Understanding Candidate Experience

Candidate experience is the total interactions a job seeker has with a potential employer during the recruitment process. The job posting, application procedure, interview, and onboarding are a few examples of these interactions. Better candidate engagement, higher job acceptance rates, and higher retention rates can all be attributed to a good candidate experience. On the other hand, a poor candidate experience can harm the business’s reputation, cut down on the pool of potential candidates, and raise the cost per hiring.

The Benefits of Candidate Experience Surveys

Candidate experience surveys can provide insightful criticism on the hiring process. They allow companies to understand how candidates perceive the hiring process, pinpoint areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. Some advantages of conducting candidate experience surveys include:

1. Improved Candidate Experience

Candidates have the chance to express their thoughts, worries, and suggestions through candidate experience surveys. Companies may improve the hiring process and make adjustments that have a positive effect on candidates’ experiences by paying attention to input from candidates.

2. Better Hiring Decisions

Candidate perceptions of the hiring process, including the degree of communication, the clarity of the job requirements, and the overall hiring experience, can be revealed by candidate experience surveys. This data can assist businesses in making data-driven decisions to enhance the recruiting and recruitment processes.

3. Increased Employer Branding

Companies can build their image and recruit top talent by giving the candidate experience high priority and performing candidate experience surveys. Positive experiences increase a candidate’s propensity to suggest the business to others, apply for subsequent job openings, and post favourable recommendations on social media and employer review websites.

Also read: Candidate Engagement Best Practices: 9 Tips to Boost Employer Branding

Conducting Candidate Experience Surveys

When conducting candidate experience surveys, companies should consider the following tips:

1. Keep Surveys Short and Simple

Candidates are busy, so it is essential to keep the survey short and simple. The most important elements of the hiring process, such as communication, job specifications, and the overall candidate experience, should be the focus of surveys.

2. Use a Variety of Survey Methods

Companies should use a variety of survey methods to reach candidates, such as email, text message, or phone call. Increase response rates and get a more complete picture of candidates’ experiences by using various survey techniques.

3. Analyse the Data and Take Action

Companies should study the data and act on the comments they obtain after conducting applicant experience surveys. This can entail modifying the application process, responding to certain concerns expressed by candidates, and informing applicants of the modifications.

Sample Candidate Engagement Survey

Dear [New Hire],

We hope that you are settling in well and enjoying your time at [Company Name]. To ensure that we are providing the best possible experience for our employees, we would appreciate your feedback on your onboarding and overall candidate experience.

Please take a few minutes to complete the following survey. Your responses will help us to improve our processes and make necessary adjustments to enhance the experience for future hires.

1. How would you rate the onboarding process at [Company Name]?

• Excellent
• Good
• Average
• Poor

2. Did you feel well-informed about your role and responsibilities prior to your start date?

• Yes, completely
• Somewhat
• No, not at all

3. How would you rate the communication you received during the onboarding process?

• Excellent
• Good
• Average
• Poor

4. Did you receive adequate training for your role?

• Yes, completely
• Somewhat
• No, not at all

5. How would you rate the level of support you received from your manager during your first few weeks?

• Excellent
• Good
• Average
• Poor

6. Have you had the opportunity to meet with members of your team and other departments?

• Yes, completely
• Somewhat
• No, not at all

7. Overall, how would you rate your candidate experience with [Company Name]?

• Excellent
• Good
• Average
• Poor

8. Would you recommend [Company Name] as a place to work to your friends and family?

• Yes
• No

Thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. Your opinions are important to us, and we value your input. If you have any additional comments or suggestions, please feel free to include them in the space provided below.

Sincerely,

[Company Name]

Conclusion

Candidate experience surveys can provide valuable feedback and help companies improve the hiring process. By prioritising candidate experience and conducting surveys, companies can gain insights into how candidates perceive the recruitment process, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. Improving candidate experience can lead to better candidate engagement, increased job acceptance rates, and higher retention rates, making it a vital aspect of the hiring process.

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How to keep candidates engaged after an offer?

If you are facing high candidate dropouts, then improving your candidate engagement strategies can help you boost your hiring success rate.

What is candidate engagement?

Candidate engagement is a process that involves multiple tasks that will help companies build and foster a positive and delightful relationship between the candidate and the employer during the hiring process. It will help you create a lasting candidate experience that is engaging, informative, and supportive throughout the entire recruitment process.

Candidate engagement starts from the moment a candidate expresses their interest in a role you are offering. It continues throughout the entire hiring process, including the application process, interview stages, offer negotiation, and onboarding.

6 Tips to Keep Candidates Engaged Post-offer

1. Automated engagement templates after accepting offer:

Engagement templates are pre-configured email, text, or voice call templates to interact with the candidate once they sent you the acceptance letter. For example: Calling the candidate to congratulate and show excitement for accepting the offer.

