Blog

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• January 19, 2020

The Basics and Importance of Employee Benefits [Complete Guide]

Employee benefits is an integral part of an organization. Without it, no company can survive for long or at all. If you have astounding employees, you’re gonna want to keep them. One way of doing this is through employee benefits.

There are different kinds of employee benefits. Benefits being offered by employers could depend on the type of job, location and more. For example, employee benefits for those with a full-time job are different compared to individuals who work part-time.

There are also laws that require employers to offer their employees certain benefits. These benefits can differ as laws can be different with each state in the United States. However, here are basic laws that all employers are required to follow according to Virgin Pulse:

• Giving employees time off to vote, serve on a jury and perform military service.
• Comply with all workers’ compensation requirements.
• Pay state and federal unemployment taxes.
• Contribute to state short-term disability programs in states where such programs exist.
• Comply with the Federal Family and Medical Leave (FMLA).

These are benefits employers are not required to provide:

• Retirement plans
• Health plans (except in Hawaii)
• Dental or vision plans
• Life insurance plans
• Paid vacations, holidays or sick leave

While the second list entails employee benefits employers are not required to offer, a lot of companies still offer these benefits and more to have a competitive edge. This is because the importance of employee benefits is paramount to the success of an organization.

While having this practice may seem expensive, and it is, you’ll be surprised how having competitive benefits are allowing big companies to have better sales and performance. Moreover, research has also shown that employees value benefits over money. 

Here are statistics to prove this point:

• According to the American Institute of CPA, 80% of employees would rather keep a job with employee benefits than to leave for a higher paying job but has no benefits.
• A study from WTW showed that 78% of workers said they would rather stay with their employers because of the employee benefits offered by their companies.
• According to Zenefits, more than 60% of employees would accept a job with inferior pay for better employee benefits. 

According to the Patriot Software, employee benefits affect these four key areas of an organization:

1. Employee loyalty
2. Focus and productivity
3. Attendance
4. Recruitment

Employee Loyalty

Employee benefits affect loyalty as benefit packages impact the current quality of life and the future of employees. Benefits allow employees to trust their employers better because employee benefits is one way of showing care for the workers.

More than the fierce competition in doing business providing goods and services, there’s also a fierce competition in HR with relation to employee benefits. In business, you’ll need employees to run the operations.

To attract and keep employees, companies offer competitive employee benefits. This is why companies like Netflix, Salesforce, Google, Facebook and other large companies have such generous employee benefits.

A lot of studies have proven how employee benefits impact employee loyalty. Here are findings from MetLife’s 15th Annual U.S. Employee Benefit Trends Study:

1. 72% of employees agree that the ability to customize benefits improves their loyalty.
2. 68% agree that the ability to take benefits with them boosts loyalty.
3. 59% agree that health and holistic benefits improves loyalty.

Moreover, according to an American human resource consulting firm, Robert Half, 38 percent of employees leave their jobs because of “inadequate salary and benefits.” 

This means that having the right employee benefits can allow you to retain your employees while having not enough can put you at risk of them leaving their jobs. 

Focus and Productivity

Employee benefits affect company culture which has an impact on focus and productivity. According to Business2Community, organizations that have high employee engagement outperform those with low employee engagement by as much as 202%.

With the right benefits, employees can also feel more financially secured. When employees are less concerned about money, they can focus better on work and their productivity.  

Attendance

With employee benefits, absenteeism can be reduced in a significant manner. The three major causes of absenteeism are:

1. Finances
2. Family commitments
3. Health issues

With benefits that can help resolve these issues, employees will show up more at work.

Recruitment

As mentioned earlier, employee benefits are also used in recruitment to attract and keep workers. With competitive employee benefits, you can hire and keep skilled individuals that are key to your organization’s success. 

According to a survey from Glassdoor, 57% of candidates believe that benefits are their top considerations in accepting the job. Moreover, employee benefits is also linked to employee happiness, satisfaction, engagement and more.

If you’re wanting to start a business or if you have one and you are unsure about employee benefits, you can check what benefits other businesses in your industry are offering. This can give you a brief idea on what to choose and offer.

