How to Boost Employee Retention?

Employee Retention is a critical issue that many companies face at some point. A bad retention rate can sink a company, and a good retention rate is a big help in keeping a workforce fresh and productive. If your team is going to get productivity and business results, you need to ensure that your employees are happy and motivated to stay. To do that, your retention strategy needs to be well planned and implemented.

But how do you determine what would be the right approach for your business and your industry?

While there is no one-size-fits-all employee retention plan, there are ways to increase employee engagement and retention in practice, which can help you avoid attrition and keep your best people.

Why Is Employee Retention So Important?

Employee retention is key to the success of any organization. Not only does it keep the business profitable, but it also ensures a company can attract new talent and retain the talent it already has. Keeping your most valuable employees is about more than keeping the cash flowing; it’s also beneficial for maintaining your company’s reputation as a great place to work. Employee retention can also lead to greater employee morale and productivity. Here are some tactics that employers can use to retain their employees and avoid costly turnover.

Every company wants its employees to stay with them and contribute to the company’s success, but it’s not that simple. After all, if an employee is unhappy, why should they want to stay? So, how can leaders figure out what is missing from their company’s culture? And how can companies ensure that their culture is one that employees want to be a part of?

Start with Recruiting

We all know the horror stories. The ideal employee, the one the company has been searching for, has been hired, but after a few weeks, it becomes clear that they are not the right fit. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence. People who are hired and kept are the ones who are committed to thriving in their position and supporting the company’s overall mission. And that’s why you should focus on trying to recruit the right people from the start.

That’s how retention begins with recruiting. While there is no doubt that hiring the right person can be a major contribution to your success, the success of an employee in the long term depends on more than just their skill set. The right employee can bring a lot to your business, but they will stick only if they are happy in their role and are treated with respect. That is why it is so important to know what you are looking for in a candidate before you make a hire.

Create an Inclusive Environment

Employees value a welcoming environment where they feel comfortable and appreciated. An inclusive workplace is one that welcomes people from all backgrounds, races, religions, cultures, and abilities. An inclusive workplace will help create a more powerful culture that reflects the company’s core values. It takes a certain amount of effort to build an inclusive workplace, but building such an environment will help keep employees happy. When employees feel included and engaged at work, they are three times more likely to stick around.

Provide Ongoing Support and Training

The notion of providing ongoing support and training to employees is one all employers should embrace. One of the best ways to retain your employees and to help them grow professionally is to have a formal system of ongoing training. This system should be part of the employment agreement and should include employee training and development, mentoring, and coaching. It is important for employees to know that their employer cares about them and for employers to be transparent and communicate to employees that they have the support needed to succeed.

Promote Work-Life Balance

To help integrate a new employee into an organization, companies are turning to practices such as work-life balance to encourage employees to spend time at home with their families and reduce the stress of workplace change. Since work can be a stressful endeavor at times, and in today’s ever-increasing competitive workplace, it’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling as though you have to be on alert 24/7.

The reality is that when you’re working, you’re working, and if you’re not doing anything outside of work, chances are it will reflect in your day-to-day productivity. Everyone needs a break every now and again, and that’s when you need to keep in mind that proper work-life balance is key to retaining top talent. Policies that help promote work-life balance include the option of working home or encouraging vacation time.

Offer Perks

Many companies claim that perks help retain employees. So, what are perks? Perks are benefits, either in the form of money, products, or services, given to employees or customers that benefit the company or individual.

Perks are a common practice in the corporate world to offer employees perks to incentivize them to stay at the company and work hard. For example, offering free lunch or dinner, free snacks during their stay at work, or even providing their own cubicle or office area is one way to retain their services. Many companies are offering more benefits to retain their employees, including various perks such as discounted health insurance or gym memberships.

The First Step to Employee Retention

Human resources leaders are facing some of the most challenging times to meet their retention goals. The job market is tough, and many people struggle to find a job, let alone keep one. The increased focus on retention strategies has been a significant help to HR leaders, but it hasn’t been enough. Every company has a retention plan, but few follow through on them.

Fortunately, HR companies such as emergiTEL can help with the recruiting process by ensuring that only qualified candidates most fit for the position are selected, resulting in longer-term employees. Long-term employees are more productive, more loyal, and more engaged. Learn more about emergiTEL’s services here.