2. Create touch points based on notice period: 

Based on the roles of candidates, they may have serve notice periods between two weeks to three months. These days are crucial for engagement as it gives them a window to shop for other offers. In order to minimise drop out during this period, create touchpoints to interact with the candidate via call, text and email. Touchpoints can be anywhere from 2 – 18 touchpoints. This will keep the candidate engaged and build a good relationship with the company even before their first day.

3. Assign a candidate engagement specialist:

In large companies where hiring is a continuous process, it is good to have an engagement specialist who solely focuses on improving candidate experience. HRs and Talent acquisition teams have their plates full with daily operations and they may not be able to engage with the candidates properly. If you don’t have the budget to hire a candidate engagement specialist, then outsource it to a company that specialises in candidate engagement and experience.

“HireLoop Assigns Dedicated Engagement Specialists to Improve Candidate Engagement Scores and Reduce Dropouts. Book a Demo Now!”

4. Provide quick replies to queries:

While serving the notice, candidates may have tonnes of queries that they need answers for. For hiring managers this can get mundane and boring as everyone has the same questions. In such cases, it is better to have a chatbot that replies to their queries anytime. This will improve the candidate experience significantly.

5. Enquire about counter offers:

While making touchpoints, include talks related to counter offers and offers from other companies. Get as much information as possible to understand if the candidate is planning to consider any other offers. This will give you a chance to proactively come up with alternative strategies to try and keep the candidate from considering your company from others.

6. Provide assistance for relocation/WFH: 

Many employees may have to relocate to a new location to take up the job. For some, it can be remote work. In such cases, it is crucial to offer assistance in any way possible. It can be as simple as sending out possible rooms to rent, sending out hardwares early to set up their home office etc. This will ensure that they feel included and won’t think about dropping out.

Also read: 11 Do’s & Don’ts of Onboarding

Reasons candidates drop out after accepting your offer

1. Counter offers from their existing employer: When an employee puts down his resignation letter, most employers would make an attempt to retain them by offering a higher salary, promotion or better perks. If their offer is convincing, then chances are they will stick with their current company.
2. Personal reasons: People have several things going on in their personal lives. Family commitments, health issues, etc may prevent them from accepting your offer.
3. Better opportunities: This is the number reason why most of the candidates drop out. When someone starts their job search, they shop for the best offer. In many cases they may use your offer to negotiate a better package from a different company. If candidates are able to find better opportunities than what you can offer, they dropout.
4. Not meeting expectations: In some cases, candidates will realise that the company or the job role is not as expected by them after they accept the offer. This will lead them to drop out.
5. Relocation issues: If the role you offered requires the candidate to relocate to a new location, they may face difficulties in relocating. This can make them reconsider their decision.
6. Compensation: If the candidate is receiving a better compensation package or finds out that the offered compensation is not at par with industry standards or with peers, they may quickly change their decision and drop out.

5 Tips to Avoid Candidate Dropouts

As an employer, it is your responsibility to take control of the situation and take proactive measures to avoid them. Candidate dropouts are not good for business. Based on our experience onboarding 1000s of candidates and improving joining rate, we have compiled a list of 5 things that are most important for any company to avoid candidate dropouts. They are:

1. Streamlined and simple application process: A lengthy application process that requires candidates to fill out several data points and multiple steps are always going to be a demotivator for many. It is better to have a simple application process to make it easier for candidates to apply for the open positions.

2. Clear communication: Provide complete information about the open position, the hiring process, and what they can expect from the company. After completing each step, you can also provide a feedback or an acknowledgement to keep the candidate informed and engaged.

3. Show excitement & interest: Throughout the hiring process, show sincere interest and enthusiasm in their skills and abilities. This will create a positive impression on the candidate and a great way to show that they are valued and appreciated.

4. Set realistic expectations: Be transparent to candidates while explaining about the role. Be it about job description, challenges or difficulties. You want to make sure that you instill realistic expectations and the candidate is fully aware of what they are signing up for.

5. Provide a delightful candidate experience: What sets you apart from other companies is the overall experience that you are able to provide to the candidate. Even to those that you are not hiring. A positive candidate experience can help you prevent dropouts and encourage candidates to apply for future roles

Also read: 10 Steps to an Efficient New Employee Onboarding Process

Conclusion

To conclude, we can say that it is critical for companies to come up with strategies to keep the candidates engaged after extending your offer letter. To ensure that they do not drop out and cause losses to the company, create an efficient candidate engagement plan that includes having multiple touchpoints, engagement templates, answering queries faster, providing relocation / WFH assistance, and taking proactive measures to counter any possible outside offers. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletters to receive the latest updates in your inbox.

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The post How to Keep Candidates Engaged After Offer: 6 Tips to Avoid Dropouts appeared first on BluElement.

What is Candidate Experience?

Candidate experience refers to the overall impression and perception that a job seeker has of an employer’s recruitment process, from the initial job search to the final hiring decision. It includes all aspects of the recruitment process, such as the job posting, application process, communication with recruiters, interview experience, and feedback after the interview.

