Branding & culture = one process

A recent report from IHE, commissioned by Hjärnfonden, reveals that a significant portion of brain diseases can be prevented through lifestyle changes. The report shows that low physical activity is the factor affecting the most brain diseases and can be linked to 13 percent of all diagnosed GAD, 9 percent of Alzheimer's disease, 8 percent of strokes, 7 percent of other dementias, and 7 percent of Parkinson's disease. For companies and HR departments, this represents a unique opportunity to invest in employee health. By promoting physical activity and building an inclusive work environment, we can not only improve individual well-being but also help reduce the extensive costs these diseases impose on society.

Three tips to get started:

1. Incorporate movement breaks! Take a detour to the coffee machine, choose the stairs instead of the elevator, and alternate between sitting and standing throughout your workday.
2. Invite colleagues to group workout sessions - exercising together is not only good for health but also strengthens team camaraderie. Perhaps the summer party could include a workout session?
3. Walk & talks - invite colleagues to walking meetings! One-on-one conversations are perfect for walking meetings - and why not take your mobile phone and headphones out for a walk during other digital meetings?

Does your workplace need help? Let’s create a healthier future together - contact us to learn more!

You can read more about the report here: Brain diseases can be prevented (hjarnfonden.se)

Further reading: There are many myths about the workplace. Here we debunk 5 myths about the perfect workplace.

In this blog I have talked about the importance of a good candidate experience and that currently most companies are not getting it quite right. This is especially important to note as each candidate can either preach for or badmouth your brand. Therefore, it is paramount to improve the candidate experience and create future ambassadors for your brand.

In this blog I will give you some solutions towards how to improve your candidate experience and fix possible problems; to find or attract the right people and to give them the best experience of your brand.

Fixing the basics

So how do you improve your candidate experience, avoid candidate backlash and become a better employer overall? Well first, let’s look at the basics and start off with the recruitment profile. The recruitment profile is, in modern day companies, maybe one of the most recycled documents. Not only in terms of layout, but often also in terms of text. Now this in and of itself does not have to be a bad thing, but try and be specific in what you are looking for and avoid general qualities that we expect all functioning human beings to have. Remember, the recruitment profile is not only important to find the right person, but it is also a profile on which you should base your communication (more on that later).

In your recruitment profile you should be brutally honest in what you need and very specific in what you are looking for, so don’t beat around the bush. Only then can you find the right candidate and can the right candidate find you. Furthermore, this has the advantage that you can always open up your scope later on if you cannot find the right candidate initially (trust us, this is better than a general profile which attracts 50+ candidates daily).

Another point here is that you might realize that you need something different than the candidates you have seen to fit the profile so far. Then don’t be afraid to change it and keep the profile as a base for the recruitment.  

Last but not least, if you want to attract new talent, then let others review the profile as well. Their insights and criticism might be crucial for something new and revolutionary. This is especially true if you need to replace a leaving employee with a new hire. In that case, you might not want more of the same, but something new and transforming.

Communication

Secondly, let’s talk communication. Marriage counsellors, salespeople, my mom and dad, almost everybody believes that the key to a good relationship is clear communication. Communication within recruitment often comes in three forms:

1. Digital communication (emails)
2. Telephone and video calls
3. Interviews and in-person meetings

Therein there are two things very important: speed and clarity. As this blog shows, most candidates believe that their experience would have been better if the communication (from the employer) would have been better. This includes responding and giving updates when there is nothing to give an update on, for example; when you are waiting for feedback. Try to keep the candidate up to date with the knowledge you have up until that point even if that is barely more than you have informed them last time.

One way of doing so could be automatically triggered messages which get send to the candidate once something happens to the status of his or her application. The reason is simple; the candidate feels involved and heard. They feel that they are a part of the relationship and the process. So be fast and be clear. That is what candidates are longing for.

How you design you communication is dependent on three factors:

1. the recruitment profile (you might address a VP of engineering differently than an intern)
2. the form of communication (emails, phone calls or face-to-face meetings)
3. how far the candidate is in the process (you can reject somebody in the beginning stages with an email, in final stages nothing less than a phone call is acceptable)

When in contact with candidates always show apathy and understanding for your situation. Every candidate has spent at least three to four hours on his or her application and they are very invested in your company. So, try to place yourself into their situation and treat them with care and hospitality. Understand that you are not only dealing with them, but also with their private life, preferences, values, their entire situation. It could be that a candidate had a rough day and is therefore easily frustrated, so be prepared to show understanding on a professional level. Try to connect as well besides just the job role and to create a bond with the candidate. Small things could be the weather, holidays or other events of that sort. Try to avoid religion, politics and social issues as you never know what their stance or background is on that. In that sense you have to stay professional and without bias.