Hiring Funnel: How To Secure The Best Talent

Uncategorized

Many of our clients often ask us how we secure the best talent from the industry. The immediate answer is our passion! However, to deep dive into it further- is the mode of our operation. We follow a methodology to bring out the best candidate experience for the job seekers and supply the best candidates to our clients. One term that is gaining popularity these days is the Hiring Funnel. And yes, we too use this in our recruitment strategies, just like our marketing friends use a similar one in their domains.

From a practical standpoint, a funnel is a simple means to narrow down a broad audience, where every step is appropriately measured and optimized. While for marketers, a funnel is used to turn a prospect into a customer, on our side of the world, a hiring funnel is used to create an engaged audience to be valuable brand ambassadors.

Is Hiring Funnel and Candidate Journey the same?

Both the hiring funnel and candidate journey are used to engage the candidates, but there are many ways they do differ in producing better results. The candidate journey is a set of experiences that touches various candidate touchpoints while exploring a new opportunity. Contrastingly, a typical hiring funnel consists of five levels that help businesses narrow down a vast talent pool to attract, assess, and hire the best candidates for a specific role.

Why do you need a hiring funnel in your recruitment strategy?

First of all, a well-strategized hiring funnel, or recruitment funnel as it is otherwise known, can boost recruitment teams’ productivity to great heights. They can communicate and collaborate better with critical stakeholders. We’ve heard about Pipeline Management in Sales, but in the recruitment industry, managing candidate pipeline becomes more significant with a proper hiring funnel in place.

Let’s take a deep dive into the various stages of the hiring funnel and see how we elevate the candidate experience and secure the best talent for our clients. How hiring funnel works and the strategies you need to use to get the best out of your hiring initiatives and talent experience.

Stage One: Awareness Building

In this stage, the candidate learns about the job, the roles, and responsibilities. Posting a job with roles and responsibilities is not what makes a marvellous job posting. We try to bring out more information like the value-added benefits that the client provides to make sure it creates the best impression about our client in the candidate’s mind. Information like the company’s culture, the roadmap to success, the benefits and perks, the hiring process description, and the like emphasizes more on the candidate’s mind to apply for the position. The ultimate goal of this stage is to initiate a positive interest in the candidate and get them to apply for the post.

Stage Two: Consideration

Now that our website and job portals are all up and ready, our CATS (Candidate Assessment and Tracking System) assesses the job applicant resumes and does the first filtering to give us the candidates who are seriously looking for the advertised roles. Our trained recruiters then screen the resumes and segregate the candidates into two categories: Selected to talk; Not fit for now but for later usage. We have a 3D model of screening candidates, which involves screening them from three perspectives: technical skills, soft skills, and corporate culture to ensure they are the best fit for our clients. Once the selected candidates pass this consideration phase, they are moved into the next funnel stage.

Stage Three: Interview

Most recruitment agencies at this stage will submit the candidate to the client’s hiring manager and let the parties deal with each other. Where we stand apart is the talent experience we inject at this stage of hiring. The qualified candidate at this stage is given a complete understanding of the brand with whom they will work. We have already qualified the candidate to understand that they will be a good fit for the organization. But in our funnel, this is the time when we inject all the best things about our client that makes the candidate more confident to give in his/her best shot in the formal interview with the client. Our job is not over here. When our candidate finishes the interview, we reach out to the hiring manager to find out their observations and try to understand the rationale behind moving the candidate to the next step of the funnel.

Stage 4: Decision Making and Follow-Ups

The decision-makers had decided who was on the list for the new role to be filled in. This decision is usually made based on a scorecard. Every candidate goes through pre-defined criteria for selection and is rated against by the hiring manager and the panel that interviewed the candidates. Our job here at this stage is just not a mediator to pass an email saying “Congratulations” or “Sorry.” We take our candidates very seriously, just like our clients in business. We check the scorecards, discuss them in detail with both parties, analyze the conversations, and open up another branch of our talent care, where special teams groom these candidates for the following available opportunities.

Stage 5: The Offer

After all the assessments, background checks, and interview scores, the offer is sent out to the candidate, and we are notified of this process first. At this point, we don’t shoot an email to the candidate or connect with a congratulatory call. We stand out from our peers in this process as we try to elevate the client’s culture, benefits, and perks at this point, once again to create an elevated experience of achievement for the candidate and brand accomplishment for our client. This recap also helps our candidates accept the offer quickly and start strong in the new organization based on their skills and capabilities.

