Here are the eight standout skills and traits today’s influential HR and talent leaders have in common.

1. Maintain a growth mindset 

Great HR and talent leaders never stop learning! Deepening your knowledge of the ever-expanding field of talent will help you to better manage, support, and lead your team and organisation. Putting this knowledge into practice can serve to encourage the growth and development of your team and the larger workforce.

Refine your knowledge by reading articles, following other leaders in the talent space on social media, attending webinars and events, and listen to podcasts; you can take this even further by pursuing a degree or professional certification to continue to refine your knowledge. 

Successful talent and HR leaders display a thirst for understanding the benefits of new trends and staying connected to the latest industry updates. By incorporating your knowledge of best HR practices into your daily life, you can more effectively support your organisation’s strategic goals and direction.

2. Listen deeply (for what people “say” beyond words) 

Communication coaches and authors constantly talk about the critical role of active listening – that is, listening more, and talking less. We know this already! But listening deeply goes beyond words and just hearing what people are saying. 

True leaders listen for what others don’t express in words. They probe to discover and analyse what their team members are truly saying, their wants and needs, sometimes before they even know what they mean themselves. (Some consider that ability either intuition or psychological perception, but whatever the skill, they’re able to “hear” what’s not said and translate the message.) 

This type of leader often sits quietly at the periphery of a conversation, encouraging others to speak up with ideas or opinions.

3. Communicate effectively

Clear, effective messages can boost morale, increase loyalty and even save on your organisation’s bottom line. Research reveals that organisations that use highly effective communication practices are more than twice as likely to significantly outperform competitors that do not. 

Many opportunities exist for talent and HR leaders to develop effective communication skills; for example, strong writing skills can translate into clearly understood policies and procedures that drive organisational results. Great verbal communication skills can help your workforce to understand better their roles in securing effective outcomes and motivate them to perform at their best.

4. Live your organisation’s values

Do your values align with your organisation’s values? You can demonstrate your personal commitment to your organisation’s values in different ways. Great leaders lead by example. Take the lead in advancing your organisation’s values to all employees. You are uniquely positioned to build a community of employees who want to internalise and demonstrate your organisation’s values and ethical behaviours.

5. Plan and think strategically 

We know. It’s tempting to get caught up in your day to day, narrowly focusing your attention to build the most effective and productive workforce. On the surface, this concentration seems to make sense, but today, HR and talent leaders need to take a step back to assess the bigger picture. 

To be an effective leader, you must think strategically and connect recruitment and talent processes with wider business strategies – doing so requires an understanding of your organisation’s values, mission, goals and aspirations.

6. Measure and understand your metrics

Many HR professionals recognise the value of developing outstanding practices that attract, leverage, and retain the best employees for their organisations. Determining the value of those practices on the organization’s bottom line requires you to be able to understand and use data, metrics and key business statistics. There are many metrics you can choose to track (turnover, quality of applications, quality of hire, etc); ensure you’re selecting the right ones to assess ROI. (For example, preparing a cost/benefit analysis for offering a wellness program.) Metrics matter!

7. Be prepared to ask the tough questions 

Great communicators are prepared to ask questions they don’t know the answers to; that is, those that open rather than close doors.

Of course, questions can be used to gather information, but influential HR and talent leaders also ask questions to make others reflect, generate creative thinking, provoke caution and guide people. 

Note though, they don’t ask questions to sidetrack meetings or conversations. Instead, they use questions to discover opportunities and raise broader considerations. 

Strong HR and talent leaders become known for the tough questions they ask — those questions that can’t be answered quickly. Hard questions result in hard thinking and sometimes even harder work.

8. Summarise for the benefit of the group 

This final skill links back to good communication. Sometimes you need to be able to synthesise key points from a discussion and communicate them clearly to that audience or a larger group, and be clear on action steps. 

Listening is not enough. Analysing is not enough. Guiding and challenging is not enough. Influential leaders lead from the front. They communicate well with clear, concise courses of action to move people and their organisations forward.

