can severely retard the growth of a business.
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Internal Promotions Career Growth
Every employee takes up a job either as fresher or with some experience, expecting to create a career. They look forward to promotions that helps career growth and salary hikes that come with higher positions. Therefore, creating an HR policy that prioritizes internal promotions and offers ample career growth prospects works well to achieve employee satisfaction. This can be done even when you have a team of employees working online from remote locations.
Internal promotions and career growth prospects foster a healthy competition and higher productivity, leaving little or no space for workplace politics and undesirable attrition. Training all staff and providing them equal opportunities to vie for a higher post works well towards achieving this goal of employee satisfaction. Instead of hiring a person externally for senior positions, an organization could consider promoting someone with the right skillset and attitude, from within.
Preventing Overwork
Work from home can often lead to overwork. And often, it’s not because an employee couldn’t complete the day’s work on schedule. Instead, employers expect a work from home employee to complete some additional work, because they believe it can be done comfortably.
Nowadays, quite a large number of organizations are working with lesser number of staff. That’s because they had to trim payrolls to counter losses sustained during peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. A shorter payroll often results in longer working hours for existing staff. This should be avoided at all costs. Overwork is one of the main reasons for staff attrition and inability to achieve staff satisfaction.
Incentives Appreciation
Providing timely incentives in the form of cash rewards or pay hikes and instant appreciation of high performing employees is a time-tested and proven technique to promote employee satisfaction. Though it might sound outdated, this practice is relevant till date and works well for every organization that implements the system.
Lack of appreciation is a reason for high staff turnovers. And not incentivizing good performance causes disgruntlement among employees at all levels. Combine the two and an organization could actually face mass resignations and very high attrition. The best way to stem these undesirable situations is to incentivize good work and appreciate outstanding performance by employees.
Incentives and appreciation always works well to achieve employee satisfaction. It also benefits the employer since all employees exert extra effort to gain appreciation and avail incentives.
In Conclusion
There’re also some other known ways to achieve employee satisfaction. However, with the new normal for work, it’s best to adapt or utilize the above six ways to suit specific needs of the organization. After all, employee satisfaction helps businesses grow faster and attract the best talent. Any investments in achieving employee satisfaction are therefore, worthwhile.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Why Every Small Business Needs Intranet
We are nearing the end of the most difficult year for small businesses in modern history. Many such businesses have shuttered, and those that haven't are still fighting to survive. Accordingly, business operations have become a major talking point. Small business owners are now looking ahead to a post-pandemic economy in which they’ll have a chance to rebuild. In that process of looking ahead though, there are a number of different strategies being discussed.Those strategies cover a number of different business practices, from basic communication to office design. However, many of them ultimately concern employee engagement and working conditions. And it’s with regard to these aspects of a business that we’d suggest that now more than ever, every small business needs an intranet. Below are a few particular reasons for this assertion to keep in mind.
1. A Digital Space for Remote Workers
The most important factor is the likelihood that remote work will continue to be the norm well into the future. Consider the following indicators that we're already seeing:
Continued telecommuting - In our home state of California, some of the most influential companies are already incentivizing out-of-office contributions. A recentNBC News report on the California Bay Areanoted that this whole region might evenrequire partial telecommuting after the pandemic.
New businesses cutting costs - It’s also highly likely thatnewbusinesses throughout the state will forego office space. This will be done in an effort to cut costs. Investment money is harder to come by in light of the pandemic, and the Golden State already has relatively high costs of operation. According toZenBusiness’s information for new California LLCs, the state’s taxes for businesses are among the highest in the country. Even operating an LLC (the most common new company structure) costs owners an $800 fee. These kinds of costs may be harder to justify post-pandemic without cutting expenses elsewhere.
These factors all point toward less emphasis on in-person work. And with more remote working and telecommuting, companies will rely on digital infrastructure to keep teams informed, engaged, and communicative. This is precisely what company intranet solutions can provide. It can put business information, communication from management, and various forms of back-and-forth collaboration all into one digital hub.
Kaylee CollinsHR Analyst of Osmose Utilities Services, Inc
“Our hiring managers now have a reliable system that is easy to navigate. Our HR team can actively monitor the process, and assist if needed, but Onboard has helped them save so much valuable time and effort while increasing data accuracy. All of this has helped us improve compliance and gives us a powerful tool to achieve even more results in the future.”
2. Social Benefits
As we pointed out in ourpost on the ‘Impact of the New Normal on the Employee Experience’, social elements matter most in difficult times like these. “Caring for your people” and “making sure they are all ok” are as vital as any business strategies. As we stated in the same post, work buddies make the work itself more bearable (and sometimes downright fun!). And yet, it’s these relationships that a lot of people are missing most in remote work situations.There are different ways to address this issue, including ideas as simple as encouraging employees to have video chats with their company friends. But this is also another reason that corporate intranet is now more essential than ever. Among other things, a company intranet provides a sense of community. People can use it for socialization, as a collaboration tool, and to generally get the sense that they’re part of a team. This is true even if people are physically off on their own.
3. Preparation for Growth
The importance of a digital workplace for growth potential should be considered also. Effective intranet fostering team collaboration can help a small business to grow more rapidly. This is the case even in perfectly ordinary times, but will be even more so in light of the remote work phenomenon.In particular, a reliable intranet system is helpful in the process of onboarding new employees. It can provide them with some of the following benefits in a seamless and immediate way:
A way to learn the ropes- If you've ever been a new employee in a new environment, you know it can be hard to ask questions. And yet, this is usually the best way to learn the ropes and figure out small problems that arise early on. With an intranet, new employees can feel more comfortable posing questions and seeking clarification. An environment built for discussion is simply less intimidating than going to a superior one-on-one.
A sense of fellowship - Building on the previous point, intranet can also serve as a sort of digital community space where new employees can gain comfort. While in-person socialization is still ideal, intranet interaction quickly makes a new employee feel like a part of the company.
A central hub - Intranet could almost be defined as a "central hub" in vague terms. For new employee engagement though this aspect of internet is crucial. It is a place where personal and business information can all be located quickly and easily, as well as one where company news is easily shared. This cuts down on some of the day-to-day complexity of onboarding, and allows new employees to focus more and more on important matters.
Those are some of the specific benefits to new employees. But the broader point about growth is also all the more important for businesses here in California also. Judging byInc.’s look at top California companies, growth in the state is still fairly explosive. Granted, this overview focused on the best of the best. But even lower on the list, massive growth rates are notable. It remains one of the best states for successful businesses to expand in. And that kind of expansion will be made easier with effective intranet use.
Conclusion
We could go on about specific benefits of intranet. But in light of present conditions, the points above demonstrate why small businesses need this sort of platform. An effective company intranet provides a digital workplace, fosters social activity, and lays a foundation for growth, specifically as regards to new employees coming aboard. These benefits will help a small business improve and thrive where it might otherwise stagnate. They will therefor be vital moving forward, as small businesses enter a competitive comeback stage in 2021 and beyond.
6 Company Intranet Examples, and How They Work to Improve Company Culture
At this point, chances are good that most of us are familiar with the concept of a corporate intranet. Yet a surprisingly high number of people still wonder why they might need one in their company, or why what they have now isn’t working.
Many more may be surprised to learn that modern internet solutions have evolved beyond traditional webpage frameworks and offer much more functionality and a wider range of new benefits.
It’s an important advantage, especially since the parallels between superior employee experiences and business performance are striking. For example, companies with highly engaged workforces are 21% more profitable than those with poor engagement levels.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at intranets, including what they are, their top features, and specific examples of how a few industry-leading companies are using the best intranet platforms in innovative new ways. We’ll also look at why yesterday’s intranets simply don’t work anymore, and how modern employee communication and engagement platforms can now extend the capabilities and benefits they can deliver.
We also give you a sneak peek at Workmates, LIKE.TG’s employee experience platform and show you how it is revolutionizing the way companies go beyond traditional intranet solutions and take advantage of all that an employee communication and engagement platform has to offer.
What is an intranet exactly and what are the best intranet platforms today? Intranets are internal hubs used by companies to store important information, communicate with employees, increase employee advocacy, streamline key processes, and encourage team collaboration.
While there are many benefits to an intranet, here are some of the most compelling:
Improve internal communications: The most effective intranet solutions encourage communication by empowering workers to efficiently access and share information. For example, individual departments can upload important documents; leadership can make announcements or provide specific updates; product teams can share launch updates and more.
Serve as a content management system (CMS): Intranets also serve as comprehensive repositories of vital information for the entire company. It encourages a community approach to sharing and managing content and gives employees valuable self-service access to all of the information they need, at any time.
Can be used with mobile devices: The most effective intranet solutions take information that exists on the intranet and push into employees’ hands on their mobile devices. This eliminates the need to search for hard-to-find information on a non-intuitive site. Instead, updates and information can be pushed directly to employees’ phones or tablets.
Drive collaboration: By providing centralized access to the tools and information workers need to perform their jobs, employees can find what they need and work better as collaborative teams.
Improve efficiency: Intranets virtually eliminates the need for cumbersome email workflows that waste time and lead to version issues and confusion. Say goodbye to emailing someone for the latest form or document; say hello to time savings that free the entire workforce to focus on higher-value initiatives.
Provide better support: Many departments can either post important forms (e.g., HR forms and documents) or let intranets serve as the primary engagement point for support processes, such as IT help desks or HR open enrollment.
Unite geographically dispersed teams: Companies now use intranets to connect remote employees, field-based teams, satellite offices, and any employee who may not be in corporate headquarters. This helps avoid communication issues, critical to increasing morale, engagement, and productivity.
Recognize and reward employees: Modern intranets now include powerful functionality to promote and facilitate employee recognition and even reward them for a job well done. Rewards can range from a peer-to-peer shoutout or digital high five to a gift card or other giveaway.
All of these add up to a better overall experience and one that employees appreciate, if not love. The love goes both ways, too: Providing a better experience helps companies be perceived as a better place to work. This is an important distinction since a recent Glassdoor study found that companies named to its “Best Places to Work” list significantly outperformed the SP 500.
Six Real Company Intranet Examples, and Why They Work
Ready to see real-world examples of corporate intranets? The following six use cases, in a wide range of industries, all started with similar goals and approaches but focused on slightly different executions to provide different—yet valuable—user experiences.
Example #1: Announcements in the technology industry
One leading technology company uses its intranet to improve communications and strengthen its corporate culture using a powerful announcement feature.
In this case, the company developed a prominent company feed that it used to manage important messages and encourage the entire workforce to do the same. This feed publishes various recognition announcements, such as appreciation posts, automated birthday and work anniversary congratulations, and more.
The company also used a kudos feature to offer recognition for employees’ hard work or any examples of exemplary behavior. All of this has been extremely helpful in showing the entire workforce that the company appreciates their contributions—no matter how small—and how they support larger accomplishments.
Example #2: Informal recognition with a “kudos” in healthcare
This example is similar to the use case above, but here, this healthcare company used their intranet to really focus on employee recognition and rewards.
The company used LIKE.TG’s Workmates solution, initially as a complete content management system (CMS) to gain a better way to store and distribute important information. But it also used the kudos feature to encourage an ongoing culture of letting employees recognize and reward their peers.
In this case, any employee can publish a post at any time to officially thank any other employee. The company created a reward program where employees could receive gift cards, branded corporate items, or other thank-you mementos.
Even better: Top kudos recipients are listed on a prominent leaderboard within the corporate intranet. This lets them receive even more attention, but it also fosters an ongoing culture where all employees now strive for excellence and higher levels of job performance.
Example #3: Social feeds in real estate
A commercial real estate company created an intranet with social feeds and created a number of different channels to let each specific team send messages and updates to other departments or the entire company.
For example, an employee can post certain announcements to the social feed, including welcoming new hires, sharing employees’ personal events (a new baby!), shout-outs to other teams or employees, office culture updates, and more.
It’s a new experience and one that makes communication and collaboration fun. Employees can upload pictures from a corporate event and share them with the whole company. They can also create and post surveys and polls—for example, “what type of cake should we get to celebrate Susan’s birthday?”
Employees also post memes and hashtags to their social feed, all to increase camaraderie, collaboration, and teamwork. The company can even use a powerful analytics dashboard to track active users and the overall engagement level with the intranet over time.
Example #4: Content management system
Another company, one that provides background screening services, chose to use its intranet site as a full-featured content management system (CMS). This company used its corporate intranet as a better way to upload and store documents, which gave employees a much better way to share documents, track activity, and access important information—from any device at any time.
Additionally, this company created a new internal help center for the HR department, which was accessible to all employees. This helped workers know exactly where they should start if they had questions or issues, gave them self-service access to critical forms and documents, and eliminated a lot of confusion.
It also saves a significant amount of time over the company’s previous system where employees would call or email requests for help—and get frustrated when they didn’t know where they stood.
Example #5: Brand advocacy in fast casual dining
As the name implies, fast casual restaurants move quickly. That means there’s no time to waste when it comes to scheduling shifts. It also means that employees, like servers and cooks, may feel underappreciated. A successful company intranet can improve communication and even inspire recruiting efforts.
A chain restaurant can use their intranet to share announcements with specific updates. For example, an announcement can let employees know they can pick up shifts at another local location. This saves the restaurant from being short-staffed and helps employees earn more. Announcements can even highlight achievements by individual staff, like employee of the month, to improve engagement.
Restaurants can also make their employees their best advocates. Using a company intranet, restaurant chains can create pre-written, approved posts designed for employees to share on their personal social media accounts, including job openings. About half of businesses say their top-quality hires come from referrals, and a positive post on social media can get those referrals moving.
Example #6: Giving employees valuable new resources in retail
Retailers need to make the customer shopping experience as pleasant as possible. A company intranet site can help make sure that employees have the training and seamless technology to make that happen.
A company can create an extensive training site to make sure every employee has the information they need in one easily accessible place. A comprehensive training site also makes sure that each employee is given standardized training so everyone is prepared for the job. And if they have questions long after onboarding, employees can always refer back to the training site.
The retailer can also develop an interactive shift-swapping app so employees can easily trade shifts — without bothering busy supervisors. Employees with more connections are happier, and so are customers at a fully-staffed store.
Christopher BaggottChief Executive Officerator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.
“Our staff has praised the increased communications level Workmates delivers. We use it to communicate important project matters and give staff specific ‘kudos’ or even recognize their birthdays. More importantly, we use Workmates to clarify important project details that needed rapid dissemination among the entire team.”
What Should You Look for to Find the Best Intranet Platform?
Corporate data hub: It’s important for the intranet solution to integrate with corporate enterprise systems to enable connected workflows and easy data retrieval. For example, LIKE.TG users can connect and use HR data with the point of sale systems using Microsoft’s Power BI.
Sharing and collaboration: A good company intranet should include functionality that promotes sharing and collaboration, such as features that enable employees to view, comment, and distribute helpful information.
Social networking and employee advocacy: These are important when you consider that today, employees create awareness about their company and can serve as valuable brand advocates.
Push notifications: Instant alerts help workers see new updates, such as new project assignments or tasks, content updates, or specific conversations.
Org charts and contact databases: These are very helpful, especially as employees may look to find or contact others in the organization.
Analytics: Many corporate intranets today simply can’t report on employee activity or other metrics to help determine how effective it is. This means companies are missing the boat when it comes to measuring employee engagement or other important usage trends. Modern intranet solutions now offer powerful analytics to see what’s working for employees—across different topics, locations, job roles, and more.
Workmates: A Comprehensive Intranet Software solution
Today, LIKE.TG’s Workmates solution delivers all of these capabilities and more. To see how Workmates is revolutionizing the way companies think about and deploy intranets—for significant business improvements—please visit our Workmates page or request a free, no-obligation Workmates demo!
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
How to Onboard Employees While Remote
It can be tough to onboard new employees, particularly if they’re remote. They can't just pop into the office for a meeting, and you can't always quickly bring them up to speed on all the company's goings-on. But with a little effort, you can make the process smooth for both the employee and your team.
Several tools and technologies can help make the onboarding process easier for you and your new employee. For example, video conferencing software like Skype or Zoom can be used for virtual training and tours. And there are many online tools, such as Google Drive, that can be used for collaboration and sharing documents.
In addition to taking advantage of these tools, you can make the onboarding process smoother and more efficient with the following guide, designed to help you get started.
1. Have a remote work policy
If you're going to be onboarding remote employees regularly, it's important to have a remote work policy in place. This should outline your expectations for how employees will conduct themselves while working remotely and what you expect from them regarding communication and collaboration.
Having a clear policy will help make the onboarding process smoother and ensure everyone is on the same page from the start.
And it starts in the hiring process: In your application, ask candidates what aspects of remote work appeal to them. Ask them to describe their preferred working style, communication style, and technical skills. If a candidate responds that they do not enjoy the isolation of remote work, you may want to move on.
2. Send equipment and a welcome package beforehand
Few things will frustrate both you and your new employee more than having them spend the first few working days ironing out technical difficulties. So, ahead of time, order all necessary hardware they’ll need and have it delivered to their home.
Here are some items to consider, depending on the requirements of the position:
Laptop or desktop computer
Monitor
Keyboard and mouse
Headset or earphones
Webcam
Printer/scanner
External hard drive or USB drives
Phone or VOIP equipment
Charging accessories and power strips
When it comes to software, if what employees need isn’t cloud-based, ensure it's pre-installed on their device. Include passwords, usernames, and any other security information needed so remote hires can easily get up and running.
Suppose you are working on many different online marketing tools. In that case, putting together a list of recommended tools for your new employee may be helpful. Or if you’re working with a project management tool, ensure that their accounts are already set up in advance, and they’ll have access from day one.
Additionally, making remote employees feel welcome can help embed them into your organization and feel like they’re part of the team. One idea is to send a welcome package with things like:
Welcome letter from the CEO or team leader
Company swag such as T-shirts, mugs, notebooks, or pens
Employee handbook
Snack box with an assortment of treats and snacks to enjoy while working
Tech accessories like USB flash drive, ergonomic mouse pads, or laptop stands
Gift cards for coffee or online retailers
Virtual event pass to an upcoming online workshop or team-building event
Desk plant to brighten up their home office space
3. Be prepared with virtual onboarding materials
Gather all your onboarding materials and make digital copies as part of your remote onboarding program. You may also want to mail them a physical copy along with their welcome package. Here’s a list of things you’ll want to include:
For all employees:
Mission, vision, and values
Organizational charts
Employee directories
Communication procedures (how and when to use email, video calls, and chat)
Tutorials for commonly used tools
Security standards
Templates for standard documents (presentations, email invitations, sales follow-up emails, etc.)
For marketing:
Lead qualification criteria
Content style guide
Blog and SEO best practices
For sales:
CRM contact information standards
How to order business cards
Travel and expense procedures
For software developers:
How to set up a development environment
Codebase
Development processes
Architecture standards
You can help employees track their progress by making videos of everything that they need to learn in modules. Or you can set up a video call so that they’re able to ask questions on anything they don’t understand and managers can easily answer them on the spot.
