The term “Organizational Development” sounds like one of those phrases that exist to codify something as ill-defined as the growth of a business. Thus, many business owners dismiss it as a buzzword without looking deeper. That is, unfortunately, a detrimental behavior. First, let’s start with the definition.  What is Organizational Development?  Organizational development is a detailed process using data to guide the growth and efficacy of a business. Every business reaches a critical point wherein it must make changes, sometimes significant foundational changes, to progress and grow. A family-owned business might need to explore franchising, or a historical company may need to establish an online presence to service its customers. A small business may need to make the jump into multiple locations. These developmental changes are often large and complex, requiring integration and buy-in from every department within the company, converting business processes, and often dramatic change. Unlike many forms of business growth, this development must be planned, implemented, and optimized using data and formalized structures to succeed. To quote Maryville University : “Organizational development is a planned, systematic change in the values or operations of employees to create overall growth in a company or organization. It differs from everyday operations and workflow improvements in that it follows a specific protocol that management communicates clearly to all employees.” There are a few critical aspects of the organizational development process that stand out from other business processes. ✅ Science-Based Organizational development is a science-based and evidence-based process. The “try it and see what works” process is ineffective for organization-wide changes, which typically require massive shifts in operations, values, and procedures. This requires evidence as input to develop new business processes, which can be tested and measured, and the outcomes used to determine the next steps. ✅ Lofty Goals Organizational development codifies goals that affect the entire organization, often in dramatic ways. These goals often include, but are not limited to, improved financial performance, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and organization renewal. Different plans and outcomes have additional benefits and procedures to reach them. ✅ Systemic Reach Organizational development encompasses the whole of the organization. These are not business process changes within individual departments or segments of a business; they are system-wide changes in structure, process, or business strategy. As such, they can achieve significant results but require major buy-in to implement. The modern world of commerce is uncertain and ambiguous, and it’s often difficult to predict what will and what won’t work. Testing and adapting, not just to the pressures of industry and location, but to overall perspective and opinion, becomes a complex yet necessary task. Remember that the modern state of commerce is unlike any that has come before. The internet easily facilitates global reach for businesses that could never have dreamed of more than local exposure even a decade ago. Modern analytics open up a wealth of data formerly unheard-of. The very model of a modern business is unlike anything that has come before. The Benefits of Organizational Development The overall process brings with it many benefits, some direct, some indirect. I have listed these benefits below:  ✅ Increased Productivity. Organizational development allows you to implement policies and procedures that take “work smarter, not harder” to heart. Increasing the efficacy of individuals and processes within the organization cuts out the fat, streamlines processes, and serves as a force multiplier for the effort put in by employees. ✅ Continuous Development. To quote Corporate Finance Institute : “Entities that participate in organizational development continually develop their business models. Organizational development creates a constant pattern of improvement in which strategies are developed, evaluated, implemented, and assessed for results and quality.” ✅ Effective Communication. Every modern business needs effective communication as a foundational value. Horizontal transmission between members of a team and between teams allows for efficient work. Vertical communication upwards gives management and executives the feedback necessary to improve the company in broad strokes. In contrast, vertical contact downwards keeps middle management and workers appraised of the direction and goals of the business for fully-aligned operations. ✅ Employee Growth. A business is only as strong as its employees. Therefore, continual employee development is a foundational to grow a business. This process allows a company to grow institutional knowledge and value while retaining valuable employees and encouraging growth. It also reduces expenses by reducing employee turnover . ✅ Enhanced Goods and Services. A product or service needs to be unique in some way to be successful in commerce. It may focus on providing services otherwise unavailable, synthesizing services from various sources to promote convenience, or providing higher quality or lower cost than the competition. Discovering the ideal route to a unique selling proposition is a crucial focus. Innovation is required for modern commerce. ✅ Bolstered Profits. Through many of the above benefits, productivity is improved, expenses are reduced, and sales rise, resulting in increased profit margins, which can then be reinvested in the business to further fuel the cycle of organizational development. By synthesizing these benefits, a business can grow organically in whatever direction the pressures of the market, the industry, the employees, the management team, and the values of all of these guide it. The implementation of continual, effective, evidence-based change is crucial to growth and is the foundation of organizational development. As a science and evidence-based process, organizational development takes place in a series of phases. There are, however, several different models for organizational development, each with its unique process. Here are some of the more popular versions. The Action Research Model The Action Research Model is a six-phase approach, I list out each step below. 1st: Problems are diagnosed and identified. Quoting CFI again: “The organization development process begins by recognizing problems. The method of diagnosis usually takes the form of data gathering, assessment of cause, as well as an initial investigation to ascertain options.” 2nd: Feedback and assessment of the problems.  Each problem identified in the first phase is investigated here. Data is gathered using various sources, including focus groups, customer feedback, employee surveys, document reviews, external consultants, and any other relevant data sources. This information is then used to evaluate and codify the problem in actionable terms. 3rd: Planning is a two-part phase that involves setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound) objectives with defined target results.  Once those goals are set, plans are developed to address the problem with potential solutions. These plans can involve many changes to a business, from training and process streamlining to restructuring teams. 4th: The plans are implemented.  Solutions developed in the planning phase are implemented, and the results of those solutions are measured and compared to the goals set by the second and third phases. The focus here is on determining if the proposed solutions achieve the desired effects or if they need to be reevaluated. Feedback is then assessed, and plans are either implemented on a broader scale or re-engineered for alignment with overall objectives. 5th: Intervention is evaluated.  Assuming all went well in the fourth phase, the plan can be implemented organization-wide. Once this is completed, comprehensive data is measured, and the success or failure of the overall implementation is evaluated. If the desired change occurs, the organization can proceed back to phase one to identify further problems to address. If not, the organization can return to phase three to re-assess and develop new potential solutions. “Back to the drawing board.” 6th: Measuring success.  When all goes well, the final phase of one cycle is the successful implementation of a plan, with measured and sustained change that produces effective results. Monitoring is required to ensure that results are sustained and to watch for potential other problems that arise from the changes. Those results can then feed those back into phase one, and the process started again. Kurt Lewin’s Three-Step Model Kurt Lewin developed an alternative model in the 1940s as a simple and generalized three-phase process for organizational development. ✅ Phase one: Unfreeze. The first step of the process is “warming up” the organization to prepare it for change. This process shakes up established norms and procedures. The goal is to shake up the status quo to instill in the organization the fact that change is both possible and necessary. From MindTools : “[The] key to this is developing a compelling message showing why the existing way of doing things cannot continue. This is easiest to frame when you can point to declining sales figures, poor financial results, worrying customer satisfaction surveys, or suchlike. These show that things have to change in a way that everyone can understand.” This process may require challenging the business’s core values, the beliefs it is founded upon, or the behaviors that define it. This creates a “controlled crisis” that can then be leveraged by presenting the desired change as an effective solution. ✅ Phase two: Transition. The second phase takes advantage of the natural human desire to find a solution to an existing problem. A crisis has been developed in the first phase, and once the initial panic has worn off, those involved will begin to look for a solution. Presenting the desired change as a solution to the problem allows the more forward-thinking among the business to embrace it and begin to implement it. This phase is often resisted by variable human nature. Some individuals will resist change, either out of fear of the unknown or out of sheer uncertainty. Others, primarily those who benefit from the previous status quo, may need to be forcibly converted, or removed from the organization, to avoid hampering organizational development. Overall, this process requires both time and communication throughout the organization to propagate the change successfully. ✅ Phase three: Refreeze. The third phase of the process is to freeze the organization in its new state. Change is good, but only when it produces results; change for the sake of change creates an uncertain and ineffective business. In particular, this phase boosts productivity to new heights, as employees recognize that stability has returned and they no longer need to worry about the uncertainty. Examples of Organizational Development Interventions A specific intervention can be as narrow as adjusting the behaviors of a handful of employees to as broad as adjusting the overall management style of the business as a whole. Here are some examples of potential organizational development interventions that can be seen in the real world. Coaching an employee on adjusting maladaptive behaviors that inhibit their function as part of a team. Restructuring a team for efficient handling of issues the team is meant to resolve through a hierarchal revision with established escalation protocols. Bringing in a third-party consultant to bring a fresh perspective to a problem and resolve it most effectively. A confrontational meeting is established to use as a starting point to identify structural or management problems through feedback in a confidential or privileged environment. Review and interventions are implemented to diagnose and repair relationships between disparate teams that need to work together but where communications have broken down. A review and revision are implemented for an entire organization’s structure to reduce bloat in certain areas of an organization chart, prune off vestigial departments that are no longer necessary, and identify areas where more staff is required. A high-level review is conducted to reorient teams and departments to align with the goals that matter and to reduce drift that may have occurred over time. Overviews are conducted to identify employees, roles, or teams not fulfilling positions and giving those roles more fulfillment to increase job satisfaction and reduce overall turnover. Reviews identify gaps in diversity in teams and hiring practices, and processes are implemented to encourage further diversity in hiring and employee development. These are just some of the changes, from a personal level to an organizational or structural level, that can be made through the overall process. Every business implements its own procedures to enact this process, or it will stagnate and fall through the ongoing churn of industry. Conclusion Organizational development is far more than a mere buzzword; it’s a critical, science-based process that guides a business through necessary changes for growth and efficiency.  Utilizing data and structured approaches, it aims to enhance productivity, communication, employee development, and overall profitability. As businesses face the complexities of modern commerce, understanding and implementing organizational development is not just beneficial but essential.  Whether through the Action Research Model or Kurt Lewin’s Three-Step Model, the systematic and evidence-based nature of this process ensures that changes are not just made but are made for the better.  Don’t let your organization fall behind; start your journey towards employing an effective team today. Contact our team today to learn about how we can help you.

