Keep Your Onboarding Process Relevant and Worthwhile

Effective onboarding is a crucial tool to ensure that new employees feel like part of your business and fully understand your company culture. The ability to introduce new hires to your organization, make them productive and effective in the shortest possible time – and retain them – is an essential business priority with key bottom-line implications.

Retention Starts Here

Research has shown that 90 percent of new hires decide whether or not to stay at a company within their first six months of employment.

• Successful onboarding is especially important in 2015. The economy is rolling along again, and the talent war has reached new competitive heights. Millennials this year became the largest segment of the U.S. workforce population – and they demand engagement, challenge, guidance and inspiration from day one on their new jobs.
• Onboarding is different than orientation. Orientation encompasses the administrative functions of new employment, such as signing up for benefits, understanding payroll, and getting an ID badge and a parking pass. Onboarding, by contrast, has a business impact and results perspective. It should include everything a new hire needs to reach minimum expected productivity and become a valued business contributor.

Benefits of Effective Onboarding

A positive onboarding experience engages people in your company as quickly as possible, assuring that they are completely comfortable in their new roles. Among the benefits of a well-designed onboarding program are:

• A solid ROI. Businesses with a structured onboarding program enjoy a 60 percent year-over-year improvement in revenue per full-time employee, and a 63 percent improvement in customer satisfaction.
• Higher engagement levels. Onboarding should ensure that new team members are fully connected to organizational culture. This results in lower turnover, at a fraction of the cost of recruitment and rehiring.
• Brand enhancement. Value is added to your brand and your employer value proposition via a more motivated workforce. New hires who rave about their onboarding will do so via social media and other networks, and your positive message will quickly spread.
• Better customer service. In the long run, well-structured onboarding improves the customer experience because your employees are more effective in their roles.

How to Be Best in Class

One industry study classified companies as best in class for onboarding if 89 percent or more of their new hires rated themselves as highly engaged, 87 percent succeeded in reaching their initial performance milestones, and 67 percent achieved “exceed” ratings in their first performance reviews. Common denominators among these employers were:

• Formal processes to ensure that all new employees clearly understood what was expected of them, as well as similar processes to ensure dialogue and feedback.
• Assurance that new hires arrived at work ready to be productive, starting from day one.
• Attribution of changes in profitability directly to onboarding.

Your onboarding framework should balance the latest technology with face-to-face interaction. From social media to gaming and eLearning solutions, enhance content delivery electronically in order to reach a broader group of individuals, as well as target audiences as needed. Familiarize new hires with your corporate website, intranet and other electronic tools. But don’t rely too heavily on computer-facing activities. A basic premise of your program should be a group classroom setting so people can personally get to know one another. Add a virtual element if necessary due to geographic issues, but keep it personal.

The recruitment and hiring experts at PrideStaff Fresno can help you design and implement a world-class onboarding program to make your employees feel valued right from the start. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.

3 Time Management Hacks to Improve Productivity

One of the most important keys to becoming more productive is mastering a few successful time management hacks. Not only will they help you reach your goals and complete your tasks more efficiently, they’ll also bolster your self-confidence and, if you lead others, enhance team morale and performance.

Organize

Every minute spent planning and organizing saves you 10 minutes in execution. Try to see ahead and strategize your every move. Remember, time is a priceless and finite resource.

• Know your goals and organize them according to their value. Do you have too many goals? You only need one or two for each primary area of your life: work or business, health, finances, family, etc.
• Make a master list of all the tasks you need to do to complete each goal. Be selective. When each day starts, you will instantly know what you should be working on. You also may want to make a “don’t do” list where you write down the bad habits that devour time and prevent you from completing priority tasks. For instance: “Do not check email five times a day” or “Do not scan Facebook when you should be completing a sales report.”

Prioritize

You’ve documented your goals. Now, prioritize the tasks that will lead you to achieving them. Determine your highest value goal and work on an important task for that goal first.