Creating these learning modules might be a bit difficult, but you can contract a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) to create learning modules for any job position.
4. Leverage existing technology and tools
Use video conferencing or online team meetings to ensure a smooth transition. Companies onboarding remote employees can greatly benefit from leveraging technology and platforms such as Zoom for virtual meetings, Slack for communication, Asana for project management, LIKE.TG for HR software, and Microsoft Teams for collaboration and document sharing.
For example, you can use Microsoft Teams to welcome your new team member, outline their responsibilities, and offer support. And some apps, such as Donut, allow employees to chat with a company representative through the internet. Onboarded employees can also receive useful information about company resources, such as knowledge bases, training software portals, and cheat sheets
5. Let new hires know what to expect
Working from home can be a brand new experience to most. Ensure everyone understands what's expected of them during the remote onboarding process. What information do they need? Whom will they be meeting with? What tools do they need to be successful? You can avoid confusion and frustration later on by getting everyone on the same page from the start.
This is also a good time to set expectations for communication. Will you use email, Slack, video conferencing, or a combination of all three? Let your new employee know how you prefer to communicate and the best way to reach you.
6. Set up a dedicated onboarding space
If possible, set up a dedicated space for their remote onboarding process. This gives them a place to go where they can find all the information they need in one spot. It can be as simple as a folder in your company's shared drive or an intranet page with links to all the relevant documents.
Having a dedicated space also makes it easy for you to keep track of your new employee's progress. You can quickly see what they've read and what still needs to be covered.
As your business grows, it might be a good idea to consider tools to help during this process. LIKE.TG’s employee Onboard platform can help to automate a lot of the repetitive tasks that build up as you get the hang of remote onboarding.
Download Our Free New Employee Orientation Checklist!
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7. Use self-onboarding checklists
Self-onboarding checklists are an effective tool for streamlining the onboarding process of remote employees, ensuring they complete all necessary steps.
These checklists should include tasks like setting up company email accounts, completing required paperwork, reviewing company policies and procedures, and accessing necessary software and tools.
Additionally, the checklist can guide new hires through introductory training modules, schedule their first team meetings, and prompt them to set up virtual meet-and-greets with key team members.
8. Introduce them to the team members
One of the challenges of remote work is feeling like you're part of the team. So take some time to introduce your new employee to everyone on the team, even if it's just through a quick email or video call. If possible, set up regular virtual coffee chats or happy hours so they can get to know their colleagues in a more informal setting.
You can also give them the company’s organization chart so that they do not have a hard time trying to remember who is who.
9. Give them a virtual tour
If your company has a physical office, give your new employee a virtual tour so they can see where their team members work and what the space looks like. If you don't have an office, you can still give them a tour of your company's website, intranet, or social media channels.
Make them feel like they're part of the team by showing them around and introducing them to everyone they'll be working with, even if it's just virtually. Always make an effort to have your camera on to create a warm face to face feeling when giving the tour.
Click Trough an Onboarding Process
Click through our interactive demo to see how LIKE.TG makes onboarding easy.
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10. Assign a buddy
One way to help your new employee feel welcome is to assign them a buddy. This should be someone who's been with the company for a while and knows the ropes. They can answer your new employee's questions and help them feel comfortable in their new role.
A workplace mentor can provide initial guidance and help eliminate the anxiety many new remote employees experience. Moreover, use video coffee chats and other ice-breaker activities to break the ice.
11. Provide training and resources
As part of the onboarding program, provide your new employee with all the training sessions and resources they need to be successful in their role.
An onboarding training session should entail a thorough introduction to the company culture, key policies, and job-specific skills, along with interactive elements like QA sessions, practical exercises, and opportunities to meet and engage with team members and key department leads.
The goal is to set them up for success by providing everything they need to hit the ground running and make sure you’re both on the same page once their onboarding plan is complete.
12. Encourage communication and feedback
Working remotely makes it easy to feel like you're out of sight and out of mind. To avoid this, schedule regular check-ins with your new employee. This gives you a chance to see how they're doing, answer any questions they may have, and give feedback on their progress.
You should also be open to getting feedback from your employees. This helps you figure out problems and come up with solutions. Feedback will show you places where your new employees have problems. There are different ways in which you can collect feedback from your new employees. You can use surveys, meetings, or performance tracking software.
Check-ins also allow your new employee to bring up any concerns or issues they may be having. By addressing these early on, you can help them feel more comfortable in their role and prevent any potential problems down the road.
You can also ask them to turn on their video during conference meetings to make them settle in properly so you become aware of their onboarding experience. Since employees are not able to meet face to face, online meetings and daily communication are essential in team building and creating healthy remote team relationships.
13. Give them room to grow
Finally, remember that your new employee is still learning and growing into their role. They may make some mistakes along the way, but that's okay. What's important is that you give them the space to learn and grow.Encourage them to ask questions, try new things, and take risks. This will help them become even more successful in their role and feel like they're truly part of the team.
“As soon as we saw LIKE.TG’s Onboard demo, we knew this was the perfect solution for us. We loved that it was extremely simple and powerful out of the box, but that we could customize it with advanced capabilities to make it work in our company setting.”
Elisa Garn Vice President, HR and Talent Christopherson Business Travel
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About Author:
This article is written by our marketing team at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is dedicated to providing powerful solutions for your HR teams and creating an exceptional employee experience. Our aim is to help your company improve employee engagement, onboarding, and to save you valuable time!
Best Practices for Effective Remote Working
As the world hunkers down to weather the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), work is shifting gears as well. In many industries, working from home (WFH) is going mainstream. It’s a smart way for companies to limit the potential exposure to the virus and keep employees safer while at the same time remaining productive.
Working from home is not a new concept. Most of us, especially those in the tech industry, have worked from home occasionally, but it is uncharted territory when the entire company is working remotely. This poses several challenges and opportunities - and there is a lot to determine in setting up the right systems for company-wide WFH scenarios.
A New Set of Challenges and Opportunities
Working remotely has its benefits - it allows people to focus on individual deliverables and often provides the time and space for people to concentrate on difficult or intense tasks. Modern open-office layouts have stripped workers of quiet spaces, and WFH can be a refreshing break from the buzz of the workplace.
However, WFH makes a lot of things more challenging, especially communications. Remote teams often miss out when it comes to the critical conversations and relationship building that are so important to team cohesion. While video conferencing and collaboration technology do bring teams together, remote work makes it harder to read body language, hear what people are saying, read in-room dynamics, ask follow up or side questions, or drop by and quickly sync with a coworker at their desk. It is even more difficult to conduct a brainstorming session when everyone is on a phone or logged in via video.
The good news is that most people save a significant amount of time by not commuting. Some people now may use the time they would normally spend commuting to talk and message with their colleagues more, which could overcome communications challenges.
Below are some of the best practices for remote working, segmented them into company-level, team-level and individual-level tips. These suggestions may work best for startups, but there should be some things that work for departments in a larger organization as well.
To learn even more about managing remote teams and keeping employees working at home highly engaged, download our ebook now.
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Best Practices for the Company
Keep the same goals as you normally would, but provide more clarity. Customers must remain top priority - we don’t have the option to be less aggressive on achieving our business goals, just because we’re working remotely. Since remote workers have a harder time dropping in to clarify things, each level of leadership should take extra effort to make sure their teams have a clear understanding of expectations.
Ensure you have critical coverage for the most important areas of business at all times. Working remotely gives people the flexibility to walk the dog or take lunch whenever they want. This can lead to gaps in coverage if people don’t coordinate schedules - this is especially important in mission-critical areas of the business.
When working remotely is uncharted territory, managers need extra tools and training. For example, consider using bots to help monitor the level of communications across teams, review velocity, and help in other ways.
Executive office hours are important - especially when there isn’t a physical office. Make sure executives and teams hold a time on their schedule when they’re available to answer questions from anyone in the company.
Maintain transparency - establish a communications channel visible to the whole company where key initiative leaders can submit weekly status reports and get feedback from executives. This will help ensure everyone is up to speed.
To learn more about giving access to vital HR and work information — even when they're not in the office. Download our ebook now.
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Best Practices for Teams
Continue to host meetings as if you were in the office. This is an important factor in maintaining a productive cadence. Schedule and budget your time around meetings. Delaying or canceling meetings will not only impact the way a team spends time but also deadlines and work back plans.
Use team channels on Slack, Hangouts, WhatsApp or whatever tools your company uses as much as possible. Avoid small group chats and one-on-one threads unless it’s a confidential or personal conversation. This way everyone can benefit from the dialogue and have access to fuller context for their work. Don't worry too much about message overloading. In a remote working environment, making sure people are sharing enough information is more important than word economy.
Establish standard routines. Start the day with a 9 am standup meeting over Slack or Zoom. Some have found the Slack standup app helpful for tracking progress. When people can’t make these “meetings,” have team members post their daily top three priorities in the team channel.
Start a team-wide Zoom session throughout the day for those who are not bandwidth-constrained so that people can talk to each other easily. People should feel free to leave the session for other meetings.
Do not forget about fun. Relationship building is such an important piece in our professional life. Since we cannot have happy hour or hallway jokes and laughter anymore, we need to be more creative. Try to find something suitable for your team, such as personal storytelling or watching funny YouTube clips together during lunch time.
This guide was designed to help you navigate through those difficult tasks and help determine the right software for your organization, download our ebook now.
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Best Practices for Individuals
Effectiveness is tied to having the right tools and using them the right way. Install commonly used apps on both your laptop and phone so that you can join remote meetings from your phone when the NordVPNon your laptop slows down your video conferencing. Add phone numbers to Slack profiles or email footers so people can reach you for quick answers if needed. A short phone call is not an excessive interruption and can replace the quick in-person drop-by conversations you would normally have at someone’s desk.
Strictly follow your normal daily routine. Avoid delaying meetings with the hope you will meet in person at a later time.
Flag issues or slow-downs to your manager or function leader right away - not doing so may just compound delays for you and your team. When you flag an issue, you’re benefiting the entire team.
At the end of the day, ask yourself two questions:
"Am I as productive remotely as I am in the office?" If not, figure out why and explore ways to improve.
"Are all critical communications done?" If not, finish up before you log off.
Step away for 10 minutes: Find time throughout the day to step away from your desk - stretch, get some exercise in, or grab a cup of coffee. Taking short breaks every couple of hours will help improve your productivity and focus.
By ensuring that efficiency and communications remain high at the company, team and individual levels, remote work forces can be as productive, if not more so, than traditional work forces.
About Author:This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly softwareincreases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Thisarticleoriginally appeared onEarnin.
How Technology Can Attract Top Talent
All companies want to hire the best employees, yet only some are able to consistently achieve this. Many times, it’s because they are offering things that other companies don’t. Some companies try to attract people with free breakfasts or company “swag”; This alone isn’t enough to draw in the talented employees that people are looking for. Combine these offers with higher-quality technology and access to programs that increase efficiency and make their job more rewarding and fruitful.
Technology to automate the repetitive tasks
Repetitive tasks can often be the bane of an employee’s existence, and can often be a major factor in the type of job that people want to take on. A study commissioned reveals the “world's most hated office tasks”, and one of the most surprising aspects was just how much of the day is dominated by these repetitive tasks. According to the study, on average, employees spend over three hours a day on manual and repetitive tasks. Automating these tasks can allow your employees to work on more rewarding projects, ones that further the company more.
The removal of these manual and often monotonous tasks creates opportunities for your employees to complete more fulfilling jobs and more creative opportunities. Employees look for a job that would allow them to have a gratifying work experience, and feel as if they are contributing in a meaningful way to something bigger. The more opportunities that you can provide them that give them that feeling, the more attractive the position.
Kaylee CollinsHR Analyst of Osmose Utilities Services, Inc
“Our hiring managers now have a reliable system that is easy to navigate. Our HR team can actively monitor the process, and assist if needed, but Onboard has helped them save so much valuable time and effort while increasing data accuracy. All of this has helped us improve compliance and gives us a powerful tool to achieve even more results in the future.”
Utilize the cloud as much as possible
Many companies are still not taking full advantage of the opportunities that the cloud can provide. The flexibility of being able to access all of your important information from anywhere with an internet connection, not to mention the speed, is an incredible asset for any business. The companies that don’t use the cloud may view it as a passing fad, or not quite grasp the versatility of what the cloud can offer, but it’s been around for a while now, and it’s still evolving to offer the best services it can.
When using cloud services, it’s important to make sure that you are connecting safely and securely, and a lot of businesses use a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) in order to guarantee that. SD-WAN helps keep all your information private by offering a secure and fast connection to various cloud applications.
What’s so appealing about the cloud to potential employees, is the fact that it opens so many doors in regards to flexible work arrangements. Our HR solutions provide a cloud system to help human resources manage remote employees, a huge perk for candidates looking to work from home.
The cloud allows employees to have access to their data while on the road, working from home, or anywhere they can connect to the internet. This often lends itself to a more flexible work arrangement, which is great for anything from family emergencies to something more serious like the current predicament, shifting people to a work at home environment. This is a great option for employees, and one that lots of top talent are interested in.
Offer remote-ready technology
In a similar vein, allowing your employees to work remotely is a great solution for both them, as well as the business. Maintaining high levels of productivity while giving them the ability to retain their job. According to the OWLLabs State of remote work 2019 report, out of the 1,202 full-time workers surveyed, 80% of the people that responded to the survey said that the ability to work remotely “would make them less stressed.”
In addition, 80% also said that having the ability to work remotely “would make them feel like their employer cares.” Having at least the option to work remotely is a massive draw for potential employees, and one that could attract high-quality workers. Remote work is even more important in the current landscape, and companies who were not remote-ready are struggling to keep up with their competitors.
Equipping company computers and technology with video conferencing software, such as Google Hangouts or Zoom can allow your employees to maintain a high level of communication even while working remotely, which is one of the biggest challenges. Without communication, the wheels tend to fall off of the proverbial train, but allowing for easy face-to-face interaction can help reduce that possibility, while keeping your employees sane.
Remote-ready technology is especially important as you scale a business; simply put, more people means more potential problems. More chains of communication, more groups and meetings, but hopefully more productive work of a higher quality. Making sure that they have the tools they need to work most efficiently, and from anywhere, is an attractive asset to potential employees, especially if you are looking to hire employees who will not be working on site. If you have multiple branches, this can also help ensure that all your employees are on the same page and firing on all cylinders.
Michael HawkinsFranchise Owner of Interim HealthCare SLC
“Interim Healthcare SLC needed HR technology, and we’re pleased with the results we’ve gained from LIKE.TG’s solutions for recruiting, onboarding, and employee engagement. Yet it’s an opportunity for all Interim franchises. It would be so great if each franchise owner could implement similar solutions to replace legacy systems that might not work as well as they should.”
Make sure employee’s data is secure
With more and more information and data being transferred to the cloud, the protection of that data is more important than ever. While the digitalization of the workplace is encouraged, it’s also necessary to make sure that you are taking the right precautions to protect not only the company's data, but also the data of its employees. Data breaches are very much a real thing, and they can happen to companies of any size. They are not a one-time problem that goes away after some time, but rather can cause long-lasting damage through a lack of trust not only from customers, but also from current and future employees.
Many companies offer high-level security options for their employees, which is highly encouraged. If any employees are traveling due to company work, providing them with options that work while outside of the office is recommended as well. Connecting to any type of public wifi or internet connection brings with it a slew of potential security issues, most of them however, can be addressed through the use of a VPN. A virtual private network can help your employees keep their connection secure, and in turn, keep any of their personal or company information out of the wrong hands.
Having a company that takes steps to keep the private information of their employees secure can be a great factor for hiring future employees. Knowing that the company puts the security of their employees as a top priority is especially important in an age where almost everything is online.
Use simple software to streamline processes
It’s no secret that using outdated technology and antiquated programs can cause a great deal of unnecessary stress and frustration for employees, especially when working remotely. This can be a large factor when it comes to choosing where potential employees would want to work, and companies that are constantly looking for the smoothest and most effective ways to work can often have a leg up on the competition.
One of the most important pieces of technology you can offer your employees, especially for growing businesses, is some kind of project management software, one of the most commonly used being Hive. Project management tools are invaluable when you are trying to keep track of multiple projects which each have multiple tasks that need to be completed by certain dates.
Often it can become very difficult to determine and retain the knowledge of who is responsible for what, and how many different tasks need to be completed. Hive and other project management tools can allow you to create separate workspaces for each task, break it down into different “sub-tasks” and assign tasks on the lowest level. There are multiple different views you can work off of ranging from seeing tasks sorted by the individual responsible for their completion, or by the due date and so on.
It’s also important to make sure that you have a company-wide messaging system in place. This allows for quick and agile communication between employees and departments, to make sure that everyone is communicated to properly. Alignment between teams at a company has been identified as one of the “top management and culture challenges globally” in the State of Work study conducted by Slack and GlobalWebIndex.
Creating more efficient ways for communication to be conducted across all aspects of the company, from project management to general information, can help employees feel more included in decisions and the inner workings of the company. Understanding the decisions that a company makes, and how they are being made, is an important factor in choosing a workplace. Many employees highly value transparency and the ability to identify the change that their work is creating, all of which are highlighted and encouraged through simple software and streamlined communication.
Ensuring that your company can attract and retain the highest quality employees means that you have to offer them the highest quality technology. Allowing for more impactful work though automation or giving them flexible and efficient working environments is a big draw. Maintaining communication while remote, securing their data, and creating additional roads of modernized communication can all show potential employees that your company is prepared to give them the best work experience that they can’t find elsewhere.
10 Ways The Cloud Improves HR Processes
What is the cloud?
If you are using “the cloud” it simply means your programs and data are on a vendor’s servers, not your own. The advantage is that you no longer have to manage the technology yourself. Another advantage is that the vendor has economies of scale. The vendor may have dozens, hundreds, or in the case of Gmail, millions of clients sharing the service.
The cloud is here and that is a good thing for HR professionals
The difficulty is that it forces HR to wade into a new technology—and that takes time. This blog helps HR quickly get on track by exploring 10 reasons that are driving the decision to move HR processes onto the cloud.
This blog can be used in three ways:
Identify what matters most. Usually business decisions are driven by one or two issues that override other considerations. There may be a long list of relevant pros and cons, however the first step is to identify the few factors that are likely to tip the balance.
Use the list for due diligence. HR needs to have a fact-based opinion on each of the ten items on this list. HR has to be sure there are no issues that could derail a project.
As an educational guideline. The list points to many of the issues relevant to cloud-based HR; use it as a guide for exploring the topic.
For convenience, we break down this top ten list into three categories:
Valued-added reasons
Financial reasons
Risk mitigation reasons
Now, let us dive into the details.