An increasing number of companies, ranging from multinational enterprises to small businesses, are implementing second interviews in their hiring processes. As a business owner, HR manager, or another decision-maker, you may have wondered whether or not it’s a valuable option, or if other companies are doing it just because everyone else seems to be. The reality is, there are quite a few benefits to implementing second interviews. However, you should be aware of the potential drawbacks of doing so, especially in certain situations. Choosing whether or not to implement second interviews is a decision best left to your judgment, but we can provide the benefits and drawbacks to help you make that choice. Let’s start with the benefits! Pro: A Second Interview Can Have a Different Format or Structure The modern hiring process offers many options for interviews. You might want to work in a skills assessment, a practical interview, a traditional in-person one-on-one, a panel interview with company leadership, a group interview , or something else entirely. Using a second interview allows you to work in a second format. Here are some common real-world examples: The first interview with department heads and HR managers, followed by a second interview involving company leadership. This process allows the first interview to check for skills, experience, and personality, while the second looks into values, culture, and more nebulous qualities. The first interview conducted over the phone or a video conference, and the second interview in person. This can be particularly useful for national or global candidates, rather than purely local candidate pools. The first-phase group interview is followed by an individual interview. This is great for processing large numbers of initial candidates, then giving a more detailed interview for the best of that pool. When you’re limited to a single interview, you don’t have the leeway to leverage different interview formats for the unique value you can get out of them. Pro: A Second Interview Can Leverage a Second Interviewer Small and mid-sized companies in particular are frequently limited in the number of people they have on hand to interview candidates. You might only have a single HR manager, and empowering them to make every hiring decision might be too much on top of their other duties. A second interview allows small companies the flexibility to interview from different perspectives. The first interview can be conducted by the HR manager and cover the basics of the role, the company, and general questions or concerns from either side of the table. The second interview can involve (or be conducted by) a relevant team or department head, who knows more specific and detailed questions to ask, attributes to look for, and knowledge to test. Pro: A Second Interview Further Engages Qualified Candidates A second interview is built on a foundation laid by the first. You have a basic understanding of the candidate, at least on the surface, and they understand you. They can feel more at ease, more specifically prepared, and more comfortable. This means they will be more willing to have a relatively candid chat, discuss concerns they might be hesitant to bring up in a first interview, and will generally be more engaged with the entire process. “Holding two interviews gives you the power to create a more human hiring process.” – 1H Recruiting One huge benefit to the second interview is making a candidate more engaged with your company specifically. Most candidates send out numerous applications; when they reach a second interview, they may be more likely to put other applications on hold. They may be more confident of themselves for having reached that phase, which can help fight imposter syndrome and make them more likely to express themselves better. Second interviews are also an opportunity for candidates to ask about details that would be “getting ahead of themselves” in a first interview. If they have specific concerns such as availability of family leave, paternity absence, specific benefits, or other practicalities, they can use the second interview to verify that they’re likely to get what they need to feel comfortable working for your company. Pro: A Second Interview Allows You to Gauge Consistency Interviews are high-stress events. The higher-level the position, the greater the stress levels, especially for candidates who are desperate or in dire straits. Indeed, some HR managers find that composed and self-assured candidates may be those most prone to fail when pushed outside of their comfort zone. “Having a second round of interviews allows the company to look for consistency in your personality, soft skills, and responses. This gives hiring managers more confidence in making a job offer.” – Chron . Using a second interview allows you to observe a candidate twice, in different situations, and with different pressures. Are they more composed and more confident the second time around? Does a different format, an unexpected question, or a repeated series of questions throw them off their game? Perhaps most importantly, do their answers change from interview to interview, or do they show other signs of talking a bigger game than they can play? These are all questions you can answer by leveraging a second interview, particularly if you’ve maintained good notes (or even videos) from the first interview, and can review them before the second. Pro: A Second Interview Allows Less Engaged Candidates to Drop Out A less common but useful side effect of a two-phase interview process is that it helps you avoid wasting time on candidates who choose not to accept an offer. When a candidate goes through the interview process, they are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. It can be frustrating for a hiring manager to choose a candidate and extend an offer, only to find that they’ve chosen to drop out and accept the offer of a different firm. It wastes time, it may make your decision-makers feel less confident in their choice, and it can leave you scrambling if they were the only top-tier candidate to make it. A second interview gives the candidates involved more time to determine whether or not they’re truly interested in the job. If they receive another offer, they can contact you for a counter-offer right away, or simply drop out of the running if they don’t think you can match it. If those candidates choose not to participate in a second interview, it saves your team time on interviewing and making a decision amongst the remaining candidates. Those are the primary benefits of hosting a second interview. There are a couple of drawbacks to second interviews, however, and they must be considered. Con: A Second Interview Takes More Time and Delays Hiring The biggest overall downside in a second interview is the time it takes to conduct. A two-phase interview process necessarily delays the hiring process by however long it takes to: Determine which candidates from the first interview are invited to the second. Organize and schedule the second interview. Conduct the second interview. Decide which candidate to extend an offer to. The actual duration of the second interview can vary. JobBoom says: “The second interview is usually the shortest, and focuses on gathering information that was not discussed during the first interview.” However, The Balance Careers counters with: “A second interview tends to last a half-day to a full day. Consequently, your team can assess whether the individual remains the person they thought they met at the first interview. People are competent at projecting an image of who they are for a couple of hours, but most individuals cannot fake an image for a whole day. In this time frame, your team also will take the applicant out for a meal, and this gives you another level of insight into the candidate’s manners, social competence, and interpersonal interaction skills.” Now, many companies are not going to spend all day on a second interview for a single candidate, nor are they going to take them out to a restaurant, but it depends a lot on what your interview process is. The higher-level the position you’re interviewing for, the greater the time investment each round of interviews will be. Con: A Second Interview Requires Close Communication with Candidates A traditional single interview process is often one of mediocre communication for many businesses. Candidates are often used to attending an interview and then hearing little or nothing back for weeks or months, before maybe receiving an afterthought as a phone call, email, or letter telling them that they didn’t get the job. “Ensuring your candidate is kept in the loop with updates in the recruitment process is essential. If a candidate doesn’t feel like they’re being updated properly, it’s more likely they won’t accept your job offer, or they may accept one with another company. If the process is delayed for any reason, let the candidate know so they stay engaged.” – Total Jobs . Second interviews need to bridge the communication gap. The candidates must be kept in the loop, to keep them engaged with the process and let them know that they should handle whatever scheduling considerations they may have. Concerns might include: Bringing in candidates from afar for a physical interview, and the travel and lodgings that requires. Keeping time available for a second interview, which may mean scheduling other life events around it. Maintaining communications so the candidate doesn’t write you off before you have time to contact them to schedule another round. Communication means several things. First and foremost, it means managing expectations. A candidate early in the process might need to wait for the first round of interviews to conclude before expecting a second, so they need to know when they’ll know more. It means keeping them in the loop on delays and other concerns. It also means giving them the respect of letting them know that they weren’t chosen for the position, and whether or not they’re on tap for a future opening. Is a Second Interview a Good Decision? Hosting a second interview for your position is a wise decision in some circumstances and is potentially unnecessary in others. While the benefits may seem to outweigh the drawbacks, the balance of the scale tips in certain situations. Primarily, the biggest factor is time. You might consider skipping a second interview if: You need someone up and running as soon as possible. When you’re in a rush to find someone to fill a role to pick up the slack, achieve time-sensitive business objectives, or get a team up and running immediately, a second interview may be a delay that you can’t afford. The size or quality of your candidate pool is low. While there’s a lot you can do to increase the quality of your candidate pools , you might have to deal with a lot of mismatched candidates and a relatively small pool. If the choice is more or less clear on the first interview, or there are very few alternatives, you may not need a second. Your open positions are entry-level. Many entry-level positions may not require a high level of skill, experience, or nuance to warrant a thorough second interview. All of these are, to an extent, related. The larger the investment in an employee, the more care should be taken in choosing them, and thus the more likely a second interview will be valuable. What About a Third Interview? Third interviews have all of the same considerations as second interviews. They are often seen in cases where the first interview is a large group interview or largely self-directed or one-way skills assessment/video interview. Only in cases of high-level positions such as executives and C-levels are third interviews more commonplace. Whether or not you require them depends a lot on what you hope to get out of them. That said, third interviews are often a sign that your interview process needs revisiting, to more fully analyze candidates before the interview stage, or conduct more comprehensive first and second interviews. It’s important to remember that second interviews are not an all-or-nothing process. You can choose to implement a two-phase (or even three-phase) interview process for your mid-level and high-level positions, while still sticking to a single-phase process, or a group interview followed by an individual interview process, for your entry-level positions. In the end, the choice depends on your interview process, your needs, and how well you can assess your candidates in a single interview.

Two pressures run counter to one another in the hiring process. On the one hand, you want to be thorough, and you need to make sure that you’re hiring the best possible candidates. Missing a critical character flaw, skill gap, or other indication of a poor worker means struggling to fit them into your team, losing them to churn, and starting the process all over again. On the other hand, you want to fill your open roles quickly. Every additional screening or assessment takes time. The longer your open position remains unfilled, the more stress the rest of your team is under trying to cover those duties, which lowers your business productivity. Skill assessments can help you pick out the best candidates from your shortlist, but they also add another layer of time and feedback to the process. There are clear pros and cons to using skill assessments, but what are they? Let’s discuss. Pro: Tests Can Be More Objective than Interviews One of the most significant benefits that skills assessments bring to the table is their objectivity. Every candidate receives the same test and is graded based on their answers. Their name, race, religion, location; all of these protected categories are ignored for the purposes of the test. Often, the tests will be fully automated, so there’s not even a chance of a proctor’s bias getting in the way. Of course, this isn’t a guarantee. Proctored tests, tests that require subjective grading of open-ended questions, and other such assessments might not be objective. Meanwhile, a well-structured interview can be objective and unbiased as well. Simply using assessment software or testing does not guarantee objectivity; it merely provides another route for objective filtering. Pro: Tests Can Indicate Candidate Capability The single most prominent benefit of a well-designed skills assessment is the chance for a candidate to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they know what they’re doing. A skills assessment for a developer might provide a piece of buggy code and ask for it to be optimized; there’s no way to get around this, the candidate either knows what to do or they do not. It does depend on the test to a certain extent. Some tests can be “gamed,” while some more common, popular tests have their answer keys leaked online. It’s always possible, as well, that the individual taking the test has external help on hand. Then again, people working in a job might not need to work in isolation either. If a candidate knows where to go to find an answer, rather than having obscure coding rules memorized, is that not itself proof that they would function well in their role? That’s a determination you’ll need to make. Pro: Testing is Cost-Effective If you have a relatively large pool of potential candidates and want to narrow that pool down, a skills assessment is one way to handle it. It’s trivially easy for your hiring department to administer an assessment to an entire candidate pool. All you need is a response informing the candidates that they’ve made it to the next stage of the hiring process, a link to whatever assessment platform you’re using, and the information they need to access the test. “Candidates can appear for the tests from any desired place of the world as long as there is an internet connection. Hence, the need for infrastructure to conduct the test or to reimburse travel expenses is eliminated. Features like online web proctoring, windows violation records eliminate the need for human invigilation, making the screening process more secure.” –  iMocha Testing platforms do cost money, but that money is a lot less than you would spend otherwise. Think about the costs of bringing a candidate in for an interview. You have their travel reimbursement, if any. You have the time your hiring team spends and the money it costs you to pay them for that time. Only so many interviews can happen in a day, so this can last for weeks. Compare that to the fee an assessment application charges and the time saved by sending out the assessment to everyone in the pool. Yes, you’re spending money, but it’s less money than you would pay otherwise. Pro: Tests Are Faster than In-Person Assessments As well as being cost-effective, assessment software is often time-effective for the same reasons. If you have to wait until a candidate is in your building for an interview before you can assess their skills with in-person testing, you have to invest a lot of time and money into every potential candidate. The primary issue here is that you need to narrow down your candidate pool further before advancing to this stage. A software-based assessment can start early and filter your candidate pool quickly, whereas an in-person interview and assessment should only be conducted near the end of the hiring process, where you’re relatively sure that the candidate will pass. Pro: Tests Are Standardized and Transparent Every candidate is given the same assessment, and the answer key is both standardized and available. As long as the test isn’t judged subjectively, the assessment grade can be considered more or less objective. This objectivity and transparency helps avoid adverse impacts or discrimination in your hiring process. An in-person assessment proctored by your hiring team might lack objectivity. A piece of software will administer the same test to everyone, regardless of their individual qualities. This does require the assessment software to be designed to be objective. It is an issue in some modern machine-learning or AI-based software; the “black box” nature of the algorithms powering it can be an issue and can open up either your company or the assessment provider to legal claims. Pro: Tests Can Be Automated In many companies, the need for new employees is near-constant. You might not necessarily have specific open roles in mind, but you know you always need new workers in certain areas, either due to high turnover, high growth, or high demand. Testing, then, can become an automated part of your hiring process. Candidates fill out an application and may even have to take an assessment as part of the application process. If not then, you can use preliminary filters to narrow your candidate pool and offer your assessment to only those candidates who pass the initial filter. All of this can be managed through your applicant tracking system and the testing platform, depending on which software you’re using and how well they integrate with one another. The entire process, from job posting to a shortlist for interviews, can be reasonably automated in an ideal world. While there are many benefits to using skill assessments and testing as part of the hiring process, there are some notable drawbacks as well. Let’s discuss them next. Con: Tests Might Not Be Validated There are three ways in which an assessment might not be valid for your hiring process and your role: The test might assess aspects of an individual that aren’t relevant . A test for a developer should test relevant coding languages, not something no one uses directly like Assembly or COBOL (unless the role is specialized for it). Likewise, a test for a developer shouldn’t include physical assessments. The test might be out of date . Some skill assessments rely on older ways of doing things that might not comply with modern best practices. Any good testing platform will keep their tests up to date, but this is worth verifying annually at a minimum. A test might be easy to circumvent . For example, a popular skills assessment in your industry and role might have its answers available online. In this case, you can’t necessarily trust the results of the test. Did the candidate know the answers, or did they look them up? Testing needs to be valid and relevant to your role. As such, at least for skills assessments, there is no single test that applies to your whole organization. Each department will need its own assessments tailored to the level of the role sought. Con: Tests Are Slower than No Testing While assessment software can automate the process and save you time conducting assessments in person, testing is still another phase of the hiring process that doesn’t necessarily need to exist. Often, assessments will add days of turnaround at minimum, though it can be somewhat mitigated by making them part of an automated process. Consider a situation where your initial candidate pool needs to be invited to take a test. Your first wave of filtering needs to be done; then, you need to send out invitations to the assessment with a deadline that is reasonable (often a week for turnaround), enough time to grade the assessments if necessary, and the final report to be given to your hiring team. This still leaves you with a list of valid candidates, albeit a smaller one, but adds a week or more to the hiring process. Whether or not this additional time spent is worth the investment will be a judgment your hiring team needs to make, as it will vary depending on the role, the urgency of the opening, and the skills necessary for the candidate to succeed. Con: Tests Can Scare Off Good Candidates Depending on the level of the role, a skills assessment might suppress some of your best candidates. This is most prominent at low and high levels. At an entry-level, candidates might expect a personality assessment, but a skills assessment might be seen as too much. If nothing else, they may not have the skills you want, expecting you to train them. Those who do have the skills might recognize that an entry-level job isn’t for them. At the higher level, hard skills cease to be as important as soft skills. At the upper management and executive levels, for example, a skills assessment is rarely worth it. You’re looking for leadership and visionary qualities, not hard skills, and those are difficult or impossible to test. Con: Testing Software Can Be Expensive Perhaps one of the most significant drawbacks to using a skills assessment platform is the expense incurred. These platforms have a wide variety of costs; some can be as cheap as $200/month, while others can be $5,000/month or more. Perhaps more importantly, the costs can vary wildly depending on your usage and your needs. Some skill assessment platforms are highly specialized; they’ll work well if you need a developer, but less so if you need a sales rep or vice versa. You may end up needing more than one assessment platform. Additionally, some platforms charge per assessment or seat rather than a monthly fee, which can mean costs skyrocket when you need a surge in hiring, making the hiring process even more expensive. Depending on your available hiring budget, this can be a challenge to handle. Con: Some Tests Can Be Discriminatory Depending on the assessment, it could potentially be discriminatory. Yes, one of the pros up above was the ability to avoid discrimination. However, that only applies to tests that are limited and objective. Tests that are not objective or test things not directly relevant to the role can be used as the basis for a discrimination suit. “This seems to be a paradox since tests are relatively objective. But cognitive ability and knowledge tests can disproportionately screen out non-white candidates. This can result in costly lawsuits. One example is a 2012 discrimination case where a company had to pay $550,000 in back wages to minority workers it rejected through a pre-employment test.” – Workable. As with every part of the hiring process, you need to take adequate care to ensure an objective and non-discriminatory system is in place. Con: Some Things Can’t Be Tested Many aspects of an individual necessary for their success in your company cannot be tested. It’s challenging, especially with an unmonitored software test, to assess leadership ability, communication skills, ability to work with a team, and other aspects that make for a good employee. Testing can only help refine some elements of your hiring process; it cannot replace them. Skill assessment platforms and software can be a great boon to your hiring process when used correctly. The drawbacks to using them can be mitigated or avoided, as long as you know, they’re there. Use assessments as necessary, but don’t try to use them for purposes they aren’t meant to serve.