If you are able to provide a positive candidate experience, then it becomes easy to attract talented people to your organisation. When candidates get delighted, then take it to social media to share their experience, becoming a brand ambassador for your organisation. But if your company does not have a streamlined hiring process and applicants are having a negative experience, then chances are that your brand reputation is damaged in the market and it can deter great talent from applying to your company.

So, it is safe to say that if you are providing a positive experience to applicants chances of improving your hiring efficiency is higher. Saving you a lot of time and money.

Here is a video to expand your perspective on candidate experience: 

Why does candidate experience matter?

According to Michael Page report, only 38% of the employees stay in the same company for more than 2 years in India, which is the least when compared to other countries around the world. And more than 68% of the people interviewed responded that they are looking for a job change in the next six months. Employees around the world are re-evaluating their job roles and are prioritising their happiness, work-life balance and overall well-being. Besides all this, competition for good talent is higher than ever. Companies are planning various types of promotional activities in order to attract talent from other companies.

Remember when Ashneer Grover, founder and CEO of BharatPe made the announcement that they are giving BMW bikes to IT professionals as a joining bonus?

This is the reality now. And I cannot emphasise enough about the importance of a good candidate experience. Remember that all good applicants have multiple offers in their hand and they will only go with that company which made them feel welcomed and gave them the best overall experience.

How to improve & provide good candidate experience?

Now that we have understood the importance of creating candidate experiences that attract talent, let’s look at ways to improve your candidate experience. I have listed down 5 effective ways to improve candidate experience, if you have anything to add, feel free to comment below.

5 Effective ways to improve candidate experience

1. Effective communication: You might have experienced it yourself or you might have seen people sharing their frustrations on social media on how HR’s ghost candidates post an interview. This talks a lot about their organisation. Having clear communication means that you let the candidate know exactly what to expect throughout their recruitment process. This includes details on the timeline of responses, the stages of the interview process, and any assessments or interviews that the candidate needs to complete. Just by providing this information, you will be able to stand out and make a lasting impression on the candidate.

2. Streamlined application process: In our previous article about attracting talent using non-monetary methods, we discussed how companies like Tesla have the simple application process for their job openings at their organisation. Companies tend to complicate this by having an application with too many processes and long application procedures. This is clearly a demotivator and can disappoint the candidates. Make sure that your application process is streamlined by minimising the number of steps required and by making it user friendly to complete it. It is also important to optimise the application page mobile friendly as most of the applicants are on their mobile phones.

3. Open feedback loops: It is important to keep the candidate updated once they start their application process and let them know where they stand in their recruitment process. The benefit of doing this is that it keeps them engaged and motivated. To make your job easier, there are multiple tools now available that send automated updates to candidates at each step of the process.

4. Personalised onboarding experience: As the saying goes, “First impression is the last impression”, companies only get one chance to make a good impression. Which is why you need to take advantage of the onboarding process. If you are able to provide a delightful onboarding experience to a new hire, it will have a positive impact on their perspective, reasons to stay for long term, and boosts their productivity. If you want to learn more about improving your onboarding process, check out our recent article about the 11 ways to improve candidate onboarding experience.

5. Being empathetic: Always think from the job applicants perspective. Everyone wants to feel valued and respected. So it is important to show these values throughout the recruitment process. Regardless of the candidate being hired or not, these qualities should be followed. You can do this by providing timely responses and by ensuring that the interview process is fair and respectful.

Here is a video of The Head of J&J (Formerly PepsiCo) explaining how to improve candidate experience using technology:

Who is a candidate experience manager?

Candidate experience manager is someone who is responsible for managing the entire operations throughout the hiring process, to prioritise a great candidate experience. Companies do not hire a candidate experience manager as they do not want to hire a full time employee to manage this. One of the major is that hiring numbers are volatile and depend on macroeconomic factors and business outlook. What you can do is hire third parties to manage the candidate experience for you. It will help you save the cost of hiring, improve candidate experience score and overall build a better reputation in the marketplace.

Conclusion

Providing a great candidate experience is beneficial to your business in many ways. You can attract great talent, improve employer brand and even increase customer satisfaction. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can improve your overall candidate experience at your organisation and create a positive brand reputation for your company.

If you need help improving your onboarding process or candidate experience, book a demo to see how our solutions can help.

Book a Demo

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The post What is Candidate Experience, How to Improve it, and Why it Matters for Your Business? appeared first on BluElement.

The goal of Learning and development is to  align employee goals and performance with that of the organizations. Those responsible for learning & development within an organization must identify skill gaps among employees and teams then develop and deliver training to bridge those gaps.

The Learning & Development Team is responsible for developing and implementing an organization’s learning strategy. In the modern workplace, these duties can include a wide arrange of responsibilities that are both theoretically as well as technologically driven and managerial in nature:

• Develop and implement learning strategies and programs that meet business needs
• Evaluate organizational as well as individual employee development needs
• Ensure alignment of learning & development department with business goals
• Optimize training processes to improve ROI
• Manage and procure L&D technologies to facilitate learning and management of learning initiatives
• Design eLearning courses, interactive group training, and other training content
• Implementing effective training methods
• Manage personnel within the learning & development department
• Maintaining the learning & development budget within an organization
• Championing and marketing training programs to get managerial buy-in as well as employee commitment

The learning & development manager is central to ensuring that employees are able to successfully meet the challenges of their jobs and that they are properly aligned with the business goals of the company.