Kaylee CollinsHR Analyst of Osmose Utilities Services, Inc
“Our hiring managers now have a reliable system that is easy to navigate. Our HR team can actively monitor the process, and assist if needed, but Onboard has helped them save so much valuable time and effort while increasing data accuracy. All of this has helped us improve compliance and gives us a powerful tool to achieve even more results in the future.”
The Value-added Reasons
While cost and risk are important, the most exciting reason to move HR processes to the cloud is that it will make HR work better. Here are three value-added reasons HR may want to embrace the cloud.
It might be the only way a process will be automated. In the real world of limited time and constrained budgets, the choice might be between a cloud-based solution and no solution at all. Cloud-based solutions can be implemented quickly with little IT support. If the reality is that an in-house solution simply will not happen then do not beat around the bush; make the case that a solution is needed, and let the cloud get you there.
Because it supports the employment brand. The sizzle of cloud-based solutions is that they have the look, functionality, and mobile-accessibility that employees (and their managers) have come to expect. People are impressed when an organization has the latest tools and disappointed if tools feel out-of-date. A sizzling employment brand may not be the primary reason to go to the cloud, however it can be a powerful supporting argument.
Improved ability to measure. In the past, organizations would launch a process and hope it improved outcomes, now there are constant demands to measure those outcomes. Any move from a manual to an automated system should improve reporting, and in this realm, cloud-based software has good measurement, analytics and reporting baked-in. That improved ability to measure can seal the deal for a cloud-based application.
Universal access. We are in an era where employees expect to be able to access tools from home and mobile devices; cloud infrastructure solutions typically have this capability. This is dramatically illustrated in cloud-based onboarding solutions where new employees can begin the onboarding process before they ever set foot in the office. And lest we think onboarding is merely a nice-to-have, recall that “research on new employee onboarding shows that when onboarding is done correctly, it leads to: higher job satisfaction; organizational commitment; lower turnover; higher performance levels; career effectiveness; and lowered stress”
What is software as a service?
Software as a Service (SaaS) is another way of framing the move from in-house computers to vendor run computers. SaaS stresses that instead of buying software (which one might imagine being delivered in a box) one instead buys an ongoing service. If it is SaaS, then it is on the cloud.
The Financial Reasons
HR needs to be careful how it communicates financial-factors. If HR downplays the hard costs then it loses credibility; if it focuses too much on cost then it creates the perception that the main function of HR is to cut spending. The trick is to emphasize value creation while showing one has a good handle of the total cost of the project.
Delivers value to the top line. Cloud-based HR processes create value for the company, and that value needs to be near the top of any list of reasons for moving to the cloud. For example, if the process is performance management, the value may be freeing up managers’ time so they have a better chance of hitting their targets. If the process is onboarding then it may be reducing turnover that is affecting customer satisfaction. Where a cloud-based HR process can support outcomes the business cares about, such as manager’s targets and customer satisfaction, then that reason is as important, probably more important than the cost savings.
Saves money that lands on the bottom line. Cloud-based computing has some inherent efficiencies over in-house computing and those often translate to less expensive solutions. The main efficiency comes from the fact that many different companies are in effect sharing the software vendor’s infrastructure and those savings are passed back to the customer. Cloud solutions can be cheaper, especially for small and mid-sized companies.
Cheaper in volatile times. While we often focus on the total cost for serving the current employee population, what often has the biggest impact on costs is volatility. For example, at one time, people promoted the value of recruitment process outsourcing on the basis of lower cost per hire. However, organizations eventually learned that the big cost savings came in times of volatility: in busy times they would have too few recruiters, in slow times far too many. Outsourcing solved that problem. Similarly, cloud-based solutions are often “pay by use” so a company can scale up and down as needed. Particularly, for areas like onboarding and recruitment tool, this can be the telling factor. If HR shows this kind of financial sophistication by assessing the total cost of ownership under different scenarios, it will go a long way to winning the backing of the CFO.
The Risk Mitigation Reasons
Will not break. It is common to hear the term “scalability” when people mention cloud solutions; it means the same solution will work even if the number of employees being served increases dramatically. However, rather than lean on the technical term, think of the benefit of cloud-computing being that it will not break if demands increases. It is embarrassing and expensive to implement a solution and find that by the time it is in place the company has outgrown it. Cloud solutions mitigate that risk. Furthermore, due to their overall scale, cloud solutions are often more fault tolerant and have better disaster recovery than in-house solutions.
It will not become out of date. After the excitement of implementing new software comes the tedious effort to keep it up to date. In fact, the vast majority of IT resources are devoted to simply maintaining existing systems. The risk for any in-house system is that IT will not have the resources to apply updates, and the system will fall behind. Cloud-based solutions are updated centrally and do not require in-house IT resources. This is especially important for any solutions that need to be kept up to date on regulations.
Because organizations need a foot in the future. Organizations take a risk if they lag too far behind in new technologies. Given how fast the world is moving to cloud-based technologies, it makes sense to ‘put a foot in the future’ and get HR process up to the cloud.
Ten items does not exhaust the list of factors to consider. HR needs to check-off factors like performance, customization, and data integration. However, in all the factors, cloud-based services are typically as good as or better than alternatives. The one area where using the cloud may be trickier than in-house is regulatory compliance on “data residency”—the cloud may not care about where in the world a byte of data is stored but some regulators do. HR needs to understand the relevant local regulations, especially if some employees are based in Europe.
How to move forward
The challenge for HR is doing a thorough review of options and doing that analysis in the available ‘free’ time. The trick is knowing what to focus on. Some factors are about the value-add, some about the financials, and some are risk mitigation issues. Use this top 10 list to guide your thinking on whether it makes sense to move your HR processes to the cloud. Whatever you do now, recognize that technology is increasingly important to HR and that the time you invest in understanding cloud-based solutions will pay off.
About Author: David Creelman is CEO of Creelman Research. He does research and writing on the critical issues in human capital management. His clients include think tanks, consultants, academics and organizations in Canada, Japan, the US, the Middle East and the EU. In 2013 he won the Walker Award for his work with Andrew Lambert on Boards and HR.
Weekly, Monthly & More: How Your Pay Schedule Affects You
Let’s say you had a job as a cashier at your local grocery store that paid every two weeks. You quit that position and got a new job in an office, but this one pays once a month instead. What gives?
There are different kinds of pay schedules that determine when and how often you receive your paycheck. Businesses usually set their pay schedules to benefit themselves. Payroll management entails labor and costs, so companies will go for the option that is more convenient and saves them money. Employees (as opposed to freelancers) don’t normally get to decide how often they get paid, so it’s critical to factor your pay cycle into your weekly or monthly budget, especially if you live paycheck to paycheck. Will you have your money when you need it?
Here are four common types of pay schedules:
Kinds of Pay Schedules : Weekly Payroll
Some businesses pay their employees weekly, which means employees receive their income on Fridays. This schedule is more common amongst freelancers, contract workers, and trade industries like construction and manufacturing. These job types commonly have irregular hours, so it makes sense to pay workers according to a shorter time frame.
While weekly schedules are a favorite amongst employees because it means you have more regular access to your money. If you drained your bank account on bills last week because it was the end of the month but want a night out with your friends, no worries — you get paid on Friday, so you can afford that night out as long as you save enough for your upcoming expenses.
However, most businesses avoid the weekly system. Payroll vendors frequently charge money every time a company (their customer) runs payroll. Doing so weekly takes extra time to process, so companies will opt for more extended periods to reduce costs and add convenience.
Bi-Weekly Payroll
A bi-weekly pay schedule means you receive your paycheck every two weeks. This cycle amounts to 26 or 27 paydays per year. Many businesses prefer bi-weekly timelines because they save money processing payroll and can calculate overtime more easily (each paycheck accounts for approximately 80 work hours). As such, bi-weekly payroll is more common amongst businesses that pay their employees hourly.
Bi-weekly schedules are not challenging to manage, but two months out of the year will have three paydays instead of two. Accountants need to factor in these paydays when calculating voluntary employee deductions, like healthcare, which are equal in a bi-monthly pay schedule.
Bi-Monthly Payroll
Bi-monthly pay means your employer pays you twice per month, also known as semi-monthly. As such, you might receive your income on the first of and in the middle of the month (likely on the 15th), or in the middle and end. A bi-monthly pay schedule entails 24 payments per year, which makes it distinct from bi-weekly. If you earn $45,000 per year on a bi-weekly cycle, your paychecks (not accounting for taxes and deductions) will be around $1730.77 each, whereas your paychecks will equal $1,875 on a semi-monthly schedule. It’s the same amount of money but divided differently.
Bi-monthly payroll is common for salaried employees. Calculating deductions is easy for accountants, and you always know which dates you will receive your income.
Shirley GarciaAuditing and Operations Administrator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.
“I can’t say this enough: Without LIKE.TG, we could not have communicated important project information or demonstrated that we could take on an increased workload. We now provide real-time workforce statistics and productivity reports that have helped us win more projects.”
Monthly Payroll
You guessed it — monthly payroll means your paycheck comes in once a month. This format is ideal for businesses because it makes accounting easy and reduces processing costs, but it’s disadvantageous for employees and contractors because they have less frequent access to their money. If you work a job that pays monthly, you need to be extra careful with budgeting because you’ll only receive your income in lump sums 12 times per year.
How Does Your Pay Schedule Affect You?
Your pay schedule does not affect how much you get paid in a year, assuming you work the same number of hours either way. However, your pay cycle does influence how often you have access to your hard-earned money, and therefore the way you budget.
For example, let’s say you paid all your bills last month and now don’t have much left in your savings. Your job pays you bi-weekly, so you’ll have enough money to pay the first round of next month’s expenses, but your next paycheck won’t arrive in time to pay the rest. Now you’re in a tight spot.
One option is to make an early paycheck request from your employer. If your employer agrees, they will provide you all or part of your paycheck before they usually would, allowing you to pay your bills, but it lengthens the time between your next paycheck.
Another option is to use financial apps. Your job’s pay cycle is out of your hands, but you can control when you get paid with apps like Earnin. Earnin allows you to take out up to $500 of your earnings per pay period. This way, you won’t have to worry about missing a bill because your employer’s pay schedule isn’t in your favor, and you won’t have to pay mandatory fees for the convenience.
Your pay schedule affects your ability to pay expenses and for recreation, so it’s important to know how often you’ll receive your income when applying for a job or managing your finances. Though your pay cycle might not always work in your favor, there are ways you can control having access to your money.
This article originally appeared on Earnin.
About Author:This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
7 Recruitment and Onboarding Tips to Ensure a New Employee is a Good Fit for Your Remote Team
As your business turns to remote work, you would also need to adjust your recruiting and onboarding processes. Traditional methods might no longer work in this new setup. Factors such as the lack of face-to-face interactions mean it will be harder for you to determine whether your new hire is a good fit for your company.
According to Owl Lab, 80% of workers expect that they will be working from home in the coming months or years. It is highly possible that you might be recruiting and onboarding your new hires remotely as well. It is high time that you adopt new recruitment and onboarding strategies for remote employees.
With that, here are some tips on how you can effectively recruit and onboard new employees for your remote teams.
1. Leverage technology to go digital
Working remotely means moving away from the traditional pen-and-paper method and fully embracing the digital space. This would require you to digitize your documents, paperwork, and processes. A hiring manager needs the right tools to ensure everything you need remains accessible anytime and anywhere.
With technology nowadays, you can easily do all your HR tasks virtually. Various tools and software can help you recruit and onboard new hires remotely. Some examples are different types of HR software, video conferencing tools, recruitment and onboarding applications, and e-signing tools.
These software solutions also offer additional functions to help streamline your processes. For example, your HR software can automatically schedule onboarding orientations for your new hires and notify them for every step in the process. This way, you can focus on making sure your new hire is the right fit for the company, starting right from a successful onboarding.
Kaylee CollinsHR Analyst of Osmose Utilities Services, Inc
“Our hiring managers now have a reliable system that is easy to navigate. Our HR team can actively monitor the process, and assist if needed, but Onboard has helped them save so much valuable time and effort while increasing data accuracy. All of this has helped us improve compliance and gives us a powerful tool to achieve even more results in the future.”
2. Consider individualizing experience
Something you need to consider when you recruit and onboard remote employees are their respective working conditions at their home offices. In the case of remote work, there are many factors affecting their productivity and efficiency that you cannot control. This can come in the form of a family member or pet demanding attention, an urgent household chore, and many more.
Some of your new hires might not have the privilege of having a conducive environment to work in. To make sure that you give everyone equal footing, you should consider individualizing or personalizing your recruitment and onboarding experience. New hires feel valued by being able to choose the best and most optimal way to get to know your company and the culture within it.
Personalization can come in the form of booking their own interview schedule during the application process. You can provide an asynchronous orientation on your remote onboarding process, allowing the new employees to take in new information at their own pace and time. This way, you can assess all your new hires fairly.
3. Make onboarding materials always accessible
The benefits of going digital with your HR process is the opportunity of making important documents, files, and data more accessible to your employees. You can use this advantage to improve your virtual onboarding and the new hire experience.
By using software, you can make onboarding programs and materials always available for your new employees. You can put them in a cloud-based storage system which your remote workers can access anytime and anywhere. This allows them to easily pull out any information they need in between tasks.
After all, a one-time orientation might not be enough to cover everything they need to know about the company, its culture, and policies. By making essential onboarding materials accessible, they have something to go back to in cases they have questions about the processes or policies within the company.
This guide was designed to help you navigate through those difficult tasks and help determine the right software for your organization, download our eBook now.
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4. Create a buddy system for your new hire
Alone, your new hire might have trouble approaching the rest of your remote teams. They might even find it intimidating. But with someone at their side, the process can become a whole lot easier and seamless.
By using a buddy system, you can provide a more focused onboarding process with your new hire. Their buddy will guide them throughout their adjustment period while also acting as their mentor. This way, your new employee will always know who to turn to whenever they have questions during the process right from their start dates.
Their buddy can also act as a bridge that connects them to the rest of the team. They can introduce new hires with the members and explain the processes and dynamics within the team.
5. Schedule frequent check-ins
Effective employee onboarding can sometimes take time. First day orientations are just the beginning of the journey. It will take some time for them to adjust fully and get to know the organization and their colleagues more. Just make sure to keep track of their progress along the way.
This would require frequent check-ins to see how your new remote employees are acclimatizing to the organization. You can conduct a survey, asking how well they are adjusting and getting along with their colleagues. You can also ask feedback on their performance from their buddies or other team members.
Doing so will let you know whether your new hire is a perfect fit to the company. Likewise, it helps you determine the strengths and weaknesses of your onboarding process. This way, you can improve and optimize your strategy along the way.
6. Provide opportunities to bond with the team
One of the biggest questions when recruiting and onboarding new remote workers is how to make them feel welcomed to the team. After all, your new hire has little to no opportunities to interact with their colleagues personally. There are no team lunches or team building activities to get to know each other more. This can make it harder for them to connect with the rest of the team.
Keep in mind that face-to-face interactions aren’t the end all be all for team bonding. There are numerous ideas for onboarding remote employees to make them feel connected with the rest of the team.
For one, you can hold social events virtually. You can conduct simple team building activities online such as an introductory meeting where the new hire gets to interact with the rest of the team, weekly quiz or game nights, or just simple video chats where team members can catch up. This will make your new employee feel more welcomed and settled with the company, improving employee retention in the long run.
7. Keep communications line open
According to a Mitel report, 15% of employees’ total work hours is wasted on inefficient communications. This can be in the form of unclear set of instructions or the lack of effective communication channels within the team.
Keeping your communication line open is one of the most important remote onboarding tips out there. Fortunately, there are many ways for your remote workers to reach out to the team despite the distance. This includes emails, instant messaging apps, centralized dashboards, and SMS messaging.
Your new hires will have a lot of questions during their first few days or weeks in the company. And sometimes, these questions aren’t found in your employee handbooks or manuals. So, you must make sure that they can get all the support they need to adjust to their new environment.
The future of recruiting and onboarding
Times are changing. Many believe that remote work is the future for almost all businesses worldwide. Your company must be ready to adapt to such changes if you want to remain relevant and competitive in the market.
The challenge now is how to optimize and streamline your recruiting and onboarding processes for remote employees. You can start by leveraging technologies to help you migrate your usual processes into the digital space. And with these tips in mind, you can make sure that your new hires will fit perfectly with your organization despite the challenges of remote hiring and onboarding.
About Author:This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly softwareincreases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
6 Advantages of an Employee Tracker Software
It doesn’t matter what kind of job you have, the employer is always going to expect his employees to be productive for their assignments. Tracking employee productivity plays a critical role in developing the productivity of your business and its growth. Both employees and the employer have to be aware of the benefits of using employer tracker software for their company. It helps them in improving their working style for enhancing productivity. Although tracking the employees of your company might seem like you do not trust them, it is a wrong belief. Let's take a look at the benefits of using this software.
Better project management
Employee tracking software allows you to manage company projects by planning, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing different tasks. These tasks are then assigned to all company resources.
The software helps in planning and scheduling the different tasks by analyzing the time the resource will take for completing the assigned task. This is how you may organize and prioritize various tasks according to the planned schedule. The software allows you to track the productive time spent on different tasks and it leads to more effective project management. It is also useful to the PEO services working in places such as Singapore for instance that provide employee management solutions such as Singapore Payrolls.
One of the main objectives of having employee tracking software is for creating correct attendance records of the staff. You can find several factors associated with the attendance of an employee such as start time schedule, off time schedule, leaves, arrival time, break time, etc. All this apart, the hourly work attendance is significant for analyzing the performance of an employee. It is even easier to record employee attendance when all the employees are required to report to the same manager. However, you need many supervisors for various departments for recording the attendance of several members of the staff and workers scattered across the globe. In such cases, it is this work of recording the attendance that becomes a big problem. Therefore, while planning the leaves of the employees, it is necessary to monitor their attendance via a proper system. If a few minutes delay or latency is involved in finishing a job by employees, it can lead to a huge downfall.
This guide was designed to help you navigate through those difficult tasks and help determine the right software for your organization, download our ebook now.
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Establishes an effective and streamlined communication channel
Everyone is aware that you are required to interact seamlessly with different members of your team for fixing the issues you face during project development or while the work is in progress. By using the advanced technology for implementing the streamlining of all communication tools into one platform, they are in reality providing the software in the form of service. The employee productivity software is also useful for sharing files, handling text messages, video conferencing, emails, etc. by using a single platform. The effective communication channels that are used together with productivity tracking apps are beneficial throughout the project.