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Lately, employer branding may have dropped off your radar. It’s understandable, especially if you’ve been struggling with hundreds of competing priorities (maintaining operations, serving clients and stakeholders and retaining people). Things have also shifted to a candidate-rich market, so you may be struggling with more applications than you can handle. But candidates are looking at employer brands more closely now, more so than before, and if you’re receiving huge volumes of applications, it’s important to continue to build a valuable employer brand for sustainable long-term recovery.

One of the ultimate goals of employer branding is to attract the right candidates and allow the wrong candidates to opt-out early in your recruitment process. While we’ve experienced plenty of change in 2020, this will remain fundamentally the same; especially in a candidate-rich market when you’re being overwhelmed with applications. 

How organisations treat their people during the Covid-19 crisis will be the acid test for candidates considering whether to join and will be a major factor in overall employer branding strategy.

 In considering the principles of how to build valuable brands in uncertain times, let’s first consider what’s valuable. Many people have been re-evaluating what is valuable in their lives and what’s not. With talk about recessions, employers need to consider how they’re going to remain valuable to those who are most important in their future (both their people and customers). 

The past offers brands important and timely insights that can help take the edge off of the uncertainty. During the last recession, brands adopted a variety of tactics to respond to changing consumer attitudes and behaviours. A JWT study from 2009 found that most approaches fit into six buckets: optimism, humour, nationalism, nostalgia, empowerment and value/price. Here’s how these approaches can be tailored to apply to employer branding now.

1. Empower people

Making your current team members feel like they have greater control will help strengthen your employer brand in challenging times and throughout recovery. Look to be the leading provider of choice in new initiatives will give them back control and increase your value to them.  

2. Sharpen up your recruitment advertisements

Traditionally, you may have written your job ads to attract as many candidates as possible. Now, you can afford to get more specific to attract people with the skills, experience and behavioural attributes you’re after. Sharpen and focus your recruitment advertisement to attract top talent, and allow unsuitable applicants to opt-out early.

3. Add value

While you can strategically roll out price promotions, savings and discounts for customers, what about candidates? While more great talent is available in a candidate-rich market, A-players can still be hard to find. If you can still provide a great candidate experience and good communications (Candidate Management Systems, branded email templates will most certainly come in handy), you will distinguish yourself and bolster your long-term strategy. 

4. Communicate with optimism 

During times of uncertainty and recovery, people learn to live with losses, making them more sensitive to what really matters. Inspire your current and future talent with optimism. Being a beacon for optimism in a world of dim circumstances can prove a powerful differentiator.

When used appropriately, a touch of humour in your social media posts and employer brand messaging can create a memorable experience for your people and brand. 

4. Reference the bigger picture 

If you are recruiting now, make a point of emphasising the positive impact that joining your organisation will have on Australia’s road to economic and social recovery. Address the new economy in people’s world, and share how people’s work will stimulate it.

On a similar note, reflecting on the past can help in referencing the bigger picture. Anxiety and nostalgia go hand in hand—when times are tough, it’s only natural to seek comfort in memories of what seems like a simpler era. Think about how you can remind your current talent (as well as customers) that you’ve been with them in good times and bad. For future candidates too, give them a lens to the better world you shared together and the bigger future you will create with them.

So what makes your employer brand valuable? Now is a unique opportunity to adjust and bolster your employer brand and reach a wider audience. Empower people, recruit efficiently with the right processes and tools to continue to add value to candidates. Tailor your communication strategy to include optimism, and reference the bigger picture. 

The post Building valuable employer brands through recovery appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

We’re being swamped with mixed communications, from free webinar invitations to opinion pieces about how to juggle remote working, and mixed news messaging, which can make it tough to determine what’s true and what’s not. This has an enormous impact on how we need to manage the perception and communication of our employer brands.

Employer brands never sleep and, if anything, they’re now in the spotlight! Employees, the talent market and consumers are watching what action organisations are taking to manage and accommodate their most valued resources through this pandemic. 

Effective communication is key both internally and externally. In fact, it’s the glue that will preserve employer brands from fragmenting! HR is front and centre in this crisis. 

The organisations that take deliberate action with consistent, relevant communication, interacting and engaging with their remote workforce will be successful in navigating this situation. 

Employer Branding requires collaboration between leaders. 