When it comes to interviewing candidates for a position, all too often the final determination comes down not to objective facts, but to gut feelings and impressions left by the interview. This leads to candidates who might be charismatic and charming but underperform at their job when technical tasks and computers – which can’t be charmed – come into play. More than that, gut feelings can often involve internal biases that even the interviewer is unaware of. Maybe the interviewer has had a bad experience with a brunette woman in the past and now feels less good about hiring another brunette, even though there’s no conscious thought behind it. This kind of systemic bias can be minimized or even eliminated with the use of an interview scorecard template. What Is an Interview Scorecard? So what is an interview scorecard? In short, it’s a form that each interviewer fills out for each candidate, with objective (and potentially subjective) categories that are then rated on a numeric scale. Let’s say that you have three interviewers performing each interview. A scorecard is given to each of them, and a fresh card is used for each new candidate as they are interviewed. Thus, for each candidate, there are three sets of data points that you can then use to rate and rank each candidate. Interview scorecards are generally a spreadsheet with four columns . The first column is the category of information. The second category is a summary of what you’re looking for as an answer from the candidate. The third category is a summary of the candidate’s response to the question. The fourth category is a numerical rating, typically on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10, depending on how many candidates you have and how granular you want to make the rating process. The numerical rating is a measurement of how well the candidate fits the role you’re looking for. As such, an interview scorecard will differ for each different position you’re hiring for. A scorecard for a middle manager in your finances department will look dramatically different than one for an IT worker or a C-level. What Categories Your Scorecard Should Include As we just mentioned, the different categories you include in your scorecard will vary based on the position. However, some broad categories are the same across different scorecards. Here’s a general overview of what you might expect. Job Title: This scorecard entry will have the specific job title you’re hiring for, and will ask the candidate what previous job titles they’ve held that qualify them to hold this one. Someone who has held the same job title in the past will get a higher score than someone with a merely related job title, or a job title a tier lower than this one. For example, if you’re looking to hire an IT Manager , someone who has been an IT Manager in the past would get a 5/5, someone who has been an IT Supervisor might get a 4/5, and someone who has been an IT Administrator might get a 3/5. Someone with IT experience but no role beyond worker might get a 2/5, and someone with no previous IT experience in a formal work setting might get a 1/5. Deliverables: This category includes the main tasks a person in your open role will be asked to complete and deliver on time. This can be anything from “digital assets” to “financial reports” to “employee satisfaction” and is highly customized to the role. Here, the candidate would be asked if they’ve delivered these kinds of things before, and how familiar they are with doing so. Long-term Goals: This category talks about what the person in your role will be asked to do long-term, not as short-term deliverables. This can include things like “redesign our company website” or “audit our financial situation” or “manage employee satisfaction to achieve an overall increase in production.” Many resume items will cite past experience with long term achievements in this vein and is a good way to ask candidates about that experience. Tools, Techniques, Programs: This category is focused on the tools and techniques the candidate will be asked to use in their role. Things like proprietary software, industry software, or specific tools should go here. A machining expert should have experience with CAD software and a CNC machine, an MRI tech should be familiar with MRI machines and control software, and a web developer should be experienced with platforms like WordPress or languages like HTML5 and CSS. Experience: This is a more free-form category where you work with your team to come up with signs of past experience that would be beneficial. For example, if you are hiring a web developer, you might want to ask them for any previous projects where they’ve completed a website redesign, designed a new site from the ground up, or improve an existing site. Marketers might be asked about their profits and growth over a year. Benchmarks go here. Portfolio: This isn’t relevant to every position, but where it’s relevant, it’s hugely important. When hiring for a creative role, the best candidates have relevant portfolios to show off. Less ideal candidates may have portfolios that show off relevant technical skills but not the specific kind of project, while poor candidates have no portfolio to show off at all. Character Traits:  This category focuses on interviewer impressions of the candidate. You will want to confer with your hiring team to develop a list of traits that you find desirable in your candidates. It might include things like creativity, adherence to guidelines, problem-solving ability, self-motivation, time management skills, and so on. Work with your hiring team to develop questions to ask that will showcase these skills, and note down your impressions of what the candidate has or lacks. Work Style:  This is another subjective category. You should use this category to judge how the candidate typically works. Are they a lone wolf and work best on their own? Are they a team participant, working best as part of a greater machine? Are they a rockstar, able to produce stellar results but with their quirks that make their actions difficult to follow? Do they leave tasks for the last minute, or push to get them done as soon as possible? Career Desires:  This category asks you to develop an idea of what you want the candidate to do. Sometimes you may be hiring a candidate for a single project, and plan to release them when the project is complete. Sometimes you may have an open role on an ongoing basis, and don’t plan to give the candidate room for advancement. Sometimes the opposite is true; you want to use the role to get the feel for a candidate and how they would perform if they were promoted above that station. This category should try to match the candidate to your desired path. If the candidate is just looking for a stable role and has no plans to try to work their way up the corporate ladder, that can still be fine, as long as you aren’t expecting more out of them. Soft Skills: Soft skills are skills that are important to a role, but are harder to test for. Instead of something like “proficiency with CSS” for a web developer, it might be “communication” or “collaboration.” You’re looking for skills that make a candidate work best in a role. Communication is a good soft skill for any candidate. Collaboration is a good skill for those who will be part of a larger team or who will have to work with other teams throughout your organization. Time management can be important for roles where the main deliverables come in at a quarterly rate, rather than daily. Self-motivation can be important for those who will work from home or without much supervision. Again, work with your team to develop the specific skills you want to look for here. Culture Fit:  Some companies pride themselves on particular aspects of their company culture . It might be political bias. It might be a level of comfort with coworkers, or a level of sociability. It might be a certain kind of sense of humor. This is one of the more subjective categories, and it’s also difficult to look for in an interview where the candidate is likely both nervous and trying to show their best impression, rather than how they will perform their day-to-day activities. Remember, though, that some categories are protected, and you can’t ask about them in an interview or make a hiring decision based on them. Areas of Concern: This category is one you can develop with your team to look for particularly important red flags that could disqualify a candidate. We don’t mean something like “doesn’t have the relevant skills”, as that is covered by other categories. This is more things like “fails to dress appropriately for an interview” or “was fired from their previous job for unexplained reasons”. You know; things that would mean you’d have to watch the employee more than normal, or have cause to distrust them. Potential Strengths: This category is the opposite of the previous category. Is there anything about the candidate that doesn’t fit in another category, but which stands as a benefit to them? Most candidates should have nothing to add to this category (if you’ve developed your other categories properly). Someone that does might have specific industry awards or accolades, a recommendation from someone you trust, or another strength going for them. Using an Interview Scorecard Template The ideal way to use an interview scorecard template is to start one for each candidate when you decide to give them an initial interview. You should also have a team of interviewers, either all working together for each interview or running different stages of the interview process. For example, you might start a scorecard with an in-person or phone interview conducted by a single hiring manager. This manager fills out the card based on the phone interview. Then, each candidate that makes it through this screening interview to an in-person interview (or a second phone interview) will have their card passed to another hiring manager for a second look. This manager makes additional notes and gives their own numeric impressions. In-person interviews should have 1-3 hiring managers, or 1-2 hiring managers and a relevant manager for the position the candidate will be applying for. In the case of a role-specific manager, they might not know what to ask for hiring questions in general, but they will have a much better grasp of the techniques and technical requirements needed from each candidate and can note strengths and weaknesses than an HR employee might miss. At the end of the hiring process, the scores from each manager can be tallied up, and any extraneous notes about special accolades, strengths, or red flags can be noted. With the data before you, you can make a decision to hire any particular candidate. Templates You can find templates for scorecards in a few places online. One example is on HBR here . Another can be found on Orion Talent’s site (formerly Accolo) here . Other templates can be found on sites like Smartsheet here .