• Know your number one priority in each moment. This may change with unexpected developments, but by and large, you can plan it first thing in the morning or last thing the night before. Choose your top tasks for the day and work on them in order of priority.
• Know what your time is worth. Set a dollar value on every task. What is an hour of your time worth? Keep a log so you know where the time is going. Eliminate useless activities.

Delegate

You don’t have to do everything yourself. Bite the bullet, take the risk, and share the load. In doing so, develop your employees’ skills, abilities and morale. Given your vote of confidence, they may very well surprise you. Effective delegation:

• Frees up time for organizing, planning and prioritizing.
• Keeps you from spreading yourself too thin.
• Stimulates creativity and initiative.
• Encourages open communication and trust, thus poising your entire team for success.

Contact the workforce development experts at PrideStaff Fresno for more tips on improving time management for yourself and your team. Read our related posts or contact us today.

Careful What You Tweet!

Your online presence is a representation of who you are. It’s important to consider what yours says about you – especially when job hunting.

While Twitter can help a job search, the opposite also is true: a single insensitive tweet can derail all your best efforts. Unacceptable usage may cause recruiters, prospective employers and professional contacts to shun you, rather than seek you out.

While some Facebook posts are private, the same cannot be said for tweets, unless you have a private account and diligently monitor who you add. And, posts are archived. So even if you delete them, they may still show up on a cached search.

Self-censoring your tweets may be a bit painful at first, but once you start, you’ll soon realize how critically important it is.

Rules of Thumb

When it comes to Twitter and other social networking sites, during your job search, follow these tips:

• Always be professional. No drunk pictures, sleazy posts or overt sharing of negative opinions. Do not use your Twitter feeds as a forum to vent about everything from previous coworkers to your disillusionment with your current job hunt. You may think you’re tweeting only to your specific followers, but the very nature of Twitter is public discourse. Speaking negatively of anyone suggests an attitude problem, which can get you screened out of opportunities before you ever get a foot in the door.
• Think before you post. Before you tweet or retweet, stop and ask yourself: What would a potential employer think of this? If the answer is less than sterling, don’t do it. If in doubt, use the “Thanksgiving Rule.” If you shared this topic at Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s house, would it cause discord among the guests? If so, don’t tweet it.
• Never bash former employers. From an employer’s point of view, if you’ve spoken badly about another person or company, what might you post about them someday? By the way, the same rule applies in your job interview.
• Treat everyone with respect. No flaming tweets, no nasty retweet comments, and no derogatory language – even among your closest friends. Remember: others may not “get it.” All they’ll see is what you posted, on a very literal level.
• Avoid controversy. While you may feel passionate about subjects like politics or religion, tweets expressing ideas that may draw a heavy emotional response or create polarized dialogue are best avoided.

Consider working with the team at PrideStaff Fresno for access to a wide spectrum of positions, as well as the resources and tips you need to succeed in your job search. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.

Developing a Success Path for Your New Hires

An essential factor in edging out your competition is hiring and retaining the best talent. A recent Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study showed that when asked why they would look elsewhere for work, 35 percent of employees said it was because they were dissatisfied with their current career paths. Thirty-two percent reported that they needed a different experience with new challenges.

Many candidates will not even consider employment with a company unless it offers career development as a basic component of its culture. As an employer, it behooves you to begin establishing a career development partnership with your team members as soon as you begin to court them for employment.

The Benefits of Employee Success Plans

One of the main reasons employees stay with an organization is because they have formed strong connections to others there. Leaving would mean separating from a network of professionals with whom they have formed solid bonds. Employees become embedded in a company’s culture – and vice versa.

Clearly defined employee success plans:

• Help attract the best talent. While many companies focus on salary and benefits packages, the strategic leaders know they need to offer more. Especially among millennials, who soon will dominate the global workforce, many candidates care as much or more about potential advancement as they do financial compensation.
• Enhance your employer value proposition. Build your company reputation as a place where people can grow. Your employees are your biggest brand ambassadors – as long as they’re fulfilled and satisfied. Creating a positive work environment with strong advancement potential will not only keep current employees happy, but incite them to spread the word.

How to Create Career Development Plans

In order to succeed in formulating new hire success plans, you must grasp and nurture your employees’ point of view. With this insight, you can partner with them so they achieve their career goals and your business also emerges a winner.