Why Is Learning and Development So Important?

Now that we have an understanding of what learning and development is, let’s pivot to discuss the reasons why L&D is important for organizations today and tomorrow.

Today’s Employees Demand Opportunities To Learn

According to a 2016 Gallup report, 87% of millennials say learning and development in the workplace is important while 59% of millennials say having opportunities to learn and grow is extremely important when deciding whether to apply for a job.

Why is that important? Well, by 2025 millennials will make up 50% of the Indian workforce. By 2030, 75% of the Indian workforce will be millennials. In order for companies to compete for top talent, they will need to be able to offer a commitment to an employee’s development.

Hiring Is More Expensive Than Employee Retention

For any organization, it is the employees who make a company what it is. In one of the 2018 Employee Retention Report, Work Institute reported that 1 in 4 employees will leave their job and nearly 77% of that turnover could be prevented by employers.

Regardless of the exact  value, retaining employees is more cost-effective than the costs associated with separation, recruitment, and the hit to productivity. 

This also means that companies are helping to retain their employees by investing in learning and development. L&D not only boosts employee productivity, but it is incredibly important to boost employee confidence in themselves and trust in their employer.

Training Employees Improves Your Bottom Line

Employees are a company’s greatest asset. Right? Sure, they are! With the right team in place, the sky’s the limit. With learning & development focusing on filling in knowledge gaps and upskilling employees by focusing on the strengths of their employees, companies have reported anywhere between a 14%-29% increase in profit.

An IBM study found that well-trained teams increased their productivity by 10%. Equipping employees with the ability to do their jobs better is just a smart move. As managers, our jobs are to get the best out of every employee. Coaching and training employees is a great way to empower them to succeed.

Untrained Employees May Put You At Risk

So far we have mostly spoken about how learning and development reduces employee churn, attracts new hires, and improves your bottom line by making companies smarter and more productive.

Also, in the purview of learning and development is risk mitigation through compliance training initiatives and workplace safety training. 

Though proper workplace behaviour may feel like something people inherently know, companies can be proactive in training employees to maintain a safe and inclusive workplace. Implementing an effective ethics training program can help employees work better and minimize the risk of lawsuits for failing to comply with industry standards in safety and workplace behaviour.

From a large pool of over 200 Human Resources, Organisational development and L&D models and concepts, we are highlighting a couple of them.  It simply represents ideas that we frequently encounter in our work and would therefore consider important to know about.

1. 70:20:10 Learning Model –  It was created in the 1980’s by three researchers and authors working with the center for creative leadership,  a non profit educational institution in Greensboro.  The three were Morgan Mccall, Michael M Lombardo and Robert Eichinger.

It is accepted as one of the most widely accepted principles in learning & development. According to this model people should acquire  70% new knowledge from on job experiences, 20% interacting with peers and 10 % from formal education.

• Kirkpatrick’s 4-Level model of training evaluation – 

The Kirkpatrick’s model is a globally recognized method of evaluating the results of training learning programs. The four levels of evaluation are 1) the reaction of the trainees and their thoughts about the training experience 2) the trainees’ result & learning outcomes and increase in knowledge from the training experience 3) the trainees behavioral changes and improvement after applying the skills on the job.  4) The results.

• Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing (Tuckman) – It was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965 also known as Tuckman Theory. It states that teams will go through 4 stages of development which are Forming (when the team is formed), Storming (a phase where most likely fall out due to difference of opinions), Norming (Researching a project, understanding each other’s preferences and showing respect with their personal boundaries. Performing (Period where incomplete tasks are completed and the team starts performing).

1. Four stages of Competence Model – A competency model is a framework used by HR professionals and organizations to list and plan the competencies needed by its employees to succeed in a specific job or industry. It helps identify and articulate employees’ knowledge skills and behaviours to thrive.

Activities associated with Learning & Development, 

1. Skills Training ( Product, Process & Projects)
2. Hard skill training (Technical knowledge)
3. Soft Skills training (Emotional Intelligence)
4. Induction (New hires)
5. Coaching / Mentoring( periodically)
6. Leadership/ Management skills training
7. Team Building/Communication Training
8. Sales Training
9. Customer Service Training
10. Safety Training
11. Computer systems training (e.g Powerpoint, Word, Outlook)
12. E learning & Learning Management System

“What managers must understand is that developing their people and teams is a key responsibility, and it’s what helps to keep their teams engaged,” states Emily Poague, vice-president of Marketing at LinkedIn Learning. Suggestions given to retain the talent that you want  were identify the managers who are successful in encouraging their team to learn, Market and circulate these success stories and ensure collaboration with managers is always happening to incorporate learning in the day, month year and every discussion .Employees who feel that their company is going out of the way to invest in them they will be inertly  inclined to invest more energy, improving not only employee satisfaction and efficiency but also retention. Employees and Talent  that have been nurtured, appreciated and recognised help the company grow, solve problems and innovate!