Hiring managers, HR departments, and anyone in charge of recruiting need to be aware of salary history requests, and the bans of those requests that may exist in your areas. Why would you want to request the salary history for a candidate? For decades, this was a common practice among businesses and hiring managers. By asking a new candidate what their salary has been at their previous jobs, you can take that information into account when negotiating. For some, the goal of asking for a salary history is to allow you to form an opinion on what to pay a new hire based on their past compensation. You might be able to pay them less than you otherwise would offer if you know even a low offer is higher than their past roles and will be attractive to them. Conversely, you might recognize that a lower offer could be insulting to a good candidate who has a higher salary history. Unfortunately, salary history has been used to justify a lot of bad practices throughout the employment industry. For example: People have used salary history to eliminate candidates with low salaries, under the assumption that if they were truly skilled, they would have been earning more. People have used salary history to eliminate candidates with high salaries because they’re “too expensive” even if that candidate might be willing to take the pay cut. People use salary histories to exacerbate ongoing gender pay discrimination. It’s illegal to pay people differently based on their gender, but if they have been paid differently in the past and you use salary history to justify it, it becomes legal. Salary history bans are slowly passing throughout the country. Some are city-level, but most are state-level bans. It’s important to know the states that prohibit employers from requesting salary History, so you don’t get your company in trouble with the Department of Labor. What a Salary History Ban Includes  So when a law exists that prohibits asking about salary history , what exactly does that mean? Well, the exact specifics of it will vary depending on the wording of the legislation that the state passed, but here’s a general summary. You cannot ask about salary history or benefits for current or past jobs. You cannot ask for this information before, during, or after the hiring process . You cannot ask for this information directly, or indirectly through an application process or screener quiz. You cannot ask for the information from agents other than the applicant, such as their coworkers, their former employers, or their family. You cannot search for public records or databases for the applicant’s salary history. Note that this last point does not prohibit researching salary based on role . You can gather information about what a role usually pays, and what that role pays in your geographic location, you just cannot research specific information about what a candidate in that role has earned. All of this is aimed at making salary negotiations a fair process for all candidates and hiring managers. You’re meant to be making compensation decisions based on your own company’s resources and the skills of the candidate, not on what you can get away with. The List of States That Prohibit Employers From Requesting Salary History There are quite a few states that ban requesting salary history, so we’re going to run down the list and note anything out of the ordinary for any given state. This information is constantly changing, so you may want to double-check.  Alabama – Effective as of September 2019. Alabama does not ban requesting salary history, but they ban making decisions based on that information, or on refusing to provide that information. California – Effective as of January 2018. California bans requesting salary history. If the applicant discloses their salary history on their own, that information cannot be used to make a hiring decision.  Moreover, California requires that employers give candidates pay scale information if they request it. California – San Francisco – San Francisco has its own law, effective as of July 2018. It bans employers from asking for salary history and from using past salary information to determine compensation for a candidate. Additionally, employers are banned from disclosing their current and former employees’ salary information without their consent. Connecticut – Effective as of January 2019. This ban prohibits employers, as well as LLCs, partnerships, voluntary associations, and other organizations, from asking about salary history. Salary history may still be voluntarily disclosed, and the law does not prohibit making use of that information when it is freely given. Delaware – Effective as of December 2017. All employers, and agents of employers, are prohibited from screening candidates based on salary history. The ban also prohibits asking about salary history.  However, employers may ask for a salary history to confirm information after an offer is already extended to the candidate. District of Columbia – The D.C. area has its own laws, in this case explicitly for the government agencies there. Effective since November 2017, D.C. agencies are prohibited from requesting salary history from candidates. Candidates are allowed to bring it up themselves after an offer is extended, however. Georgia – Atlanta – The only applicable law in Georgia is a city law for Atlanta. Effective as of February 2019, this law affects city agencies, but not private employers. It prohibits city agencies from asking for salary history in screenings, verbal interviews, or applications. Hawaii – Effective as of January 2019. This broad ban on salary history prohibits employers from asking about the topic. Employers are allowed to use the information if the candidate volunteers it, though. Illinois v.1 – The state of Illinois has three different bans in effect. The first, effective as of January 2019, prohibits state agencies from asking about salary history. It’s unclear whether or not this a law, however, as it was only an announcement made by the governor, not legislation passed by the state government. Illinois v.2 – The second of the Illinois bans is an actual ban affecting all employers in the state, effective as of September 2019. Employers are not allowed to ask for salary history or benefits information.  Employers are allowed to ask about salary exceptions from the candidate , however. Illinois – Chicago – The third ban in Illinois is the oldest, effective as of April 2018, and it’s a ban in the City of Chicago. It prohibits city agencies and departments from asking for salary history. Kentucky – Louisville – The city of Louisville has the only salary history ban in the state of Kentucky. The ban has been in effect since May 2018. It prohibits the city government and city agencies from asking for salary history but does not ban private employers from asking. Louisiana – New Orleans – New Orleans has two bans in effect. The first, in effect since January 2017, prohibits city departments from asking for salary history. The second, in effect since October 2019, prohibits the city from asking for pay history, screening based on compensation or benefits, relying on pay history to determine wages, or using salary history to determine an offer. Applicants are allowed to offer salary history after an offer is made, in order to negotiate a higher salary. Maine – The state of Maine has a ban in effect since September 2019. This ban affects all employers. Employers are banned from seeking salary history information until after a job offer has been extended and negotiated. Maryland – Montgomery County – This ban applies solely to the County government and has been in effect since August of 2019. Specifically, the county is banned from seeking or using salary history. It also bans using salary history information or the refusal to provide that information as part of determining a candidate’s eligibility. The county is, however, allowed to use voluntarily disclosed information, but only to offer a higher wage than initially offered, and only if this does not create a gender pay gap. Massachusetts – Effective as of July 2018. All employers, including state and city agencies, are prohibited from asking for salary history information. If information is voluntarily provided, the employer can verify that information, but only if an offer has been extended. Previous salary information cannot be used as a defense to a pay discrimination claim if known. Mississippi – Jackson – Effective as of June 2019, Jackson employers may not ask for salary history information. Missouri – Kansas City – The city of Kansas City has had a ban in place since July of 2018 which prohibits city agencies from asking for pay history until after a candidate has been hired at an agreed-upon salary. Additionally, since October of 2019, all employers with six or more employees are prohibited from asking for salary history, or using that information to determine whether or not to extend an offer.  Employers may, however, ask for the candidate’s expectations of salary and benefits. The ban likewise does not apply to voluntarily offered information. Missouri – St. Louis – The ban in St. Louis is in effect as of March 2020. It prohibits city agencies and departments from requesting salary history information. It also bans retaliation against applicants who refuse to disclose their salary history. New Jersey – State-wide bans in New Jersey have been in effect since February 2018 and January 2020. The older ban prohibits state entities from asking for salary history information or investigating it themselves. The more recent ban applies to all employers in the state. It prohibits screening salary history, using past compensation as minimum or maximum application requirements, or otherwise obtaining that information. If a candidate volunteers the information, the employer may verify it and use it to determine compensation. The employer may also request the information after an offer has been made. New York – The state of New York has several bans in effect. The first has been in effect since January 2017 and prohibits a selection of corporations, public authorities, and state agencies from asking about or using salary history information until after an offer is made. The second, effective as of January 2020, prohibits all employers from seeking salary history information. They may confirm such information after an offer is made. New York – New York City – The NYC ban has been in place since October 2017. It applies to all employers and their agents and bans requesting salary history information. New York – County Bans – Several counties have bans in place as well. Albany county prohibits salary history requests since December 2017. Suffolk County bans it since June 2019. Westchester County bans it since July 2018. North Carolina – Effective since April 2019, North Carolina prohibits state agencies from requesting salary history information. Oregon – Effective since October 2017, Oregon businesses employing more than one employee are prohibited from asking for salary history information until after an offer is made. Pennsylvania – The state of Pennsylvania has a prohibition in place since September 2018 that bans state agencies from asking for salary history, and requires that job postings disclose pay scale and pay ranges. Pennsylvania – Pittsburgh – The city of Pittsburgh has prohibited the city agencies from asking for salary information since January 2017. South Carolina – Columbia – The city of Columbia has prohibited the city’s agencies from asking for or using salary history as part of the employment process since August 2019. South Carolina – Richland County – This county prohibition has been in effect since May 2019 and bans asking for salary history in applications, screenings, or interviews. Utah – Salt Lake City – This ban has been in effect since March 2018 and prohibits the Salt Lake City Corporation from asking for salary history. Vermont – In effect since July 2018, all employers in the state are prohibited from asking for salary history information. Virginia – In effect since July 2019, all state agencies are changing to a new application that does not ask for salary history. Washington – The state of Washington has prohibited all employers from asking for salary history since July 2019. However, if the information is offered, the employer may confirm it. Additionally, for employers with over 15 employees, upon extending an offer to a candidate , the employer must provide the minimum salary information for the position to the candidate. Upcoming Bans The following set of states do not, as of this writing, have laws banning requesting salary information in effect. However, the applicable laws have been passed, the bans just have not yet taken effect. Colorado – The Colorado law does not go into effect until January 2021. This ban prohibits employers from asking about salary history, or from using salary history to make hiring or pay decisions. It also prohibits employers from discriminating against candidates who do not disclose their pay history. Ohio – Cincinnati – The city of Cincinnati has a law that will take effect near the end of March or April 2020. It prohibits employers with 15 or more employees within the city, except for the government, from asking for salary history information. Ohio – Toledo – Another Ohio city, Toledo has the same 15+ employee ban as Cincinnati, only it won’t take effect until the end of June 2020. Pennsylvania – Philadelphia – Philadelphia’s upcoming ban does not yet have an effective date. Legal challenges to the ban have kept it from taking effect until a court ruling in February of 2020. Bans on “Bans” In a reversal of all of the above, a few states have salary history ban bans. What this means is that employers are not just allowed to request salary history and use it as they see fit, but city governments cannot ban the practice within their jurisdictions in contradiction to the state laws. Michigan – The state of Michigan prohibits city or county governments from instituting salary history bans. Specifically, local governments may not regulate what information employers can ask for or exclude as part of the application and interview process. However, state departments may not ask for salary history until after an offer is extended. This includes asking prior employers or checking public records for that information. Wisconsin – Like Michigan, the state of Wisconsin has prohibited local governments from instituting bans on employers seeking salary history. Conclusion That’s all for now. Stay tuned; as you can see from the dates, these laws have been implemented only in the last few years, so expect more to hit the books in the next few years as well. With many states enacting bans to promote fairer hiring practices and combat wage discrimination, understanding these laws is crucial for maintaining compliance and fostering an equitable workplace. If you’re navigating the complexities of these regulations, or simply want to ensure your hiring practices are up-to-date and lawful, we’re here to help.  Contact our team today for personalized guidance tailored to your organization’s needs. Let’s work together to create a more transparent and fair hiring process.

At first glance, it can seem offensive when a candidate cancels their interview with you. You’re giving them a fantastic opportunity, and all they need to do is attend the interview, yet they call the whole thing off. It leaves you in a tricky position. You now have an open time slot, and the chances of getting someone else in to fill it are pretty slim, especially if it was a day-of cancelation. If you traveled to conduct the interview, it becomes a lot of wasted time and expense. Before you get mad, remove them from your candidate pool, or take any actions, step back and take a deep breath. Chances are, it’s nothing personal. There are many reasons why a candidate may cancel an interview, and the steps you take following such a cancelation say a lot about you and your company. Reasons Why a Candidate Cancels an Interview A candidate will either tell you why they’re canceling the interview or won’t. If they do, you may have an opportunity to bring them back at another time. If they don’t, you may be able to reach out and ask what happened and take it from there. There are many different reasons why a candidate might cancel an interview, or even no-call, no-show the interview. Some are bad, of course, but others are understandable and can be worked around. Knowing the reason why, to the best of your ability, is your first step. Some of the more common reasons why candidates cancel interviews include: A different company hired them first . The best candidates are in high demand, especially in the current candidate-focused job market. If your hiring process is slower than the competition’s, they will be able to get to a candidate first. An accident, medical issue, or family issue prevented the interview . Maybe your candidate was involved in a car crash on the way to the interview, their ailing mother tripped and had to be taken to the emergency room, or a child broke an arm. There are a million different reasons a candidate might have an emergency. They learned something about your company they don’t like . Sometimes, in researching your company, your candidate comes across something they don’t like. Maybe it’s some statement by your CEO. Maybe it’s malpractice on the part of service reps. Maybe it’s an overall reputation thing or a tip from an insider. It may even be a revelation about the salary range you offer. Whatever the case, they changed their mind about working with you. Unavoidable delays prevented them from attending . Maybe your candidate is flying in from out of state, and the airline delays the flight, so they can’t make it in time. Sure, you can say they should have flown out earlier, but that may not be possible, depending on their schedule. They just plain forgot about it . No one is perfect, and we all let things slip our minds. Something as high-priority as a job interview should usually be unforgettable, but sometimes, life is just so stressful things slip through the cracks. Every reason a candidate cancels an interview has a different set of possible responses. The one central tenet is this: don’t get angry. Your response to a canceled interview will reflect on your company. An angry response will likely be circulated on social media and job search portals, earning your company a poor reputation. Gather Information The first thing you want to do is learn why the candidate skipped the interview. Generally, there will be a few kinds of responses. The first, and the worst, is pure ghosting. Sometimes, a candidate has some reason why they’re no longer interested in working for you. Maybe they took another offer, or something happened, and they’re no longer in the market. Whatever the case, they no longer call you, they don’t answer their phone when you call, and they don’t respond to emails. They’ve entirely ghosted you. This is terrible practice on the part of the candidate, but let’s be honest here: how many candidates have you dropped contact with in the course of hiring? For decades, companies have gotten away with simply ignoring anyone who doesn’t make it through the hiring process. Even a courtesy “we’ve selected someone else” email was too much for some businesses. Maybe not yours – perhaps you were good about it! – but many candidates have had bad experiences and don’t feel bad about turning the tables when the power is in their favor. Sometimes, the candidate doesn’t care about burning a bridge. Sometimes, something comes up that gets in the way of contacting you. If your candidate was involved in a car accident and ended up in the hospital for a week before they could speak, well, there’s a justified reason for not contacting you. The important part is, if they reach back out to you, ask them why they weren’t able to let you know at the time. The way they answer will determine what kind of second chance you can give them. The second possibility is that the candidate took another offer and is no longer interested in working for you. This is relatively common in the candidate-focused market right now, and it means you may need to make some changes to your hiring process to capture your candidates better. Sometimes, the candidate will be responsive to communications but doesn’t think to reach out proactively. This can be a strike against them, but it may not mean they’re a terrible candidate. It’s up to you whether or not you keep them in your long-term candidate pool. And, of course, sometimes something comes up , and the candidate will need to reschedule. If they proactively contact you and ask about rescheduling, you can work with them to pick a new time for their interview. Sometimes it hurts, especially if the lost time from the interview is expensive, but if the candidate is good enough, it’s worth it. Take Steps to Reduce Interview Cancelations A single interview cancelation is likely the candidate’s fault and may not be something you can solve. A series of them may indicate a trend in your hiring process that you need to solve. Here are some things you can look into: 1. Reduce your time-to-hire. You may feel helpless if a candidate cancels their interview with you because they accepted another offer. The truth is, this isn’t entirely outside of your control. There are two things you can do. The first is to ask the candidate what offer they received and see if you can beat it. You may not be prepared to offer them a job on the spot, but you may be able to convince them to still interview for it (perhaps under the guise of interview practice or a low-stakes interview) and offer them a better offer when they come in. Not everyone will bite, but some will, and you may be able to poach the candidate from your competition. The second is to examine your hiring process. If competitors are hiring people out from under you when you haven’t even interviewed them yet, it means they started the hiring process earlier than you did (such as if the candidate has been putting out weekly applications for months), or their hiring process is faster than yours. If you can find ways to reduce downtime and increase your hiring speed, you should be able to undercut the competition and reduce canceled interviews. 2. Implement flexible interview systems. Interviewing doesn’t have to be rigid and inflexible. If you set a time and firmly stick to it, your candidate may not feel valued as a candidate. If they need to cancel, they may feel like it’s better to ghost you than try to work with you, especially if you come across as dismissive or put-upon for being asked to reschedule. Sure, it can be a hassle to reschedule interviews multiple times with the same candidate. If your goodwill is being abused, it’s more than reason enough to cut off the candidate. However, you want to be flexible and open to alternatives for good candidates. If nothing else, it shows that your company has a culture of respect for your employees. You may also consider shifting to a more flexible form of interview. Video interviews over Zoom or Skype, asynchronous interviews, phone interviews, and even interviews outside of typical business hours can all be good options for hooking candidates who have scheduling issues otherwise. 3. Ask for honest feedback in the event of a cancelation. When an interview is missed or canceled, it can be worthwhile to send the candidate an email asking them for feedback. Ask honestly, and be prepared for brutally honest feedback. For example, maybe your hiring representative was terse or rude – or just came across as such – which turned off the candidate. You may need to offer that employee more training to avoid such an issue. Another possibility is that your salary range, benefits, or culture don’t work for the candidate, and they only found out after scheduling an interview. It can help if you’re more up-front with that information. A common possibility is that you’re working with a shoddy third-party recruiting agency. That agency may be more interested in earning commissions based on lining up interviews, and less on providing relevant candidates, so the misalignment between candidate expectations and your open role gets in the way. Proceed With Other Interviews Sometimes, a candidate may have a valid reason for needing to cancel or reschedule an interview. Maybe they thought they had another offer on lock, only to lose it at the last minute, or they had a family emergency, and your job offer took second stage. You should remain open to the possibility of still interviewing and potentially hiring the candidate. While some reasons for rescheduling (I forgot!) may be a strike against them, they had enough going for them to make it to the interviews in the first place, after all. And, of course, some things like family emergencies aren’t going to be regular occurrences. At the same time, the world won’t wait for them, and neither should you. The chances are you have more than just one candidate lined up for interviews, and one candidate canceling an interview is not grounds for halting the entire process unless some regulation or law is saying otherwise. You should be open to rescheduling the interview, but if too much time has passed and you’re hiring someone else, the opportunity is gone. The ball is in the candidate’s court for how proactively they reschedule and stay involved in the hiring process. While some reasons a candidate bails on the interview are reasonable and worth overlooking, others are not. A candidate who forgets their interview date, schedules their transportation poorly, or otherwise doesn’t manage their time appropriately may be revealing something about their time management skills that would make them a worse employee than you expected. Always Maintain Respect and Rapport The hiring process is not an impartial, by-the-numbers, algorithmic process, as much as we like to use software and impartial scoring systems to run it. Today, a vital part of the hiring process is building rapport with your candidates. When you have a more casual, closer relationship with your candidates, they will be more communicative and respectful of your time. It will reduce the rate of ghosting and no-call cancelations, and you’ll be more likely to get valuable feedback from them when you ask. The worst thing you can do as an employer looking to hire is reacting strongly and negatively to a cancelation. If a single cancelation puts an employee on a denylist for the future, or if your hiring manager responds angrily to a cancelation, word will get around, and your candidate pool will worsen. Respect is essential, and it goes both ways. Do you have any questions or concerns about how to handle an interview cancelation? If so, please feel free to leave a comment down below, and we’ll get a conversation started! Reacting appropriately to a situation such as this is critical, so if you would like a little more clarification on the topic, we would be more than happy to assist you however we can!