Now that you know the basics and importance of employee benefits, you know have a better idea on how to boost the retention, engagement, productivity and sales of an organization. Remember, work now isn’t what it used to be.

Personal satisfaction now can be as important as the digits on the paycheck. Care for your employees through giving them proper employee benefits. As what Richard Branson said,

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” Take care of your employees and they will take care of your clients. 

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• December 5, 2019

What is Employee Retention [And What Factors Contribute to It?]

Businesses are not just about creating and keeping customers. It’s also about keeping the employees. If your company will just be about profit, having a high turnover rate can be the consequence.

Employees power your organization and without them, your organization can cease to function. This is where employee retention comes in. It’s crucial to know what is employee retention. 

Employee retention is your company’s ability in keeping workers. Losing employees might not seem like a huge problem because they can be replaced. However, studies have shown that employee exit and replacing employees is expensive. 

In fact, according to Employee Benefit News, the average cost for an employee leaving is 33% of their annual income. 

Replacing employees isn’t that simple as well. How long do you think does a job stay vacant until the employee is replaced? According to Deloitte, it takes around 70 days for production workers and 94 days for specialized workers like doctors and engineers. 

Again, you are not saving money but losing money when there are vacant positions. Moreover, other employees will share the responsibilities of the employee that left. This can have a negative effect on their productivity.

Employee Retention

Most often, employee retention is represented as a percentage. For example, if an organization has an annual retention rate of 75%, this means that the organization was able to keep 75% of its employees and lost 25% during that year. 

Retention rates are different depending on the type of industry or nature of the business. Industries such as staffing, cleaning professionals and logistics have high turnover rates.Turnover rates is the opposite of employee retention.

According to Criteria, “turnover rate refers to the percentage of employees leaving a company within a certain period of time.” Turnover rate, much like employee retention, are also costing companies.

A study by PeopleKeep concluded that turnover costs anywhere around 16% to 213% of an employee’s annual salary depending on position. According to GrowthForce, the cost of replacing a supervisor position costs even more than an entry-level employee.  

If you know the factors that contribute to employee retention, you can better know how to keep your employees to make your organization grow and thrive. Here are some of the factors that contribute to employee retention.

Factors That Contribute to Employee Retention

Company Culture

Having a positive company culture is key if you want to have a high employee retention rate. Studies have shown that money is not the main reason why employees leave or stay at their jobs, there are other things about work that employees value more.

A study conducted by Hays showed that 47% of individuals consider company culture as their main reason for looking for a new job. Company culture is linked to employee happiness.

If employees are happier or are more engaged at work, they do not just become more committed but they also become more productive and the quality of their performance improves. 

According to the Social Market Foundation, workers that are happy are 20% more productive. In turn, the organization becomes more profitable because of more productive employees.

According to a Gallup study, an engaged workforce is 21% more profitable. Moreover, company culture also contributes to the well-being of the workers. If workers not do not just enjoy their work but are also less stressed, they also become healthier.

According to David Hamiltion, happy employees have better immune system. These are other benefits of having a strong and positive company culture:

1. Better teamwork among employees
2. More loyal and committed workforce
3. Workers take less sick days
4. Less absenteeism
5. Less presenteeism
6. Improved customer ratings
7. Improved sales

According to Gallup, highly engaged companies have 59% reduction in turnover rates. If your organization needs to improve on its employee retention, you can begin with fostering a positive company culture.

If you feel your employees are stressed at work. It’s important to address it. Dealing with stress is something not all employees are good at. Trying to develop a positive company culture is difficult if workers are stressed.

There are different types of company cultures. We made an article about the four types of organizational culture that you might want to read if you want to know more about the topic.  

Employee Benefits

Employee benefits is another key factor that workers value over money. According to Glassdoor, a whopping 90% of millennials preferred employee benefits over a higher salary. It is important to know and provide the employee benefits that workers need and want if you want to attract and keep your employees.

People are smarter now than ever. According to Business Insider, “millenials are the smartest, richest, and potentially longest living generation of all time”. They are aware that they will be dedicating one-third of their lives working.