In most cases, the employees do not commit mistakes on purpose. They are also human beings and they may commit some errors without realizing that they have done so. This is a pretty common scenario when the employees have misunderstood the instructions provided to them by the managers for completing an assignment. But, many times it doesn’t matter whether the mistakes were made intentionally or unintentionally. The consequences involved in the errors can turn out to be drastic for the organization. Due to this, the team manager has to keep a close watch on the work completed by the employees so that he or she can identify the errors quickly before things get out of hand and it is too late. Some of the advantages of using the employee tracking software for this are that you can send them reminders, check the progress occasionally, and ensure that they are on the right track all the time. If you are using a properly structured employee tracking system, this whole process of rectifying the employee errors in the early stages becomes straightforward.
To learn more about giving access to vital HR and work information — even when they're not in the office. Download our ebook now.
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Simple employee evaluation
If the employees are using a productivity monitoring software, things become simple for the management to spot all the mistakes they are making during project execution. This software is useful for evaluating the performance of all employees in real-time. It will not only highlight the errors but the problems can be easily rectified on the spot. This leads to better quality at work and makes things simple for accomplishing successful project deliverables.
All business owners dream about having a creative and hardworking team at their disposal. However, in reality, it is extremely difficult to assemble such a competent team for any business. There are always going to be one or more members of the staff that do not follow the rules of the company and do not work according to the instructions provided. Therefore, it is the top priority for the supervisors to identify these incompetent employees and try to weed them out from their teams before they can corrupt the other members of the team with them. When you are monitoring the employees working in a place, the supervisors can get real-time notifications about the behavior of the employee and they can quickly and simply assess how engaged the employee is in his or her workplace. The process can filter out all the unethical members of your staff so that the management can take swift disciplinary action against these employees.
Assess the employee performance in real-time
Different managers will be able to see the real-time performance of employees by using perfect employee tracking software. The errors made by the employees are highlighted but, the good work they have put in will also be noted by the team managers. The team management can take screenshots of the work completed by the staff and motivate them to perform even better. When the manager has a clearer picture of employee real-time performance it is extremely beneficial to him for planning the appraisals and creating performance reviews.
One of the more significant aspects of maintaining a satisfied workplace will be promptly handling all the time off requests from the employees. In case an employee has to face an emergency at his residence and is forced to leave the office on short notice, then no employee is going to be happy about going from one office to another department to get the grant for a leave request. It will adversely affect the morale of the employee as well. Therefore, if a company introduces employee tracking software in its operations, it will allow the employee to keep track of their leave history and if required request a leave. This is a great boost to the morale of the employee. In addition to this, it will also save the time of his or her superior because there is no need to meet the employee personally for granting the leave request. By using just a single tap of the finger these leave requests can either be granted or denied.
Develop a stronger relationship
If you can understand the employee performance and interact with them for improvement in their skills at work, it allows the employers to develop a stronger relationship with the staff. The software allows the managers to conduct a one-to-one chatting session for highlighting and rectifying the errors instead of discussing these errors in front of all the team members. It makes the staff more comfortable with the employer and can motivate them to keep being productive at work.
The management can't judge the strengths and weaknesses of their employees in a single meeting. The employee tracking software allows the managers to provide a tangible, real, and accurate performance analysis to their employees. To systematically comprehend the decision-making, creativity, and communication skills of a staff member, the management has to closely monitor their employees in various situations. By using the employee tracking software the supervisors can take a look at the bigger picture and they can evaluate a person thinking out of the box. This will enable the management in their understanding about an employee that is capable of handling a specific situation. Full data about the strengths and weaknesses of the employee helps an organization in using his or her qualities at the time of crisis.
Provides employee recognition
Normally the employees feel that they are being monitored to find out their mistakes. But, the productivity tracking software also provides an opportunity for employee recognition.
The real-time performance of the employees is recorded as evidence of their performance for the appraisal and it also allows the managers to appreciate their good performance on the spot. This software allows the employees to feel happy and comfortable in their work environments.
Conclusion
The software generates productivity reports that are real-time for all the employees. The list of more productive employees is also displayed on the software dashboard. It allows all other members of the team to compete and maintain their position on the list. The software is a perfect platform for the employer and the employee both.
About Author:This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly softwareincreases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
8 Benefits of a More Integrated Employee Communication
The dynamics of the modern workplace demand more integrated communication. There is a lot of information to pass around in an organization. Managers need to communicate to employees about new policies, instructions, upcoming changes, and much more. On the other hand, employees need to communicate with each other when collaborating in completing tasks.
How well such information passes across significantly affects how successful an organization will be. You see, there can’t be any progress if people in an organization don’t work on the same page. And, only integrated communication can be able to bring everyone together.
Besides that, here are 8 benefits an organization stands to gain with more coordinated employee communication.
Enhances innovation and knowledge sharing
Employees tend to withhold their ideas in a place where they feel they might be ridiculed or downplayed. On the other hand, an organization that encourages good communication manages to put confidence in the employees. As a result, they share ideas on projects, brainstorm on solutions to come up with killer end products. When employees pull together skills and knowledge, it results in a highly innovative team.
In addition, this sharing of knowledge and expertise results in employees learning new things, which enhances their skills. This can also be beneficial especially when onboarding new employees. The need for training is reduced significantly.
Innovation is critical for the success of your company. When the employees working in the organization are proactive in suggesting newer initiatives it will have a dramatic effect on the outcome of your business endeavors. Not only will the efficiency be improved you will find that the work quality has also taken an upturn. All this also provides a larger customer base. Innovation is critical for every definition of internal communication within an organization.
However, keep in mind that innovation doesn’t come from the top down. Many times it is the ground staff working on the shop floor that comes up with some of the more groundbreaking ideas. You just need to provide an opportunity to them to make their voice heard.
By using a good reliable strategy you are going to get the internal communication channels into place. These will in turn allow the employees to contribute their ideas to the long-term benefit of the organization and develop company culture. When quality feedback channels are available to the employees you will discover that the members of staff are more willing to offer their suggestions for improving the work environment. Once these employees begin to drive the change and make it their own, the employer is sure to benefit from an uplift in the engagement level.
Reduces turnover and builds teamwork
Integrated employee communication ensures that the company goals and objectives are communicated clearly. Employees know how their roles align with these goals. This gives them a sense of belonging and pride knowing that their work is important in realizing the bigger picture. Their loyalty and commitment to the organization are heightened, which reduces employee turnover.
In addition, when employees understand each other’s roles, it eliminates unnecessary competition. Every employee is focused on optimizing his or her role as well as working together in harmony, which enhances teamwork.
Christopher BaggottChief Executive Officerator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.
“Our staff has praised the increased communications level Workmates delivers. We use it to communicate important project matters and give staff specific ‘kudos’ or even recognize their birthdays. More importantly, we use Workmates to clarify important project details that needed rapid dissemination among the entire team.”
Increases productivity
Employee productivity can be directly linked to employee satisfaction. When there is proper communication, employees feel free to express their concerns and ideas. When employers address these concerns, employees feel heard and valued. Consequently, it boosts their motivation and morale and hence productivity.
In such a case, employers don’t have to worry about their employees’ productivity regardless of where they are working. However, working in workspaces that are designed to enhance productivity would only complement employee satisfaction with the employer. If a business is located in Denver, for instance, employers can look for coworking spaces in Denver, and further enable employees to work in optimal productivity.
Everybody is aware of the fact that the employees have to feel engaged if you are to get the best out of them. But, how can this be achieved? Even though engaging appears to be similar to communicating, actually there is a big difference between the two. Many times there is a one-way info stream happening where the leaders are delivering organizational info using communication tools and there are not communication platforms for the employees. But, what any internal communication design can deliver is a crucial two-way dialogue taking place between the leader and the employees. One of the key elements of better practices in internal communication is this reciprocating flow of information and it should never be ignored.
For driving employee engagement to business success, different leaders have to show that they value employee feedback and the ensuing discussion. Similarly, the employees are going to need evidence about their voices being heard. After ensuring this, you can get a workforce that is highly engaged and is aware that their voice matters. When you are thinking about improving internal communication you will discover that active engagement of the employees will have a tremendous effect on the productivity and attitude of the employees.
Helps in positive adoption to change
They say change is the only constant thing. However, a sudden change in an organization can be disruptive and cause a sink in performance. On the other hand, employees accept change quickly and respond positively when it is communicated in a timely manner. The good thing is that integrated communication fosters open communication between managers and employees. In such an environment, managers choose to involve employees in everything rather than waiting for the last minute to drop the bomb. This especially eliminates rumors that can cause panic and anxiety in the workforce.
Fastens delivery time
Integrated employee communication fosters a timely and clear communication of instructions and expectations. Ideally, the successful completion of tasks depends on how well instructions are communicated. If employees have to go back and forth seeking clarifications, it eats into precious time that can otherwise be utilized constructively. Additionally, when expectations aren’t clearly communicated, employees tend to rely on their knowledge. This can have negative effects on the final product or even cause delays in deliveries. Employees can get better at internal communication by taking the online job training courses that specialize in business and management.
Enhances employer brand image
One would think that employees have nothing more to ask for in a place where they are compensated well. Surprisingly, a big percentage of employees would rather choose a workplace where integrated communication is fostered than a place with competitive perks. The modern worker is fixated on working for an ideal employer. If you are to attract top talents, you must embrace the efforts to improve your employer image which is possible by using social media platforms. Moreover, open employee communication is one way to get there.
Employee retention
One of the more significant benefits of using effective employee communication is that it has a positive effect on employee retention. Employee retention has quickly become a major challenge for employers. The majority of the employers admit that they are finding it hard to retain key members of their staff. Apart from that, you will find that the costs involved in replacing the highly-trained member of the staff are close to 200% of their annual salary. This indicates the economic benefit of retaining the existing employees. For achieving this, effective internal communication is your answer.
Many experts have indicated that what increases employee retention level to as high as 40% is the use of effective communication. In the end, the employees that do not feel engaged or involved in the company proceedings are likely to be disconnected. Different kinds of internal communication have to be prioritized. But, making sure that the employees are well-informed must be on top of your list of priorities. When you have a solid internal communication guide in place, you can move on to ensure that various employees working at different levels of a company feel that they are also in the know. Your aim must be to make your employees feel as if they are insiders who know as much about things as the employer and other top-level decision-makers in the organization.
Builds leadership
Keep in mind that all members of senior management are not natural communicators. They may be good are analyzing a spreadsheet or developing a strategy, but this does not necessarily mean that they can easily disseminate information from the employees in a resonating fashion. A leader that is no good at communication is more likely to cause harm to a project than do any good. It is one of the more common internal communications errors made. For driving engagement, the leaders have to show that they value the team members’ feedback and discussion.
Any internal communication strategies can put effective channels into a place that will facilitate the necessary interaction. The employees must see that the members of senior management are involved, active, engaged, and approachable. When you open a two-way dialogue which could be through a meeting, emails, or through a good internal communication app, you are making the leaders more accessible to everybody. This is particularly true while conducting communication during a crisis. A sense of direction and a strong voice coming from the team leader can make a massive difference between swim and sink.
Final words
Gone are the days when communication in the workplace involved employers talking and employees listening. Such a practice today can see employees abandoning their roles or working unmotivated. You can imagine how bad that can be to an organization. That’s why there is no other way around it, employers must embrace integrated employee communication if they are to achieve a successful workplace.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Employee Experience in the New Normal
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically upended everyday life, causing prolonged physical isolation from loved ones, extra-vigilant cleaning routines, and mask-wearing practices as people did their best to follow health and safety procedures and stay protected from a deadly virus.
Even with vaccines now available, it could be a while before things return to relative normalcy. That reality led many people to say modern society must adjust to a new normal. What might that mean for the employee experience moving forward?
Different Desk Configurations and Safeguards
As kids gradually returned to school after transitioning to remote learning, many found the classrooms looked different than they remembered. School administrators often placed desks at least six feet apart to support social distancing. Some also installed plastic shields so teachers and students could remove their masks. Workplaces will introduce some of the same measures. They might even use entirely new desks.
For example, Nissan recently debuted the NV350 Caravan Office Pod. It’s a van with a cargo area that converts into a workspace. The automobile’s interior features a desk, office chair, and electrical outlets. That vehicle could work well if a company hires a short-term consultant or other service provider but does not have the interior space to safely accommodate them while they work.
Moreover, MojoDome announced its MojoDesk. That product features a retractable privacy shield surrounding the top and sides of a person at a standing desk. The company initially provided the product as a solution for having professional-sounding phone calls in noisy offices. However, besides helping block sounds, the product’s design could reduce germ spread.
If an office had an open plan before COVID-19, a business leader might decide this is the most cost-effective way to redesign without substantial remodeling.
The employee experience in the new normal may also avoid hot-desking, which lets any worker use designated unoccupied workspaces. Government guidance from the United Kingdom advises against the practice. Additionally, hygiene experts warn that hot-desking makes it more challenging to track and stop infection spread.
A Permanent Departure From a Shared Workplace
During the early days of the pandemic, HR teams quickly realized that the safest solution was to have people work from home whenever possible. Activities that ordinarily occurred in offices, such as onboarding, team huddles, and educational talks scheduled at offices during lunch breaks happened remotely.
People who got new jobs during the pandemic didn’t always head into offices for interviews, either. Human resources managers began more frequently using video-based meeting tools to screen candidates. Those who received offers often stayed at home to work rather than getting acquainted with new office spaces.
These emerging realities have also forced decision-makers to evaluate the need for massive physical offices. Were they still necessary, especially in high-rent areas? This shift has significant implications for advertising in the USA, as firms reassess their physical presence.
David Corns is the managing director of the San Francisco branch of global marketing and advertising agency R/GA. After discussing the matter with fellow directors at the firm’s other locations, he pulled out of the property’s lease agreement and transitioned to an entirely virtual San Francisco office.
Six months after the pandemic disrupted most of the world, the company’s employee experience team polled the collective 1,600-member worldwide workforce to learn how people felt about remote working. Many workers liked it and found they could easily stay on task. Only 7% of people said they got less done while at home, while 30% of supervisors reported increased productivity from teams.
Next, a set of surveys conducted in June and July of 2020 asked R/GA employees to envision the post-COVID-19 office. Most people preferred returning to a physical space for 1-3 days per week rather than following the previous five-day schedule. Also, major companies including Microsoft, Twitter, and Spotify recently started letting employees work from home permanently if desired. That’s more evidence people view office space differently and perhaps as non-essential.
New Specifics Written Into Contracts
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc in industries where companies often hire workers on contract to fulfill short-term obligations. For example, Boston’s mayor halted most construction during the pandemic, affecting billions of dollars’ worth of projects and leaving thousands of workers without jobs to do.
The novel coronavirus also introduced new situations where one or many parties may wish to terminate their contracts due to challenges caused by the global health threat.
These incidents made company leaders think differently about the legal ramifications of future pandemics or other circumstances that could affect how work gets done. For example, a business leader may decide it’s more sensible to hire people on a short-term contract first, using the associated time to see if circumstances improve in hard-hit industries.
Contracts will spell out employer-employee obligations during long-term work-from-home scenarios, too. For example, must a worker start their day at the same time throughout the week, or does flexibility exist? If an employee spills coffee on their laptop that doubled as a work machine, who pays for a replacement? Must an employee meet minimum internet speed requirements to receive permission for remote work? Will an employer use a performance management tool to monitor a worker’s output?
Clarifying those stipulations in contracts improves the employee experience by minimizing doubt. It could also show the way forward if things don’t turn out as planned with the work environment. Perhaps a worker signed a six-month contract for a remote position. They may realize three months later that their abode doesn’t let them stay productive due to noisy kids, cramped spaces, or another reason. Could they come into an office or use a coworking space for the remaining three months?
Employers Taking Holistic Approaches to Promote Worker Well-Being
Employers will likely start to examine health and well-being more broadly, too.
A March-May 2020 survey asked for employees’ feelings about how their workplaces handled the pandemic and how the health threat affected their lives. The responses from more than 24,000 workers indicated that more than 60% of those feeling highly satisfied with their workplace’s response believed that the respective companies put people first.
Happy, healthy workers typically have better output. However, leaders will need to look at new ways to support workforces. For example, remote work can negatively impact employees by making them feel less connected to their colleagues. Human resources teams might boost morale with interactive virtual games, book clubs, or other off-the-clock events that go beyond Zoom happy hours.
Additionally, keeping people performing at their best may mean offering them access to mental health services. The pandemic left many people grieving lost friends and family members. Others suffered so-called “long-COVID” effects that made them feel demoralized and unable to do activities they once loved. If the novel coronavirus created circumstances where a person can never go back to the “normal” they knew, mental health support could help them cope.
Maybe a company offered gym memberships for a business that permanently closed due to COVID-19. Alternatively, some people may not feel safe returning to fitness facilities for a while, if ever. In such cases, employee incentive packages might include an option to have the business pay for a workout app subscription. Then, a person could stay active from home.
COVID-19 Changes Will Persist for the Long Term
Employees and customers alike will probably notice that many companies keep taking precautions first implemented during the COVID-19 crisis long after it passes.
For example, retailers that once cleaned the premises daily may shift to sanitizing some highly trafficked areas more often. Employers may avoid keeping open containers of food in break rooms for anyone to grab. Keeping consumables out like that makes it easier for people to spread germs — coronavirus-related or not.
Additionally, employees who helped provide a business’s new services during the pandemic may continue doing so for the foreseeable future. For example, Nielsen recently reviewed Americans’ shopping habits to see what’s different. The data indicated a 100% increase in click-and-collect orders. Moreover, home deliveries increased by 57%. These trends may mean human resources teams hire more workers to accommodate these trends or assign workers to new roles.
The customer experience could feature more ongoing efforts from businesses to keep people loyal, too. A global survey of consumer sentiment in more than a dozen countries examined how people changed how and where they spend since the pandemic.
In the United States, 73% of consumers tried new brands during these challenging times. Moreover, 75%-83% of those intended to keep purchasing from them. In India, only 4% of consumers did not try new brands during the pandemic.
COVID-19 lessons may guide future workplace learning topics, too. Besides providing tips on customer service practices that help people stay loyal, employees may learn relevant cybersecurity practices for working at home.
United Nations representatives warned that the world must start preparing for the next pandemic now. Succeeding in that aim means understanding what worked and failed this time while getting people well-equipped for the future.
An Evolving Situation
This overview shows some of the most likely aspects of the employee experience in the new normal. However, the pandemic is still changing workplace responses and will continue to for the long term.
Employers must stay abreast of how things develop, plus continually listen to employee feedback. Doing these things will help company representatives take the most appropriate actions.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Why an Organization Needs 90 Days to Observe Employees
The HR department has one of the most challenging yet critical jobs in the organization. The people you hire determine the success of the company. Every single day the department receives applications from job seekers.
The team must go through each to determine whether the potential employee is a good fit for the company.
In the end, the HR manager may find an ideal employee. But, the reality is the new hire may not always be the best fit. Some people are very good at job interview planning.