• Provide multiple opportunities for growth. In addition to the best in training, consider a company mentoring program. This will demonstrate your commitment to employee development, while providing the knowledge and guidance needed to achieve that growth.
• Optimize your employee review process. It’s about more than just annual performance reviews, though those are excellent forums for discussing career paths. Make the connection between employee and company needs part of your ongoing dialogue, in order to minimize unpleasant surprises and make adjustments as needed.
• Have current, detailed job descriptions. Well-defined job descriptions will help facilitate effective recruiting ads, which will draw the right candidates. In addition, they will keep employees clear and focused on what is expected of them.

Having career success paths in place shows candidates and team members that you value them, both now and when you share a vision of what they might be able to offer your organization down the line. If you need further guidance or assistance in developing your employee development strategy or setting up a success path for new hires, read our related posts or contact PrideStaff Fresno today.

The Stress of Interview Negotiations: Should You Just Accept the First Job Offer?

The good news is: You got the job! The bad news is: You’re uncertain about accepting it.

Your feelings of elation and success may quickly dissipate if the position doesn’t turn out to be right for you – and you wind up back on the job search in a matter of months. This can label you as a job hopper, undermine your self-confidence, and derail your overall career progress.

Think It Through

It’s important to complete a thoughtful analysis of what your life will look like whether or not you accept the first job offer you’ve been given.

• Examine your motivations. Why are you changing jobs or careers? Define what you’re moving toward and/or away from. Clarify what you want more or less of, before making a decision on your next step.
• Paint a clear picture of your target job. Outline all its key characteristics. How will your life improve as a result of finding it – and how important is this difference to you?
• Compare the offer to your criteria. See how it stacks up against what you’ve deemed important. Consider how much financial pressure you’re under to accept – but don’t let this cloud your final decision to the point where accepting would make you miserable.
• Analyze the opportunity on its own merit. Is this a company that you really, really want to work for? Does the culture seem like a good fit? You’ll be spending a large percentage of your waking time at your job, so going there every day must be something you can look forward to with optimism.

To Accept or Not to Accept

There is no single magic formula to tell you whether or not you should accept a job offer. But there are some general rules of thumb. Consider accepting an offer when:

• Family and/or financial circumstances require it and you don’t see an alternative.
• You can gain something substantial from the experience and it moves you closer to your goals.
• You’re confident you can succeed.
• The opportunity is in a promising new area or puts you in the orbit of key contacts and influential leaders.

Consider rejecting it when:

• You have the financial means to hold out a bit longer.
• You’re confident in your job search plan and can honestly sense that it’s just a matter of time before you land your job of first choice.
• Accepting the position could potentially take a toll on you emotionally or physically.
• You sense a bad fit with the job, the people, or your values. Do not ignore these feelings.

Ultimately, listen to your gut. Then move forward purposefully and accept the bad with the good.

If You Decide to Decline

Saying “no” can be difficult and complicated. A lot goes into generating an offer. People have invested their time and may even have gone to bat for you. You don’t want them to think you’ve strung them along for nothing. But if you realize during the interview process that there’s a good chance you won’t accept, let the hiring manager know. Don’t prolong things or accept just for the sake of your ego.

If you’re unsure, continue the process. Express your concerns and dislikes along the way. This will keep dialogue open and could possibly help shape the final offer in your favor.

If you need additional tips or assistance, consider working with a professional recruiter from PrideStaff Fresno. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.

Becoming an Effective Online Networker

Effective use of social media sites is a key part of your job search strategy. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, the three most popular platforms, offer you valuable opportunities to introduce yourself to potential employers and recruiters, and showcase your value to companies.

LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn has more than 1.5 million groups, of which you can join up to 50. Joining and participating in those most relevant to your desired career path is far more effective than simply posting your resume on to job boards. Benefits include:

• Free InMail: When you join a LinkedIn group, you can message with other member free of charge, versus expensive InMail communications.
• You distinguish yourself: Your participation in group discussions adds to your personal and professional brand, showcases your expertise, and enhances your search rankings and visibility with employers. Statistics show that LinkedIn group participants get four times more profile views than those who are not active in groups.
• You build your competitive advantage in the job search world: Hundreds of companies post job openings in LinkedIn groups. Both in-house and outside recruiters search them for thought leaders and people with clear expertise in specific fields and skill sets.