Our success with our candidates is highly based on our talent care and advocacy programs. We treat our candidates as our brand ambassadors and have follow-up meetings to understand how they are acclimatizing to their new roles and workplaces. We voice their concerns to our clients and help them grow just like a gardener grows their saplings into flowers in different pots!

Talent acquisition is complex, but things become more transparent for teams and clients with a hiring funnel. If you are a job seeker, remember that we are an agency that stands with you in your candidate journey! Contrarily, suppose you are one of our potential clients. In that case, we have a good market reputation as one of Canada’s Best managed companies for the past eight years, overlooking our talent pool and supplying the cream talent to our clients with the lowest attrition rate! Get in touch with us to know more about our strategies and technologies to make hiring a smooth process.

How the Pandemic Amplified Obstacles Women Face in the Workforce

Hiring, Mentorship, Recruitment

Although times have changed a lot, we still often get to read about the obstacles women face in the workforce. But this time let’s see over the past two years- the COVID19 pandemic era, how lives of women in the workforce faced this change. The pandemic has disproportionately impacted women as they struggle to balance their careers and personal lives. Sadly, the barriers to women’s economic security were heightened during the crisis. Gender, race, ethnic, and socioeconomic inequities have also been amplified. And economic insecurity goes beyond jobs and loss of income — its impact has a lasting toll on women and prevent gender equity advancement.

During the financial crisis back in 2008, men were more at risk of losing their jobs, as the industries impacted (automotive, financial, etc.) are more male-dominated. This time, however, the crisis has impacted industries in which women are overrepresented—food service, retail, and entertainment were hit hardest. It’s estimated that 40% of all employed women or 510 million women globally worked in these hard-hit sectors. Within these sectors, workers are already subjected to lower pay and lack of benefits such as healthcare.

With quarantine measures in place, families had to home school and care for their children. With school and daycare closures, the result has been additional work for women at home. For women with full-time jobs, this means adding hours of work to their already busy schedules.

It was also reported that women-led companies were receiving less funding in 2020. Men are more likely to get larger funding rounds partially due to being older and more established. As a result, women are set further back from catching up with their male counterparts in the corporate world.

What other obstacles were women already facing in the workforce?

Issues Fueling Gender Inequality in the Workplace

Women are severely underrepresented in business and leadership positions. Unfortunately, even in the 21st century, women continue to face discrimination in the workplace. These challenges are magnified in the corporate world, where women face an abundance of obstacles that make it harder for them to thrive.

Here are four gender-specific barriers that some women already face in the workforce:

Pro-male bias: Men are often overvalued compared to women in terms of work performance, which can be a problem when it comes to promoting or filling new positions.
Unequal pay: Men, on average, are paid significantly more than women for the same work.
Family obligations: Employers tend to favor men over women when getting a raise or a promotion. In fact, many studies have shown that the pushback women experience when they have kids is the strongest gender bias out there.
Sexism: Sexism is still an obstacle to gender balance in the workplace, particularly in male-dominated industries.

Women are now about as likely as men to be in the workforce but are still paid less for equal work. In the years since the recession, more women than men have entered the workforce, a trend that has been noted in the press and by feminist organizations. In fact, women in the US have become more economically secure over the years on average. Despite this progress, women still earn less than men in almost every occupation. The wage gap is also due to women’s greater likelihood of taking time out of the workforce, which is something that has only been intensified during the pandemic.

Women have been fighting the good fight in the workforce for years, and sometimes it feels like the war is never-ending. It is hard enough to be a woman in today’s society; to have to battle a health crisis is a difficult challenge that sets back years of progress. Even more difficult is the mental toll that all of this can take. So what can be done? How can women fight back?

Mentorship Programs and Hiring

In today’s workforce, it is critical that organizations do everything in their power to ensure diversity in their ranks. Studies have shown that diversity in the workplace leads to a more productive and innovative workforce and a more innovative organization. This is true because there are unique strengths and perspectives brought to the table by individuals from different backgrounds.

One such barrier to diversity is the gender gap that persists in the workforce. Women still face a glass ceiling when it comes to getting promoted into management roles. It is time to close this gap, and the first step is to hire more women in the future. That is a big issue that affects both the bottom and top lines of a company.