As I place an optimistic lens over our current situation, I highlight that now, more than ever, HR and employer branding leaders cannot be held solely responsible for their people driving business continuity and still preserving their employer brand. 

Teamwork is essential. HR leaders must leverage critical partners in their organisations through internal communications, corporate marketing and communications, training and development, transformation officers, IT and the like. That being said, I’ve distilled the most fundamental priorities leaders should be paying attention. 

1. Use ongoing, clear and constructive communication

In monitoring virtual teams, regular, concise, clear and constructive communication is of the utmost importance to building trust and sustaining employee morale. Recruitment leaders must utilise their internal communication partners to assist with the often confusing government and media communications, translating it appropriately to employees to help them understand how new changes will affect them personally, while simultaneously keeping them updated regarding applicable daily health and safety news.

2. Support hiring managers

If you are hiring right now, operational managers at the forefront are often peoples’ first point of contact. For hiring managers to recruit effectively, they need to receive ongoing up-to-date workplace policy changes, understand what support is available for their employees and be properly trained to communicate this effectively with their teams. Leaders don’t like to communicate if they don’t have answers. Therefore, partnering with them, giving them guidance and training assist them in fostering a positive employee experience.

3. Issue transparent communications on COVID-19 management

Conducting weekly update meetings through online video platforms like Zoom, Teams, WebEx is a given, especially if you have interstate or international offices. Communicating best practice and facts about how your organisation is managing operations in light of the crisis is essential, using the utmost transparency and clarity about how deliverables are being met.

4. Maintain employee engagement

Being proactive in delivering answers to employees’ questions regarding their health, wellness and finances, without them having to search for or ask will earn you brand credibility and loyalty.

5. Routinely focus on mission-critical issues

Leaders need to establish a routine and cadence when setting up meetings and stick to mission-critical issues, actions plans, deliverables and dates.

6. Obtain ongoing employee feedback

Welcome ongoing internal employee feedback and schedule real-time, regular pulse surveys. Proactively assess the “heartbeat” of your organisation to overcome the current challenges.

7. Gauge preferred communication channels

Be aware what communication channels your people prefer and test if they’re conducive to the current situation. Video channels, where your people can see and hear you speak, seem to be trumping emails and intranet. Decide what subjects should be communication through which medium. 

8. Humanise remote work environments

To boost morale, change behaviours and maintain team collaboration by setting up virtual coffee sessions, sundowner virtual gatherings or fun quiz competitions. Humanise it by including kids, pets, etc., as many people miss face-to-face connection through phsyical distancing. For example, check out what Spotify is doing through reinforcing their values and prioritising wellbeing. 

9. Remember, you don’t need to have all the answers

There’s no rulebook and you might not have all the answers. (For example, we’re witnessing company announcements, such as from Edcon, who admitted having limited liquidity.) Leaders need to be transparent, authentic and brutally honest when communicating with your people. You’ll gain far more support and understanding through honesty and transparent vulnerability. 

10. Consider cost-cutting measures

News articles are highlighting how organisations are taking cost-cutting initiatives to maintain business stability without haemorrhaging layoffs (for example, initiatives from big brands such as Macy’s and Gap).These include:

• Requesting employees to take an unpaid leave of absence (the most common measure companies are pursuing). Reframe the stigma attached to unpaid leave by referring to it as a sabbatical
• Revising compensation structure and delaying increments (freezing salary-increases, bonuses, overtime, payments into other funds)
• Encouraging employees to seek part-time jobs to supplement their income
• Implementing short work weeks to save costs
• Leveraging training opportunities 
• Identifying and optimising eager talent who are ready to step into new job roles and projects
• Creating a time bank where employees are paid for working reduced hours, but agreeing these hours will be utilised in the future;
• Implementing executive or leadership pay cuts and wage freezes to reallocate cash flow to prevent layoffs. 
• Seeking government support.

Covid-19 has accelerated and shaped the new world of work. Many thought leaders have predicted we won’t return to our normal working environments. This will fundamentally shift how we position our employer brands and value propositions as we look towards the future and attract different roles and skillset (which we’re already witnessing via Glassdoor). We’ll need to revise our current workplace environment to engage and interact with our people differently and endeavour to retain loyal team members who have stuck by our sides as we navigate these extraordinary times. 