To find LinkedIn groups, go to the Search bar at the top of your home page. Type in your specialty area and click on the groups that relate to the result. When you find a group you like, click the Join button.

Facebook Groups

By using features like the Facebook search function, reaching out to friends about possible career opportunities and announcing your availability, you can benefit from Facebook – and especially Facebook groups – in your job hunt.

• Facebook remain the world’s largest social media site. You can join different groups according to your education, experience, industry or personal interests. This lets you follow along with discussions, and grow your network with others.

Join a Facebook group by going to it and then clicking Join Group in the top right corner. You also can join any public group that you see on the About page of someone’s profile by clicking Join. You may have to wait for a group administrator to approve your request.

Twitter Chats

Participants in Twitter chats use and follow specific hashtags that allow everyone – not just the people who follow them – to see their contributions. Tools such as Tweetchat, TweetGrid and HootSuite allow for easier hashtag following. You can use searchtwitter.com to follow a hashtag after a chat, and review ideas, links and conversations at a more leisurely pace. Additional benefits include:

• Connections: You can add people to your professional network and create mutually beneficial relationships. Networking is still one of the most effective ways to land a job.
• Advice: You can submit questions for experts to answer during chats. Because chats happen in real time, you can ask for clarification or specific tactics to go along with their advice.
• Visibility: When you regularly participate in chats, other regulars take notice of you. Among them are employers who see that you’re serious about your job search.

Let your Twitter followers know that they’ll be hearing from you as you join a chat. Add the chat hashtag to your tweets, or use Tweetchat, so participants can find your message in the conversation. Popular Twitter chats for job hunting include #Jobhuntchat, #HFChat and #careerchat.

For additional guidance in your job search – via traditional and social media methods – read our related posts or contact the specialized recruiters at PrideStaff Fresno today.

Are You Pushing Top Talent Out the Door?

You feel as though you’re doing everything right when it comes to retaining your best talent. You treat your employees well, you offer competitive salaries, and job security remains high. And yet, you just had another resignation letter cross your desk.

What’s going on?

In the eyes of your top performers, what seems like a perfect employment picture to you may actually be perceived in a negative light, for a number of reasons:

• They see no opportunity to advance within your company. As crazy as it sounds, your retention rate may appear to be too high. Ambitious employees could take this to mean that you never fire anyone. Be sure you make it clear that as you maintain that 95 percent rate, you also provide plenty of chances for deserving team members to grow their careers.
• They feel that irrational precedents drive your talent decisions. If one of your policies is that “if we offer this job to Mary, then we have to offer it to everyone else on her team,” this could become a crippling factor implying that you take fairness too far. Your best performers will feel that their opportunities are no different than anyone else’s.
• Boredom sets in. Top talent wants to be challenged. If you’ve allowed your organization to hit a plateau where innovation is less critical than consistency and reliability, you may not be offering venues for creative thinking. “Business as usual” can become boring, often sooner than later.

How to Keep Your Best Employees

Retaining top talent is about more than just money. To stay ahead of the curve, get to know what’s on an individual employee’s mind. Learn their likes, dislikes, passions and aspirations. Be continually open to change and constantly mindful of growth opportunities for those you want to retain. Last but not least, reward and recognize appropriate to contributions made.

• Hold “stay interviews.” This is not the same as a performance review. It is a conversation specifically designed to communicate your company vision and the role an employee plays in bringing it to life. Nothing makes a bigger impact on an up-and-coming leader than face time with a senior executive, talking about their future together.
• Embrace change. For someone with big career plans, change is an important, invigorating experience. This requires you, as a leader, to manufacture change on the right occasions. It shouldn’t be difficult: The best businesses thrive as a result.
• Offer choices. A-level talent should have options that are not available to the rank and file. This conveys your trust and confidence in them, as well as the idea that you truly value their contributions. For example, allow a high performer to work from home one day a week if it means they achieve the desired work/life balance.
• Recognition matters. In a recent employee survey, 81 percent of respondents said appreciation by their manager made them work harder – and 55 percent said they would consider leaving their company to work for an employer who clearly recognized their contributions. Everyone needs to feel appreciated.