You can spend all the time you like writing a fancy job description, but when it comes to effectively attracting candidates, you need some hard data. Some of this data will make or break whether or not a given candidate wants to apply to a job. Is the position in a location they’re willing to work at or re-locate to? Does it have specific experience requirements that the majority of candidates don’t have? Some of this data is more optional than other data – the location and type of role are both essential, but one such piece of data might not be. Specifically, we’re talking about putting the salary range in your job description. Including a salary range in your job listings can be beneficial, but it can also be detrimental. You need to make a decision on whether or not you want to list it, and as such, you need to know the pros and cons of both sides. Pro: Some Candidates Won’t Apply if Salary is Missing Employers love to talk about how they hire the best people for a role given culture fit, experience, and skill, not just whoever they can get for the money they’re willing to pay. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people on the job market who believe that if a company isn’t willing to list their salary range, they’re going to under-pay. This isn’t always true – there are a lot of reasons why a company might not list the salary range for a job – but it’s a popular impression amongst job seekers. In particular, a lot of high quality, experienced candidates will avoid applying to jobs that don’t list a salary, because they want to make more than their current role, and they don’t want to waste time applying to jobs where that raise isn’t available. A recent study from Paychex found that a low salary was the #1 reason 70% of respondents cited for leaving a job; if you aren’t listing your salary range, you aren’t attracting people who want more than they currently make. Pro: Many People Value Job Transparency Today In the old days, it was almost taboo to discuss salary and compensation with others, whether it was inside or outside of your organization. These days, discussing salary openly is much more common and accepted, even encouraged. Millennials in particular are very open about their compensation, both to help each other and to hurt companies that try to suppress that information. The idea is that many companies hide salary information because they want to under-pay as much as possible, and by sharing salary information, they can help prevent that from happening . According to Stephanie Penner, a senior partner at consulting firm Mercer: “About 17% of private companies practice pay transparency, while 41% discourage and 25% explicitly prohibit discussion of salary information.” There are plenty of reasons to hide salary information from job listings that have nothing to do with under-paying applicants, but that stigma is going to be at the front of mind for many candidates. Pro: You Can Focus More on Important Candidate Attributes You only have so much time available during an interview. Candidates are always going to want to see the salary range in your job description . So if you haven’t listed it publicly, candidates are going to ask for it in the interview. This sets up for awkward scenarios where you have to use buzzwords or non-specific terms like “available to negotiate once an offer has been made” or “depends on experience”, and worst of all, it takes up time. You would much rather be asking your candidates about their work history and their experience, and leave salary discussions for later. If the candidate already knows roughly the salary range they can expect, they don’t need to ask about it. Pro: Salary Range May Be Available Regardless Let’s be honest here; if you’re hiding salary range, you’re only partially hiding it. Salary range is still available on sites like Glassdoor, and more generally from the Bureau of Labor Statistics . Candidates are going to cross-reference data sources like these to figure out what kind of salary they should expect, regardless of whether or not you list it. In fact, listing your salary publicly can help in cases where the data from these sources is old or not representative of your organization as a whole. Not everyone is going to post their data to Glassdoor, after all; if you’re offering a higher salary than what is publicly listed, it can make your open role appear that much more attractive . Pro: Helps Minimize Bias and Keep Salary Ranges Fair It’s illegal to pay people different amounts of money when the sole difference between them is a protected characteristic, like race, gender, national origin, disability, religion, and so on . When you hide your salary range, it’s harder for other people to keep you accountable to this equal pay, and it’s easier for subconscious biases to come into play when you extend an offer. If you already have a publicly listed salary range, your candidates will expect something within that range, and it will be harder – though not impossible – to fall victim to bias in compensation. Stephanie Bronner from Mercer, a consulting firm, has seen this happen internally as well: “Pay transparency could spark jealousy among employees and reduce the number of staffers a company can hire. Pay transparency is still relatively rare in the private sector” Obviously, we recommend that you have a firm range in mind whether or not you list it publicly, and ignore protected characteristics when making your decision. Otherwise, you open yourself up to lawsuits, and nobody needs that. In broad strokes, that’s more or less it for the benefits of listing a salary range in your job ads. We believe that there are more reasons not to than there are to do it, so here are the downsides to listing salary in your ads. Con: Some Candidates Won’t Apply to Low Salary Positions Virtually everyone, when looking for a job, has money at the forefront of their mind. Many high-quality candidates filter by salary first and will look for other qualities of a role later. What this means is that, if your salary is lower than they would normally want, they won’t look any further, despite advice to the contrary . If you don’t make your salary range public, applicants will be forced to look at and analyze other potential benefits of taking the position. These benefits range from company culture and reputation to benefits packages and can outweigh the purely monetary compensation a lower salary might entail. They may also be able to negotiate upwards and get the best of both worlds, but it’s not something they would think to try if the initial number dissuades them. Con: Existing Employees Might Feel Slighted Keep in mind that the public information you list about your salaries is just that: it’s public. When word gets out that you’re hiring for a position, people who are currently in that position may take a look at the job listing to see what kinds of qualities you’re hiring for. If they see that you’re hiring at a starting salary that is higher than their current salary, they’ll feel very put off. At best, you’ll have to negotiate a raise to keep your existing employees in that role. At worst, they labor in sullen silence while looking for a new job, jumping ship at the first opportunity, and forcing you to go through the hiring process for another new employee, likely at that same new, higher starting salary. Con: It’s Harder to Attract Candidates With More Qualifications As mentioned above, one of the first things many candidates look for in a job listing is the salary information. Salary information is first and foremost in the minds of most job seekers. There are a lot of qualified, excellent candidates who will turn away when they see the salary number they don’t like. This applies both to salary ranges that are too low and too high. After all, if the pay rate is high enough, the candidate might feel like they aren’t qualified to earn it, even if they are. You lose out on a lot of valuable talent. If you leave out the salary range from your job listing, you can attract new candidates based on culture, role, and benefits, and use the salary as yet another benefit added on top of the list once they get around to asking about it. Con: High-End Positions Assume Salary Negotiations One of the biggest reasons to keep salary information secret in the listing is the power and flexibility it gives you in negotiations. In fact, as Liz Ryan writes on Forbes: “Most job ads don’t include a salary range because employers want to keep the salary range private. It gives them a negotiating advantage when they do.” At a certain point, salary has to be tailored to the applicant, their past experience, their skills, and their connections. Low-end, entry-level positions don’t need to worry as much about this, but high-end positions in your management and executive teams need to pay a lot more attention to what the candidate brings to the table. If the candidate has a lot of potential value above and beyond meeting the job requirements, compensating them more makes sense. They’re valuable, so you want to hook them before someone else does. Con: Salaries with Commissions Aren’t Reflective of Total Pay Sometimes, the salary itself doesn’t tell the whole story. There are a lot of positions, in sales in particular, that rely on commissions for full compensation. The base, starting salary of these roles often looks very low when it’s listed, though the potential to earn can vastly outstrip much higher-paying roles. Unfortunately, on job search sites, it’s easy to filter based on salary. Those jobs with low base salaries and commissions just look like jobs with low base salaries and are thus filtered to the bottom of the list. A great, talented sales employee would earn several times the listed salary easily, but they won’t even see the job opening because they aren’t looking at roles with salaries that low. Of course, if your role has a commission structure, that in turn can turn away plenty of candidates. Some people view commission-based roles as excessively cutthroat and vicious, or have had bad experiences with them before, and won’t consider them. That’s simply a reality you have to deal with when you’re hiring for a commission-based position. Con: Negotiations Give You an Advantage Susan Heathfield cuts to the heart of the issue when she says: “Some employers also believe that the first party to supply a number in a salary negotiation is in the weaker negotiating position.” While the goal of hiring someone should be a partnership with mutual benefit to one another, salary negotiations are often adversarial, and the culture of interviews necessitates careful positioning, jockeying for advantage, and feeling out what number range the other side is thinking before they say it. If you offer less than they want, you turn them off and have to fight harder to get a high-quality candidate. If you offer more than they expected, you can hook them much more easily, but you are then left wondering if you’re over-paying. It’s a tricky situation to line up. Con: Deciding on Salary Range Requires Time and Monitoring One of the lesser-known cons to listing a salary range is a question you’ll confront when it comes time to fill it out: what even is a good salary range for that position?  You have to consider the salary range of your existing employees, and the salary range for comparable roles in other companies, both in your location and in other locations across the country. You have to figure out what is a geographical standard, what is an industry-standard, and what is a role standard. Are you paying to much, or offering too little? Keeping track of all of this information requires someone to be monitoring and collating all of that data. You have to cross-reference it with your financial department to make sure you have the budget for an employee in that salary range, all before you can even write a number in your job listing. Now, sure, you need some of that information on hand to make an offer to a qualified candidate. It’s not quite as important, though, because at that point you’re working with an individual, and can come up with a combination of salary and benefits that suits them and your budget more easily. Conclusion Overall, we figure that there are more drawbacks to listing a salary than there are benefits to listing it in your job ad. There’s a reason over half of the companies don’t list salary information, after all. The decision to include a salary range in job descriptions is nuanced and depends heavily on the specific context and goals of the employer. While listing a salary range can attract candidates who prioritize transparency and fair pay, it also comes with potential downsides, such as deterring highly qualified candidates who might perceive the salary as too low or too high.  Additionally, public salary listings can impact current employees’ perceptions and negotiations. Employers must weigh these factors carefully, considering their recruitment strategy, company culture, and the competitive landscape of their industry.  Ultimately, over half of companies choose not to list salary information, suggesting that the cons often outweigh the pros. However, each organization must assess its unique situation to make the most effective decision for its hiring needs. Ready to optimize your hiring strategy? Stay ahead of the curve by understanding the best times to recruit new talent. Interested in refining your recruitment strategy? Contact our team today to start transforming your hiring process today!