Author

Prity Reddy

The post How does Learning and Development boost Employee Retention in an Organisation? appeared first on BluElement.

2. Access Restriction
   Build your application in such a way that roles can be assigned to each individual and they can perform certain actions only based on those roles. For example, a normal user would be able to interact with certain elements of the website but will not be able to edit anything on the website whereas a special user will be able to edit and act upon the website and so forth. Having such a framework in place makes it easy and convenient to manage your website. Also, it is important to keep checking on these roles to make sure no bugs can give away your website to any hacker.
   
   c. Secure your server
   Keeping your website settings and code well checked and secured in an environment such that no one from the outside world other than you and your team can access is a very important thing that needs to be done. Whitelist IPs of your teammates and yourself, restrict actions and do not allow yourself and your team to access risky websites. This will save your server from viruses and dangerous attacks.
   
   d. Enable HTTPS on all your pages
   Make sure that you have an SSL certificate installed on your server and set your server such that only HTTPS is served to all your users. This makes the session secure as data will be sent over using the HTTPS Protocol.
   
   e. Backup Automation
   Create scripts such that backups are taken regularly of the database as well as your server so that if your server fails, you will have a backup ready for your users to get started back with. It will also be a big win for you to have your code stored on GitHub or any sort of version control allowing you better access to manage everything in case of failures.
   
   f. Password Change Policy
   Lastly, it would be very good if you can implement some sort of Password Change Policy for your users so that passwords get updated and it becomes difficult for anyone who is trying to brute force their way into the website.
   
   Now that we have understood the steps to take for a website maker, why not understand the steps we can take as website users to keep ourselves secure over the internet.
   
   2. General Awareness for the public
   
   People over the internet follow these steps. They can really help you make sure that you are as safe as possible while also enjoying the benefits of the internet.
   
   a. Use VPNs
   As cliche as it may sound, it is important that you invest in a good VPN service. VPNs connect you over to a secure tunnel which will then handle the rest of the connection to the outside world. This will in a way give you a new location, new IP, and a secure environment for you to enjoy the internet.
   
   b. Use Password Manager applications
   It is a good investment to have an application that can create random strong passwords and store them for all of your websites that you access. This can be super helpful since you will have a big password that is made of random characters, making it super hard to crack, plus no more remembering passwords as your application remembers everything for you.
   
   c. Awareness
   Lastly, it is just the general awareness to make the right choices on the internet. Never open those spam emails promising you money and wealth, never open suspicious links, buy things if you can from trusted websites, check online shops before buying something from them. Just follow these basics and you will be safe on the internet.
   
   So to wrap things up, we understood why being safe on the internet is important, how websites can be secured, steps that the general public can use to keep themselves secure over the internet. This brings us to the end of our article. Thank you for making it this far, Cheers! 😊

Author

Ankita Chauhan

Product Manager

BluElement Technologies Pvt. Ltd

The post What makes Web Security so Important? appeared first on BluElement.

The HR segment of companies is one of the most affected by the rise in the pandemic. It is a tedious task for HR professionals to interact with candidates while making sure the employees are engaged and content with their jobs as well. This proves difficult especially since all the employees are not under a single roof. 

Currently, with the rise in the rate of hiring in the industry, candidates have quite a few offers to choose from, thereby increasing the rate of drop-offs and reducing the rate of retention. This is one of the reasons we also wanted to have a better understanding of the changes that can be brought to the process of onboarding. 

To understand the current trends, hurdles, and tips to tackle this situation, we decided to discuss this with Srikanth Vachaspati. He has been in the HR domain for over 20 years in renowned organizations like Infosys, HP, IBM, etc., and is currently associated with Siemens Technology India as a General Manager and Head HR. With this vast experience in the HR world, he seemed like the ideal person to throw more light on the challenges faced, the changes in the near future, and more. From onboarding to drop-off rates, to candidate engagement and retention, we had an informative discussion with Mr. Srikanth that didn’t just help us understand the scenario better but aided in preparing us for the changes to come. 

Read on to know the questions we had for Mr. Srikanth and his input on the same. 

Q 1 – So, let’s begin with a little peek into the onboarding process. How has it impacted the Work from the Home scenario? Has the onboarding process changed? If so, how is it now?

The onboarding process for the Work from Home employees is mostly done online currently. This is often a tad difficult due to internet issues and more on the employee’s end. Recruiters still try and work around this to ensure all procedures and introductions are completed online. The positive effects of face-to-face interaction are definitely lacking with the Work from the Home scenario.  

Q 2 – We had cases where candidates have declined offers because they need to join virtually. In this case, they are often in a dilemma if they will be able to adjust to this new culture. With the current pandemic, has the drop-off rate increased?