The recruitment professionals at PrideStaff Fresno can help you source, hire, develop and retain top performing employees and take the lead in today’s competitive talent war. To learn more, contact us today.

Instilling a Company Culture of Knowledge Sharing

When your employees openly share their knowledge, your entire organization becomes more collaborative and powerful. This sharing can take many forms, from verbal and digital conversation to explicitly sending data to providing access to information created by others. As a result, more knowledge is disseminated and reused. This leads to more informed decisions, greater business agility and enhanced value creation.

Don’t let knowledge just sit there, with no return being generated from it. Here’s how you can design a company culture culture that will more readily collaborate and share, regardless of where your information is currently stored or curated.

Stress the Importance of Sharing

Workers must know the value of sharing the right information with the right people at the right time. Give them a cause-and-effect analysis of conveying information as needed.

• Foster a mindset that sharing is power. Individuals who are unable to see the need to share within the company are not the most appropriate persons to incorporate into your knowledge-sharing team. On the other hand, provide appropriate rewards for those who do it well.

Promote Trust

Trust is one of the most crucial elements behind a solid knowledge-sharing culture.

• Trust employees to think. People rarely take information at face value, if they understand the consequences of using the wrong material or they know that it has not been vetted. Furthermore, peers trust peers and value their content, so bottom-up messaging is often perceived as more valuable than top-down.
• Avoid knowledge hoarding. If only portions of an organization’s knowledge are reused or there is a lack of trust among co-workers, the result is knowledge hoarding. Information that is in the hands of only a few individuals can be dangerous, as they become overly powerful and may unduly influence decisions made by top management.

Beware of Information Overload

Information overload can hinder a knowledge-sharing culture. With the enormous amount of data flowing into a company, and the limited number of hours in a day, there’s only so much information an individual can disseminate. If this becomes a threat, you may need to readjust your approach and begin filtering information on the basis of keywords.

• Ensure relevance. Be sure information that is shared will help employees assist customers, build a better product, or close a big deal. Encourage crowd curation, communicating the reasons for employee and community contributions to participation. Users are more likely to take part when they know that they also benefit from the efforts of others. Identify content that should be officially curated due to popularity, and learn what information is missing, based on employee feedback.

Have the Right Tools

Team members must have the most effective tools to deliver content within the company. Listen to the needs of your knowledge workers, and evaluate what is needed to transform them into an efficient unit. Find the best tools for the long term, and train personnel to use them to consistently execute their sharing tasks.

The recruitment and workforce development experts at PrideStaff Fresno can partner with you as you build your knowledge-sharing culture – and establish the industry-leading team you need for today and tomorrow. Contact us to learn more.

Define Yourself with Your Personal Online Brand

The term “branding” historically has applied to companies, but today, virtually everyone has a personal brand. You may not have discovered yours yet, but chances are it exists nonetheless.

According to one recent study, 92 percent of children under the age of two already have digital footprints. Seriously! The question is no longer whether or not you have a brand, but how well you choose to direct it and let it be defined to your benefit.

In today’s information-rich and real-time publishing world, when you put anything online, you are disseminating your message to the world. By default, you are promoting your personal brand. The Web, by definition, spreads and grows, connecting computers and people on a global scale. For instance, once a comment you make is in digital format, privacy is gone. The opportunities for distribution are limitless and your content can be found, theoretically, forever.

Are you listening now?

Here are some tips for optimizing your personal online brand:

Know Yourself – Then Build Your Brand

Your personal brand reflects you, so you cannot brand yourself unless you know yourself. Conduct a realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your passions and the skills you have mastered or are striving to master. Build your brand from this foundation.