They may impress the interviewing panel with the ability to answer questions. Some may even fake their CVs. The 90-day performance review can weed out such people. It is a crucial onboarding tool that many HR departments use.
Let's look at the importance of the 90-day performance period in greater detail.
Why You Need 90 Days to Observe an Employee
The first few months for new hires are especially critical. For the company, it is the opportunity to gauge whether they made the right decision. The same goes for the employee. They must also determine whether the company and roles fit their expectations.
The HR departments use the first 90 days as a review period. It has become a popular management practice. It is critical for onboarding new employees. Let's look at some of the benefits to the organization.
It Provides an Opportunity for Orientation and Evaluation
90 days is enough for the employee and organization to know if the partnership works. The HR determines whether they have the relevant knowledge and competency. There should be a lot of communication between HR and the direct supervisor.
The supervisor is in the best position to give accurate reports. Some Industry reports show that up to 28% of new employees will leave within the first 90 days. Some of the reasons may surprise you. They include:
Unmet job expectations - 43%
Bad experiences within the job - 34%
Inability to fit in the culture - 32%.
Some new employees also have issues with the onboarding process. Lack of clear guidelines and need for more training accounted for 22% and 21%, respectively. Others felt that the co-workers were not welcoming, resulting in them leaving the jobs.
The HR department must pay attention to onboarding. The process of hiring new employees is costly and time-consuming. Once you have the right talent on board, it would be a pity to lose them for things that you can avoid.
Opportunity for Feedback on Performance
In 3 months, a supervisor will have enough feedback on the abilities of the recruit. You get to see how they are progressing within the roles. HR can also put in place things like training if they realize a knowledge gap.
It also provides time to shape the recruit into the organization's culture. Within this time, the HR and supervisors should institute an open door policy. The recruit should feel comfortable asking relevant questions.
It could be about expectations or even areas that they are facing challenges. They may also take the opportunity to ask for resources. They may also raise areas of concern that could impact their ability to do the job well.
It Provides Great Insights to the Company
A successful onboarding provides a fantastic opportunity for the company to learn. The process includes data collection that can be the basis for future decisions.
Some companies do not use the 90 days to observe employees. They depend on annual performance reviews to know how the employee is progressing. It could be a costly mistake if you have the wrong person on board.
The company also misses the chance to know what they can do to improve employee productivity. Within this time, the company should have benchmarks to measure the new employee. It helps with accountability and an easy way to check progression.
You Get To Avoid Any Surprises
You can liken a 90-day performance period to an early warning system. An employee can only pretend for so long. After 30 days, you will start to see their real self-emerging. By 60 days, all pretense will be gone.
By 90 days, the management will have all the information it needs to make a decision. The same goes for the employees. Three months is enough time for them to learn the company culture.
They will have a good idea about how management works. For both parties, it removes any surprises in the outcome. For the company, think about how much you could save. Instead of waiting for one year for the annual review, you get all the feedback you need within 90 days.
If an employee is not adapting well, you can release them early. You do not waste time and money on a partnership that will not work out in the end.
It is a Crucial HR Assessment Tool
The onboarding process lies primarily in the HR department. It comes up with the rules and regulations surrounding new hires. The aim is to ensure a smooth transition of the new employees into the company. The 90-day performance review is critical because of the following reasons.
It is the best way to determine the future performance of the new hire.
It provides an opportunity to share with the recruit company goals and expectations. That is why it is vital to have open communication lines.
The company uses the feedback to adjust or tweak relevant job performance metrics.
It is an opportunity to get insights on the company from the recruit's viewpoint.
It sets the ground for future communication between the employees and management.
Opportunity to Avoid Bad Hires and To Increase Staff Retention
Industry reports show that it could be as expensive as $5000 to hire a new employee. Yet, the cost of a bad hire can be as high as $25000. 41% of the cost goes to their productivity.
36% accounts for poor morale amongst other staff members due to a bad hire. 37% of the cost goes to recruiting or training another worker. 40% refers to the time you spend on new recruitments.
Some HR managers will hire because they need to fill a job position quickly. They do not take the time to review the performance within the past few months. It can be expensive trying to correct such a mistake.
Ninety days can provide the company enough time to keep good talent. If you show that you care about helping the employees progress in their careers, you win positive points. Training opportunities are a good starting point.
You may also offer company benefits like medical cover in pension plans. Other companies go further to offer things like childcare and wellness benefits.
Tips For A Successful 90-Day Performance Review
We have looked at the benefits of the 90 days observation period for new employees. But what are some of the tips you need to have in mind for successful completion? Take the following into account when coming up with your plan.
It Is Not a Probation Period
There is a negative connotation to the term probation. Probation sounds like the aim is to correct the employee. It can make the new hire feel under excess pressure to perform.
It could cause them to leave if they feel that they are failing in any way. Instead, the thought process should be that it is a time for learning and adapting to a new environment.
It should be all about open communication and feedback. The recruit should feel comfortable approaching management for help when they need it. All this, without feeling that the managers are questioning their knowledge or competence.
Let It Be a Strategic Process
It helps to have a plan and to put everything down on paper. It should not be a time when the HR and direct supervisors do things as they wish. It also helps to clarify to the recruit what will happen during this time.
Also, it is an ideal time to share company policies and any other important information. Look at it as an avenue for continuous conversation and improvement.
Final Thoughts
Does an organization need 90 days to observe an employee? The answer is a resounding yes. It provides a fantastic opportunity to determine whether the company has made the right choice. You look at their competence and ability to fit in and carry-out expected roles.
But, the employee will also see its benefits. They can decide whether your company is the right place for them. They also get an opportunity for the positive feedback that can improve their productivity. It is important to be strategic about the implementation of the 90-day review. In the end, you want a fair process for both the organization and the recruit.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
How to Get Your Employee Onboarding Process Right
When a potential buyer visits your store, company, or organization and gets inefficient service, your chances of them becoming a customer are slim to none. This is all highly dependent on the company onboarding process. However, a disgruntled employee is not necessarily that way because they lack skills. A lot of the time, this is because of the employer's inability to train and guide their new staff.
Proper company onboarding process takes time and is a work in progress. You need the right leadership, some technology-driven training and quality communication in the workplace. In return, you can get higher employee retention, job satisfaction, and with it – happier customers.
What is Employee Onboarding Process?
According to Guru, a quality employee onboarding process lifts the hire performance by as much as 30%. Moreover, according to some other surveys, new hires will be much longer if the introductory experience is good. But, what does this mean?
This process is a purposeful, systematic, and strategized transformation of a selected and promising candidate into a good employee. Why is it so important? Just imagine, you come to a new place, where you meet new people; you don`t know the customs and rules, so you try to choose each word so carefully, that it could even sound unnatural. Actually, in just a few minutes you turn from self-assured, qualified professional into a shy and uncertain outsider. This inner feeling influences a new employee`s abilities stay focused and think straight. If you put your new employee` shoes, you will understand how unsecure and powerless you feel by losing control of the situation. That is why succeeding in your employee onboarding process is a prime element of making everything work right. So, companies that have such a system function as flawlessly as possible, offering quality services to customers and excellent work conditions to employees.
How you approach your newest employees sets the tone for their entire experience in your company. Like any other important process, this also requires well-thought, deliberate steps. Here is what they include.
Attracting and Recruiting New Employees
The satisfaction and performance of employees depends greatly on the recruitment practices of the employer. First impressions aren't only important for you as a recruiter, but also for the person who has shown interest to work in your company. It is more than just a tiny moment; it is a vital element that launches a chain of events – the butterfly effect.
The tone of the conversation depends on two people, so when you recruit new people, you need to prepare yourself just like they prepare for the interview. Think the job interview questions carefully to sound confident, create a comprehensive and detailed job description, and review the information potential employees will find on your website.
If you need some assistance with creating your job description, crafting the questions, emails you send to interested parties, your terms and conditions, as well as policies, or even your website content, you might want to hire a professional like Study Clerk. Appearance is crucial for your business. Many of the people who will see your job description will want to learn more about the company before they apply to work there. The most qualified talent will be picky about where they'll work. As an employer, you must make sure that they are impressed from the moment when they read your ad.
This guide was designed to help you navigate through those difficult tasks and help determine the right software for your organization, download our ebook now.
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Employees' First Visit
Once you get people interested in your workplace, you'll want to invite them in for an interview. This is your opportunity to meet them. But, it is also their opportunity to see where they'll work and who they'll work for.
The work environment is more important than ever. People who work in bad conditions are less motivated, productive, and more likely to look elsewhere for a job. That is why creating good working environment is a key element of a fruitful task accomplishing. So to get something from your staff, you need to offer them good work conditions.
The workspace compatibility has a huge impact on the work of your candidates. With that in mind, make sure that their first impression of your offices is positive. Give them a full view of the places they'll be seeing on a daily basis. Show them their office and desk. Introduce them to some of the people they'll work with. Tell them about the breaks, activities around the office, as well as their parking space. In other words, help your future employee feel comfortable in a new workplace.
Your Offer
If you find that a candidate is a good fit for your company, you'll want to give them an offer. You might even get a positive response from a rock-star candidate, one with excellent qualifications that gets to be picky about where he works.
When this happens, you need to send an attractive offer. This doesn't only refer to the sum you'll offer them as a salary. It is about the key things that create the whole picture of your company. For instance, language – it should be direct, positive and honest. Moreover, your offer letter needs to be detailed, specific, and enticing. It should show not only the needed information, but also mention the value of the employee, that they can bring to the company. In other words, it needs to welcome your new member of the company.
Continuous Onboarding
Hiring an employee is just the first step of the onboarding process. You need to continuously stimulate employees to work at their best and make them feel like they've made the right choice when applying to work at your company. The best and reliable way to help your employee professional development is not to make them improve their skills and perform the needed tasks, because you say so, but to create the atmosphere where each employee will be responsible for their actions and feel themselves an important part of the working process.
That is why you need to be accurate regarding each detail of an onboarding process. Make the most of your staff's first days in the office. Share relevant information, request their feedback, provide them with accurate and detailed information, allow them some time to adjust, and provide the necessary training. Remember, that each person likes attention and the feeling of value. The best motivation is not about money, it is about the spirit of the company and its culture that inspires to march ahead.
Treat your employees with respect and make them want to come to work.
Conclusion
If you want to increase employee retention and keep your staff happy, you need a good strategy for onboarding. This will, in return, allow you to attract more customers, save more money, and help run your business smoothly.
About Author: Helen Birk is a Human Resources manager at a popular company. She works side by side with employers and staff to assist them and motivate them. Birk holds a degree in Psychology and has a Master's degree in Business Communications.
Five Ways in Which Work Environment Affects Employee Productivity
Employee productivity in most cases is synonymous with employee engagement. When employees engage actively, they offer their best abilities to the organization. To substantiate, insights from the Workplace Research Foundation reveal an exciting take on the correlation between the two. They reveal that almost 40 percent of engaged workers prove to be immensely productive. HR managers must pay heed to the need to give employees an engaging work environment. The next fundamental prerequisite for employee productivity is the satisfaction and happiness of employees. As per Qualtrics, happy employees are five times more likely to stick to their organizations. All of these are attributes of the work environment that employees get in their respective companies.
There are diverse ways in which the working environment drives productivity. In the absence of an ideal work environment, employees feel burdened, unheard, disengaged, and unhappy. Although remote working opportunities and verticals are witnessing a steep hike, curating the right work environment is imperative. HR managers have their tasks made more complex in terms of sustaining the productivity of remote employees. Again, giving them an encouraging, empathetic, and inspirational virtual working environment is what will work the best. Most of the determinants of high productivity and engagement we talk about are elements of the working environment. Together they create a favorable and conducive work environment to give their best and innovate to overcome insurmountable challenges. To elucidate this assertion further, this blog will illustrate the various ways in which the work environment impacts productivity.
A Positive Work Environment Drives Positive Changes
Positivity is a luxury in the contemporary world, for humans tend to be more impressed by negative thoughts. In such a scenario, if employers and HR managers can foster a culture of positivity in the workplace, it can do wonders to enhance individual productivity. This positivity may come in various virtues and realms, adding up to make an opportune company culture. These include empathy, gratitude, employee wellness, team building, cordial workplace interactions, and so on.
Also, a positive work environment should not differentiate between genders and should ensure safety for all. In such a workplace, people will not have any other concerns than focusing on the quality of their work and organizational goals. To explain this better, we must pay attention to the findings of a report by Salesforce. It cites that if employees’ opinions are heard and valued, they are 4.6 times more likely to deliver performances to the best of their abilities. This validates that a positive, inclusive, and rewarding work environment inspires the best in employees. It drives positive changes in workers’ attitudes, and the overall impact is seen in the company culture’s overwhelming positivity.
A Favorable Work Environment Leads to a Reduction in Absenteeism
Employee absenteeism is a big hurdle in the flow of productivity of an individual, his team, and the organization as a whole. Yes, employees deserve their share of leaves and entitlements for genuine reasons. In genuine cases, the organization should not have any objections and rather be supportive. However, it may also be feasible that employees go absent from work frequently because of the work environment. Other causes of absenteeism may include workplace harassment, disengagement, employee burnout, and anxieties besides illness and personal reasons.
Given that, HR managers must identify these stressors among employees and support them. When employees’ issues are addressed in an assuring way, they will not have to escape from work to avoid stress or fatigue. A survey by CareerBuilder states that more than 60% of workers are burned while working. There is every reason why this can contribute to increased absenteeism and decreasing productivity. So, if the working environment provides better stress management opportunities to workers, scenarios can be better.
An Inspiring Work Environment Promotes Creativity and Innovation
Employee productivity is a dynamic term, and to take it to new levels, employees should have creative and innovative visions. Also, their creative insights can make a progressive impact on the overall success of the organization. After all, thinking outside the box is needed the most to survive the great competitiveness of the modern age. However, it is hard to inspire creativity if employees are not free to express their opinions. If they do not feel a sense of belonging and feel their ideas are invaluable to their managers, they will lose the spark.
On the other hand, in a working environment where employees are valued, empowered, and granted creative freedom, innovation will become a part of the company culture. As per LinkedIn Learning, creativity is the most critical skill in the world. Simultaneously, for this skill to have the right breathing space and contribute to productivity, the working environment needs to be inspiring. Besides, as Gallup reported, around 35% of employees get the chance to be creative only a few times a year. This is where they have to compromise with their natural productivity. The aura of the working environment should be such that employees feel a natural knack for investing creativity and innovation in every task they do.
A Learning-Oriented Work Environment Facilitates Continuous Development
A work environment where feedback is shared systematically and leaders support learning is ideal for high productivity. In such a work environment, employees get endless opportunities to recognize their shortcomings and areas of improvement. Based on the constructive feedback shared by their superiors, workers can streamline their professional development. They can learn something new every day with every task and hence augment their productivity. In fact, according to Hubspot, more than 60 percent of employees are receptive to feedback and would like to receive it more often. This is because they find feedback valuable to their learning, development, and growth. Hence, in a work environment that supports learning and growth opportunities, productivity will remain high.
In addition to sharing feedback, leaders or managers should also be selfless and sensitive to various employees’ learning needs. They will create enough opportunities for workers to analyze their employee's performance and work on consistent improvement. On the other hand, if leaders are not supportive, it can restrict the productivity of employees. To explain, according to a survey from Glassdoor, more than 85 percent of workers anticipate support from their employers. In the absence of direction from superiors and an encouraging work environment, employees will witness a decline in their work efficiency.
A Cordial Workplace Stimulates Cooperation
Workplace relationships and cooperation between colleagues are essential for employee engagement. To a large extent, cordiality in employee relationships depends on the working atmosphere. If a working environment is stained with office politics and conflicts, it will impact individual productivity and efficiency. On the other hand, if a work environment is enriched with mutual respect and collaboration, it becomes beneficial for everyone.
A lot of operations and projects in the corporate world are to be achieved in teams. In such situations, the efficiency of the outcome becomes dependent on the coordination between team members. For that, there should be healthy cooperation among colleagues and appreciation for each other’s abilities. This is, in fact, the reason why a lot of HR managers and employers pay heed to team-building activities.
To conclude, as explained above, the work environment impacts employee productivity in ample ways. Employees feel empowered to raise the bar of their performance when they feel happy, safe, appreciated, and supported. Furthermore, the work environment or the workplace’s physical environment depends on how managers and employers define working conditions. It further depends on how individual behaviors add up to formulate a company’s working culture. As long as managers realize the need to invest in giving employees a worthwhile work environment, workers’ productivity and motivation will remain high.
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About Author:
This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Why Effective Communications Between HR and Employees Improves Business Success
Your employees are the heart of your business. If you’ve been in leadership for any period, then you know that establishing a strong connection through effective communication is vital to your organizational wellbeing. What you might not have known, though, is the critical role your Human Resources team plays in that process.
HR is responsible for relaying all kinds of important information — employee compensation, training, company news, updates — so any breakdown between HR and your employees will have serious consequences. This article will highlight those consequences, contrast the benefits of strong communication, then show you how to make proper HR-employee communication a priority for your business.
Poor Communication versus Strong Communication
There’s a heavy toll that comes with lackluster internal communication. Here’s how it can drag you down and how HR can intervene to set things right.
Your Employees Won’t Know What You Want From Them
If your business is large enough to have an HR team, then it falls to leadership in your HR team to effectively communicate to employees what is expected of them.
When HR fails to communicate job priorities and responsibilities, your employees won’t have the information they need to align their actions with your overarching business goals. As a result, you’ll fail to hit your objectives and fall behind on your targets for growth.
The remedy to this negative outcome starts during the employee onboarding process, where your HR team can ensure that new hires are clear on their roles and responsibilities.
HR can provide employee handbooks, for instance, that bundle all those initial details into one easily accessible package. That way, employees can refresh their memories on company policies and how they fit into the organization whenever they need.
Down the road, HR can continue to support the alignment of your business goals and employees by keeping them abreast of important organizational changes, upcoming company initiatives, and pertinent strategic plans.
This guide was designed to help you navigate through those difficult tasks and help determine the right software for your organization, download our ebook now.
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Your Employees Won’t Trust You
Let’s say your HR team is communicating details to employees, but those details are, at best, only partially correct. You’d probably label such communication incomplete, might decide that it’s misleading, and you may even go as far as deeming it untruthful.
Your employees are likely to opt for the harsher interpretation, and as a result, will be disinclined to believe what they hear from the HR team. Fast forward, may start to disregard HR altogether, deciding instead to get their information from even less reliable sources.
Ensuring all communications are accurate and complete, on the other hand, is a great way to boost employee trust and engagement. Your employees will feel more confident about the effort they’re exerting on the job and will be more willing to go the extra mile.
Your Employees Won’t Feel Valued
If you’re of the mindset that the only thing your employees value is money, prepare to be mistaken. Recognition and appreciation are key motivators for almost any worker, and a lack of communication from HR may contribute to employees feeling undervalued. Undervalued employees don’t work as hard, and more likely to call it quits.
