Rules Of The Road: Looking After Your Traveling Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Nomadic Employees|Rules Of The Road: Looking After Your Traveling EmployeesAny good business leader knows how to look after their employees in-house. But when your employees are out on the road this can prove a bit more difficult. In order to make sure that your nomadic employees are well catered for, it’s about a combination of connection but also looking after their best interests, as well as making sure that they feel part of the team.

Supporting Them On The Road

Every employee wants to feel part of the team even though they are hundreds of miles away. Instead of occasionally checking in on them, be consistent with your communication. Not only this but you need to make sure that you have the appropriate components in place to look after them should something happen. Because they are out on the road risking themselves in numerous ways you don’t have the same level of control over their welfare. And this means that should the worst-case scenario happen when they are in transit, that you have the best truck accident lawyers and legal help available. It’s crucial to provides a safety net for your employees when they are out on the road.

You should also consider travel insurance, especially if there are problems with lost luggage or delayed flights.

Keeping In Touch

Employees may like the idea of being away from the office but they still need to do a job. It’s about that fine balance of letting them do their work but without constantly bombarding them with messages. As a compromise, it’s worth deciding on a time for you to check in on your employees. Sometimes it’s not possible, especially if there are travel issues or time differences. But you may want to think about giving them their own personal VPN just in case there are technical issues everywhere so they can do their work but you can also communicate via wi-fi call.

Be Transparent In Your Travel Policies

In order to make sure that you are covered in a legal sense you need a proper travel policy that protects your employees when they are out on the road, but also make sure that your liabilities are limited. It’s crucial to minimize confusion and when you have a policy in place, go through it with legal professionals but also make sure that your employees understand it to the letter. When we are out on the road there’s a lot of components we have no control over. In order to be comprehensive in the legal sense, you’ve got to keep the regulatory components in place.

Check In With Them Personally

Being on the road can be an adventure the first couple of times but after that, it just gets boring, not to mention isolating. In order to make sure that they are okay you should check in with them on a regular basis. It’s not just about the job that they are there to do but when you get in contact with them you might want to think about seeing how they are. If they’re feeling a little bit low it is a good idea to give them something that can help keep their morale up. It could be some extra money through petty cash to go for a meal or to the movies.

Being on the road is a crucial role for many businesses now, but it can be a difficult one. Make sure you look after your employees effectively.

How To Check Out A Potential Employee Before Hiring Them

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Hiring An Employee|How To Check Out A Potential Employee Before Hiring ThemWhen you are hiring an employee and looking through applications, you need to check that they have the relevant experience and qualifications to do the job. Once they get to the interview stage, you will also be trying to get a feel for whether they are a good fit for the company and whether they will work well with the rest of the team. If all goes well, you may decide to offer them the job. But there is one more step that you need to take before that.

Even if a person seems great on the surface, you don’t really know much about them, which is why you need to conduct background checks to ensure that they are reliable and they are not going to endanger your business in any way. If you are unsure what you are looking for, these are some of the things that you need to check.

Employment History

Looking at somebody’s employment history is a good way to get a sense of how reliable they are. If they only stay at jobs for a few months and there are a lot of big gaps in their employment history, that is not a good sign and they are likely to let you down. If you click here to visit this website, you can request copies of employment records so you can check that there is nothing to be concerned about. If there is something that you are unsure about, you should always ask the candidate. They may have a reasonable explanation and that is fine, but if they do not, you should reconsider your decision to hire them.

Social Media Check

A person’s employment history gives you a clearer picture of their professional life, but you should also check out their social media pages to see what kind of person they are outside of work. If you see any evidence of illegal activity on there, for example, you know that this person is not a good hire for your company. It can also give you some insight into their personality and help you decide whether they will fit in with the rest of the team.

Criminal Record Checks

Employment history and social media checks help you to get a feel for the kind of person that you may be hiring and they are important. But criminal record checks are even more important because they are a matter of safety. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your employees are safe, so you need to avoid hiring anybody that has a violent past and could pose a safety risk. A criminal record check will let you know about any previous convictions, and even though you should not necessarily discount everybody with a criminal record, it is important that you make an informed decision.