• If you have a unique name, make it your domain name. Otherwise, create one. Buy the domain name that corresponds to your brand name and secure the Facebook page and Twitter and Google+ accounts. With LinkedIn, you’ll use your actual name, so put your brand name prominently in your profile. If your preferred name is already owned, create a different one.
• Build a website for your domain. It’s easier than you think and it doesn’t have to be extensive. It can be a simple two to three page site with your resume, links to your social platforms and a brief bio. You can always expand on it in time. WordPress is the de facto standard.
• Audit your online presence. Google yourself and set up alerts for your name on a regular basis. Cultivating a strong brand is just as much about being responsive to what’s being said as it is about creating intellectual property.

Share Valuable Content

Share helpful tips, relevant news and developments, and personal updates that add connections and build relationships.

• Get feedback from trusted sources. The advice and encouragement of others helps keep your brand development on target. Turn to colleagues and friends who can objectively assess your ongoing efforts and act as informed sounding boards.
• Associate with other strong brands. Your personal brand is strengthened or weakened by your link to other brands. Leverage the strongest ones, starting with your company, colleges and universities you have attended, and your professional colleagues.

Optimizing your personal online brand is a critical job-search tactic – one of many that you need to master as you search for the job you’ve been waiting for. For additional tools, resources, contacts and expertise, consider partnering with a recruiter from PrideStaff Fresno. We can help you achieve your career goals, now and in the long term. Read our related posts or contact us to learn more.

Onboarding New Employees Has to Be a Top Priority

You invest a great deal of time, money and effort into hiring the best talent. Once you’ve closed the deal, make sure you do all you can to set your new hires up for success in their roles.

Onboarding is not the same thing as orientation. It’s much more than filling out documents, taking a tour, and sitting through training before being tossed into your job and hoping to land on both feet. Successful onboarding introduces new hires to the most important aspects of your business: your values, your culture and your people.

Onboarding should be an opportunity for your new employees to:

• Become truly comfortable in their jobs and understand how their contributions impact business success.
• Learn which behaviors, as well as outcomes, are expected of them.

The Value of Good Onboarding

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) recently reported that organizations with engaging onboarding programs retained 91 percent of their first-year employees. New hires who completed a well-structured onboarding program are 69 percent more likely to stay at a company longer than three years.

In a related study, it was proven that efficient onboarding programs resulted in:

• 60 percent year-over-year revenue improvements.
• 63 percent year-over-year customer satisfaction improvements.

New employees need good onboarding because it provides:

• A learning curve: New hires are given the ins and outs of your work environment and culture.
• Feedback: Good feedback is a priceless motivator. If a new employee is left to fend for themselves, not knowing whether or not they are performing well, they may become disengaged or worse yet, leave.
• Socialization: Peers play a huge part in employee engagement. Being the new kid on the block can be stressful and isolating. If you make an effort to introduce new hires into their work community, they will settle in more quickly. The sooner they feel comfortable, the quicker they begin interacting with their colleagues.

Making it Happen

Follow these steps to implement an effective onboarding process:

• Be prepared and welcoming. Have every new hire’s workstation fully equipped, set up and operational before they arrive on day one. This includes their phones, computers, emails, buildings and facilities access, and everything right down to their parking passes. This shows not only that you are well organized, but also that you truly care about them and their introduction.
• Avoid information overload. There’s a lot for a new employee to absorb. Ease them into the necessary information and throw in some hands-on opportunities so they get a good grasp on it. Have them complete at least one work-related task the first day, however simple. This way, they’ll go home with feelings of accomplishment and inclusion. Moreover, they will have made an impact.
• Provide a greeter. Have someone meet new hires at the door, greet them and show them around. You may want to take this a step further and assign them a mentor, who will provide in-depth and inside knowledge that they couldn’t get on their own. SHRM research has proven that new hires with mentors become more knowledgeable than their counterparts and are more likely to embrace the key values and culture of their organizations.

For additional resources and tips to effectively source, hire, onboard and retain top talent, consider partnering with a specialized recruiter from Pridestaff Fresno. Read our related posts or contact us today to learn more.