Conversely, you can have your HR team take the lead on helping employees feel like they are important to the business. Clear and honest communication will be a good start here, but you can build on that with direct efforts to call attention to employee contributions, such as a formal employee recognition program and awards for a job well done.
Fostering Better Communications
Now that you understand the importance of communications between HR and your employees, you might be wondering how you can improve said communications to facilitate better business outcomes. There are three major strategies all employees can leverage to improve their communication skills.
A strong start to the empathy strategy might be evaluating your current communication tools to determine what works and what should be abandoned. Internal communications software is constantly evolving, so be sure to stay abreast of the latest and prepared to make a change if your current tools are hindering performance.
Next, you should ensure that messaging from HR to your employees emphasizes loyalty and remains consistent in its accuracy. This will help build trust and lay the groundwork for a strong employee-brand connection. You can build upon this by making communication a two-way street, and providing opportunities for employees to offer formal feedback.
Finally, don’t underestimate the value of metrics and KPIs. Keep track of these over time, and they’ll help you lock in on (and enhance) your best performing techniques while excising underperformers from your communications strategy.
Wrapping Up
Communication is critical for business, and your HR team should take center stage when it comes to keeping you and your employees on the same page.
Remember that neglecting communications will leave your workers confused and resentful, but emphasizing it can improve engagement and encourage them to perform at their peak.
With the right strategies, you can facilitate communications between your employees and the HR team, aligning everything with your business goals and maximizing the benefits for all.
About Author:This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
5 Must-Have Workforce Analytics Reports for your HR Dashboard
Analytics is becoming more and more popular, especially among HR professionals. According toa survey, around 94% of HR professionals believe that analytics is crucial for business growth. However, it can be challenging to manage data to meet the goals of your organization.
The HR dashboard comes in handy to help the HR department. It allows business owners, HR managers, and HR analysts to gain access to a centralized view of their workforce metrics and trends.
This post takes a close look at the top 5 Workforce Analytics Reports for your HR dashboard. You can take advantage of these reports fortalent managementand more.
What Is Workforce Analytics?
Before we dive into the Workforce Analytics Reports, it is crucial to know what Workforce Analytics is. In the simplest of words, Workforce Analytics is a useful algorithm-based model that leverages employee data for helping organizations achieve a higher ROI (Return on Investment) and better decision-making.
What Makes Workforce Analytics Different From HR Analytics?
Workforce Analytics and HR analytics tend to be used interchangeably. However, the two are slightly different. The main difference between the two is that Workforce Analytics is mostly used for talent management and focuses on analyzing data relating to people.
In addition to the above, Workforce Analytics relies heavily on analytical software for managing and reporting on employee data.
On the other hand, HR analytics deals with the organization at large. It involves tasks such as strategic organizational issues, procedure efficiencies, and day-to-day operations.
Now that you know about what distinguishes Workforce Analytics, you will have an easier time understanding the Workforce Analytics Reports.
The Top Workforce Analytics Reports That You Need To Include
With the following reports, you can achieve a lot more.
1. Compliance
One of the most important Workforce Analytics Reports is Compliance. Every HR department needs to make sure that every process and person remains compliant.
There is a need to report on policy violations and their severity along with KPIs on diverse and inclusive hiring as well as promotions. In the majority of cases, regulatory bodies require businesses to keep track of specified metrics for maintaining compliance.
2. Hiring Workflow
Another type of report that you can apply to any HR process or workflow is Hiring Workflow. It is meant to help out with hiring. You can use it for tracking the following.
The number of people that are active during the hiring process.
The amount of time it takes for candidates to move to “position filled” from “application” status.
The way candidates move from one stage to the next. It is perfect for monitoring the conversion rate of each progression level.
3. Source vs. Quality of Hire
Now, if you want to better understand where the top talent appears from or are planning to start the hiring phase, Source vs. Quality of Hire is just the report you need. It allows you to organize data to view sources, including job boards, recruiters, referrals, and more.
You can use it for the following.
Who is involved in the talent acquisition process
Where previous hires were source from
Which roles people are hired for
With this report, you get to match the data to find the quality of hire. It plays a huge role in performance metrics. Whether you are aninternet marketing servicesprovider or run any other type of business, you can take your business to new heights using this report.
4. Process Tracking
An important question that you need to consider is how long does it take for different HR processes. With Employee process Tracking, you get to track the start and end dates for on-boarding, recruitment phases, projects, settling issues, and more.
Moreover, this report lets you identify and report the key stages through the process. This means that you should be able to analyze just about everything, such as “interview time” vs. “number of interviews conducted.”
5. Employee Information
With Employee Information reports, you get to make the most of employee metrics. They will show you just how well each individual is performing.
Furthermore, you can leverage the report for determining how well the business is supporting employees to achieve the desired performance.
The following details will be mentioned in the report.
Turnover and headcount rates
Uptake of benefits
Usage of sickness leave and time off
1 on 1 evaluation scores
Use of training resources
NPS or wellbeing scores
Engagement (like event attendance and number of logins using the company intranet)
Setting Up the HR Dashboard
To set up the HR dashboard, you need to use an ATS (Applicant Tracking System). It will provide built-in reporting for automating most of the process. At the most basic level, you require the following.
Ways to find and collect employee and business data.
A tool or software for record-keeping to ensure that data is aggregated and kept in one place.
A mechanism for storing and accessing historical data for comparison and checking trends.
It is vital to collect and aggregate the data to take advantage of the Workforce Analytics. Then, you can start comparing to track employee churn rates and more.
When you measure the changes over time, you get to present valuable data to stakeholders to ensure that the right decisions are made.
Michael HawkinsFranchise Owner of Interim HealthCare SLC
“Interim Healthcare SLC needed HR technology, and we’re pleased with the results we’ve gained from LIKE.TG’s solutions for recruiting, onboarding, and employee engagement. Yet it’s an opportunity for all Interim franchises. It would be so great if each franchise owner could implement similar solutions to replace legacy systems that might not work as well as they should.”
How Workforce Analytics Benefit Organizations?
By using Workforce Analytics, organizations get to achieve a higher level of efficiency and are able to identify opportunities for better employee management. Generally, organizations can expect the following benefits when they use Workforce Analytics.
The ability to find the best candidates to meet the organizational needs.
The ability to forecast high-performers to ensure that resources are allocated to retain them.
Evaluate future organizational needs for ensuring that the right recruitment strategy is developed.
To determine employee satisfaction and engagement for sustaining high-performance levels.
Workforce Analytics Reports for your HR Dashboard
Once you have read this post, you will know everything there is to know about the different Workforce Analytics Reports.
When you use these reports in your HR dashboard, you will be able to maximize the efficiency of your HR department. Add these reports now to get more done.
How to Resolve Conflict Effectively
Workplace conflict — though fairly common — is an uncomfortable situation that can quickly escalate to a major problem if left unaddressed. It can result in increased workplace stress, decreased job satisfaction, higher rates of absenteeism, lower productivity, and poor morale and quality of work.
But conflicts are inevitable. The idea is not to try to prevent them completely but to resolve and manage them effectively. When people use appropriate strategies to address issues, they’re able to keep their differences from getting out of hand.
“Establishing conflict management processes in a company is fundamental, as it helps reduce conflict instances among employees,'' says Casper Hansen, an expert in resume writing from Resume That Works.
Below is a step-by-step process to help you manage and resolve conflict in the workplace.
4. Have a private and honest meeting.
Before trying to resolve any issue, find a safe, private, and neutral place to talk so that all parties involved feel free to participate in an open and honest discussion. Don’t choose the office of either party or a location near them.
Establish a positive and assertive approach. If necessary, set ground rules. Ensure that each side gets enough time to express their views — and feelings — regarding the matter. Creating time for people to publicly acknowledge hurt or anger can help them feel heard.
Then, get both parties to agree on what the issue is. Obtain as much information as possible on each side’s outlook. Continue asking questions until you’re confident that all the conflicting parties are on the same page.
5. Determine a goal and develop a plan.
Employees will find it easier to interact with one another if they realize that they have a common goal. Once that’s established, both parties should collaborate to develop a solution for the problem.
People approach conflict in various ways. A person may have one or more methods they prefer and use regularly. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is a psychological tool used to measure an individual’s inclination towards a specific method of handling conflict.
These are the five conflict resolution strategies from TKI.
Avoiding: Someone ignores the conflict or withdraws from it in hopes it will resolve itself or die down eventually. Oftentimes, this strategy is used when the discomfort of confrontation overshadows the potential reward of resolving the conflict.
Competing: An individual resolves a conflict by asserting their own interests and “winning” at the expense of the other party. It only works in situations that are not amenable to collaboration.
Accommodating: One party sacrifices their own concerns to meet the needs of the other party. This approach can appear to be a gracious way to concede, but it may also lead to unresolved issues if used excessively to maintain peace or avoid conflict.
Collaborating: This strategy involves working together to find a solution that meets the needs of all parties involved. This style is most effective when there is a need to find a mutually beneficial solution that requires a high degree of coordination.
Compromising: Parties that compromise are each willing to sacrifice something in order to reach an agreement. It’s the middle ground between competing and collaborating. In this strategy, every party gives up a bit of what they want and no one gets everything they want.
Find common ground and identify strategies each party can agree or compromise. Listen, communicate, and brainstorm together until you cover all options.
For example, maybe someone sensitive to noise says they need a quieter office mate. Start by figuring out which factors generate the biggest issues. Perhaps the person causing the bother simply has a voice that carries easily. If the upsetting sound level stems from a trait someone can’t help, the best option is probably to relocate them elsewhere.
However, if it’s behavior-based, maybe the person concerned could adjust their actions a bit. For example, the problem may be that a worker plays music through headphones, and the noise-sensitive person can still hear it. Asking the listener to turn down the volume, only listen to music for a half-day, or use an alternating quiet-hour system could offer possible compromises.
6. Evaluate how things are going.
Never presume that an issue is fully resolved after you set up a plan. Continue to keep an eye on the issue and assess if the solution is working. If necessary, schedule follow-up meetings to check progress.
Plan to meet about two weeks after finalizing an action plan to give everyone a chance to try out the solution and assess how it works. These gatherings should involve both parties and give them ample time to discuss the actions they’ve taken to end or ease the tension.
Urging people to stay open and honest about what leads to progress can keep them on track. Notes about what’s working well make it easier to motivate people to continue pursuing positive change, too.
But conflicts don’t always resolve after the first attempt. So if the issue isn’t resolved or later resurfaces, take necessary action. This can include coming up with preventative strategies for the future.
7. Identify and Implement Key Takeaways
Lastly, look for lessons you can learn from the conflict and how you handled it. Reflecting on the conflict's resolution process offers valuable insights into the dynamics of your team, the effectiveness of your communication, and the resilience of your organizational structure.
You not only equip yourself with a better understanding of how to prevent future conflicts but also improve your ability to foster a more supportive work environment.
And documenting these lessons and sharing them with your team can also help in building collective knowledge and perhaps even company policy and procedures.
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About Authors:
Allen Cranston is an analyst and resume writer. Allen is committed to helping talented professionals show the world what he is truly capable of. Since launching in 2012, Allen has helped over 4,000 job applicants land their dream jobs for Resume That Works. He is constantly looking for new ways to help people achieve their career goals.
Additional reporting and insights were provided by Isabelle Foster, a professional writing tutor from papersowl.com. She worked in numerous online writing services as well as tabloids, alongside being an editor of a few co-produced books. Now, she offers top-notch tutoring on the subjects of conflict resolution, anger management, and life skills.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
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What is a workplace conflict?
A workplace conflict refers to a disagreement or friction between individuals or groups within an organization. It can arise from differences in opinions, values, goals, or communication styles.
Is conflict at work normal?
Yes, conflict at work is normal and inevitable. In any workplace, individuals with diverse backgrounds, personalities, and work styles come together, leading to differing opinions and perspectives. The focus should be on developing effective communication, and conflict resolution skills, and fostering a positive work culture that encourages constructive dialogue.
Can you ignore conflict at work?
Ignoring conflict at work is not a recommended strategy. While it may be tempting to avoid confrontation, overlooking workplace conflict can have detrimental effects on both individuals and the organization as a whole.
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6 Things To Consider When Choosing A Global Employee Recognition program
One of the sole responsibilities of the Human Resource department of any organization is to keep employees happy and implement strategies to make them loyal. Employee recognition and employee appreciation are more important in this competitive business environment than ever before!
Before we go more into the depth of the topic, do you know what an employee recognition platform is?
What is An Employee Recognition Program
An employee recognition platform is a process of recognizing the contribution of employees through monetary and non-monetary rewards. The intention is to encourage employees, increase productivity and employee loyalty.
Of course, no one would want to work in an organization where their efforts are not appreciated. An employee recognition program makes that the workers of any organization are valued. This is why many organizations have designed and implement employee recognition programs that aim to appreciate employees for their contribution to the success of the company.
Types of Employee Recognition Programs
Employee recognition program can be of two types:
A Formal Employee Recognition Program
An Informal Employee Recognition Program
A formal recognition program includes awards, increments, bonuses, gift cards, etc., while an informal recognition program can be either verbal or a letter of appreciation. Most of the organization uses a combination of both for the maximum output.
This guide was designed to help you navigate through those difficult tasks and help determine the right software for your organization, download our ebook now.
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Why Employee Recognition?
Why should companies invest hundreds of dollars in rewarding employees? The short answer is that a small amount of reward money pays back ten times in productivity. Time and again, research has shown that employee recognition is the best tool in HR's arsenal to motivate employees and increase productivity.
Here are some benefits of Employee Recognition for companies:
Saves Money
Research shows that employees are twice as likely to quit within the year if their efforts are not appreciated by the company. We all know that recruitment is a capital-intensive process; a lot of money is spent on hiring the right candidate, and if that employee quits within one year, the money is wasted.
Employee recognition is a cost-effective tool that keeps employees from quitting prematurely. Even informal and non-monetary recognition has the power to keep employees motivated and loyal to the company for a longer duration.
Higher Productivity
In the 21st century, employees are the best resource of a company. Every company has the same access to technology and supply chain. Employee ingenuity and dedication make the difference between good and great companies.
Here, employee recognition plays the essential role of keeping employees motivated to keep doing better and better each day. Studies show that effective recognition programs increase employee productivity by as much as 14%.
Moreover, employees are more likely to go the extra mile for their organization if they feel their efforts would be recognized and appreciated. Interestingly, employees are even motivated by negative feedback. Researchers at the Harvard Business Review found that feedback tells employees that their work is being recognized, even if it is critical. It is paramount in motivating them to do more.
Increases Trust and Loyalty
Effective employee recognition programs increase the trust of your employees in the management. If their efforts are appreciated, employees are more likely to believe in company values and dedicate their time to achieving company goals.
Moreover, recognition also increases employee loyalty. Employees who are praised and rewarded for their hard work are less likely to leave the company. In this way, organizations get to keep valued resources.
The article focuses on 6 things to consider when choosing and implementing a global employee recognition platform.
These are:
Define the Employee Recognition Strategy
The first thing to consider when making an employee recognition program is to define a strategy. It is the need of time to recognize the employees, but HR also has to consider some other facts too as it comes with a few limitations.
They should communicate the impact of the growth of the business on the employees. The workforce should know how these employee recognition programs are helping the companies and employees both.
The next thing to consider is the guidelines that depend on the location and a few other things like eligibility criteria, the structure of the business, and frequency. These set guidelines make the employee recognition programs as transparent as they should be. There is no room left for confusion on both ends.
There should be fixed criteria for winning. It means that all the employees should know what the process of participation is and how a winner or employee of the month/week is selected; what are the basic criteria for selection?
Allocating a proper budget for the resources is the last thing to consider in a strategy. The resources include both financial and human resources.
Multiple Programs for Global Companies
When a business runs globally, it should understand that it is not necessary that a single employee recognition program would be successful for all the employees working from different regions. A global organization has a workforce worldwide, and they cannot be motivated by the same program.
One employee program that might work best for one set of employees might not work for the other one. Various employees from various regions are motivated by different programs because of the different cultures and different mindsets.
For instance, you may motivate your Muslim employees more by giving those breaks at their prayer times, while Christian employees will appreciate holidays on Christmas.
An organization should first consider the factors mentioned above and carry research before finalizing a program. What an organization can do in that case is to collaborate with the local organizations to motivate workers and distribute rewards.
Multilingualism
The language barrier is one of the most important things for an organization to consider when expanding globally and designing an employee recognition program. When employees and management have a language difference, the chances of errors and miscommunication are high, thus leading to less productive employees.
When designing global recognition programs, organizations should categorize them according to the languages. To implement a global employee recognition program, the introduction of a virtual platform is important.
The virtual platform should have a built-in language conversion feature that allows employees to switch to the language they find suitable. This structure also allows the HR personals to keep a record and monitor the performance of employees accordingly and give them incentives.
Additionally, you must ensure transparency in the global virtual platform, so all your employees from any geographical location trust the system. At times, employees may feel that they have been overlooked because the company prefers a certain location more than the others. Hence, transparency is key to avoid such misgivings.
SOLI
SOLI stands for Standard Of Living Index. It measures the living expenses of people. With global expansion, there comes a lot of confusion because of the workers working from different corners of the world. It means that when designing an employee recognition program, SOLI should be considered as the standard of living of the workers varies from region to region.
This is not workable for two employees working from two separate regions to receive the same amount of cash reward. For instance, an organization has two remote workings, A and B‒ the former lives in Japan, and the latter resides in Pakistan. Paying them both a reward of $ 400 would not be fair since they both have a different SOLI.
Your global employee recognition program should be fair and equitable. Hence, reward employees according to their standard of living. One important thing to note here is that you must make sure to mention that the difference in rewards is because of the SOLI framework, so employees do not feel they have been treated unfairly.
Gamification
Many studies show that gamification can also play a good part in motivating employees. It makes workers more engaged. There are many examples of gaming elements in the training and learning of employees.
Adding gaming elements to the employees' recognition programs can work wonders for your firm. You can appreciate the employees with scores and badges. Gamification is also virtual. The HR team should consider their employee recognition software to boost the right behavior.
Workforce Metrics
At last, when appreciating employees, it is important to consider the workforce metrics. It means that the same reward might not work for every worker. For instance, a reward for a 25 years old might not make the 55 years old employee happy.
The rewards should be designed such that it holds an equal position for everyone. It is important to consider the factors that motivate different age groups when designing employee recognition programs.
Final Thoughts
When expanding your business globally, it is one of the sole responsibilities of organizations to design and implement employee recognition programs to keep them happy and motivated. Recognizing your employees saves the company money, ensures high employee productivity, and maintains loyalty which can lead to competitive advantage.