Celeste Sirin is the Managing Director of Employer Branding South Africa, a consultancy that focuses on assisting companies to build and market their employer brands in order to attract, engage and retain talent. Having worked within the recruitment industry for many years, running her own recruitment marketing and response management agency, she has first-hand recruiter knowledge, having to recruit best-in-class talent across various industries. A recent contract saw Celeste engaged with the SA Team of Universum Global, a data-led employer brand research company, in sales, facilitation and marketing to national and multinational key accounts.

Celeste’s mission lies in defining and driving the essence of employer branding and the fundamental importance of companies adopting it as a business imperative.

The post 10 tips for using your employer brand compass to navigate uncertain times appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

To help you better manage your remote employees, we’ve gathered our top four tips on how you can improve your remote working arrangements for everyone involved. 

1. Communicate clearly and more often 

One of the biggest downfalls of managing remote employees is the lack of communication. Without the in-person interactions we often have in an office setting, it can be difficult to find time to effectively communicate with your employees or share relevant information with them promptly. So to combat this, make sure to set up at least weekly catch-ups with your entire team, and one-on-ones with each of your employees. 

But, if you have important updates or information to share with your team, don’t wait until your next catch-up or one-on-one. Just as you would pull your team into a quick meeting in the office, message your employees to see if they are available for a brief video conference. Keeping your team informed and in the loop as much as possible will be greatly appreciated by your employees and help them stay motivated and excited about their work, especially during a challenging time.

2. Make sure everyone is aware of what is expected from them

It’s important to remember that working from home can mean different things to different people. While some may choose to work the same hours they normally would in the office, others may want to work different hours, such as starting later in the day and ending later, or vice versa. If your remote working arrangements are open to flexibility, let your employees know that they can adjust their working schedule if needed, but that they need to inform you of their new hours. But, if you need your employees to be online during specific hours, make sure they are aware of that. By being clear and upfront with your employees about what is expected from them while they work from home, you can avoid any misunderstandings which could cause extra stress or anxiety for your team. 

3. Set clear boundaries 

When working from home, it can be difficult to separate your work life from your home life—especially if you live in an apartment or don’t have a home office. For this reason, it’s important to set clear boundaries with your employees about when they can and cannot reach out to you, and vice versa, ask them to also let you know what times of the day they are available. Make sure both you and the rest of your team adhere to these, meaning avoid message your team or schedule any meetings outside of their working hours and discourage others from doing so. Without having clear boundaries with your colleagues and employees, you could find yourself working or being online all day every day, which can lead to you burning out.

On the other hand, it’s also important to set clear boundaries with your partner, kids, roommates, and other family members you may be living with. Let them know that even though you are home, during your working hours you will be busy and should not be disrupted for casual chitchat – natural as that may feel in a household setting. It can also be helpful to avoid doing any household chores during your work hours. Try to keep your work and home life as separate as possible to ensure both you and your employees are getting the most out of your remote working arrangements. 

4. Encourage non-work-related virtual interactions

Working from home for an extended period of time can be a challenging transition, especially for your employees who have never worked remotely, or only did so occasionally. Today, this is further compounded by an increasingly stressful and uncertain global climate. To help keep your team motivated, try and schedule some non-work related virtual interactions. Things like a weekly virtual get-together for lunch where teams can discuss favourite movies or T.V. shows they’re binging at the moment, a monthly virtual happy hour, or even taking a virtual meditation or yoga class together could help keep your team’s spirit and morale up. 

There’s no doubt that working from home can bring many benefits to your health, career and work-life balance. But suddenly finding yourself in a remote working situation can leave employees and employers feeling a little lost and unmotivated. To help both you and your team transition into a remote working environment, make sure to implement these four tips to ensure you are getting the most out of your employees, even when they are not in the office. 

With more than 15 years of experience in the recruitment industry, Jay Munro has worked in a variety of roles in agencies and job boards, from consulting and recruiting, through to leading the product development of new sourcing technologies. As an Employer Insights Strategist with the Indeed Employer Insights Team, Jay pairs platform data with industry trend analysis to share Indeed’s story and bring the value of the company’s programs and solutions to life.