This shows already that it is very hard to fit a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution and that is where we want to get at. This is not going to be an easy and simple fix, but there are solutions, which brings us to our third point: personalized standardization.

Personalized standardization

In the world of messaging there are mainly two ways of sending messages, either personalized or standardized. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Personalized messaging will create a better bond but it takes time and standardized messaging is easier to execute on mass, but it makes for a less strong bond. Therefore, I would argue to take best from both worlds.

Some (parts of) messages always remain the same “Thank you for your application”, “We look forward hearing from you”, “We are reaching out to you because of your experience at XYZ” etcetera. So, feel free to use standardized messaging, but always use a small personal twist in them so the candidate feels that you are trying to establish a better bond with them and that you are not simply copying and pasting every message to each candidate. This can be small talk about their application, something specific they wrote in their letter or CV, or something completely unrelated, just remember: it needs to be easily accessible for the candidate and politically correct. Holidays are a personal favourite of mine but try and figure out what works for you.

If you find something that works, stick with it, even if it becomes repetitive for you, because what is repetitive for you is not repetitive for each new candidate you get in touch with.

Higher integration and prioritization of recruitment

For most hiring managers recruitment is a necessary means to an end. They need somebody for their team and therefore they need to go through (the mostly unwanted) process of recruiting. That attitude needs to change.

Recruitment needs to be an ongoing part of the work of a hiring manager, even if there is no urgent position to be filled right now. At Google every employee is bound to spend 20% of his or her time on hiring (read more about what we can learn from Google here) and so should your hiring managers. Only that way you can find the talent you need. Weekly recruitment meetings need to be established wherein vacancies, candidates and feedback are discussed.

Direct feedback processes need to be created wherein the feedback does not go via a recruiter but comes from the hiring manager or reviewing expert themselves. This requires some training and practice, but yields better satisfaction as the candidate is directly getting feedback from the experts and able to ask them questions directly. This takes time of your HR employee’s hands which they then can use for sourcing better candidates and to look after their needs.

Involving the team will also create a better understanding for the struggles which accompany recruitment and makes the team also more understanding if some recruitments take longer than expected. This integration and prioritization of recruitment in your organization will ultimately affect the speed by which you communicate with your candidates, and that is ultimately the best thing one can improve according to candidates themselves.

In conclusion

Candidate experience is hard to improve, but necessary. It is an important aspect of your employer branding and requires careful planning and altering. The main points you should be focussing on are:

1. setting up a precise recruitment profile;
2. clear and fast communication;
3. personalized standardized messaging, and;
4. a higher integration and prioritization of recruitment.

If you need help with any of these aspects or if you need us to take off the entire process off your hands? Get in touch with us and see what we can do for you!

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This article was originally written in September 2020.

COVID-19 has already affected companies, cities and even entire economies. Even though we are done with COVID-19, COVID-19 is not done with us. So, what does this mean for the way we perceive work?

COVID-19 has heavily impacted the way we work. I believe that, even if there will be a vaccine to the virus, there is no way we are going back to ‘what was before’. The way we work has been impacted in such a way that companies have finally recognized the value of alternative forms. It baffles me that, for some reason, we are still holding on to Dolly Parton’s nine to five dogma which was originally based on agricultural economies and even pre-historic cultures (you need natural light to hunt and grow crops). Now with the miracle of human-made light a lot of industries have the option to re-design their working days. So, in this blog I will be talking about how I will think that the way we work will be impacted (and what we are going to do with all those empty office buildings).

Working remotely

First, let’s get into the obvious. With the COVID-19 crisis many offices closed their doors, forcing people to work remotely. This often involves Zoom meetings with: people who are dressed in cosy clothes, interruptions of cat’s, children, and the occasional doorbell, and connectivity issues which makes you pull your hair out. But we have gotten used to it, more or less. The opinions are divided on how good it works. Some people want to go back to the office to socialize and others hail it as the new way of working. I am not going to take a stance in how well it works, but I am going to take a stance in whether this is a temporary phenomenon or not. Just to be clear: it is here to stay.