Credit Checks

Credit checks are becoming more common during the hiring process because they can be an indication of how reliable a person is. If somebody has terrible credit, that suggests that they are not the most reliable person in the world and you should reconsider hiring them. Don’t base your entire decision on this, but it is something worth looking at.

As long as you do these important checks on a potential employee before hiring them, you can ensure that you are making the right decision.

Employee Onboarding Trends That Every Employer Should Know In 2020

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Onboarding Trends|Employee Onboarding Trends That Every Employer Should Know In 2020Human resources are undoubtedly the most vital resource for any organization. A talented and dedicated team can drive success for your business, so it definitely makes sense to go the extra mile with your recruitment process.

Having a good onboarding strategy is equally significant because it ensures retention of the resources you choose with a great deal of hard work. While having a robust onboarding process is the best way to get started, you need to follow the latest industry trends to deliver outstanding experiences to the new hires. Here are the employee onboarding trends that every employer should implement in 2020.

Trend #1: Preboarding

A lot goes on for the potential employee after accepting the job offer. There is stress and anxiety of course, in addition to the fact that they may have some competing job offers. These could lead to the new employees changing their minds and not showing up. No wonder, preboarding is emerging as a key trend in the recruitment industry. The objective of this process is to keep the potential employee engaged for the period between the date of offer acceptance and the first day of work. It involves connecting and reconnecting with the hires during this period so that they feel engaged and excited to be a part of your organization.

Trend #2: Personalization

Another onboarding trend that is making it big for recruiters is personalization. A personalized onboarding experience makes new hires feel connected and builds a comfort level right from the start. Though creating such experiences can take some effort, it pays off in the form of accelerated employee productivity right after joining.

Bringing personalization in onboarding workflows involves consideration of factors such as role, location and seniority of the recruits and designing the process accordingly. You can deliver specialized onboarding material and training sessions that are tailored to the needs and expectations of the recruits.

Trend #3: Automation

Onboarding is a humongous task for HR managers as the process has multiple steps and processes involved. The stress of managing them seamlessly is massive and they can end up wasting their precious time as well. Now is the time to look for an HR platform with onboarding features to automate the entire process. Though you will have to make this one time investment, it can translate into extensive savings in the long run. Automation is one trend that no organization should miss on, regardless of its size and scale.

Trend #4: Socialization

The human aspect is undeniably the most important part of onboarding. Positive social relationships at work should be encouraged as they drive employee engagement and the likelihood of staying with the employer. New hires, in particular, are likely to feel more comfortable in the new environment if they make friends with their colleagues.

It becomes important to embed socialization in the onboarding process and you should definitely embrace this trend for 2020 and beyond. The buddy system is one of the approaches you can incorporate within the program to encourage socialization.

Trend #5: Mentorship

New employees often struggle with finding someone they can turn to for good advice on key matters such as company culture, work expectations and initial stress. Mentorship is a trend that most of the organizations have adopted today to resolve this challenge for the new hires. A mentor is essentially a person in a senior position who can guide and advise the new employee to make their initial journey a smooth one. Since this person knows the company inside out, he or she is probably able to help the recruit to blend within the setup and culture of the organization.

Trend #6: Feedback

Businesses often go a long way with employee satisfaction surveys to get feedback on the existing system and find ways to improve it. In the recent time, feedback has become a significant part of the onboarding process as well. After all, you would want to know how satisfied the new employees are with the program and what is their likelihood of staying with the company and recommending it to others as well. Just building a new employee feedback system will not help; you need to understand the issues and address the gaps to improve the system as a whole.

These innovative trends have huge potential when it comes to improving your onboarding process. Not implementing them can put you behind in the race and you may even lose the best talent out there. So you must make all the efforts to align your program according to these trends.

Retain Your Employees for Longer

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Retain your employees|Retain Your Employees for LongerWhen you’ve taken a lot of time and effort to find and recruit the best employees for your business, it can be pretty upsetting when they decide to leave, not least because you’ll have to go through the whole process again and that can cost your business dearly in terms of time and money.

That’s why it’s always a good idea to be proactive and do everything you can to retain your employees for as long as possible. With that in mind, here are some of the best techniques for keeping your employees for longer…

Give them more responsibility

Giving your employees more responsibility is a great way of showing your trust in them. It also gives them more autonomy over their working days, which can lead to a greater level of job satisfaction. If you’ve hired the best people, there’s no reason to loom over them – just leave them to it.