Currently, in India, there are two types of drop-off. One is the offer rejected and the other is no show. Offer reduction is around 30% in the industry today which used to be about 5%-8%. Due to an increase in hiring, one candidate can have more than 3-4 offers. So, it is understandable that 4 out of 5 companies would experience no show or rejection of offers. This is a tremendous hike in the no-show and rejection rate. 

Q 3 – Is the company coming up with any type of mitigation to avoid such hurdles or is it okay?

A- It is not okay but I don’t think the companies are coming up with efforts to mitigate. What they are choosing to do instead is, if they need to hire 500 people, then they add a buffer of 20% and hire 600 people. This way even if there are outs or rejections, they have the number of people they need. 

Q 4 – Has the engagement activity for those joining virtually changed?

A- I don’t think it has gone through any major change. Normally, depending on the nature of the industry we assign a ‘buddy’ to them. This person would be helping them in the engagement and networking processes. I think we continue this system even if it is remote. This is commonly followed by companies but other than this, I don’t think we are doing anything additional when it comes to overall engagement with employees. We generally set up regular calls with no agenda to essentially connect with people. 

We have also organized more hackathons. Where we have also digitized the entire training portfolio. This has also helped us in training a huge number of people with ease.
Besides that, we have added another aspect recently. We make sure to have conversations once a fortnight, with somebody who had COVID.

We call this COVID survivors story. Here, we interview the person to understand what happened, what the doctors had said, and the like. We have also lost employees to COVID and we ensure we set up sessions with the mental wellness partner to talk and cope with the same. 

Q 5 – Has the pandemic changed performance management?

Obviously, due to the pandemic, there has been a change in the course of action for a lot of people and companies have tried to alter their ways to match the changing ways. As a salesperson, the targets have to be relooked as well as altered depending on scenarios. 

So, there have definitely been changes in calibrating the codebase due to COVID. This is the first thing that most organizations are focusing on. The second thing that most companies are focusing on is frequent check-ins with their employees. This is to make sure there is a connection in terms of the recalibrating.
The third change is that of performance management. To help employees better, companies can tackle this by firstly looking at the hard factor, which is the goal, and secondly, following up with the ways the employees can achieve their target. 

One integral change is the removal of rating systems. Especially with remote working, the rating has become quite difficult. Keeping this in mind, people have removed rating systems and come up with check-ins. 

These are ways performance management has changed with the scenario of Work from Home and the pandemic. 

Q 6 – One of the common complaints among employees is that there is too much micromanagement after work from home. Is it true?

During the initial days of Work from Home, the lockdown was pretty strict and people had no opportunity other than stay indoors and work and companies did not face any issues. But the changes were also drastic due to Work from Home. Firstly, the number of meetings increased. Once the managers and team formed an understanding of how to execute certain tasks and meet targets, we have reduced the number of meetings as well. But there are instances where managers feel that team-mates are unavailable at times and team-mates feel their managers are micromanaging. This is an issue that is raised on both ends. 

Q 7 – Has this changed the way employees’ performance is reviewed and has the reward system changed?

The number of rewards employees receive has increased. Initially, people did not have so many rewards to look up to but that has increased a lot.  We still provide monetary rewards to the employees along with adopting other digital modes of rewards like e-vouchers. 

A lot of the awards initially were experiential awards. Since with the current scenario of pandemics, employees wouldn’t be able to go out. Hence, we chose to give our rewards in the form of cash or something equivalent to the cash amount. 

Q 8 – There is a lot of resistance to virtual engagement activities? Is it true? What can be done to engage employees virtually?

Virtual activities began more like a ritual and seemed very forced and not as a means to engage employees. To make this more engaging for employees, activities must be designed in a way that is beneficial to the employees. We had once organized a virtual stand-up comedy session and the audience was not able to connect with it whereas a session on financial planning had a better impact and employees could relate to it better. Virtual activities have to be something employees relate to and find beneficial. 

With the rise in Hybrid workspaces, the importance of employee engagement is becoming more important with each passing day. Keeping this in mind, Bluelement Technologies gave rise to EngageLoop. The platform has impacted and created relevant engagement steps and options to ensure Employee Engagement despite the Work from Home scenario.=

We hope to know the views of an expert in the domain helps better understand the right steps to take.

The HR domain, as we know it,  is forever evolving and developing. This domain has seen drastic changes especially in the last one to one and a half years with the scenario of Work from Home. Now, as we add Hybrid workspaces to the mix as well, the changes are quite a lot. For example, entire teams do not work under one roof, some are currently working from home while others are from the office. This often causes a hurdle in the communication aspect and more. 

The HR segment of companies is one of the most affected by the rise in the pandemic. It is a tedious task for HR professionals to interact with candidates while making sure the employees are engaged and content with their jobs as well. This proves difficult especially since all the employees are not under a single roof. 

Currently, with the rise in the rate of hiring in the industry, candidates have quite a few offers to choose from, thereby increasing the rate of drop-offs and reducing the rate of retention. This is one of the reasons we also wanted to have a better understanding of the changes that can be brought to the process of onboarding. 