I think there will be some alterations in the future. Working remotely all of the time will still be an option, but I think that many people will opt for a combination of working remotely and working from the office. I think that people will be going back to the office for a part of the week to get in touch with their colleagues and stay at home for the other part to ‘really get things done’, but overall, I believe that working remotely is now an integrated part of working.

Working (very) flexible

Working remotely also opened up another door to working (very) flexible. Flexible working has already had its place in the workplace before, but the COVID-19 crisis and working remotely really accelerated this trend. It is not unusual anymore to receive messages early in the morning or late in the evening, while not being able to reach certain colleagues during the day. This sense of flexibility has opened up a sphere of ‘working a couple of hours here and there’ which means that we can restructure our entire day. What a relief for all those early birds or night owls out there!

Bringing the kids to school? No problem, work when they are to bed in the evening. Tired of recycling socks and in need of a laundry run? Easy, just run it and work a bit overtime. Still have to do groceries for the dinner of tomorrow? Fine, just get up an hour earlier, put in some work, and do groceries during your extended break.

Private and professional colliding

What working remotely and working flexible have caused is that there is not a clear distinction anymore between our private and personal life. You are not walking in an office anymore at 9AM and you are not leaving it anymore after 5PM. That is something people will have to deal with on a mental level, which is easier for some than it is for others. For people who are struggling with this, I think that lot of companies will (or should) move to a model where the teams meet (digitally) in the morning to open up the day and close down the day (digitally) in the afternoon. This brings back a mental sense of opening and closure, clearing up the blurred divide of private and professional life.

Another point that I want to make here is that there will be new models of facility, with options for people who work a lot remotely. In that sense you can think about compensation for the cost of living at home and facilities.  

Three cups of coffee a day does not cost a lot, but if you multiply with the number of days in a year, then costs begin to show themselves.

When it comes to facilities you should not only think about laptops and that kind of hardware, but also chairs, tables and ventilation. Basically, everything which turns your living room into an ergonomic working environment. I would argue that employers will also have a stake in this. Their cost of building up a workplace and providing coffee basically stays the same, but their cost of their physical buildings will go down as they can close down offices when people work permanently or flexibly, from home.

Working holidays

One form of impact that I have not heard yet is how this whole COVID-19 crisis will make us reconsider the line between work and holidays. I predict that people will rethink the way that they take holidays and how they plan their holidays, permanently. Firstly, right now, there is the obvious of not taking planes anymore and more regional travelling instead of international travelling.

But I would also argue that also the structure of our holidays will change, moving to being more flexible on holidays. Perhaps you are not able to leave the office for the entire week, take off four entire weeks in the summer, or even miss that one important meeting that distorts your family plans. So why not go to your holiday destination and work for a couple of days, one week of the four in the summer, or attend that one important meeting. I would say that combining work with holidays will become more common and it can provide a possible positive trade-off for employees (as long as they know how to properly balance it).  

Let’s talk office

Now that I have discussed the consequences for outside of the office, let’s move on to how this will impact things inside the office. First and foremost, I think that the current pandemic will influence the way we are perceiving as a hygienic working environment.

In this sense you can think about sanitation, disinfection, and ventilation, but also on policies regarding when somebody is considered healthy enough to enter the office (regarding the spread of infections). Most companies right now have a sort of ‘laissez faire’ attitude towards this issue and let employees decide when they deem themselves fit enough to enter the office.

We might move to a scenario where employers more actively encourage employees to stay away from the office when they show symptoms of a disease. Then there is of course the topic of training and education, which will also play a role. New guidelines will require training and education for your staff.

Last but not least, there are already companies who specialize themselves into making virus-free environments, such as the six-feet-office introduced by Cushman & Wakefield. Again, I believe that COVID-19 will have a lasting impression on how we regulate health in the office.

In conclusion

I believe COVID-19 has a significant impact on how we perceive ‘work’ going forward. It has shocked the working world, turned it upside down, and made us realise that there is a contingency (the idea of choice) in what we do. In a last remark, I would add that all of this is just a prelude to much larger changes which will improve the quality of our lives. If working regimes become more flexible to adapt to our preferred lifestyle, then you will notice that:

• less and less people press themselves into public transport during rush-hour;
• more people will move out from the cities into the countryside to work remotely;
• we travel less to work on location (decreasing our environmental footprint);
• people can organize their lives better to their own preference;

and this will ultimately benefit our (mental) health and wellbeing as human beings. Therefore, I embrace this change and am looking forward to keep working in the new normal.

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