Another is that they know that they do have a choice. The choice to find and have a job that fulfills their happiness, well-being and offers them work/life balance. We mention millennials because right now, they are dominating the workforce population.

It is estimated by the Pew Research Center that by 2025, 75% of the global workforce population will be millennials. 

Here are statistics about employee benefits in relation to employee retention that you should know:

• 78% of employees stay would stay with their employer because of the benefits offered – WTW
• 60% of employees would go for a lower paying job with better employee benefits. – Zenefits

Moreover, like company culture, employee benefits is also linked to improved:

1. Productivity
2. Performance
3. Sales
4. Branding
5. Engagement
6. Culture

Knowing what is employee retention and the factors that contribute to it can transform your business if you apply the knowledge. Company culture and employee benefits are two crucial factors that contribute to employee retention. They are also keys on how to attract the best candidates. 

If you want to know more about recruitment and employee retention, we’ve written articles about the “5 Competitive Recruitment Secrets that are Effective” and the “4 Things Every Recruitment Managers Need to Know”. 

We hope you learned more about what is employee retention and the factors that contribute to it. What we shared with you are backed by science and are sure to help you improve the employee retention rate of your business. 

To end this article, here’s a quote from Seth Godin, “if you treat your employees like mushrooms (keep them in the dark and regularly throw crap at them), it’s entirely likely you will get precisely the work you deserve in return”.

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• November 24, 2019

Dealing with Work Stress [+Examples]

Life is not all fun and games. However, it doesn’t mean that being stressed and having problems are a bad thing. Often times, it is through conquering trying times wherein the quality of our lives becomes better.

Work stress though can be a day-to-day issue and when overwhelmed, the work life and personal life of employees can suffer. It is important for both employers and employees to address the issue of work stress so everyone can maintain good health and being productive.

Typical Sources of Work Stress

While stress can come in all shapes and forms, work stress is regarded as one of the biggest sources of stress in America. According to a study by APA, 6 out of 10 adults identify work stress as significant sources of stress.

Here are more of their findings:

• 49% of employees cited that the economy is a significant source of stress.
• Money comes in after work stress at 60%, work stress is 64%.

Work stress can be further dissected and according to APA, these are the common sources of work stress:

• Low income
• Having too much workload
• Few opportunities for career advancement and growth
• Work that is not challenging or engaging
• Lack of social support
• Not having much control of work-related decisions
• Conflicting demands or unclear expectations for performance

How to Deal with Work Stress

Work stress needs to be addressed because health problems can also stem out from getting stressed. From simple colds and flu, being stressed too much can also cause major health issues like heart diseases and metabolic problems

A study by the British Medical Journal showed that chronic or recurring stress is linked to the development of heart disease. Stress from work is a form of chronic stress. Here are a few ways on how to deal with work stress.

Proper Nutrition

Your body stores your mind and your heart. Food is what you fuel your body and if you fuel your body with unhealthy food, you also feed your mind and your heart with junk. Stress or no stress, not eating right can lead you to become more vulnerable to health problems.

However, whenever people are stressed, they tend to choose to eat comfort foods like ice cream, pizza and the like. While they may make one feel better, nothing beats eating good food.

Studies have shown that eating right can help you in dealing with stress. Just starting the day with a good breakfast can help you so much. Never say that you don’t have the time. After all, 24 hours is all we have in a day.

You can’t add more hours to your day. What you need to do is to learn to manage your 24 hours. Start your day with a good breakfast. According to VeryWellMind, skipping breakfast can make it harder for an individual to maintain stable blood sugar levels and effective performance.

Fuel your body with fruits, vegetables, meat and a good balance of nutritional food overall. It can help you become more resilient to stress and just the act of eating can help reduce your stress levels.

Here are more ways on how you can use food in dealing with work stress:

1. Instead of coffee, go for decaffeinated green tea. If you don’t know it yet, the effects of caffeine are not always good for your health.
2. Have healthful snacks
3. Stock up on delicious healthy snacks at home

Avoid Workplace Conflict

Interpersonal relationships can help us if there is social support among individuals. However, relationships can be detrimental if it causes stress. Workplace stress caused by conflict is hard to avoid because you meet with coworkers almost each day.