Women are still a minority in specific industries, including the tech industry. As a result, many women feel isolated, without anyone to turn to for help, and even more so when they are starting their careers. Mentoring programs help young women get the support they need to succeed.

In fact, hiring and mentoring women should be the highest priority for organizations. Mentoring can be a powerful way for women to get the support and expertise they need to advance in their careers, and the results can be very rewarding for both the mentee and the mentor. Mentoring is a great way to encourage the development of leadership skills and knowledge and can be a powerful educational experience as well. It is about sharing knowledge, building relationships, and providing feedback and support.

Mentoring can be done with peers, subordinates, and supervisors. The main idea behind mentoring is that it is beneficial to both the mentor and the one being mentored. Many studies have been conducted on the positive effect mentoring can have on leadership development, job performance, and other personal and professional outcomes.

Many organizations have a problem with gender disparity in their current workforce. Not only are there fewer women in senior management, but women in those roles are less likely to mentor junior female staff than their male peers are. We at emergiTEL have a solution: hire more women. It’s a simple concept, but one that needs to be at the heart of any organization with gender disparity and the ability to hire and mentor junior staff.

For assistance with recruiting women in tech, contact emergiTEL.

How Mentorship Can Help Employees Reach Their Potential

Hiring, Mentorship, Recruitment

There’s an essential aspect of our work lives that is often overlooked: mentoring and coaching programs. Mentorship is a beneficial addition to the workplace, especially for employees on their way up in the ranks. When a mentor and mentee meet regularly, they can think through shared challenges in more depth, improve their knowledge and decision-making, and encourage each other to keep progressing.

If a mentor or coaching relationship can dramatically impact an employee’s career development, why not incorporate it into your company’s culture?

The Value of Guidance and Support

Mentorship is not only beneficial to the employees; it can have an extraordinary impact on a company’s performance too. Growth in employee development has shown a significant correlation with improved productivity and profitability in companies worldwide. Mentoring also promotes teamwork and a culture of collaboration, which prepares employees to thrive in the rapidly changing business world.

Mentoring helps employees understand an organization’s mission, how to get the most from their work and teach them how to grow as leaders. But it can also be a valuable source of professional and personal development for both members and the organization. For the mentee, it’s a chance to develop skills, build confidence, and learn from a seasoned professional.

If you are looking to advance the careers of your employees, then consider implementing a mentorship program. Mentoring has the potential to:

Enhance the career development of employees by sharing knowledge and experience gained from your own experiences.
Improve employee performance by providing both practical and emotional support.
Enhance employee retention by providing a source of engagement.

Types of Mentoring Programs

Mentorship can be informal, with the mentor and mentee having regular conversations, or it can be formal, with the mentor and mentee meeting regularly in a structured setting. Typically, the mentor and mentee are in the same industry and share a common goal. Mentoring can be one-to-one, or it can be a “twofers” model: a mentor and a mentee work together on a project or a job.

Here are some common types of mentorships:

Situational Mentoring: The mentor is an experienced employee who helps newer employees with training, such as learning how to use a system or platform.

One-on-one Mentoring: The mentor is an experienced employee who provides career development advice and guidance to less experienced employees.

Peer Mentoring: The mentor and mentee are paired together, usually from different teams, to share their experiences and ideas. No employee is necessarily more experienced than the other.

Contemporary Mentoring: To help promote a company’s D&I initiative, this mentoring program involves pairing a mentor and mentee who share a common experience, like age, gender, cultural background, or race.

Finding and Keeping Top Talent

Mentorship can help companies find and keep top talent. From the company’s perspective, it’s a way to build a robust talent pipeline. Mentoring also helps people find opportunities to contribute to the organization.

You may have noticed that many of the most successful companies in the world are run by managers who have made it their mission to mentor top performers in their organizations. Particularly in an age where traditional hiring methods are obsolete, many of these managers find someone who is a terrific performer and then work tirelessly to get them into the role of CEO.

Sure, part of this likely has to do with the fact that these companies are filled with many other high performers they want to bring into their organization. But, it’s also a testament to the rewards of mentorship.

