Cell phones are driving many of us to distraction—and taking a toll on productivity in the workplace. Nineteen percent of employers think their workers are productive for less than five hours a day, and more than half believe that cell phones are to blame.
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Recruiting for a small business can have a big impact. When your team is smaller, every hire is important — and the wrong hire can keep your entire business from growing. You may not have a corporate-sized budget or brand recognition, or even a recruiting team with HR processes to streamline hiring. But as a small business, you can be more nimble, responsive, and personalized in your approach.
Here are steps you can take now to start engaging qualified candidates that will help your small business flourish:
Know the budget you’ll need. LinkedIn found that the average small business spends around $1,600 a year on hiring.
Interview past and present teammates to build out exact qualifications for this role. Understanding the role as thoroughly as possible will help you make better candidate matches. Map out your hiring timeline with milestones. Almost half of small businesses take about a month to make a hire. Sync with teammates about their individual responsibilities to streamline the hiring process. Everyone on your team should wear a recruiter hat (see step 5 for more information).
You need to screen out unqualified candidates even as you post the job. Required questions about availability, tool expertise, and language proficiency can help the right candidates make the short list faster. We recommend a minimum of two to three screening questions.
You don’t have time to manually reply to every single candidate — especially those who don’t qualify — but you should use an automated solution to deliver prompt, professional responses when an application is received or dismissed.
When researching and interviewing candidates, determine if they have the top five soft skills (creativity, persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and emotional intelligence) that are especially critical on a smaller team.
Small businesses offer something that large corporations struggle with — a more unique, intimate culture. Your company’s employer brand should attract candidates who feel like large corporations are impersonal and indifferent.
Humanize your team with a company page. Showcase your achievements, reinforce your unique company vision, post expert tips, and ask questions that engage your ideal candidates. LinkedIn Pages are free, and followers are 81% more likely to reply to InMail outreach.
Create a personalized career site, not only to post jobs but also to connect with candidates who want an authentic view of daily life at your company. Your career site should surface the right job postings for the right visitors based on their individual professional experiences.
You may not offer the same compensation as larger companies, but you can offer a tailored career growth path. Small businesses attract ambitious candidates who are eager for new experiences and skill sets — and who would rather rise quickly on a small team than wait years to advance at a larger business.
Emphasize how open and accessible your leadership is. Small business candidates appreciate an environment where every voice is heard regardless of rank, and where every individual has an opportunity to make a significant impact on the company every day.
Encourage employees to share your company content on their personal and professional social media networks. This further humanizes your company as well as increases exposure.
Get leadership on board. Articles, videos, and original content from leadership can offer unique insights that engage more passionate and dedicated candidates.
Have teammates add links to your company and career pages on their LinkedIn profiles. This shows enthusiasm and unity to candidates who research their potential teammates before applying.
As a small business, you can be more authentic in your recruitment. Write friendly job posts that emphasize the company culture and strong growth path that you established in the previous steps.
While you want your job post to stand out, you should also be clear and descriptive so qualified candidates can understand the opportunity.
Because they don’t have the budget to compete with large companies, hiring teams at small businesses feel compelled to rely solely on word of mouth or their existing network to source talent. However, job posting sites can add life to your candidate pool — especially sites that offer candidate matching and screening capabilities.
Post to a site with cost-per-action options that stay within budget, targeting and screening capabilities that save time, and a user-friendly candidate management system.
Got a strong candidate on your radar? Use the right channel for your initial outreach to ensure a quick connection. A compelling InMail message has a 300% greater response rate than a regular email, so you can engage with serious candidates faster.
If you’re sending paid InMail messages, you’ll get credit back when a candidate rejects your message, stretching your budget further.
Use candidate profile details, discussion history, and engagement data to keep the conversation personalized, interesting, and moving forward.
Remember…Small teams can still attract big talent. You may have a humble budget and only a handful of people on your team, but you can still find solutions to turn talented, eager candidates into the new hires that carry your company forward.
SOURCE: LinkedIn Talent Solutions
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Your new employee orientation checklist should have the proper paperwork needed for the employee to start working. This includes Federal and State Income Tax Withholding Documents, Federal Employment Eligibility Documents and an employee contract that outlines job duties and title.
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Failing to define hiring-team roles
If team members don’t know what they’re responsible for, they may inadvertently double-up on tasks — wasting time and drawing out the interview process.
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Have you ever wondered to yourself why other people’s lives just seem to work? They appear carefree, everything is in alignment, they’re getting on with their day-to-day stuff without any stress. They manage to have busy and meaningful lives minus any signs of overwhelm, and opportunities seem to land in their lap. They just have all the luck, right?
What is their secret? There must be some magic at play, something the rest of us mere mortals aren’t privy to.
While we’re stuck on the hamster wheel, they just seem to have it all together. The hamster wheel of life is a cycle. We go round and round, caught up in our to-do lists, our own busyness and the hectic nature of the world. Before long, we’re just exhausted trying to keep up – the wheel is relentless, and it keeps on turning whether we’re keeping up with it or not. Fortunately, we have one very simple option. Get off.
The hamster wheel is propelled by you, and when it takes over, it’s still you causing it to turn faster and faster until it feels out of control. The choice to get off the wheel and take a step back will put you in control. Stop. Take stock. Simplify. Take control.
And this is where the magic starts to happen.
The people whose lives just seem to work are simply in control. They understand what works for them and what doesn’t, and they make sure they stick to their own rules. They have clarity and are focused on making sure they’re working towards their goals and ambitions. They are in charge of their own lives, rather than trying to keep up with them. They set the pace.
By now, you should be familiar with the Productivity Success Cake.If not, stop reading and go take the quiz, now, then come back to me. For those of you who are familiar with the quiz but you’re still struggling to get off the hamster wheel – go do the quiz again. It’ll either reinforce what you know to be true, or you’ll be surprised at what’s changed for you. Either way – take the quiz here.
And now it’s time to take charge.
The only way to implement effective change is to make that commitment to yourself. Sign an agreement with yourself. You WILL commit to simplifying your life and creating calm, peace, fluidity and balance. You’ve got this.
This process can feel daunting, but the results are truly incredible for those who make the commitment to taking charge and seeing it through. To make it feel easier for you, here are some tips to get you started.
More and more jurisdictions are passing laws requiring employers to provide paid leave to employees, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated this trend. When new laws are enacted, employers often have questions about the impact on their existing policies. Here are answers to some frequently asked questions on paid sick leave, vacation, and paid time off.
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