You can refrain this from happening by avoiding conflict at your work. According to an article published by Nicole Philips of Indiana University Health, these are health concerns that can be influenced by family and social relationships:

• Depression
• Weight management
• Alcohol and drug use

Moreover, conflict at work can also cause employees to be disengaged and have poor performance. According to a study conducted by Queens School of Business and Gallup, the performance of disengaged employees resulted to:

• 37% higher absenteeism
• 60% more errors and mistakes
• 49% more accidents

You can avoid workplace conflict by being more positive and understanding of others. Here are ways on how you can avoid getting into conflict with your coworkers:

• Understand that behind every negative action is a positive intention. The problem with a lot of people is the way they communicate. 
• Communicate respectfully
• Identify what is important. If the issue is not important at all, don’t bother to have a misunderstanding with others at your workplace.

Annihilate Distractions

Distractions can cause you stress because you can end up not accomplishing whatever it was that you had to because of distractions. Another is that distractions make it harder for you to do what you must because you’re not giving all your attention to the task at hand.

Distraction is hard to avoid because even outside work, modernization has made it easier to give everyone a distraction. It can be chatting with friends, watching videos on Youtube, going on Facebook, etc.

Distraction is so prevalent that a survey by Udemy showed that 70% of employees mentioned that they are distracted when they are at work. 

What makes this harder is that according to Darren Shimkus, general manager for Udemy Business, “66% of workers have never discussed solutions to address workplace distraction with their managers.”

In dealing with work stress, here are ways on how you can eliminate distractions:

• Turn off your smartphone notifications
• Have frequent breaks
• Avoid talking with your coworkers when you’re doing important work
• Mind your physical health
• Avoid, minimize or eliminate negative people 

If you have the knowledge on how to take care of yourself when you are stressed at work and you apply them, you can find that you can become happier, healthier, more positive and more productive.

When dealing with work stress, apply what you learned here because you deserve to be happy, healthy and be at your peak performance. 

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• November 14, 2019

The Four Types of Organizational Culture [Updated 2019]

Like any other group of people, organizations and companies have different types of group culture. If you’ve experienced working at different jobs before, you may have distinguished a difference between their organizational cultures.

What’s more is that an organization can have a mix of four different organizational culture with one that is dominant. This is based from a research of business professors Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn at the University of Michigan.

Kim and Robert made the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI). The OCAI is based on the Competing Values Framework Model that was also developed by Kim and Robert. 

The OCAI is a validated survey method that allows companies to assess their current and preferred organizational cultures. This has been used by over 12,000 companies across the globe.

There are four types of organizational culture. By being aware of the nature of each one, you can determine qualities that could either grow or kill your organization. 

Also, by knowing your organizational culture, you can see how to fill the gap between your current and preferred culture for the company. These are the four different types of organizational culture:

1. Clan Culture
2. Adhocracy Culture
3. Market Culture
4. Hierarchy Culture

The Clan Culture

In this type of culture, employees treat each other like family. Members share their experiences, stories and even problems much like how they would with a family member. There’s a very friendly and social environment that helps boost their well-being.

The focus of this culture are:

• Consensus
• Collaboration
• Commonality

Among the four types of organizational culture, the clan culture is the most laid-back which has its advantages and disadvantages. A good benefit from having a clan culture is that it can allow employees to work with cooperation instead of internal competition. 

Because this culture acts like an extended family, employees have a strong bond. They are loyal to each other and to the organization which can allow them to work on long-term goals. 

The downside of this culture though is that there’s lack of diversity, lack of authority and potential for abuse. According to HR Daily Advisor, examples of large companies that use clan culture are Google, Tom’s of Maine and Zappos. 

The Adhocracy Culture

This culture has the drive of being so aggressive to creating risks and innovations. It’s based on creativity and energy and is adaptable to change. Employees have the freedom to experiment so the organization will remain on the cutting edge or be part of the industry leaders. 