For assistance with finding future leaders, recruiting agencies can help match promising candidates with your organization. Recruitment agencies are a resource for employers looking to easily manage and screen potential candidates. And top agencies such as emergiTEL make the process of finding the right people as easy and painless as possible.

emergiTEL is one of the fastest-growing recruitment experts in Canada, specializing in permanent, temporary, and contract jobs. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, our Canadian recruitment experts have successfully recruited thousands of skilled professionals across Canada.

How Unconventional Work Paths Can Help a Workplace

Diversity, Recruitment

The world of work is constantly changing, and the way people work is changing too. We’ve probably heard the stories of the people who have a more traditional career path, with a first job straight after college or university. What we hear more of, however, is about the people who have had a kind of unconventional path. They may have pursued multiple careers, then changed fields, or taken time out before getting into work they enjoy.

Conventional career paths are no longer the only way for employees to reach their potential, as switching career paths and interests can also give them an edge.

Why Have a Diverse Workforce?

Through additional perspectives, backgrounds, cultural influences, and insights, a diverse workforce is able to generate higher levels of innovation and creativity in all segments of an organization. After all, the more eyes you have to evaluate a problem, the more likely you will be able to find the best solution. A diverse workforce is as much a necessity as it is a benefit to any organization. When employees come from different backgrounds and experiences, it prepares them to be leaders in their fields and helps drive their organization’s success.

Diversity represents an important part of an organization’s overall mission and vision. It is a business’s way of looking at the world, signaling that the organization values collaborating with people of different backgrounds and skill sets to benefit the whole. Diversity in the workplace is a great asset to have, and the more diverse the workforce, the more productive and well-rounded the organization will be.

However, diversity in a workplace can be a challenge. Not only must all employees work together towards a common goal, but the organization must also be able to accept the differences that make each individual unique.

Why have a diverse workforce? Because it encourages the utilization of a variety of transferables skills and insights.

Top Transferable Skills for Any Industry

Even for those employees with unconventional work paths, their transferable skills developed will help them in any industry, from sales to the IT sector.

Have you heard that hiring managers are looking for more than just a college degree these days? Recent studies have shown that college is not the best indicator of future success in the workplace and that some common skills required to thrive in today’s economy may not come from a four-year university education. Here are the 10 skills that will help you succeed in today’s job market—in any field.

Problem-solving skills

The ability to solve complex problems with few resources is the key to any job, career, or even life. One of the most important skills to have is identifying an actual problem and then how to best solve it.

Critical thinking

Our ability to think critically is invaluable across many industries, yet many don’t give it much thought. In order to survive in any industry, you need to be able to think critically, communicate effectively, and be able to present information in a clear, concise format.

Adaptability

Adaptability is one of the most important skills we can learn in our lives, and it is a skill that can be taught and improved. The ability to adapt to new environments, new people, and new situations is not only very valuable, but also highly transferable between fields.

Teamwork

Teamwork is always an important part of working with others, but too often, we forget that it is one of the most critical skills you can have in your career. Working in a team can increase the efficiency of a business and allow you to get the job done more effectively. Working together and pooling talents enables us to be better both personally and professionally.

Listening

Listening is something that is very important in all aspects of life. But it is so much more crucial in the workplace, where communication is crucial in every aspect of your job. In a world where people are constantly creating and sharing new ideas, listening to colleagues is a vital skill to get a good idea of what’s going on and to be able to make decisions based on that.

Writing

Writing is among the most important skills you can have in any industry. Not only does writing communicate thoughts and ideas better than any other tool, but it’s also a great way to build relationships, get noticed, and gain trust.

Creativity

There was a time when we would think of creativity as an innate quality, but as research has shown, it can be learned. While some personalities are more likely to be creative, practice and experience can help anyone develop their creative skills. It’s a skill that is applicable across many different industries, and it’s one that employers are always looking for.

Management

Top transferable skills include the ability to manage people and problems. How effectively you do this will determine your success across many different industries, from sales and marketing to education and the law.

Computer Skills

Computer skills have become ever more important to our daily lives. In fact, computer skills will be the most in-demand skills of the future. As a result, there are numerous computer-related skills that can be transferred to almost any job. For example, many businesses require employees to be able to build websites, use a variety of platforms, and troubleshoot.