Respect them

Employees are unlikely to stay with a job when they feel disrespected and underappreciated. That’s why it’s so important that you show them respect at all times. Don’t talk down to them, talk with them and make them feel that their opinion matters because actually it does.

Give them development opportunities

Whether you sponsor them to upgrade their contractors license or let them attend college once a week to learn code, for example, investing your time and money in your employees’ learning and development is a great way to keep them engaged. It shows them not only that you care, but also that they will be able to grow and progress within your company instead of having to look elsewhere for career fulfillment.

Share revenue with them

This may not be possible depending on the structure of your business and various other factors, but if you are able, you may want to consider setting up a revenue sharing scheme whereby a percentage of your profits will go back to your employees. There is no better way of showing your appreciation, motivating your staff and keeping them onboard than rewarding them financially for their loyalty, and this is a great way of doing that.

Give them lots of time off

Nobody wants to work for a company that works them to death, and anyway, employees who are forced to work long hard hours don’t exactly perform as well as they could, so be that generous boss. Be the boss who knows how important rest and relaxation is and offer a generous amount of paid time off for vacations, sickness, the birth of a new baby, mental health days. It might sound expensive, but it’ll cost you less than unmotivated employees or having to recruit new staff because your existing employees are burnt out.

If you want your employees to stay with your business for the long haul, you need to put the effort in. No one is going to stay in a place where they are overworked and underappreciated for long, so take you5r commitment to the good staff you have seriously starting now.

Do More, Together: 5 Effective Ways to Improve Collaboration Among Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |collaboration among employees |Do More, Together: 5 Effective Ways to Improve Collaboration Among EmployeesNobody ever said that business was easy.

50% are forced to cease operations within 5 years of starting up. Of course, numerous factors separate the best businesses from the worst. One thing’s for sure though:

Companies with employees that don’t work together face an uphill battle.

Collaboration boosts everything from operational efficiency and effectiveness through to the working environment and company culture. Communication, morale, and teamwork all get better.

In other words, it’s good for business.

Want five tips for improving collaboration among employees? Keep reading.

1. Set Up Post Work Activities

Getting to know each other better is key to collaboration.

After all, employees are more likely to work well together when they’re friends and not just colleagues. Setting up activities outside of the office facilitates that relationship-development.

Being outside of the working environment is important. Without their usual tasks and responsibilities to complete, employees will relax and strike up a conversation; they’ll hear each other’s stories, laugh, and find common ground.

This is a recipe for better communication and relations within the office as well.

2. Run Team-Building Exercises

Team-building is another classic route to better collaboration.

Every aspect of these activities and exercises is intended to bolster relationships and communication. They bring people together around common goals and foster team-work in the process.

More to the point, they’re fun!

Good team-building tasks inevitably make people smile, laugh, and bond. They learn lessons to take back into the office.

3. Ensure Strong Leadership

This one’s a little out of left-field.

However, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of strong leadership in encouraging collaboration. Someone that leads from the front and by example will set the standard of what’s expected from their employees.

Good leaders set their expectations of employees and support their development. They’ll keep people on track with roles and responsibilities, and work to improve their confidence.

All told, employees feel empowered, supported, and valued. Feeling like an important part of the team, they’re more likely to contribute to it and collaborate with it.

4. Create Sharing Opportunities

Employees should feel empowered at work.

They should have the chance to speak up, voice their ideas, and share their thoughts with the group. Everybody should have a turn to talk and to feel part of the discussion.

It’s the job of any manager to make this happen.

Quick-fire morning meetings, scrums, time-outs, and group-thinking opportunities will help.

5. Employ Collaborative Technology

A dynamic team will also benefit from tools specifically designed to improve collaboration.

Software or apps, such as Slack, that enhance communication provide a good example. Employees can share messages with ease, post notifications, share documents, and discuss particular issues.

Utilizing these resources, alongside others such as an appointment scheduler, will keep everybody in sync and on task. Productivity will improve and operations become more streamlined.

Time to Improve Collaboration Among Employees

Businesses are more likely to succeed when staff members work together.

Hopefully, the tips here will help your company improve collaboration among employees and boost your chances of success in the process.

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