Therefore, companies must maintain an effective employee recognition program to avail its benefits. Keep the points mentioned above when designing your global employee recognition program, and you won't fail!
About Author: Shaheryar provides ghostwriting and copywriting services. His educational background in the technical field and business studies helps him in tackling topics ranging from career and business productivity to web development and digital marketing. He occasionally writes articles forMuslim Pro
Role of HR in Building a Company's Culture
Work culture echoes diversity, innovation, and individuality reigning supreme.
Corporate culture is a guarded secret. Top brands build a work culture identical to the image of their products, services. The same image becomes an extended part of public image in the marketing campaigns. The balance between how teams set new norms and how audiences shape the future line of products is a master act. All popular brands work hard to build a work culture with some aspects hidden from the outside world. You may put it across as an entrepreneur's sum of experience and vision.
Corporations can set definitive guidelines for the employees to embrace, endorse. Top management could imbibe it at the personal level too. The widespread acceptance and implementation at the ground level prove a challenge. Human resource management carries the baton. They march with pride and glory. They're the ones who set the pace, pave the ground for the teams to flourish.
HR Materializes the Corporate Practices
The entrepreneurial spirit seeks adventure even in mundane tasks. HR teams acknowledge the fact that a winning mentality needs a system. Why does dedication go missing in employees? Why does the recruitment team fail to pick bright minds? How many times do we see brands continue existing at a level below their potential?
Human Resource breaks down the corporate philosophy into an actionable plan. They go out in search of finding a viable model that could fit people from all levels. How to keep employees motivated? How to make them believe there's something for everyone?
Maintain a Strong Professional Network with Teams
Human Resource has one advantage over any other department. Their work profile enables them to build a concrete connection with employees. Employees could have a dialogue on any issues with HR professionals. It opens a venue for HR teams to gain trust. It's an advantage but not without responsibility. HR has insightful details on team members and their skill-set.
Operations teams approach HR first to fill the vacant positions within the organization. They want to promote someone who knows company culture in and out. It harnesses team spirit, instills ownership, and builds trust among employees. When a colleague gets promoted, it makes or a celebration for everybody. It shows every team has played its part.
Feedback Sessions or Mentorship Opportunities
HR policies are complex pieces of information drafted to make things convenient. The nucleus of every successful policy was once a part of an issue. The brainstorming and employee-centric approach turned into an element of solution with time.
Does it sound familiar? Does it remind you of one of the HR sessions? Top brands don't see problems as a matter of concern. They see it as opportunities to build progressive policies. The issues the employees face have their answers with the top-level executives. The mentoring sessions expand the mindset of employees. They gather a whole new perspective. It's how you build an ideal work culture.
Diversified Workforce and Culture-Driven Solutions
Diversified workplaces offer scope to look at existing issues from a different perspective. In a world where technology is shaping the future, every industry is looking to keep pace with time. How does your company ensure they're on the top of the game? Have you asked these questions, and have they been addressed?
HR teams have found a unique solution. Their success mantra is to hire talent on merit. They embrace diversity at workplaces. It ensures you don't miss consumer pain points. Or overlook the culture-specific viewpoint.
Communities are evolving. The entrepreneurial spirit is limited to no age, experience. The recruitment teams look for candidates coming from different backgrounds. They get excited to see candidates offering a new perspective on things. A unique outlook is what the world needs. The corporate sector didn't outthink the competition. Time outplayed every small or established brand with a limited take on success. Companies relied on old practices for too long out of the fear of losing their consumer base. In the end, consumers left them for another brand.
Embracing Technological Advancements to Liberate Creative Souls
Pandemic shook the world to its foundations. Each sector faced a challenge they never dealt with before. How do you feel looking back? We had an unfavorable situation at hand a year ago. Technological advancements rescued businesses by connecting remote teams.
HR software is a part of managing routine tasks. Entrepreneurs don't want HR professionals to sit behind the desk all day long. They have a different role lined up for them. Top companies see HR professionals as talent managers. They're responsible for bringing a seamless transition from old work habits to new ones. The new wok models include the latest communication and work-management apps.
The work-from-home model would make way for hybrid workplaces in the future. HR acknowledges the importance of preparing the team to self-monitor, stay self-motivated. In the corporate world, HR teams are the change agents. They execute the policies without losing the focus on the goal- Employee happiness.
Introduction to Conflict in the Workplace(and How it Erodes Productivity Culture)
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Hiring Aspiring Candidates By Endorsing Work Culture
What's the point in building a work culture if it doesn't inspire people to join? The work culture at top organizations helps draw talented individuals. If they fail to join, they see themselves as the disciples of identical work philosophy.
The work culture or work philosophy isn't for employees alone. It carries a light that shines to eradicate social myths and uplift the human spirit. There are two aspects of ideal work culture. What is work culture? It's a hub of creative practices carried out by employees to foster creative energy. These beliefs work the best in the company of the right individuals, the right mindset.
One aspect of work culture is to inspire the teams by the fire of their passion, dedication. Two, make the audience aware of their strengths by introducing innovative products. The motivational part is to outperform the previous industry standards.
Employee Management, Team Building, And Recreational Activities
Imagine the word carried by those who move to different places. HR teams invest resources in selecting applicants, preparing the questionnaire, and handpicking candidates. Filling a vacant position isn't about replacing a person. It's about setting a new standard for the same profile.
HR management software takes the guesswork out of the equation. The recruitment team wants to hire a leader for the same profile.
A leader could nurture talent and manage to fulfill its expectations.
Leading HR-related software breaks the silos of information into insightful details. HR teams perform query-based searches and figure out the top candidates. HR promotes a competitive spirit among employees. Every internal job posting brings along an opportunity to strengthen team spirit.
What does your HR think of mental wellbeing? Have they taken the initiative to address such issues? The work culture looks after various aspects of employee health. Mental wellbeing has caught a lot of attention. Recreational activities have brought eating, living habits into the sphere.
HR teams pay close attention to daily performance to pick up the signs of mental fatigue, burnout. The introduction of interest-specific holiday packages is one way of keeping employees active.
HR teams have identified the challenging areas. Employee health is at the top of the agenda. They put individual growth, happiness as high as customer satisfaction. They consider customer happiness one of the factors to evaluate success. It's not the only driving force. What about work satisfaction? How to keep them motivated, geared up to tackle adverse situations?
Work Culture and The Age of HR Software
HR payroll software is the best case study to learn about emerging trends. The manual entry is a waste of time. It's not about the size of the company. It's not about whether you need it or not. It tells us if you're prepared for future growth or not.
HR professionals could spend the same amount of time resolving employee queries. Not paying attention to suggestions or leaving feedback out demotivates employees. They don't find themselves a part of the organization. HR software may not seem a crucial factor in building the work culture of your choice.
Company culture is about bringing your perspective into action. Your voice represents the brand. Entrepreneurs love team members who bring questions to the discussion. HR teams acknowledge that these questions open up the conversation. They could lead to a solution or stop from moving in the wrong direction.
Companies consider transforming the corporate philosophy into a cultural theory the top priority. They sit with HR teams to set guidelines for the employees. These guidelines serve as the information center. The clarity about one's role lends direction, a sense of purpose. Employees feel encouraged to go to work every morning. They don't limit it to a job. They see it as a part of inner growth, a part of their dreams.
Look at your favorite line of products. Don't they speak about work philosophy, work culture? The place where you sit and work reminds you of the hard work put in to have a creative vibe flowing all around.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
HR's Role in Employee Training & Development
Highly engaged employees are usually the most productive, positive, dedicated ones. They’re willing to go above and beyond their job expectations and immerse themselves in achieving company goals. They also display deep loyalty to the companies they work for so long as they’re being provided what they need to be happy at the workplace.
One of those workplace needs revolves around being challenged and nurtured into the highest version of self. The top talent in your industry is primarily attracted to employee development and training initiatives. They’re insistent about adding value to their respective roles and the company culture by constantly growing personally and professionally.
Let’s explore your role in facilitating employee development and training and why your involvement in these aspects is valuable.
Five Ways HR Plays a Role in Employee Training Development
A survey found that “only 29% of employees are ‘very satisfied’ with their available career advancement opportunities. 41% marked those opportunities as ‘very important’ when it comes to job satisfaction, engagement, motivation, and employee retention.”
This means that the right opportunities for career growth can keep employees at your company longer, motivate them to perform at a high level, productively engage them, and keep them satisfied with their role.
Here are five ways you can deepen your influence in employee training and development.
Make sure all training materials are provided
Not having what you need to complete training can take the air right out of the development balloon. One way to positively influence employee training and development is to ensure that everyone receives the training materials they need on time.
For example, if your company uses virtual or e-learning services for its training or development activities, make sure that your employees are briefed on how to use these services responsibly. Give them information on browser security, privacy measures, and how to use the system. You could also make sure their training schedule is set and that they have a quiet workspace to ensure a productive e-learning training experience.
Audit your training materials. Make sure they’re the most current and safely discard those that aren’t. You could also make sure any software, technology, or services used for training is up to date and in top condition. Be wary of certification dumps and ensure all training materials are legitimate and up-to-date. Keep track of everyone who is training and check in with them throughout the process to make sure they have everything they need.
Facilitate meetings between company leaders and employees
HR professionals are often labeled as the bridge between leaders and workers. It’s not often that company leaders interact with those on the frontline of their companies and vice versa. But for training and development to be successful, company leaders and employees need to work together.
You should be scheduling and facilitating regular meetings between company leaders and employees. These meetings could be between managers and workers, CEOs and managers, even shareholders and top-performing employees. It’s highly beneficial for company leaders to hear what employees need in training and development straight from their mouths.
You may not be asked to lead or attend the meeting, but ensure you’re reaching out to company leaders to connect with employees on the frontlines. Offer to set up these meetings, send out emails regarding the request for them, or take notes on behalf of an attendee. Ensure you’re also responding promptly to company leaders that reach out to you with requests for information.
Help employees apply for open positions within the company
When an employee expresses interest in moving up in the company, it’s best to work with them immediately. This helps ensure they don’t look elsewhere for a higher position or feel devalued because they didn’t receive any guidance on moving forward with this request. Be intentional about helping employees apply for open jobs within the company.
Not all employees express their interest in moving up in a company out loud. But for the ones that do, you can work with their managers to see how to best support them in their next steps. This could mean sending them information on what to do if they’re applying for a position internally and how to fill out an application as an existing employee.
It could also mean offering any resources on bettering their resume by effectively showcasing the hard, soft, and transferable skills learned through their current position. Any classes, resources, or events on how to write a cover letter or brush up on interview skills would be suitable to share as well.
Keep up with training development trends
Each business owner, manager, employee, and so on have their unique strategies for successful employee training and development. We’re able to draw from a massive pool of thoughts, methods, techniques, and plans that influence training and development. Because workplace culture is changing so rapidly, it’s essential to keep up with training and development trends.
For example, one trend that’s surfaced is personalizing the training and development process to each employee. Personalizing the training process is highly dependent on understanding the way each employee learns. Whether they’re self-directed learners who would instead plan, carry out, and evaluate their learning experiences or experiential learners who lean on their own experiences to understand the information at hand, you should construct an individualized training program based on this information.
Ensure that you’re using all of your platforms to stay engaged with training and development trends. When new concepts, programs, or solutions are introduced that could better your company’s efforts, share them with leadership and push to explore them fully.
Encourage the use of employee development plans
We’re getting further and further away from the days of training in groups and offering employees “one-size-fits-all” development methods. Each employee has their individual career goals, thoughts on where they feel they can make the best impact, strengths, weaknesses, and potential. Creating a detailed employee development plan can honor the individuality in your workforce.
An overall professional development plan that details how your company is committed to providing opportunities that meet your employees’ aspirations, long-term strategy, growth goals, and leadership training is essential. Using employee-specific development plans is an excellent strategy to ensure each person is being supported based on their individual needs.
If employee development plans aren’t being used in your company, encourage leaders to begin implementing them. If they are being used, ensure that managers and employees create them together and follow along with steps laid out. Ensure you also can explain your company’s overall commitment to nurturing employees to new levels in their careers.
The Value of having HR Involved in Employee Training Development
This world gives us no constants except change. So, you need employees who are passionate about growing professionally and personally if you don’t want to risk falling behind your competitors or getting out of touch with your clients’ needs. HR professionals give employees the support, resources, and guidance necessary for advancement.
Productivity gets better when employees are challenged and find new ways of excelling in their positions. They’re more engaged with their roles, coworkers, and managers, which influences the overall company culture. When you’re involved in employee training and development, you’re deepening your commitment to company longevity.
Nurturing and developing top talent is so crucial to company longevity. So, keep on top of training materials, bridge the communication gap between employees and company leaders, and help employees apply for internal advancement opportunities. You’ll also want to keep up with training and development trends and encourage employee development plans to ensure your as involved as you can be.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Top 7 Customer Testimonial Tools to Help You Drive B2B Sales
Modern businesses revolve around customers because today, customers’ voices can be heard more than ever. With the advancements of technology and social media, it became significantly easier for businesses to obtain insights and for customers to share their experiences.
We all know how important it is to have more than satisfied customers and how much it can benefit a brand or a company. Therefore, successful businesses of the modern world are actively shifting their focus to the customers and their core needs.
But more importantly, giving your customers a backbone to share their satisfaction with your product/service will lead to building a trustworthy social proof. In that light, crafting great testimonials and effectively sharing your customers’ satisfaction stories is of utmost importance for your business.
Now, the latest state-of-the-art trends, which are giving businesses the upper hand in driving B2B sales and making prospects are video testimonials. A lot of thriving businesses already shifted gears to video testimonial services and added more depth to their customers’ stories.
There are a lot of video testimonial tools in the market, so here are the top 10 that can strike a difference.
Testimonial Hero
Testimonial Hero enables companies to create outstanding B2B video testimonials. Moreover, it is adapted to the current situation with the pandemic, and it specializes in remote video testimonials. By offering top-notch recording and editing services, crafted through a hassle-free process, it is one of the most popular tools on the list. Here is how it works:
Kick-off meeting with experts from Testimonial Hero who note your ideal interview questions and conceptualize how to shape the best video testimonial
30-minute hands-on with your customer to set everything up and film a remote video testimonial
Editing and transforming previously filmed content into a compelling 90-second testimonial
Pros:
Highly professional video testimonial service, using the highest-quality equipment
The staff takes care of everything and delivers a finished product
A multi-expert approach to cover the whole process from pre-production to post-production
Proven service with dozens of satisfied users
Cons:
Not offering any additional action and consideration metrics over published testimonials (not exactly a Con, but a “would-be-nice” feature to have)
Testimonial
This testimonial service brings a simplistic and user-friendly approach to easily record testimonials. The users of Testimonial range from startups through SMEs and even up to some of the Fortune 500 companies. Testimonial also offers your customers to make both text and video testimonials.
The service works by creating a link for users to send to their customers via multiple platforms. It also has a fair number of tweaking options for recorded testimonials as well as integration options across many platforms like WordPress, Wix, Appy Pie Website, etc.
Pros:
Reasonable price
Easy to use with minimalistic design
Money-back guarantee if you don’t get any testimonial from your customers
Cons:
It could have more editing tuning options for testimonials
Voxpopme
Voxpopme is a video testimonial service made to quickly collect the best insights from your customers while preserving the quality in the process. Additionally, it comes with an automated analytical toolset that helps with further understanding of your NPS and sentiment metrics. Lastly, it offers the versatility to tweak and tune collected video testimonials and further analyze them if needed. Voxpopme creates remote video testimonials like this:
Collects CX experience and feedback either from users’ or platform’s on-demand audience
Analyzes and categorizes gathered feedbacks and provides features to expand users’ customer understanding (“Test Single/Multiple Concepts” Feature for example)
Creates showreels and provides various sharing and embedding options
Pros:
Extensive toolset for various analyses including qualitative and quantitative metrics
Proven track-record
Cons:
Hefty price tag
GetBravo
GetBravo is a cloud-based platform that makes simple and affordable video testimonials. This solution is ideal for smaller businesses and startups or those with a lower budget in mind. It comes with a somewhat decent amount of options to publish embed completed video testimonials.
What’s more, GetBravo has everything you need built-in on their website, with a few useful articles on video testimonials. It is really easy to customize testimonial requests with the company's logo and even write specific questions you want to be answered. The only thing you need to do next is to embed the code of testimonial recorded to your website and you are all set.
Pros:
Very easy-to-use
Affordable price even for their top-positioned plan
7 day trial period to test it out
Cons:
Lacking more editing and post-production options
The quality of the video is limited by the interviewee's web camera
VideoPeel
VideoPeel is a mobile-friendly, remote video testimonial service that makes it easy to collect video social proof. Simply enough, users can provide their customers with testimonial links instantly, relieving them of any additional action to effectively record their testimonial. Even more, VideoPeel takes care of the entire process by automating everything from making initial requests to publishing and analyzing testimonial performance.
There are many options for various types of video marketing, but we will stick with video testimonial features that include:
Creation of user-tailored instruction forms for the customers (involving personalized prompts and branding)
Hassle-free recording process from customer side available via a single link
Multiple publishing options like video carousel, picture-in-picture, or video library intended to fit different platforms
Video testimonial insights analytics
Pros:
It doesn’t require any hassle from customers who are recording their testimonials
Great publishing features
Reasonable price tag
Cons:
Video NPS, Video Sentiments and Consumer Insights aren’t included in VideoPeel’s Video Testimonial plan
Only Premium and Enterprise plans offer publishing options and additional analytics
LivingLens
This flexible platform offers many features to craft distinctive video testimonials that highlight key points of user products services. Furthermore, it is mostly intended for brands, agencies, and technology healthcare enterprises. It comes with a dedicated set of tools for in-depth analytics for extracting insights and powerful publishing features.
LivingLens works like this:
Collecting video testimonials through surveys shareable via an app, cloud, or Zoom
Analyzing key elements of testimonials for better decision-making in what to publish — analyses are aided by smart BI and ML technologies
Creation of resourceful showreels that can trigger desired emotions or decisions
Pros:
Offering a lot of options for collecting testimonials
In-depth, state-of-the-art technology standards to extract insights and provide other significant metrics
Video insight knowledge base
Cons:
Some hassles with exporting multiple videos
The price tag is not publicly visible
“I can’t say this enough: Without LIKE.TG, we could not have communicated important project information or demonstrated that we could take on an increased workload. We now provide real-time workforce statistics and productivity reports that have helped us win more projects.”