An adhocracy culture promotes employee initiative and being fast-paced with providing or reacting with solutions. Unlike hierarchical companies with systems before implementing changes, an adhocracy focuses on quick development and has an urgency to keep moving with or lead the movement of technology and growth. 

Tech companies have an adhocracy as technology is fast-paced and current technology can become irrelevant so fast. Another good example of a company with adhocracy is Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg even said, “move fast and break things – unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”

The disadvantages of an adhocracy culture are:

• Lack of formalized procedures
• Lack of a rigid hierarchy
• Lack of risk management
• Dependence on technology

The Market Culture

Market culture is focused on competition. Organizations with market culture have demanding and tough leaders to ensure that they beat their rivals. The goal of an organization with market culture is to have a good market share and the way they do this is through fierce competition.

The drivers for organization that adopts a market culture is profitability and market share. If clan culture is the most-lenient among all four, market culture is the opposite. It is the most aggressive amongst the four different types of organizational culture. 

Because of the competitiveness of a market culture type organization, its advantages are maximizing profits, being one step ahead of competitors and having driven workers.

However, the downside of a market culture can be detrimental. This includes employees getting burnt-out, getting exposed to a toxic environment and needing a huge investment for market research. 

The Hierarchy Culture

An organization that is hierarchical has a formal environment and is based on structure and authority. It has strict procedures to ensure consistency and predictability. Every employee knows their place in the organization and their limits.

In a hierarchical culture, leadership is based on monitoring and coordination. There are multiple layers of management. The power of authority of an individual depends on title and status. 

Those with a higher position has power over their subordinates. A hierarchical culture is prevalent to stereotypical, bureaucratic, organizations such as the military, the church, McDonald’s and government bodies.

The advantages of having a hierarchy culture is that authority and positions is clear. Promotions also lead to advancement in status. According to a study, employees who work for organizations with hierarchical cultures feel more secure. 

To know how you can achieve the preferred culture of your organization, you must first identify what yours currently have. To do this, you can use the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI). 

Achieving the ideal culture can help improve your company’s performance, competitiveness, sales and your employee’s satisfaction, retention, productivity and more. 

Organizations can have a mix of cultures with each of their departments. However, there’s always a dominant culture that everyone observes. According to Kim and Robert, flexible organizations are more successful than those that are rigid.

Remember this when trying to plan for your organizational culture. What’s the current culture of your company? Identify it with the tool provided in this article for you to accomplish your company’s preferred organizational culture. 

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• November 9, 2019

How to Attract the Best Candidates [Complete Guide]

Having job vacancies can be detrimental to an organization. This is why recruitment plays a paramount role for the survival of a business. However, the world of recruitment is just as competitive as doing the business operation itself.

Hiring the best candidates is the goal but you could be casting them away if you don’t know how to attract and keep them. A huge mistake done by three out of four employers is having a bad hire.

According to Solutions-Driven, a job vacancy is costing companies an average of $500 a day. However, this shouldn’t be enough reason to settle with just any candidate. According to Career Builder, a bad hire can cost a company around $15,000.

There are different methods that you can use to attract the best candidates. Here are but some of them. 

Know the Statistics

Effective methods can become ineffective when you use them too much or too little. The world of recruitment is fierce and you need to make sure you equip yourself recruitment knowledge before you get into its battlefield.

Otherwise, your efforts could end up becoming futile. Here are recruitment trends you need to know:

1. A study by the Pew Research Center showed that 35% of the global workforce are millennials. It is estimated that by 2025, millennials will make up 75% of the workforce.
2. In a Glassdoor study, 90% of millennials stated that they prefer employee benefits over increase in salary. 
3. The same study from Glassdoor showed that just 7% of HR managers think they have programs for leadership for the millennials.
4. According to Talent Now, 73% of candidates are passive job seekers.
5. It takes just 7 reviews before an applicant makes an opinion about the organization – Glassdoor
6. According to LinkedIn,  excellent employee branding can reduce recruitment costs by up to 43%.
7. 57% of candidates believe that benefits and perks are their top considerations in accepting the job. – Glassdoor 
8. According to a survey by Sierra-Cedar HR Systems, Over 30% of companies use HCM systems.