No one in your entire company knows the ins and outs of a given role better than the people who currently hold it. It’s no surprise, then, that when it comes time to recruit someone to fill a gap, expand coverage, or grow the business, turning to the people currently working for you can be an excellent resource. The most informal way to do this is to simply put out the word that you’re opening up a new position, and encourage your employees to share the job opening with people they know who might be interested in applying. For a more formalized effort, though, you can go through the process of setting up an employee referral program . What Does an Employee Referral Program Do? At its core, an employee referral program does one thing: it encourages your current employees to recommend people for open roles. The idea is that this gets you a pool of qualified candidates with recommendations for their skills or how they would fit into the role with less effort than other forms of recruiting. Employee referral programs can have varying levels of formality. One of the more informal examples is little more than a designated field in the application process to add in the employee’s name that referred them, if any. More formal programs can pay bonuses for successful hires or offer other benefits to the referring employee. There are a lot of different benefits and drawbacks to running an employee referral program, so let’s discuss them so that you can make an informed decision. The Pros of an Employee Referral Program First, let’s start with the benefits of an employee referral program. There are quite a few, and they’re quite powerful, which is why some businesses make use of such programs to gather candidates and hire new employees. Your employees have a deep insight into the requirements of a role. Your official description of a role might not cover all the bases, and a job posting written by an HR member might have requirements that aren’t really necessary for the job. Sure, some of this is necessary to filter out unqualified candidates, but not all of them. A current employee can refer people who would do well in the role as it stands in reality, not as it looks on paper. Your employees understand your company culture and fit. One of the hardest things to put into a job listing is company culture, and yet it’s one of the most important . We’re all familiar with the buzzwords and the empty platitudes, but from the boots on the ground perspective, all bets are off. An existing employee will have a better feel for your company culture in their role than anyone else and will be able to recommend potential candidates who will fit that culture better than most. Referred hires automatically come with a social connection, which benefits retention. One of the biggest roadblocks to keeping a new hire is making them feel at home in your office or with your company. When they come with a social connection already available, they have an automatic in with social circles and office banter and will feel more at home (and thus less likely to leave right away). They may also be more hesitant to leave for fear of alienating the friend who recommended them or reflecting poorly on them. You’re able to reach qualified candidates who you wouldn’t otherwise reach. Reaching passive candidates is difficult enough through normal channels, and there are thousands of excellent, well-qualified passive candidates you’ll never find. With the sheer number of social media platforms, job boards , and other resources out there, it’s impossible to be everywhere; you have to pick and choose the platforms you use and, just as important, those you don’t. By extending your reach through your employees to passive candidates they know, you can tap into an audience of great new hires you wouldn’t normally be able to find, let alone convince to apply to a position. You make your employees feel like a valuable resource for the company. When you tap your employees as a resource, and when the candidates they refer end up being hired, they feel like they’ve done something important for the business, for their team, and for their own well-being. They feel more secure in their value, which helps with their own morale, retention, and productivity. As a contributing member of a team, they may even feel more authoritative, which helps them be more ambitious in their role. Like-minded referrals may work better together as a team. This is both a pro and a con, and we’ll discuss more of it in the cons section. As a pro, when an employee refers a new candidate to the company, you know that they have some kind of connection. Usually, that connection is a social connection, and the two of them are likely to have a fairly similar outlook. They’ll have similar interests, which likely led to them finding the same community and social group, which is how they came to be a referral. They already mesh together as a pair, to some extent, and that means they’ll work better as a team than a potentially untested, potentially abrasive new hire. Granted, every new hire is a risk, no matter where they came from. Sometimes personalities simply clash, even if they seem like they should fit together well enough on paper. How your company handles a clash in employee personalities is a big part of your company culture and will affect retention as well. Referrals you don’t hire can still be candidates in your pool for another time. Just because the referral isn’t a good fit for the current role or the current time doesn’t mean the referral itself was wasted. If another position opens up in the future, the candidate might be a good fit later, or they might be in different circumstances and be willing to move into a different role. You can even still keep the employee referral on the table, so long as the appropriate data is tracked in your applicant tracking system. You may save the money that you would otherwise have spent on advertising the job opening. This is typically one of the more persuasive reasons to go for an employee referral program because it’s one of the most tangible reasons. The total cost of hiring a new employee, according to various studies , ranges from $4,000 to $7,600. Any money you save off the cost – including job board fees, pre-screening, outreach, and other hiring-related services – is money you’re saving when an employee simply refers a candidate to you directly. The Cons of an Employee Referral Program There are always two sides to any coin. While there are a lot of great benefits to running an employee referral program, there are a handful of potential downsides. It’s worth mentioning that, while there are quite a few of them listed here, you’re not likely to encounter all of them, and some of them can be mitigated through adjustments to your other hiring practices or your company policies. While the benefits are benefits regardless, these detriments can be minimized or eliminated. If you pay a signing bonus to the referrer, it can cost more than the savings. This depends, of course, on how much your successful bonus is to the employee who referred the new hire to you. Salesforce, for example, cites their referrals as their #1 best hiring secret , and have spent over $5.5 million on bonuses over the years. Of course, that’s spread out over a lot of employees and a lot of time. The typical referral bonus can range from $250 for entry-level positions all the way up to tens of thousands of dollars for executive roles . That means it’s cheaper for all but the highest roles, even with a good bonus in play. Really, it all depends on your company’s costs and the bonus you want to offer. It’s also worth mentioning that you aren’t required to offer a bonus, and if you choose to offer one, it doesn’t have to be money. Many companies have found other forms of bonus , from social recognition to charitable donations to expenses-paid vacations to be equally if not more effective. There’s a very real risk of nepotism, especially among management. Possibly the greatest risk of an employee referral program is it can lead to institutional corruption, clique-focused hiring, and nepotism. When good, qualified candidates are passed over because the CFO referred their brother for the position, you have a problem. Thankfully, this is a problem that is easily solved: simply don’t give the referral too much weight. The deciding factor on whether or not to hire a candidate should always come down to their talents, experience, skills, and culture fit, not their relationship to anyone who already works for the company. This relationship can be the deciding factor between two similar candidates, but that’s about it. A referral doesn’t automatically mean the candidate is well-qualified. Employees will tend to refer people who they know, either deeply or in passing. They want to help out their friends and acquaintances. They don’t necessarily have the best interests of the company in mind. That’s your job, to make sure to appropriately filter, screen, and test the candidates regardless of how they found your job listing. A reference doesn’t mean a deep personal connection. Many people who refer someone to their place of work are liable to do it via a Facebook post or a post on a community they frequent, like Reddit. The person they end up referring to you might be someone that they are barely familiar with as an acquaintance. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that if you’re expecting an easy culture fit based on their friendship, you won’t get it. If a referral is passed over, the employee may feel slighted. This holds doubly true if they, objective or subjectively, believe that the person you hired is less qualified than the person they referred. There’s no great solution to this when it happens, unfortunately. If one of a pair chooses to leave, the other may follow. This is one common risk that you may face with an employee referral program. If the referrer and referral are both friends, and one of them chooses to leave, it’s possible the other will follow. One might get a new role at another company and invite the other, for example, or they both get to talking and decide they don’t feel at home with your company. You can often find that the connection between two employees can be a double-edged sword. The newer of the two might, for example, feel that they shouldn’t speak out of place or offer ideas that their friend doesn’t approve of, because a negative experience could reflect badly on the person who got them their job. Over time, referrals lead to stagnation of ideas. This is probably the most insidious and dangerous of the risks associated with an employee referral program and is the one we mentioned up above that we would discuss later. When you do your hiring through referrals, you end up with a workforce comprised of largely the same social cliques, political leanings, and even thought patterns. If a large enough percentage of your workforce fits into this mold, you end up lacking the diversity of ideas – and often diversity of employees – necessary to truly innovate. Thankfully, this problem has an easy solution: don’t do the majority of your hiring through referrals. Referrals are a good supplementary way to recruit, but they shouldn’t be the sole means of finding new candidates. You can also offer additional bonuses like what Intel does , for referring minorities and women who are then successfully hired: “Intel offered to double its bonuses for employees referring women and anyone from a minority group as part of their diversity hiring.” Encouraging diversity from the ground up helps combat the lack of diversity inherent in the system otherwise. Running an employee referral program is, nevertheless, an additional way to gain access to a wide range of passive and active candidates who might otherwise never know about your job opening. It can lead to some excellent new hires and long-term benefits to the company, and it may be worth exploring – you just need to be aware of any potential pitfalls before you dive in.

One of the biggest drawbacks of a remote workforce is the lack of team unity. Physical separation leads to mental separation, but the effects can be mitigated with the use of remote team-building exercises. In fact, Jeanne Wilson, professor of organizational behavior, has researched the subject. Her conclusion : “…Communication and shared identity within a team can mediate the effects of physical separation.” In a study of 733 work relationships across a variety of industries, Wilson found that “perceived proximity” was more important than actual physical proximity. The virtual collaboration environment puts some limitations on team-building, of course. It’s hard to arrange a trust fall when your team lives in different cities. On the other hand, technology allows for a variety of new, clever team-building exercises to explore. Remote team-building exercises have a number of tangible perks for your team. They help remind your team members that the people they’re working with are talented and collaborative and can support each other. They can restore a sense of wonder, excitement, or passion for the work they’re doing as a team. They can build trust, among peers and managers, to help the more independent members of the team feel more secure. What we’ve done for this post is compiled over 50 different team-building exercises you can put into use with your teams. They’ve been divided into categories based on their purpose, but many of them can be used in different ways, so feel free to take inspiration from or adapt items on this list for your own purposes. Icebreakers Icebreakers are great team-building exercises primarily because they’re flexible. They can be fun little games to start off the meetings for the day, or they can be introductory exercises for new teams to get to know one another. The Rose and Thorn. Life always has its ups and downs. Go around the table and ask each team member to say one good thing that has happened since their last meeting, and one bad thing. Have your team leader start off to set the tone. Show and Tell. We all loved the show and tell presentations as kids, so why did we stop as adults? Using the icebreaker phase of your meeting to go around the table and have everyone show and tell something meaningful to them, whether it’s a collectible, a sentimental item, a pet, or anything else. Lateral Thinking. Ask a lateral thinking question and discuss the solution amongst the team. Not only does this challenge your team to think outside the box, but it also gets the brain warmed up for the meeting and the workday. Snapshot Discussion. Have everyone on the team take a quick picture of something around them – or give them 5-10 minutes to go out for a pic in the garden – and share the photos for discussion. Stranded! Your team is stuck on a deserted island. Give them a list of tools and items, and tell them they can only pick three. How do they survive with what they’ve chosen? Zoom Background Games. Challenge your team to come up with creative Zoom backgrounds and see who creates the most interesting, zany, or theme-relevant background for a given meeting. Sell It. Ask each team member to pick a mundane, boring item from nearby and sell it to the team as if it’s the best thing since sliced bread. X or Y. Pick two things, and have your team decide which one they prefer and why. Cats or Dogs? Winter or Summer? Coke or Pepsi? Keep them light-hearted. Two Truths and a Lie. A classic icebreaker: ask each person to put together three statements about themselves, and challenge the team to figure out which one is the lie. Blind Drawing. Assign one person an image or object, and ask them to guide the others on how to draw it without saying what it is. Limitations (like only using simple shapes and lines) can make it more fun. Guess the Image. Pick a photograph and zoom in extremely close to one part of it. Ask people to guess what it is while slowly zooming out until someone gets it right. Who Am I? Assign each team member a historical figure and ask them to come up with ways to describe themselves until someone on the team guesses who they are. Geographic Facts. Ask team members to pick a geographic location somewhere in the world and share an unusual, little-known fact about it. Deeper Understanding Some remote team-building exercises are best as introductions, while others work better once your team knows the basics of one another. This selection of exercises serves to help your team get to know one another on a deeper level, so they can better understand each other and what they bring to the team. Virtual Quiz. Apps like QuizBreaker allow your team to input facts about themselves, and other team members to guess who is associated with which fact. Which team member can’t whistle? Which one won a paper airplane contest? The answers can make your team feel more like friends than just coworkers. Map Building. Start with a map and ask each team member to put in a pin in the place they were born and the place they currently live. Over time, expand the map by adding pins for favorite vacation spots, other places they’ve lived, and other location data. Day in the Life. To let your team get to know one another, each day, feature one of them with a “day in the life” or virtual tour of where they live and what they do each day. Introduce pets and children, show off entertainment setups or hobbies, the possibilities are endless. Big Issues Discussion. Pick a piece of big news or current events, share a news article about it with the team, and discuss it. Try to avoid anything too controversial or politically charged, though. Talent Show. Give everyone 1-5 minutes at the start of a meeting (picking a couple of people per meeting, if the team is too large), and have them do something. Read a poem, tell a joke, play an instrument, show off a hobby, anything goes. Pen Pals. Set up pairs of team members and start a pen pal program with them, complete with hand-written letters. Send everyone some envelopes and stamps to facilitate the process. PowerPoint Nonsense. Ask everyone to develop a quick three-minute presentation on a random topic (the more nonsense the better), and vote on the best presentation. Baby Photos. Ask everyone to find and upload a photo from their childhood and explain it, whether it’s a goofy school picture or a treasured memory. Try to be sensitive to those who don’t have much to draw from, though. 