Shirley Garcia Auditing and Operations Administrator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC
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The Bottom Line
The last entry on our list is VideoGenie — a simple and user-friendly platform that helps capture testimonials in classic and simple ways. A lot of major companies are using this platform, like Facebook, Disney, and Levi’s, just to name a few. VideoGenie is versatile, covering all the phases to publish a testimonial — from various recording features to digital rights. It works like this:
Collection of customers’ video testimonials from multiple sources and platforms with a toolset to create effective prompts or restrain the recording with a pre-set timer
Reviewing of submitted videos to correct, tag, and set tracking parameters
Publishing videos to social platforms via embed code or simple download to publish on other websites
Applying metrics to analyze the impact of video testimonials — sales, generated traffic, time spent, etc
Pros:
Easy to use, versatile platform
Reputable and reliable service
Minimalistic approach with just enough features
Cons:
The whole process from collecting to publishing videos is almost entirely left to be conducted by the companies
The price tag is not publicly visible
Conclusion
To sum up, video marketing is the next phase in the digital marketing revolution.
As we speak, video campaigns are being conducted for virtually any type of business for many purposes. Driving sales and customer expansion and retention are essential, but what drives it is the story behind the satisfaction of the customers. Naturally, giving a face to your story with video testimonials and transferring satisfaction and life-changing experiences to the viewer watching is what sells.
Each tool within this listicle has its purpose, and it is up to you to gauge which will best fit your business. For really tight budgets — GetBravo will be enough. For those who want elite production and quality — Testimonial Hero is what you need.
To learn even more about managing remote teams and keeping employees working at home highly engaged, download our ebook now.
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About Author: Sam Shepler is the founder and CEO of Testimonial Hero. 150+ B2B revenue teams at Google, UiPath, Medallia, InsightSquared, and many others use Testimonial Hero to easily create customer videos that engage prospects, reduce friction in the sales cycle, and drive more revenue faster.
Workmates: A More Affordable Facebook Workplace Replacement
In the digital domain, Facebook is certainly the king of the hill. However, is Facebook really the best solution for your enterprise?
Even in the digital domain, you need the right tool for any job. This point is especially valid when considering business communication tools for your organization. The platform that you choose for communication can send a strong message to your employees.
You may currently use Facebook Workplace to manage corporate communication. However, you might find that Workmates is a better solution after taking a closer look.
Keep reading to learn more about Workmates a more affordable—and effective—Facebook Workplace replacement.
The Rise of Enterprise Social Networking
As the business environment changes, companies adapt and evolve. One way that companies have changed with the times is by using social media for corporate communication.
This practice is called enterprise social networking (ESN). It enables teams to stay competitive and collaborative.
At the same time, ESN enables companies to maintain a relevant communications infrastructure in today’s social network-driven environment. In this way, ESN brings the power of social networking to the business world.
However, ESNs aren’t for casual socializing. Enterprise social networking platforms increase business value. They enable companies to collaborate and communicate more effectively. With ESN platforms, employers, employees, and partners can stay plugged into conversations.
For example, platform users can receive regular status updates. They can also leave comments. Conversely, platform users can simply follow an activity stream.
In addition, ESN solutions enable real-time collaboration. For example, users can follow up on progress reports. They can also chat and make group contributions to projects.
Furthermore, an enterprise social network enables stakeholders to communicate in a variety of ways. For instance, one employee might start a conversation.
Meanwhile, other employees will add their opinions to the thread. Alternatively, users can visit existing threads and expand on a topic.
With an ESN platform, you can also manage corporate knowledge bases. For example, you can use an ESN platform to maintain a company wiki that will enable you to make the most of staff member expertise.
Shirley GarciaAuditing and Operations Administrator of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.
“I can’t say this enough: Without LIKE.TG, we could not have communicated important project information or demonstrated that we could take on an increased workload. We now provide real-time workforce statistics and productivity reports that have helped us win more projects.”
Drawing the Line: Keeping Your Staff on Task
The use of public-facing social media on the job can reduce productivity considerably. Resultantly, a growing number of companies are banning social media use in the workplace.
However, social media platforms offer powerful, familiar business communication tools. Here is when an offering such as Facebook Workplace provides an advantage.
Today, just about everybody is used to instant communication and messaging. People know and love these features.
Facebook Workplace is basically like Facebook. However, it’s intended solely for business use.
With Facebook workspace, your contacts are limited to your coworkers. However, the platform does allow administrators to expand the network slightly. Companies can add external business partners to the system. This feature is helpful for project coordination.
Furthermore, ESN software makes it easy for project stakeholders to view important information in a single feed. Employees can monitor the feed to stay updated on the latest company news.
Still, you might wonder about its security and trusting your proprietary information to a service provider such as Facebook. To date, there hasn’t been a breach of the Facebook Workspace network. However, the company doesn’t have a stellar reputation when it comes to safeguarding user information.
The Best Facebook Workplace Replacement: Popular Workmates Features
Initially, you may think Workmates is a scaled-down model of Facebook Workplace. However, nothing is further from the truth. Still, there are some similarities between the two offerings.
For instance, both platforms offer instant messaging. Employees can also use them for convenient communication via chat and instant messaging. They both also offer the ability to create groups.
Furthermore, these ESN tools offer a convenient organization chart tool. They also include the ability to create a company directory.
The two platforms also integrate with popular productivity tools such as OneDrive or Google Drive. However, here’s where the difference between the two offerings starts to emerge.
Workmates offers a powerful content management system. Furthermore, it features your choice of two employee mobile apps so staff members can stay connected on the go.
Employees can easily download the app on the iOS and Android marketplaces. You can even requisition a white-labeled mobile app branded with your company name and theme.
Our service is a modern social intranet. We also provide a calendar so that stakeholders can stay informed about important dates. Furthermore, you can use Workmates to promote employee and brand advocacy.
There’s one more thing that you can do with Workmates that you can’t do with Facebook Workplace—improve employee satisfaction. With Workplace, for instance, you can create a culture of kudos.
Managers and coworkers can offer positive feedback using our platform. Our platform also makes it easy to offer recognition and rewards as needed.
Christopher BaggottChief Executive Officer of Medlinks Cost Containment, Inc. and Medlinks Staffing, LLC.
“Our staff has praised the increased communications level Workmates delivers. We use it to communicate important project matters and give staff specific ‘kudos’ or even recognize their birthdays. More importantly, we use Workmates to clarify important project details that needed rapid dissemination among the entire team.”
An Alternative to Facebook Workplace
If you’re looking for an alternative to Facebook Workplace, look no further than Workmates. Workmates offer all the functionality of Facebook Workplace.
The benefits of Workmates begin with comparing communication tool costs. You can access more features at half the price compared to using Facebook Workplace for corporate communication.
You may love the features of Facebook Workplace. However, you may not like the price.
Furthermore, the lack of business-centric features offered by Facebook Workplace may leave you unimpressed. Fortunately, you can get more for half the price by subscribing to Workmates.
It makes good sense to pay more for a service when you get more. However, that’s not the case with Facebook Workplace.
Facebook Workplace costs two times more than Workmates. If you consider the additional frontline employee upcharge, it cost three times more.
Still, you won’t have access to the range of features offered by Workmates. The Facebook platform also has fewer capabilities.
With Workmates, you’ll have access to a complete employee experience platform. You can access those features at a fraction of the cost of Facebook. Furthermore, Workmates integrates with several other powerful HR tools.
Increased Productivity With the Right Tools
One of the long-term benefits of Workmates is that you can use it to transform your company culture. We provide you with all the tools needed to create an exceptional employee experience.
Once you deploy our platform, you’ll notice increased employee engagement and morale. More importantly, you’ll see an uptick in productivity. In turn, you can enjoy increased profits.
Workmates gives managers and coworkers the ability to share digital kudos. Kudos makes it easy for anyone to give a shout-out for a job well done. You can also use Workmates to issue official company announcements and distribute employee surveys.
With Workmates, you’ll have everything you need to connect and engage with your workforce. More importantly, it can help you to reinforce a new commitment to excellence.
Our platform features an award-winning employee directory. What’s more, it works for businesses of all kinds and sizes. With Workmates, you can drive employee engagement successfully.
There’s a reason behind the success of Workmates. It’s engineered from the ground up to serve the needs of business users.
Resultantly, it provides a fast return-on-investment. At the same time, it offers a low cost of ownership.
To learn even more about managing remote teams and keeping employees working at home highly engaged, download our ebook now.
Download now
Enterprise Social Networking With a Bang!
Workmates is your solution for simplifying corporate communication. It offers all the advantages of a modern, social intranet and more.
With our platform, you can create portals, pages, and content as needed. More importantly, you can share information with the right people at the right time.
Workmates is your key to streamlining communication. With it, you can make sure that everyone has access to vital information.
The most prominent feature of Workmates is the centralized news feed. It’s the focal point of the employee experience. What’s more, employees have the ability to personalize the information in their feed.
The Workmates news feed is an excellent way for employees to stay informed about relevant company news and updates. They’ll also receive important announcements immediately.
Already, you can see there’s a big difference between Facebook Workforce and Workmates. Yet, there are even more powerful features packed into Workmates.
If your organization is large, for example, it’s not easy to keep track of who’s available. With Workmates, however, employees can easily set up out-of-office notifications. You can also use Workmates to make sure that everyone knows about important events.
Furthermore, Workmates takes the hard work out of recognizing peers and showcasing the good work of employees. It also makes it easy for stakeholders to receive and share mission-critical information. What’s even more remarkable, however, is that these benefits are just the tip of the iceberg.
Our Technology, Your Team: A Winning Combination
Now you know more about Workmates—the more affordable Facebook Workplace replacement. Workmates is an LIKE.TG technology solution. We engineer industry-leading HR software.
Workplace integrates with our top-notch tools for recruiting, onboarding, employee engagement, and employee experience management. We also offer other powerful HR solutions.
With LIKE.TG, you get access to a range of powerful, cloud-based solutions. You can leverage our technology to provide an engaging, self-service experience for your staff members. In addition, our technology enables you to empower your team with connectivity, ideas, support, and recognition.
Contact us online today to request your free Workmates demo.About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly softwareincreases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
Most Effective Digital Marketing Tactics and Techniques
Effective digital marketing tactics and techniques are a fundamental part of any successful online business. Reaching a bigger target audience, interacting with your followers, and converting leads are crucial steps in developing a strong and meaningful online presence. And you can only achieve that by leveraging robust and reliable digital marketing tactics and techniques. Read on to learn the most effective digital marketing tactics and techniques in 2021
Pay per Click (PPC)
PPC is a pay-to-play arrangement that helps improve the ranking of your website on Google search results. Everything is done in Google Ads, the most effective tool for designing campaigns and monitoring results. There are two major working environments in PPC: the Google Display Network and the Google Search Network. The former reaches 90 percent of Internet users and allows sites to join Google AdSense and offer advertising space. The latter focuses on enhancing results via search engine results pages (SERP). These two channels help you display tailored ads on Google at the different phases of the buyer journey
Chatbots
Chatbots are another effective digital marketing tactic in 2021. This artificial intelligence-based technology leverages instant messaging to facilitate real-time conversations with both your customers and website visitors. Many customers like engaging with chatbots because they are highly responsive 24/7, provide answers instantly, and accurately remember your purchase history, and are always patient. They provide excellent customer services by meeting if not, surpassing the expectations of customers and automating redundant tasks, allowing you to concentrate on more crucial tasks.
Conversational Marketing
With widespread preference and adoption of chatbots, it’s now clear that modern marketing has become more conversational. Customers prefer it that way, and businesses are working tirelessly to meet this need. One survey shows that 82 percent of consumers prefer a prompt response when they have a question. Conversational marketing allows digital marketers to have a one-to-one connection with their customers in real-time. This type of marketing is currently available in almost every channel, enabling brands to meet consumers on their terms – on the consumers’ preferred devices, channels, and time schedules.
Personalizing your marketing is the most effective tactic for standing out in 2021. And that involves personalizing your content, emails, social media marketing, products, and more including instant messaging apps, like WhatsApp for Business. Take a look at these personalization statistics:
63 percent of consumers loathe generic advertising blasts.
80 percent claim they prefer buying products or services from a company that provides personalized experiences.
90 percent say that personalization is attractive.
Personalization
If you want to choose an employee of the month, you do need to be careful. Sometimes, this can lead to jealousy and tension between coworkers, but it can be a good option if you do it right.
Make sure you choose an employee who is doing a lot of good, hard work for your company. You can even have employees nominate each other to help make your decision.
Then, you can choose employees that other employees like and admire. You can give a shoutout to the employee of the month at your next meeting or on social media.
Or you can sit down with them and ask a few questions about their work, such as productivity tips. Then, you can share the interview to recognize your employees in a company newsletter. Creating your own online presence is a must.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
By optimizing your website and content, it becomes easy for your target customers to find you. So SEO should be an important part of your digital marketing tactics and techniques in 2021. These two crucial statistics will help you make up your mind regarding the value of website and content optimization:
In a poll, Google found out that 49 percent of respondents use search to identify or learn about a new product.
Google gets more than 70,000 searches every second.
These figures mean that if you don’t optimize, then you’ll be losing out on all this massive traffic. But with simple tweaks to your website and content, you can attract qualified traffic, improve your online visibility, enhance brand authority, and increase your conversion rates. For instance, a well-tailored SEO for dentists would involve technical SEO, industry-specific keyword research, tailoring your content to the target customers and formatting it for search, and debunkinglink building mythswhile building links correctly.
Responsive Web Design
Brands across the globe are reaching their target customers by mobile and that’s going to be the trend in 2021 and beyond. Optimizing your website for mobile screens is a fundamental aspect of digital marketing. A UX designer can be crucial in ensuring your website has an intuitive and user-friendly design. The only way you can pull this off is by ensuring your website has a responsive design. You can make your site work well on mobile screens and a variety of other devices like smartwatches and tablets by leveraging responsive programming. But if you aren’t familiar with web design,you should hire a professional UX designeror web designer to ensure your website is optimized for mobile users.
A good tip would be if you think of making use of coworking spaces. These places are great not only to boost your productivity and avoid boredom but also to meet up with other professionals. For example, this would be a great place to find the right web designer with whom you can collaborate. So, if you happen to be in Canada, coworking Toronto is waiting for you, and using coworking software can help you manage your interactions and workspace efficiently.
Search engine marketing
You may be new to the concept of SEM or search engine marketing. It is a kind of internet marketing that allows you to improve the SERPs of your website by using paid advertising methods. You are going to need an expert for using this field as well, especially someone that has worked with Google Ads for some time and knows display and search ads. If you are planning on using Google Ads, it might be a good idea to educate yourself first about the entire process. You are going to appreciate the fact about Google that it makes Google Ads simple to use by using customization. The tool allows you to decide whether you want YouTube video ads, graphic display ads, text-based search ads, or in-app mobile phone ads. All these things about the selection depend on the kind of business you have and the target audience you are planning on touching. Google makes things easier by using localized ad capability with superior metrics to keep track of how your ads are working out. Keep in mind other paid ad opportunities such as Facebook Ads. They provide ample opportunity for customizing several ad formats.
To learn even more about managing remote teams and keeping employees working at home highly engaged, download our ebook now.
Download now
Using videos
During the last decade use of visual culture has attracted the attention of the digital world. There are many forms associated with this but without a doubt, videos are at the top of this list. We have reached a point where a lot of people looking for content prefer to use videos above all other kinds of mediums. Most internet marketers these days use platforms such as YouTube of some kind or another. This wave has come along largely due to the massive viewership of platforms such as YouTube, which has a user base of over 2.68 billion individuals worldwide. However, where you will post the videos will not matter much unless it has compelling content on it. Personalized videos have become the main attraction these days addressing different pain points for the users such as transferring large videos. It also makes your business appear more human. The videos can be about tours of your business or testimonials from customers depicting the human side of the business. If you can narrate a compelling story about the business and display that you can solve some pain points of the customers you will have a win-win formula.
Content marketing
Content marketing can be termed as an extension of inbound marketing. It plays a huge role in attracting your target audience. The more significant part of content marketing is that you have to make your content relevant, consistent, and valuable to make it worth the time and effort of the customers coming in. In these times you have to focus on creating content that will resolve the customer pain points and yet stay evergreen. Using black-hat SEO techniques or shortcuts to reach the top of search engines is not going to work thanks to the probing eyes of Google. As many people like to put it, "Content is the king". For making sure that digital content marketing strategy works out well, you will also have to concentrate on mobile-related content, influencer marketing, native advertising, and marketing automation. Take the mobile content seriously as smartphones make up for half of the devices used to access the internet. You can use automated tools that send your content to the searchers at exactly the right time. Or, you can use tools like an AI text generator to streamline your content production, enabling automated creation and timely distribution to reach your target audience effectively.
Social media marketing
You must have already posted some kind of content on social media before reading this post. However, is there a way of making the posts more effective and useful this year and in the upcoming years? For capturing the modern audience there are several things you can do as noted by Forbes. This includes automation for posting the content exactly at the time when you are aware that the target audience is reading it. You can use online tools for this post scheduling as it helps a great deal while reaching out to the users in several time zones. It is also a good idea to curate content for proving your clout. Do not be proud while doing it because it adds luster to the brand and your expertise. While you are curating content from other sources they are likely to reciprocate. Keep in mind to hire influencers for posting this content on various social media channels.
Creating a Google My Business Profile
Creating a Google My Business (GMB) profile is a foundational step for boosting your online presence for your business. GMB allows businesses to manage their online information as it appears in Google Search and Maps, which is vital considering most consumers turn to Google for local business information. By setting up a GMB profile, you ensure that your business details are accurate, and you can showcase your products or services through posts, photos, and customer reviews. Moreover, using a tool for scheduling your Google Posts can organize and speed up your postings, saving you time and effort. You'll be able to effectivelyplan and publishyour Google posts, ensuring a consistent online presence for your business and maintaining regular engagement with your audience. Ultimately, an active and well-maintained GMB profile, can attract more customers to your business.
Upgrading and optimizing your database
A robust database not only helps with more efficient digital marketing but also powers up other components of business operations. And if you're looking for speedier performance, security enhancements, and real-time data processing benefits, here are some optimization options to keep in mind:
Explore Upgrade Options: There are lots of alternatives out there if your current database isn’t up to scratch. You could consider upgrading from MySQL to MariaDB, or pick a marketing-specific CRM solution like Pipedrive to collect and organize your data.
Streamline Data Analysis: As crucial as it is to drive traffic towards your site with digital marketing maneuvers, having a sturdy backend plays an equally important part in holding onto customers once they do visit. Don’t try to analyze every single metric, but focus on the ones that matter most to your brand.
Make Adjustments Based on Customer Insights: Collect data on visitor habits once they land on your site, and tweak campaigns based on what you learn. If conversion rates are poor, this is a must.
Parting Shot
An effective marketing strategy can generate remarkable results, especially if you chose it based on the unique needs and requirements of your business. These six digital marketing tactics and techniques will help you grow your target audience and increase your sales in 2021 and beyond.
About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at LIKE.TG. LIKE.TG is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications engagement, and rewards recognition. Our user-friendly software increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.