Leadership

Leadership is a set of skills that every employee should have, but few people do. You need to be able to project confidence to others, communicate effectively, make good decisions, be accountable, and motivate others to accomplish great things together. This is the kind of skill that employers are looking for, which is why leadership is becoming such an important topic in the workplace.

Many industries today are changing, adapting to the skills and talents of workers in the digital age. This means that employees are no longer bound by the same traditional work experiences. For those with unconventional work paths, there are still ways to succeed in a new industry—all it takes is a little resourcefulness and grit.

10 Skills You Didn’t Know Could Land You an IT Job

Hiring, Recruitment

Soft skills matter in IT careers more than many people think. The ability to communicate, analyze and stay organized, among other key soft skills, will set you apart in information technology. Do you have what it takes to succeed in IT? Yes, you probably do.

You may think you’re not cut out for IT because you don’t have the technical skills, but as it turns out, you may already have the secret sauce to becoming an IT rock star. The key ingredients to success in IT are excitement and willingness to learn. The technical skills you need can all be taught, but without the right soft skills, you may not rise to the top in tech.

Soft skills are qualities that are innate to your personality. They often can’t be taught or are somewhat difficult to teach. They’re essential to interpersonal success, and often to success at work. You may be wondering what jobs require the skills that come naturally to you. And if you’re curious about what jobs require communication, problem-solving capabilities and analytical skills, keep reading. We’ll explain why IT jobs might be a great fit for you, but before we leap into that territory, here are some things you should know about the technical expertise needed in IT.

First, the Technical Skills

So, what “hard” skills do you need for IT careers? The technical skills will vary from job to job. In many cases, it’s a myth that you have to be good at math or science to get into IT. Some of the most important qualities that allow you to enter the technology field are a desire to learn and grow and an excitement about trying new things.

In most cases, you can pick up technical skills with time and effort through training, certification and hands-on experience. And you don’t necessarily need to get that hands-on experience from a paid job. You can get it in a lot of ways, from tinkering on a home computer to volunteering to doing side work.

Technical skills can be easier to learn than some of the soft skills you need in IT. They’re often innate to people who are particularly well-suited for careers in information technology. Of course, if you don’t have all of the soft skills listed below, that shouldn’t discourage you from exploring technology jobs. IT jobs come in many shapes and sizes, and some will require you to use more soft skills than others.

And Now, the Soft Skills

So, technical skills aside, here are the soft skills that will make you an IT rock star.

Why Find a Job That Aligns with Your Soft Skills?