10 Things in Common. Get your team – or small divisions of a larger team – to spend some time coming up with 5, 10, or however many things they all have in common. Office Games Office games in an in-person environment range from fun and exciting to gimmicky and boring. Virtual office games can take advantage of technology in new and interesting ways, to let your team leverage their creative skills, collaborate, or challenge one another in friendly competition. Musical Throwback. Play music over your call or meeting, and challenge your team members to identify it. Picking songs from 10-30 years ago tends to have the best results, but you may want to adapt this to the average age of your team. Scavenger Hunt. Put together a virtual scavenger hunt. Ask your team members to compile a completed list by taking pictures of various household items, local flora, or city landmarks, depending on the scale you want to stretch your exercise. Pictionary. The time-honored game of Pictionary can be played quite easily through a variety of online platforms, including Skribbl and Drawize , or even just screen-sharing a paint program. Spreadsheet Pixel Art. By using Excel or Google Sheets, ask your team to fill in cells to create pixel art . Either give them a prompt and see what they come up with or let them design whatever they like. Zoom Bingo. Develop a bingo sheet with items like “wore pajamas on the call” to “accidentally left muted/unmuted” and issue sheets to each team member before the meeting. See who gets their bingo first. Gif Conversations. Using an embedded gif tool in a service like Slack, or Google searched gifs, challenge your team to have a full conversation using nothing but these short animated images. Werewolf/Mafia. A common party game, each player is assigned a role, and the game progresses until either the “good” team is killed off or the “bad” team is identified. A huge array of rule sets and tools exist for this game, so check it out . Virtual Escape Rooms. Escape rooms are a growing trend, but they’re hard or impossible with a remote team. A virtual escape room , with a guided storyteller and digital assets, is a powerful alternative. Virtual Holiday Celebrations. Each meeting day, pick a holiday ( every day is a holiday somewhere ) and celebrate it in a quick and respectful way. Virtual Murder Mystery Party. It is a game that requires online collaboration. It is usually played in a video chat format, where participants can communicate in secret and the host can share clues to solve the mystery. Find out some ideas for your virtual murder mystery party in this SnackNation article . Extracurricular Activities Sometimes you need more than a few minutes of time to prepare. These team-building exercises require more setup and investment, but they’re great for deeper than surface-level discussions and engagement within the team. Book Club. Putting together a book club requires getting your team to read on their own time, so try not to put too high a level of strain on their time. A chapter or two of a book is plenty. Discuss new chapters in each meeting. Movie Club. Similar to a book club, pick a movie everyone should have access to (free on YouTube, or verify everyone has Netflix/Hulu first), and have everyone watch it in advance. Discuss it at your next meeting. Origami. First, mail origami paper to everyone in your team. Then, using online instructions , have people put together origami items, from boxes to animals, and show off their constructions at the start of a meeting. Remote Meals. Taking the team out to lunch or dinner can be a great occasional team-building event, but it’s impossible for remote teams. Instead, issue everyone a budget and a simple recipe, or get everyone a meal box from a service like Blue Apron, and have a meal together remotely. Digital Pub Crawl. For the teams that like to drink together, do a virtual pub crawl. Pick noteworthy niche websites and visit them as a team, discussing their content over a drink for 15-20 minutes before moving on to the next. Just don’t do this as an icebreaker, or no one will get anything productive done at the meeting! Fitness Challenge. Particularly now, a lot of people are transitioning to working from home, and the lack of physical activity that accompanies it. Challenge everyone to set and strive to reach a fitness goal, and track progress at each meeting. Baking Challenge. Almost the opposite of a fitness challenge, give everyone a recipe and challenge them to make it. Maybe you’ll have a star baker, or maybe you’ll all nail it . Collaborative Storytelling. In a separate Slack channel or Teams room, start out a story prompt. Ask team members to go around each day and add one sentence expanding and continuing the story. Photography Challenge. Pick a theme and ask team members to spend a few days or a week photographing it. Share the best photos and vote for a winner. Slack Apps If your remote team uses Slack as their primary chat channel, you’re in luck. Slack has a wide range of plugins and apps to give it extra features, and some of them are designed to be team-building games and extensions. Set up a few of them and encourage casual participation throughout the day. Donut . This app semi-randomly pairs up two team members for a one-on-one chat, with guided topics and activities. Simple Polls . You’ll need a resource to come up with the polls to create, but this app allows you to make polls and post them for your team to vote. PlayPlay . This is a virtual platform for a few simple games, including ping pong, chess, pool, and tic-tac-toe. JukeBot . This tool, combined with Spotify, lets you put together a collaborative jukebox playlist for your team. Get everyone to contribute their favorite relevant songs. Lark Icebreakers. This app has a bunch of built-in icebreaker questions that let your team get to know one another without needing to set up a complicated guided experience. Tools and Resources This last section isn’t so much team-building exercises as it is resources. These sites and tools are available to use, often for a small fee, and provide a platform, ideas, games, and tools to set up team-building exercises like those listed up above. Check them out and see which ones work best for your business. TeamBuilding.com . This website offers a handful of virtual team-building exercises, ranging from office games to kits that include a tiny DIY campfire to a tea and coffee box with guided brewing and meditation. Petri . Petri is a team-building game platform that offers a wide range of activities, from tea talk and yoga to trivia games and language lessons. Jackbox . The Jackbox party pages have a wide range of party games that can be played digitally. You may need more tech setup to run some of them, but most of them are great and make for some fun collaborative challenges. Tabletop Simulator . For the teams that like board games, Tabletop Simulator is a virtual tabletop with a huge array of built-in games and a custom engine to play your own games. Buy copies for the team and have some fun. The Go Game . This company is a unique team-building platform that provides hosted meetings with games, activities, a live DJ, and a leader to guide it all. Treasure Mountain . This is another virtual escape room style experience, with a full digital game available for small teams to play in competition with one another. Conclusion  There you have it; a wealth of possible remote team-building exercises to help bring a virtual team together. This extensive list of over 50 remote team-building exercises and activities offers a diverse range of options to overcome the challenges of physical separation and foster a sense of unity and collaboration among virtual teams.  From icebreakers and deeper understanding activities to office games, Slack apps, and more. These exercises are designed to enhance communication, trust, and camaraderie in a remote setting.  Whether you’re looking to break the ice, deepen relationships, or simply have some fun, this compilation provides valuable resources and ideas to build a stronger, more cohesive remote team. If you need help hiring more employees, contact us today . We can help you recruit the best new teammates.

Any time you have an open position for a company, and you need that position filled, you go through a particular practice. That practice of filling an open position is known as something, but the exact term used varies. Some people call it staffing. Some people call it recruiting. Some people call it hiring. Most use these terms interchangeably. Each of the three has a subtly different meaning and context, however, and using them properly can sometimes be the key to using the right processes the find the right person for the right role. So, in this blog post I will explain staffing vs recruiting vs hiring, and the difference between them. What is Staffing? Staffing is one way to fill open roles within a company or organization. You have a particular role or set of roles available, and you need people to fill those roles. The focus of staffing in particular is on short-term roles or specific projects. They may be hiring staff for an event, like a convention. They may be hiring for a project that is meant to go for, say, six months, or six weeks, or less. Staffing tends to focus solely on active candidates . That is, people who are actively seeking a job, rather than people who are skilled but comfortable in their current roles, or who are not actively seeking a different position. Staffing agencies also often need to work with limited budgets. The roles they need to fill are often not highly skilled roles and don’t have high requirements for candidates, but that’s not always the case. Most of the time, staffing is a practice used to fill a lot of low-level roles quickly. These roles include temp workers, unskilled labor, and other short-term workers for roles. Sometimes this involves contracting freelancers also, though that’s not always common. One advantage of staffing, is this process can ignore certain requirements of other role-filling practices, such as arranging company benefits, taxes, and sometimes even background checks beyond the most limited form. Since the employees will not be employed for long, may not be employed for full time hours, and aren’t going to be highly skilled members of the company, expectations tend to be lower. A good staffing agency will build up a candidate pool for various kinds of jobs. The agency maintains this pool with regular contact with the candidates, and many candidates work numerous jobs they find through the staffing agency. In this way, the agency maintains an active pool of qualified candidates for various roles. Passive candidates are often removed from the roster until such time as they express interest in becoming active again. What details does staffing focus on? Primarily those related to time and compensation. Candidates want to know how long a contract will last, whether there are any fringe benefits to the contract, what the compensation for the job will be, and whether there will be a chance of being hired on for further employment with the organization. What is Hiring? Hiring is similar to staffing in many ways. Like staffing, it is a way for a company or organization to fill open roles in their roster. However, some differences set it apart. The hiring process typically involves posting a job, receiving applications from candidates, filtering those candidates to generate a pool of qualified candidates, and interviewing those candidates until the role is filled. In most cases, hiring is aiming to fill higher-skilled roles than staffing. Positions tend to be longer-term, though they may have “temp to hire” plans or probation periods before the worker becomes a fully vested employee. Oftentimes, the number of positions that need to be filled through hiring is smaller. Staffing may have dozens of roles available for a short-term event or project, while hiring may have as few as one open role. Of course, hiring can work for many more roles, such as when a company expands dramatically, but that’s not a requirement. One characteristic of hiring is that the candidate pool is not always retained . Good human resources departments will save resumes and applications for potential future use, but little effort is made to keep those candidates fresh and interested. The candidates who are not hired will, of course, move on, and are often hired for other jobs by the time the next open position rolls around for which they would be qualified. Because of this, hiring can work with both active and passive candidates, but typically focuses on active candidates. Active candidates tend to have a faster response time to fill a role. What details does hiring focus on? Like staffing, compensation is a big one. Unlike staffing, hiring tends to assume an ongoing employee relationship. The job exists until downsizing or redundancy eliminates it, the employee leaves, or they get fired. As such, most hiring discussion revolves around job skills, compensation, benefits, and other details. What is Recruiting? Recruiting is perhaps the most unique of the three means of filling roles for a company. Rather than a process that is initiated upon needing new roles to be filled, recruiting is meant to be an ongoing process. Recruiting also tends to take a candidate-first approach. Rather than approaching a candidate with a role that is already defined and needs to be filled, recruiting approaches a candidate with a likely skill set and asks them to be part of the organization. As such, this is often how high-level employees in management and C-level positions are found. Candidates who are recruited for a company don’t just bring their skills and their experience, they bring their own management styles and systems. They are often given the power to make changes within the organization, with the aim of improving the overall company and its processes. Recruiting can focus on active candidates, but most often tends to aim for passive candidates . At a certain point, most people are assumed to simply always be on the lookout for upward mobility. Thus, recruiting means knowing what role needs to be filled, what compensation is available, and what kinds of candidates out there may be most suitable. A big part of recruiting is maintaining a candidate pool . This is where a lot of overlap with hiring comes in. The recruiting candidate pool is large and maintained, consistently feeling out potential candidates and investigating them for potential roles that may open up. A lot of it is speculation, with new roles created when an opportunity to hire a good candidate comes along, rather than the other way around. Among the three practices, recruiting is the most intimate, and the one that involves the most input from your organization. The candidate needs to fit in within their team and within the organization as a whole, particularly within upper-level management teams. These are the people in charge of the overall direction a company takes; recruiting the wrong person can steer an entire company in the wrong direction. What details does recruiting focus on? Because of its focus on important roles, candidates tend to be concerned with compensation, but also with details such as company culture. At this level, many candidates are already living comfortably, so a slightly higher salary or slightly better benefits might not be tempting enough to entice them to leave their current role. They concern themselves with professional and personal fulfillment, purpose, and their role within a team. The Matter of Overlap There is naturally some overlap between each of the three practices. Staffing agencies can find candidates who become long-term employees, acting as a sort of extended filter for the hiring process. It’s similar to an internship process in some ways, and the temporary position to full-time position transition is not uncommon. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of overlap between hiring and recruiting. They both operate in similar ways, and the hiring process can be used for upper-level roles just as much as the recruiting process can be used for lower-level roles. The primary difference between them, really, is whether they focus on the role first or the candidate first. Hiring starts with a role and looks for a candidate to fill it. Recruiting looks for a candidate and makes a role where they can fit. Which Process Should You Use? So which of these three processes should you use? The answer, as you might expect, is all of them. All three processes are complimentary, not exclusive. Staffing is best used when: You have a lot of roles that need to be filled in a short amount of time. You have roles of short duration that need to be filled. You have to expand for temporary projects but don’t have the capacity to hire anyone as a full employee. You have roles to be filled that don’t require detailed skills, lengthy training, or high levels of compensation. As such, the staffing process tends to be outsourced. Companies often decide that maintaining their own staffing candidate pool is too much effort, and turn to temp agencies and other staffing agencies to provide the contact information for prospective hires or contracts. Hiring is best used when: You have a few roles that need to be filled. You have plenty of time to fill roles that are open. The roles you have available are not short-term or contract-based. You have the budget and capacity to include benefits as part of overall compensation. Your roles have higher skill requirements or experience required for success. Hiring can be outsourced, or it can be done in-house. It’s the most broadly variable of the three processes, so there’s likely a company out there doing what you need done, or offering software to help you do it, no matter what your requirements may be. Recruiting is best used when: You are looking for fresh talent to help lead your team, spearhead a project, or take over upper management. You want to maintain a pool of qualified candidates. You want to draw in new high-level talent from your competitors or other related industries. You’re more concerned about culture and skills meshing with your team than you are about compensation. Recruiting can be outsourced or it can be handled in-house, and a lot of it depends on whether or not you’ve built a team with the skills and tools necessary to maintain and ongoing process of recruitment. Finding the right candidate and enticing them to join your team is a skill that needs to be developed, since tempting a passive candidate is much more difficult than hiring an active candidate. Conclusion  So, choosing the right process comes down to what roles you need filled, how quickly you need them to be filled, and how hard they will be to fill. It’s all part of the general spectrum of growing the employee roster of a company, after all. There’s no one answer for which process you should use; use the one that suits your needs, and the one you have the tools and resources to manage. Only by choosing the right process can you maintain high employee satisfaction, retention, and value. If you need help growing your team, contact us today and learn how we can help you!