With knowing the statistics, you can get a better idea of what to focus on, what to improve and what you should do less. From here, you can then formulate your methods for recruitment based on statistics.

Create Excellent Company Branding

Just how important is company branding in terms of recruitment? From what we’ve discovered earlier, 7 reviews is all it takes for an applicant to make an impression about the company.

Based from a study of CareerArc, more than half or 55% of job seekers abandoned their application when they read a negative review about the company. Develop and maintain good company branding as it is essential in the overall survival of the company.

Having quality hires is crucial because a highly-engaged workforce is 21% more profitable. This is based from Gallup’s meta-analysis. From engaged employees, you can build a positive company culture.

According to Forbes, companies with strong company cultures experienced a 400% increase in revenue. With a good company brand, the chances of hiring the best candidates is higher. 

Your company will also have a better bargaining position. To keep great employees, care for them. According to Business Solver, 92% of employees stated that they are more likely to stay if their employer showed empathy. 

Money is never enough to keep employees. In fact, according to Career Builder, just 12% of employees leave their jobs because of wanting more money. 

Good Employee Benefits

Money alone is no longer enough to acquire or keep good workers. Most millennials would even prefer good employee benefits over an increase in salary. It’s important to focus on millennials because they are dominating the workforce population.

If you look at Fortune 500 companies, they are centered to their workers and have generous employee benefits. For instance, Morgan Stanley is America’s 67th largest company in terms of revenue.

Morgan Stanley employee benefits include bonuses based on performance, wellness programs, up to 20 paid vacations per year, healthcare insurance plan and more. 

Another example is the United Airlines. United Airlines is ranked 81 on the Fortune 500. More than just the basic benefits, United Airlines employee benefits include company sponsored social clubs around the world, vacation and paid time off, maternity and paternity leave, vision insurance, mental health care and much more.

Having good employee benefits will let your employees know that you care for them. In turn, you’ll gain good reputation and their loyalty. 

Recruitment Process Outsourcing

Recruit Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a trend in the business world. This is because the recruitment industry is so competitive. Everyone is after the best candidates.

From filling up job vacancies, avoiding bad hires and acquiring quality talent, RPO helps by handpicking the right people for the job from their pool of skilled candidates. 

Businesses are outsourcing their recruitment process because of these reasons:

1. Companies won’t have to juggle between recruiting and doing business operations.
2. It decreases the amount of space for more HR employees. 
3. Better quality of hires
4. Faster rate of hiring
5. It is cost efficient
6. RPO companies have connections to skilled candidates
7. More competitive advantages
8. It can help the branding of the company
9. Higher diversity of skills
10. Scalability
11. Analytics and reporting
12. Reduces need for advertising
13. Good compliance regulations
14. Improved 
15. Best practices for better results

As you can see, there’s so much benefits with outsourcing the recruitment process. Job vacancies and high turnover rates are detrimental to your organization. Meanwhile, getting the right people can help boost the sales of your company.

As what Marc Bennioff, the Chairman and co-CEO of Salesforce said, “acquiring the right talent is the most important key to growth. Hiring was – and still is – the most important thing we do.”

If you believe the recruitment process of your company needs to step up, apply the knowledge you’ve learned from this article. You can also consider outsourcing your recruitment process to attract the best candidates.

Whether you decide to do the recruitment process on your own or not, we hope we’ve shared with you valuable information about the topic. Feel free to share this article to anyone you think will find this useful. 

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• October 14, 2019

4 Things Every Recruitment Managers Need to Know [Complete Guide]

The world has changed a lot because of the rapid advancements of technology and innovation. This affected every spectrum of human society and this includes the norm of recruitment. What recruitment managers used to do just a few years ago no longer work in today’s world. 

Now, people with resumes on their hand walking from office to office is no longer very common. The way people look for jobs and what they look for from a job is very different. People now can look for jobs online and more than financial stability, most people now look for work-life balance. 

Recruitment managers need to know the importance of these changes as it can affect the quantity and quality of the candidates wanting to apply and the retention of employees. 