To understand the current trends, hurdles, and tips to tackle this situation, we decided to discuss this with Srikanth Vachaspati. He has been in the HR domain for over 20 years in renowned organizations like Infosys, HP, IBM, etc., and is currently associated with Siemens Technology India as a General Manager and Head HR. With this vast experience in the HR world, he seemed like the ideal person to throw more light on the challenges faced, the changes in the near future, and more. From onboarding to drop-off rates, to candidate engagement and retention, we had an informative discussion with Mr. Srikanth that didn’t just help us understand the scenario better but aided in preparing us for the changes to come. 

Read on to know the questions we had for Mr. Srikanth and his input on the same. 

Q 1 – So, let’s begin with a little peek into the onboarding process. How has it impacted the Work from the Home scenario? Has the onboarding process changed? If so, how is it now?

The onboarding process for the Work from Home employees is mostly done online currently. This is often a tad difficult due to internet issues and more on the employee’s end. Recruiters still try and work around this to ensure all procedures and introductions are completed online. The positive effects of face-to-face interaction are definitely lacking with the Work from the Home scenario.  

Q 2 – We had cases where candidates have declined offers because they need to join virtually. In this case, they are often in a dilemma if they will be able to adjust to this new culture. With the current pandemic, has the drop-off rate increased?

Currently, in India, there are two types of drop-off. One is the offer rejected and the other is no show. Offer reduction is around 30% in the industry today which used to be about 5%-8%. Due to an increase in hiring, one candidate can have more than 3-4 offers. So, it is understandable that 4 out of 5 companies would experience no show or rejection of offers. This is a tremendous hike in the no-show and rejection rate. 

Q 3 – Is the company coming up with any type of mitigation to avoid such hurdles or is it okay?

A- It is not okay but I don’t think the companies are coming up with efforts to mitigate. What they are choosing to do instead is, if they need to hire 500 people, then they add a buffer of 20% and hire 600 people. This way even if there are outs or rejections, they have the number of people they need. 

Q 4 – Has the engagement activity for those joining virtually changed?

A- I don’t think it has gone through any major change. Normally, depending on the nature of the industry we assign a ‘buddy’ to them. This person would be helping them in the engagement and networking processes. I think we continue this system even if it is remote. This is commonly followed by companies but other than this, I don’t think we are doing anything additional when it comes to overall engagement with employees. We generally set up regular calls with no agenda to essentially connect with people. 

We have also organized more hackathons. Where we have also digitized the entire training portfolio. This has also helped us in training a huge number of people with ease.
Besides that, we have added another aspect recently. We make sure to have conversations once a fortnight, with somebody who had COVID.

We call this COVID survivors story. Here, we interview the person to understand what happened, what the doctors had said, and the like. We have also lost employees to COVID and we ensure we set up sessions with the mental wellness partner to talk and cope with the same. 

Q 5 – Has the pandemic changed performance management?

Obviously, due to the pandemic, there has been a change in the course of action for a lot of people and companies have tried to alter their ways to match the changing ways. As a salesperson, the targets have to be relooked as well as altered depending on scenarios. 

So, there have definitely been changes in calibrating the codebase due to COVID. This is the first thing that most organizations are focusing on. The second thing that most companies are focusing on is frequent check-ins with their employees. This is to make sure there is a connection in terms of the recalibrating.
The third change is that of performance management. To help employees better, companies can tackle this by firstly looking at the hard factor, which is the goal, and secondly, following up with the ways the employees can achieve their target. 

One integral change is the removal of rating systems. Especially with remote working, the rating has become quite difficult. Keeping this in mind, people have removed rating systems and come up with check-ins. 

These are ways performance management has changed with the scenario of Work from Home and the pandemic. 

Q 6 – One of the common complaints among employees is that there is too much micromanagement after work from home. Is it true?

During the initial days of Work from Home, the lockdown was pretty strict and people had no opportunity other than stay indoors and work and companies did not face any issues. But the changes were also drastic due to Work from Home. Firstly, the number of meetings increased. Once the managers and team formed an understanding of how to execute certain tasks and meet targets, we have reduced the number of meetings as well. But there are instances where managers feel that team-mates are unavailable at times and team-mates feel their managers are micromanaging. This is an issue that is raised on both ends. 

Q 7 – Has this changed the way employees’ performance is reviewed and has the reward system changed?

The number of rewards employees receive has increased. Initially, people did not have so many rewards to look up to but that has increased a lot.  We still provide monetary rewards to the employees along with adopting other digital modes of rewards like e-vouchers. 

A lot of the awards initially were experiential awards. Since with the current scenario of pandemics, employees wouldn’t be able to go out. Hence, we chose to give our rewards in the form of cash or something equivalent to the cash amount. 

Q 8 – There is a lot of resistance to virtual engagement activities? Is it true? What can be done to engage employees virtually?