Communication
As an IT pro, you’ll need to be able to communicate well with your supervisors and colleagues to help them solve technology issues and better harness the power of their tech tools. If you’re a developer or work in IT security, you’ll need to work well on teams and communicate your ideas well with coworkers. Almost every IT job requires good communication skills, both verbal and written – email communication will likely be a big part of your job. Technology is not a solitary field, despite how it’s often portrayed. If you enjoy teaching people about technology and explaining technical subjects in terms anyone can understand, a career in IT could be for you. CIO Magazine, for example, recognizes the need for strong communication skills in the IT space. In a recent article by the magazine, CompTIA’s James Stanger stated that soft skills are one of the seven hot career trends in the future.
Organization
Being organized makes you more efficient and productive at work. Many IT careers are dynamic, giving you the opportunity to jump around to several different projects and tasks. Multitasking can be an important skill – but only if you can properly organize yourself. The ability to keep track of things such as your schedule and daily tasks is essential and so, too, is being able to chunk and prioritize your daily responsibilities efficiently. If organization and time management come easily to you, your role in the technology sector might also.
Analytical Abilities
Being analytical gives you a major edge in IT, where you’re expected to find logical solutions to problems frequently. Analytical abilities allow you to diagnose technology issues and fix them. They enable you to do things like figure out why a line of code isn’t yielding a desired result or why a server’s down. If you have an analytical mind, you might even identify problems before they arise, or maybe you feel compelled to take things apart to get a better idea of how they work. If this is the case, you’re probably an IT pro in the making. Examples of analytical abilities include the ability to create – and read – pivot tables in a spreadsheet, identify trends over time and identify key performance indicators. It’s also important to learn how to identify critical events and eliminate outliers from data sets.
Creativity
Creativity may not be a stated requirement for all IT jobs, but it’s a useful talent in many of them. If tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs hadn’t been creative, they would have never come up with their groundbreaking products and revolutionary ideas. Even if you don’t aspire to be the next Bill Gates, your tech job will probably require you to come up with ideas to improve processes or products or to help coworkers find innovative solutions to their tech problems. In fact, one of the major requirements in today’s IT jobs is the ability to use technology creatively to fulfill a particular business need or create a solution that helps the company move forward.
Project Management
As an IT professional, chances are, you’ll be juggling multiple projects and responsibilities, and being able to meet deadlines and hit benchmarks is critical. Good project management involves the ability to make professional plans, set and reach goals, and work with colleagues to resolve project issues. A natural aptitude for project management would make you a great fit for many careers in technology. Refined project management skills also give you an edge if you want to move into a leadership position. Being able to consistently bring projects to fruition with the help of colleagues can definitely win you accolades from the higher ups and slate you for promotions into positions that require more responsibility.
Perseverance
If you don’t give up easily on difficult tasks, you could go far in a technology job. The best IT professionals are willing to tinker around persistently with a particular technology to find solutions to challenges even when everyone else has given up. Technology jobs also require a commitment to learning and self-growth – as practices and technology tools are always changing. You have to be able to persevere as new information and new challenges are thrown your way. When the going gets tough, the most stellar IT pros stick with it and reap the rewards.
Problem Solving
Do you like solving puzzles? As mentioned, IT jobs are some of the best jobs for problem solving. Ever spent hours trying to figure out why your personal computer, printer or phone isn’t doing what you want it to and had fun doing it? An information technology career might be right up your alley. A lot of the technical skills you need for various careers in IT can be picked up through tinkering and trial and error, so problem-solving abilities are necessary for your entrance into the field.
Resourcefulness
Part of being resourceful in IT involves being able to find technology, software and products that enhance your own productivity and the productivity of others. IT professionals who know how to use available resources well tend to shine in their jobs. And IT workers who are consistently interested in seeking out new resources often have an edge. Resourcefulness is especially handy for those with less technology experience – like career changers. You don’t have to always have the answer – you just need to know how to find it.
Curiosity
Finding enjoyment in learning new things and genuinely wanting to know how things work are major plusses for IT workers. In general, curiosity about the inner workings of devices will get you far in IT. The best security professionals, for example, have an innate sense of curiosity about how things work underneath the hood, like how to penetrate systems. Without this sense of curiosity, they would most likely not be as creative in applying security controls to company processes.
Interest in Helping Others
Although IT isn’t traditionally thought of as a “helping” field like medicine or social work, a big part of almost every technology job involves helping people, whether you’re creating new technology that makes people’s lives easier or helping them figure out ways around technology hurdles. Information technology jobs are some of the best careers for people who love to help others. The ability to work as a team is critical, and therefore importance of teamwork is perhaps the most vital soft skill.

If you can find a job that makes use of your top soft skills, you may end up feeling a more fulfilled at work. You’ll end up feeling good at what you do and good about what you do. At work, you achieve a state of “flow,” or a state of being challenged at just the right level and “in the zone.” Whether you already know you’re interested in IT or are trying to decide if it’s right for you, take our free career quiz to better help you assess how your personal soft skills match up.

Strengthening Your Enterprise Roots With The Ease of Hiring

Hiring, Recruitment

Ease of Doing Business is used to measure how much businesses are set up to thrive within a given country. This is based on national regulations and resources that determine the simplicity of setting up a business or establishing an enterprise in different countries across the globe. Most recently, Canada is ranked 23rd on the 2020 world index for Ease of Doing Business. We live in a country that’s great for starting a business but still has factors slowing business efficiency, keeping us from entering the top 20 listings. While you can’t control all facets around our national rating, you can focus on your own enterprise productivity, starting with your recruitment strategies. This will give a Quickstart to the ease of hiring which we believe can improve your business efficiency and growth.

If you hire qualified, talented workers committed to your business values, you will have a strong base for smooth productivity. That way, you’ll earn more trust from stakeholders in Canada and around the world. Consider your recruitment strategies as the first set of bricks that you lay down to establish your company foundation. Factors like high staff turnover, delayed hiring processes, or limited candidate consideration could be weakening the overall structure.

Let us help you reshape your recruitment strategies to improve your business development. By establishing what we’ll term “ease of hiring,” you could enhance your enterprise processes, earn more investors, and contribute to Canada’s worldwide economic and Ease of Business ranking.