Here are 4 things every recruitment managers need to know:

Recruitment Can Function Like a Marketing Campaign

Like any marketing or advertising campaigns such as making use of signboards, publishing articles on different online and offline platforms and many other mediums, you can use the same principle for recruiting.

In today’s world, recruitment managers can make excellent use of the internet to both lure and actively search for candidates. 

Materials such as posters and videos can be posted to attract potential candidates. Social media can also be used as a powerful tool for talent acquisition. In fact, 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates and 43% of employers use social media to keep track of their employees.

In other words, you’ll be left behind if you don’t use the power of social media and other online tools. Internet penetration in the U.S. is now at 90%. Out of those that looked for jobs, over 80% used online job sites and 73% have used social media.

Job Boards Online

A lot of online job boards now exist. In fact, online job boards is now the top sourcing channels for candidates. Here are some of the top job boards online that you may use for recruiting:

1. LinkedIn
2. Glassdoor
3. SimplyHired
4. ZipRecruiter
5. CareerBuilder

Those are but some of the many online job boards you can find on the internet. With online job boards, more than posting job offers, you can also actively hunt for prospects through searching for different profiles. 

According to statistics, 89% of people say that they’ll have greater chances of accepting the job if the recruiter will reach out to them. 

Here are the benefits of using online job boards:

• You can create job listings
• You can search for through profiles for potential hires
• Access to a pool of potential quality workers
• Data about the candidates can be shown

Understand Hiring and Candidate Problems

The more you understand the needs of candidates, the higher your chances of acquiring them. Millenials are slowly filling up the majority of the workforce. In fact, it is estimated that by the year 2025, 75% of the workforce will be millenials.

According to the Pew Research Center, millenials are more educated compared to the previous generations. Compared to others, millennials now have easy access to technology and information.

Because of this, the majority of millenials prefer a work-life balance. 

These statistics were the results from the study of the Deloitte Millennial Survey and Gartner Research on Millennials and Technology:

• 48% of millennials believe that organizations behave ethically
• 47% believe that leaders aim to create a better society
• 42% of millennials use real-time messaging during work

Here are reasons why candidates don’t accept job offers:

1. The company has a bad reputation
2. They found a better opportunity elsewhere
3. Poor candidate experience

Knowing these issues and knowing how to solve them can give you an edge in talent acquisition. By using the information we have gathered, these are the steps you can take to improve your chances of getting your preferred candidates:

1. Establish good rapport
2. Create a positive experience for the candidates
3. Offer good pay
4. Actively search for excellent talents
5. Let them know your standards and expectations

Collaboration with Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Companies

Recruitment managers can still face a lot of problems even while doing everything they can with talent acquisition. Even with all the different factors and information in mind, recruitment managers can still end up getting a bad hire or hire no one at all. 

If talent acquisition persists to be a major problem, you can collaborate or delegate the entire hiring process to recruitment process outsourcing companies. They are the most knowledgeable and best-equipped organizations for the job and they have connections to a pool of talented candidates. 

They also make use of innovative tools for hiring and to also collect data for you to only acquire no less than excellent hires. Recruitment process outsourcing has become a major tool being used by a lot of companies because of the many benefits and convenience it brings.

Here are the benefits of recruitment process outsourcing:

1. Quality hires
2. Reduces need for direct marketing
3. Lowers cost
4. Improves your brand
5. Improves hiring time
6. Better workforce diversity
7. Analytics and reporting
8. Excellent compliance regulations
9. Hiring process and assessment model
10. You can put more focus on business operation

Hiring today bring you to a very aggressive and competitive world. Recruitment managers are constantly trying to lure exceptional talents to their organizations. You can be in danger if they know a lot more and doing a lot more than you are. 

Even job boards online are populated with listings from recruitment process outsourcing companies. That’s the bad news. The good news is, you can turn this to your advantage by outsourcing talent acquisition. 

If someone else is running your organization and you are mainly tasked with talent acquisition, you can learn more about it online if you don’t want to resort to outsourcing. However, if you are doing the recruitment process while also running your business, we suggest that you outsource the hiring process.