Virtual activities began more like a ritual and seemed very forced and not as a means to engage employees. To make this more engaging for employees, activities must be designed in a way that is beneficial to the employees. We had once organized a virtual stand-up comedy session and the audience was not able to connect with it whereas a session on financial planning had a better impact and employees could relate to it better. Virtual activities have to be something employees relate to and find beneficial. 

With the rise in Hybrid workspaces, the importance of employee engagement is becoming more important with each passing day. Keeping this in mind, Bluelement Technologies gave rise to EngageLoop. The platform has impacted and created relevant engagement steps and options to ensure Employee Engagement despite the Work from the Home scenario.

We hope to know the views of an expert in the domain helps better understand the right steps to take.

The post A conversation about current Onboarding and Hiring Processes appeared first on BluElement.

Building a strong organizational culture plays a significant role in accelerating growth, but only if the best talent of the company is engaged and motivated. Human Resource teams in every organization are working towards implementing innovative methods to engage employees and retain their best talent. The cost of talent acquisition, onboarding, and training a new hire is much higher compared to the amount spent on retaining the employees, making it an efficient and practical choice for any organization.

However, it is challenging to retain talent given the high demand for skilled personnel in the job market today. Here are some actionable ways that organizations can adopt to improve Employee Retention:

Enhance Employee Benefits

A competitive package is beneficial when attracting new talent, but other than monetary and non-monetary benefits have proven to increase employee satisfaction and can help retain employees. When choosing a benefits program, do keep in mind  – A customized benefits package works better than a standard benefits program. This can include experiential rewards, upskilling options and more.

Offer Flexibility in Work Schedule

With the advancement in technology and the new norm of WFH. Employees expect a lot more flexibility when it comes to working schedules. Here’s how you can make it enjoyable. Firstly, let your employees have a flexible work schedule with WFH or Hybrid work options. This way, the employees are more productive and satisfied with their work. It also helps avoid any conflict between work and personal responsibilities. Be aware of the ambiguity the flexibility in work schedule can cause, making it essential to define the policy and guidelines beforehand.

Recognize Hard Work and Achievements

It is crucial to recognize employees for the hard work and a job well done. It is an integral part of ensuring continuous employee engagement. Many studies show that employees have expressed their employers’ concerns about not recognizing their achievements. Have a clear Rewards and Recognition program which can easily be implemented through the use of available SAAS platforms in the market and ensure the program is customized and is focused towards the overall company goals.

This is one integral aspect EngageLoop, a Rewards & Recognition platform has incorporated, impacting the motivation of employees. Recognizing and appreciating employees’ hard work is proven to improve their performance at the workplace. When your best employees don’t receive recognition for their hard work, they are more likely to quit the organization.

Prioritize Employees’ Professional & Personal development

The best talent in your organization is excellent at what they do, but they always strive to get better, learn new things and take up new challenges. Try to build a system or environment where they can collaborate with current leaders in your organization to upgrade themselves personally and professionally.

This step of encouraging the professional and personal development of employees helps you strengthen the bond between the employees and the organization. Instead of hiring new employees, train and recognize the talent within the organization.

Communicate with your Employees

Create a channel where they can be vocal about their concerns and a safe space to receive or provide feedback, making it easier to recognize or offer constructive criticism in real-time.

It is often difficult for employees to communicate with the higher management, which creates a barrier and frustration among employees.  Communication channels like – one-on-one, 360-degree feedback, Employee Engagement Surveys create platforms where employees are heard and their suggestions and feedback are taken into consideration, therefore increasing retention.

 Promote within the Organisation

Turning a blind eye towards the best talent within the organization and hiring outside talent for a management-level promotion can be disheartening for the existing employees. An organization’s best employees are likely to remain in the organization if they are provided a path to growth in the organization.

It must be easier for them to transition into a higher level with an internal training program that will help them advance in their role. If employees think their growth is limited, they are more likely to quit within a short period of time and look for opportunities outside

Collaboration is the Key

Collaboration is critical to employee retention. When employees work as a team, they tend to be more productive and energetic. Building teams help make better social relationships and helps interact with leaders and co-workers. This way, everybody’s ideas are valued and put into action.

EngageLoop is one such innovative Employee Engagement Platform built to recognise and appreciate employees in an organisation. EngageLoop is a points-based Rewards and Recognition platform created to enhance Employee engagement. This platform allows organisations to send certificates, badges, send wishes and system awards and encourage peer to peer recognition with ease. In addition to that, The points given to employees  are redeemable on a curated online store where employees can choose from a wide range of experiential, virtual services and vouchers related to upskilling and Wellness, and more.

Are you taking the necessary steps to retain your talent? Try these out and let us know!

Reach out to us to know more about EngageLoop!

The post 7 Actionable Ways to Retain your Best Talent appeared first on BluElement.

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Candidate Engagement & Experience is prioritizing the hiring processes in organizations, as it reduces dropouts and creates a better candidate onboarding experience with dropout risk analysis and prediction with the help of the right technology and tools.

The post 6 Ways to Enhance the Candidate Onboarding Process using Automation appeared first on BluElement.