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The pandemic has forced the world’s largest work from home experiment, with many employees experiencing remote working for the first time. In this time of uncertainty, it is more important than ever for HR professionals to lead the charge in keeping employees engaged, informed and supported. 

Research shows that business leaders and managers have a critical role to play in employee engagement, with 80 per cent of HR professionals linking trust in leaders to engagement. Keeping teams engaged as we navigate this new way of working should be at the top of every organisation’s agenda. Employees working remotely will be relying on their business leaders and managers to provide security and stability, and to keep them focused on the organisation’s most critical priorities. 

Here are three tips to ensure employees feel engaged and connected to your business as they work remotely.

Maintain clear and regular communications between leaders and teams

A recent study shows three in four people globally are worried about ‘fake news’ and the spread of false information relating to COVID-19. Employees increasingly rely on their employers for trustworthy guidance and information. 63 per cent of global employees believe information they receive from their employers after one or two exposures to the information, compared to 58 per cent from government and 51 per cent from media. 

In addition to fulfilling people’s need for credible information, maintaining clear and consistent communications with employees can go a long way towards ensuring they feel supported and connected to your organisation’s culture.

In times of change and uncertainty, checking in with your people once or twice a day is a great start. Check-ins can take different forms, such as direct messages, emails or video chats, but aim to have at least one connection a day via video. The benefit of video conferencing is that you have both verbal and non-verbal opportunities to communicate with your colleagues – and it’s as close to an in-person interaction as you can get. These video catch ups don’t have to be formal: personal check-ins are just as important as structured meetings, and can help strengthen the ties between team members in what can be an isolating time. 

Leaders have a vital role to play in managing remote teams, and HR teams should support them as they look to navigate this complex transition. Remember that this new way of working is likely new to leaders as well, and they will look to HR teams for support and guidance on how they can keep team members engaged. Aside from daily check-ins at a team-level, consider weekly virtual all-company updates to keep people connected to the organisation and informed on the latest developments. 

Keep learning and development on your radar

With many businesses focused on moving forward in the wake of COVID-19, things like learning, development and performance management tend to get deprioritised. But learning and development initiatives are effective ways of keeping employees engaged and connected to their organisation.  Providing learning opportunities and setting up regular development conversations with managers will help employees feel valued and reassured that they can continue to develop and grow within your organisation.  

Consider learning apps that can be accessed on mobile and web, so employees can proactively stay on top of their own learning and development remotely. You can push out new learning and upskilling opportunities so employees can continue their career development even from home. Share links to online learning modules on a regular basis so employees are aware of the avenues available for them to improve their skills or learn new ones relevant now and into the future. 

Make flexible onboarding seamless for new starters

This is an unprecedented time for all of us, but it can be even more daunting for new starters. Joining a new workplace remotely means that new hires do not have the opportunity to connect in-person with colleagues, develop relationships easily or understand the dynamics of their new workplace.

As new starters navigate this situation, it’s important to ensure their onboarding experience is as seamless and positive as it can be. Effectively onboarding new starters virtually is key for them to prepare for their first few weeks remotely. Consider sharing pre-onboarding activities in the week before new joiners are due to start so they can prepare themselves for the journey ahead.

The first day of any new job is challenging, but you can help make sure it goes smoothly. Develop a schedule for their first week that ensures they are introduced to the right people and teams to start building relationships. New hires can feel lost during their first week in a role and not sure of what to do next. Sharing a schedule will help them navigate their first week without having to rely too heavily on their managers and team for direction.  

The onboarding experience should also set clear expectations. This is unchartered territory, and they will likely have a number of questions about how COVID-19 will impact their role and the businesses’ expectations of them. Engage with them frequently so you can provide guidance and manage expectations in real-time. This type of proactive support will show new hires you value and take care of your people, even in challenging situations. 

This pandemic will not last forever, and how you support employees through the coming weeks and months will have a big impact on their perceptions of, and loyalty towards your organisation in the future. Implementing these simple tips to keep your team engaged will pay off in the long run. 

As the Head of HR at PageUp, Chelsie Hastings draws on over a decade of experience in strategic talent management across a range of leading organisations.

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