We hope that we have given you more insights about talent acquisition and the changing world of recruitment managers. You can find out more about this topic in our website. 

• Rebekka Ramirez
• Blog
• October 14, 2019

5 Competitive Recruitment Secrets that are Effective [2019 Update]

Every area in managing an organization has its own challenges. While these difficulties may not be rocket science, some still find the tasks almost impossible to be done in a far better manner. In terms of hiring, once you learn these recruitment secrets, you will realize that improving the hiring process can be easy for you.

From doing it on your own to using tools and even outsourcing, we’ll share with you 5 competitive recruitment secrets that are effective. Here they are:

Use Modern Tools

There are now so many tools that can help organizations with their recruitment process. From GapJumpers to ZipRecruiter, you might be surprised just how convenient the process of hiring workers can now be. 

For example, GapJumpers allow companies to host blind auditions. This process of blind hiring disables unconscious bias that can often lead to a bad hire. With the tool, you can make better judgment through the candidate’s actual job readiness than through the information in their resume. 

Here are other recruitment tools you can use to help you out with the recruitment process:

• ZipRecruiter

• Textio

• Wayup

Set Expectations

There are different ways on how you can demonstrate the standard of your organization and the culture of its workplace. Setting expectations is an important and a competitive recruitment method because it lets candidates know what they could be engaging in.

One way of doing this is to let high-potential candidates take a look of the organization’s working area during the day of their recruitment process.

For the organization, it can assure them that the prospects are well-suited for their responsibilities and that they can also be comfortable with the workplace culture. This will enable the organization to have people that love both their job and the workplace.

According to a study conducted by Speakap, 79% of workers in America say that company culture is a significant factor for job satisfaction. Another study conducted by Recruit Loop stated that highly engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave their company. 

Connecting the dots, ensuring both parties meet their expectations can result in excellent productivity and lesser chance of skilled workers leaving. This also allows everyone to be more cheerful at work.

Manage Individuals Individually

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, is famous for making his companies a global powerhouse by focusing on customer service. However, it was found out the the top priority of his companies was actually their employees.

While one thing might work for another, it is wrong to assume that you can apply the same thing for everyone. Every candidate has their own expectations, needs and wants. It is crucial to give them importance as it can determine the level of their engagement to your organization.

With Richard Branson, he was able to make his companies successful by making sure the employees are happy at their workplace. He would even ask some of his employees for feedback. 

Don’t Settle for Bad Hires

A bad hire is better than a no-hire. Always choose quality over quantity. In the long run, it will be quality that will determine success. A bad hire will also cost your organization a lot of money. 

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the cost of a bad hire is at least 30% of the employee’s earnings during the first year. 

Outsource the Recruitment Process

Perhaps one of the best if not the best competitive recruitment strategy is recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). You could know and apply every recruitment secrets to your organization but you can still end up not having the results you want. 

With recruitment process outsourcing, you leave all the responsibilities of hiring workers to experts who have all the resources to help you acquire highly skilled and experienced individuals. 

They have connections to a pool of incredible talent ready to be deployed at work. Their use of innovative technologies and strategies make it certain that you are getting the right people.

There are no other recruitment secrets like outsourcing your hiring process. Here are some of the benefits you can enjoy with this competitive recruitment method:

1. Quality hires

2. Reduced time to hire

3. Reduces cost

4. Talent pooling

5. Scalable method

6. Analytics and reporting

7. Reduces the need for direct marketing

8. Recruitment process and assessment

9. Improves employer’s brand

10. Access to technology and tools

Those are just some of what RPO companies can offer you. They are the best  in the world of hiring and they are focused with their task as much as you are focused on the operation of your business. 

With delegating the recruitment process, you also won’t have to juggle between hiring people and running your company. With an RPO company, you can put more focus on the actual operation rather than having to do more. 

This will allow you to be more productive and create positive results while also acquiring quality workers. Did you learn anything new from these 5 recruitment secrets? 

Apply them to your organization and experience the difference these competitive recruitment methods can create.