Reframing Your Recruitment Strategies

According to an article published by the TMF Group, one of the significant obstacles that impaired our Ease of Business scoring is labour. Our talent pool was described as limited because employers value education and Canadian experience when hiring new employees. Many employers emphasize specific qualifications and fail to look beyond them to consider other types of workers that would be an asset to their business.

Here are some common obstacles that could be impairing your ease of hiring:

Limiting Your Options

While it’s essential to have a clear vision of the skills, knowledge, and experience that will ensure your new employees thrive in your company, your hunt could be biased or focused toward a very small, limited group of people. Your candidate expectations may be too specific, causing you to receive fewer applications from candidates who tick the boxes but may be missing the characteristics that will make them an asset to your company.

Hiring Timing

Your recruitment strategies may be focused on filling open job positions as fast as possible to keep the machine running. The issue is that a rushed hiring process may mean that you settled for someone because they were available first. Once they start working for you, you may recognize your mistake in hiring them and need to begin your search all over again.

On the other hand, if you, your hiring management team, or your outsourced recruiters have too much on your plate, your hiring process could be severely delayed. When a candidate applies, they could lose interest in following through if they don’t hear back from your company until weeks later.

Low Staff Retention

As mentioned, if you’re settling for candidates who seem to be the right fit because they fulfill the job posting expectations, you may notice they don’t tend to stay with your company for very long. If you failed to learn about their professional goals or values, you might not have realized you hired someone simply using your business as a stepping stool to another job role somewhere else. Or, you may have taken on someone who does not believe in the principles that drives your enterprise. They may have the skills and education you needed, but they may struggle with your fast-paced environment, collaborative methods, or working independently.

Your flawed recruitment strategies form a revolving door system that’s preventing you from establishing ease of hiring where you recruit quality talent who will remain loyal and contribute to your company productivity and EOB.

So how can you secure ease of hiring for improved business development?

Make Your Jobs Accessible to Diverse Qualified Candidates

Consider sharing your job posting beyond your current platforms and publishing it on multiple networking forums for people seeking employment, including those committed to groups that have been historically marginalized. That way, you can access a wider talent pool and find more candidates with the skills, knowledge, and diverse experiences to grow your company.

Conduct Assessments or Evaluations to Test Skills

To ensure the people applying for your job role are qualified, save yourself the time and trouble of finding out too late by providing assessments to test their skills when submitting their resumes. These should be short tests that will measure their technical and soft skills. You could also include evaluations that will offer more insight into the candidate’s personality, work experience, and work ethic.

Include Company Compatibility in Your Recruitment Strategies

Often, businesses will commit to finding people who possess the skills they need but overlook considering their compatibility with the company. Consider your overall business culture and the people who thrive within it. With this in mind, you can apply another filter in your recruitment to determine if the potential hire will mesh well in your work environment.

Improve Your Onboarding Methods

Perhaps your recruitment strategies are already incorporating the above practices, but you’re still experiencing high employee turnover. The issue may be in your onboarding process. Your training and initiation approach may not be helpful for new hires. Revise your onboarding process so you make new employees feel welcome and offer the resources and guidance they need to settle in and start thriving in your business.

emergiTEL’s Solution for Efficient and Diversified Recruitment Strategies

If your company is efficient in its processes, you will establish your Ease of Doing Business. That way, you’ll have more products being outputted or services fulfilled, leaving your stakeholders overly satisfied and willing to invest more.

However, you can’t achieve your EOB without focusing on your recruitment strategies to attract and retain qualified talent to secure your business productivity. You need to commit the time to create a hiring plan that will help you find suitable, diversified candidates who will grow your business with their hard work, innovative thinking, and engagement with your company. Through your ease of hiring, you will build strong roots for your enterprise to offer a base for your business development.

Start making an impact by working with strategic third-party recruiters who will learn your business values and employee expectations to focus your search for new hires. At emergiTEL, our goal is to find the perfect talent that will contribute to your business growth. We will explore a diverse pool of talent and apply a 3D screening system to ensure you are handed the best suitable employees who are compatible with your company culture and possess the technical and soft skills. With your improved recruitment strategies, you’ll earn higher employee retention rates for more consistent, productive progress as a Canadian enterprise.