Remember old school job search, in a bygone era long before applicant tracking software, scanning the Sunday classifieds with a red pen, circling jobs you want to apply for? Filling out paper application forms with a black ballpoint pen, and listening to the receptionist tell you “We’ll call you if they want to interview you.” Or driving from place to place, looking for help wanted signs in doors and windows. Printing and mailing dozens of resumes and cover letters addressed to “To Whom It May Concern?” Those days are gone forever.  Thanks to applicant tracking software such as iCims, Jobvite, and Taleo, applicants can go online and apply for a job across town, across the state, or across the country, right from their laptop or even their mobile phone. Before they do that, they can thoroughly research the company they want to apply to, read employee reviews about working there and benefits and compensation, and even talk to current employees by looking them up on LinkedIn. Many companies, and especially large national or global corporations, use applicant tracking software to streamline their recruiting processes. These let them store applications and resumes into databases searchable by keywords and sort them by position and/or skills, as well as other useful features. It’s turned paper applications and resumes into virtual candidate data that’s more easily accessible during the recruiting and hiring process. Great applicant tracking software for recruiters. Taleo: The Not-So-Great Applicant Tracking Software for Applicants Now, I have no ax to grind with Taleo. But applicants seem to hate it. It’s a very strange phenomenon, given the meteoric growth and seeming popularity of Taleo as shown by sales numbers. Many applicants just abandon the application when they see its Taleo. They go online and complain about Taleo. They feel it’s a black hole that is a frustrating waste of their time. A little sample of applicant comments about Taleo: When it’s Taleo, you know you’ll be completing a 45 min application. Taleo is just one of the resume black holes. You can apply all you want but you’ll never hear anything in most cases. It’s a clunky system full of stupid bugs, including when you click go back to search results when looking at a job you get kicked all the way back to the first page. And our favorite – the resume uploader that then requires you to enter your resume a second time, piece by piece, into certain special fields. Are you using Taleo as your applicant tracking software? Is it giving you the return on investment and recruiting effectiveness you need? Are your candidates abandoning your postings when they see the application is in Taleo? Taleo Hate This is how Taleo applicant tracking software is referred to online in different forums and sites: Taleo – Tool of Darkness Wow! Taleo still sucks beyond belief. (This sounds like a jaded applicant who has run into Taleo in a dark alley many times and it has not changed at all.) I wince in pain whenever I see Taleo. (Physical reaction to Taleo. Hmmm.) Taleo is my enemy. (It’s sad when the online application system is the enemy.) Taleo is the application software from the worst kind of hell. (That’s hating, but what exactly is the worst kind of hell?) Taleo is a stain on this world. (Ewww, icky visual.) If Taleo were a physical entity, I would give it a roundhouse kick and then set it on fire. (Um, violent huh?) So there’s a lot of hater hate out there for Taleo applicant tracking software. Sounds like a Taleo application is not a fun process. Takes a long time, buggy and frustrating, duplication of tasks applicants have to do to complete the applications. Why is anyone still using Taleo as their applicant tracking software? Oracle acquired Taleo for almost $2 billion, so there is a lot of value in their product, at least for employers and recruiters. Taleo has a feature called Talent Intelligence with embedded analytics, automatic information-gathering throughout the entire recruiting process , and many valuable ways to manipulate and extract recruiting data . Conclusion  While applicant tracking software like Taleo has revolutionized the recruitment process for employers, it’s clear that this technological advancement has not been universally welcomed by applicants.  Despite its popularity among corporations and its advanced features that benefit recruiters, Taleo has become notorious for its user-unfriendly interface and cumbersome application process. The overwhelming sentiment among job seekers is one of frustration and resentment, viewing Taleo as an impersonal, inefficient, and often defeating barrier to employment.  Are you looking to grow your team? Contact us today and learn how we can help you recruit excellent employees into your business.    #ApplicantTrackingSoftware #Taleo

Human Resources exists at a crossroads between sociology and business theory. There are many theories and a lot of science that contribute to new and ongoing models of HR practices. Some of these practices have been around for decades, while others are relatively recent developments in the field. As an HR manager or executive, it’s well worth your time to familiarize yourself with at least the basic details of these theories. By learning the theories and models , you can experiment in applying them to your business, finding the one that works best with your outlook and workforce, and optimizing how well your company performs. The Harvard Model The Harvard model of human resources is one of the oldest and most influential codified models. It was initially developed in 1984 by Michael Beer and refined over the years, including additions by other experts such as Paauwe and Richardson in 1997 . It is one of the most nuanced, flexible, and holistic approaches to HR currently in use. Traditionally, the Harvard model is composed of five segments. Stakeholder Interest. Stakeholders are any group that has an interest in the outcomes of the business. Traditionally, this includes shareholders and management, though modern stakeholders can also include employee groups, unions, and even governmental interests. The combined influence of stakeholders guides the development of HR policies. Situational Factors. Situational factors are elements of the workforce, environment, industry, or society that affect HR. These pressures affect the positions and influences of the stakeholders. For example, the c-suite of a company may be influenced by self-interest, societal values, legislation, or an adversarial worker union. HRM Policies. These are the specific policies, workflows, and processes implemented within the business. They encompass activities such as hiring, training, reward and feedback systems, and more. Stakeholder interest and situational factors feed into the development of HRM policies. HRM Outcomes are the results of the policies as developed by the above influences. Outcomes include aspects of business such as employee retention, commitment, competence, and cost-effectiveness. They are generally the tangible, monitorable key performance metrics for HR. Long-Term Consequences. This section is the final section of the Harvard model. It is the analysis of a company and its employees overall. It evaluates how the company is positioned within its market and society as a whole and measures the overall well-being of workers. The key to this model is that the long-term effects of HRM feedback into the three influential foundations of the model. Long-term consequences (and the data harvested about them) are used to adjust stakeholder interests, situational factors, and specific HRM policies. The feedback from long-term consequences helps improve the initial influences, which can then process through the system and result in new, ideally better, long-term outcomes. The Warwick Model The  Warwick Model  of Human Resources was developed in the 90s by Chris Hendry and Andrew Pettigrew, working at the University of Warwick. It used the traditional Harvard model as a base but refined it further. Like the Harvard model, it focuses on five elements of HR. Outer Context. These are macro-environmental factors that influence the HR policies of a company, including political, legal, technological, socioeconomic, and competitive influences. Inner Context. These are the factors within companies that can influence HR policies. They include a company’s structure, leadership, culture, technology, and business outputs that trickle back into the company. Business Strategy. These are the basic HR strategies in play within the company. It can include the business objectives, the overall company strategy, and influences of the product market. HRM Context. Context focuses on the ground-level policies, roles, and organization of human resources within the organization and the HR outputs. HRM Content. This section is about the specific policies, implementations, and systems involved in HR. They include reward systems, employee relations, work systems, and HR feedback, among others. In general, this model attempts to balance influences from the inner and outer context, especially when they are at odds with one other. The two contexts feed into the overall strategy, which trickles down into the context and content. The implementation of HR then feeds back into influencing both inner and outer contexts through direct feedback and indirect societal pressures. The primary weakness of this model is that there’s no defined feedback loop between internal HR practices and external business outcomes. Instead, feedback loops have to filter through the various contexts, which muddles them and makes it more challenging to determine which factors result in which influences. The Five Ps Model The Five Ps model, or 5Ps, is a strategic model developed in the early 90s by Randall Schuler, a renowned and recognized expert in HR,  currently a distinguished professor emeritus at Rutgers University . The model defined five P categories that influence the overall behavior of human resources. This is the organization’s mission, overall vision, and objectives in the business space. These are defined as the operational protocols chosen and set to achieve specific purposes within a business’s goals. These are the specific business and HR processes used in daily operation, including organizational procedures and architecture. These are the people involved in the business, from the leadership to the newest hires, and how they align with the three Ps mentioned above. This is the overall state of results, typically those identified as key performance indicators and measured, the observation of which feeds back into defining and adjusting the other four Ps. This model requires that all five Ps balance one another out. They all feed into one another, and the results of their interactions must be balanced to achieve the overall business objectives desired by the company leadership, the company workforce, and society as a whole. The Ulrich Model Developed in 1995 by Dave Ulrich and further elaborated by him in 1997, the Ulrich Model focuses on categorizing every influencer of a company’s HR policy into one of four roles. Strategic Partner Agent of Change Administrative Expert Employee Champion Additionally, the CEO and senior leadership play their role. With this model, the overall processes of HR take a back seat to the people of the organization and the roles that they play. This model is also known as the business partner model. There has been debate in recent years as to whether or not this model is still viable today. Modern sensibilities prefer that everyone within an organization has a voice rather than a few distinct “champions” and organization influencers. Still, the model can be a helpful way to think about HR in terms of the people involved rather than the processes and algorithms in use. The Standard Causal Model This model is a generalized conceptualization of numerous similar models developed throughout the late 90s and early 00s. It’s almost identical in structure to the Harvard model and documents the feedback between HR outcomes and strategies. The overall business strategy rests at the top of the structure. This strategy guides the goals and objectives of the business as a whole. The HR strategy is influenced by the overall business strategy and influences everything below it in the chain. HR practices are the specific processes, structures, and operating objectives in a business, guiding day-to-day operations. HR outcomes are precisely what they typically are within the Harvard model; the specific outcomes of the overall HR process. Internal Performance is the overview, monitoring, and adjustment of how the business performs with the existing HR practices that are in place. Financial Performance is the final result of all of the processes that come before it. After all, a business won’t survive very long if it doesn’t focus on the overall financial results of its operations. The results here are factored into the practices and outcomes to improve them and, thus, improve finances. As you can see, this is a very generalized model, and many specific models take this core and tweak it. Numerous HR experts use this as the foundation for their bespoke models designed for whatever company they work with. The 8-Box Model This model is a more  broad-ranging model  developed by Paul Boselie of Utrecht University; it considers more external factors than many other models. The 8-Box model consists of eight boxes of factors, one of which is sub-divided as the core of a business’s HR process. The “Configuration” box is the formative influence of a business and includes the history, culture, technology, and workforce for the business. It leads into: The “HR Strategy and Practice” box encompasses the intended HR practices, the actual HR practices of the company (if they differ from the intended practices), the perceived practices determined by how employees see them from the ground up, and the overall HR outcomes. This box feeds into: The “Critical HR Goals” box defines the overall goals of HR within the organization, including flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and legitimacy. This section feeds into the next one: The “Ultimate Business Goals” box; as you might expect, this section analyzes the overall goals of the business, such as viability and competitive advantage. These four boxes are fed by four other boxes of influences. These are the external general market context, the external population market context, the external general institutional context, and the external population institutional context. All of these feed into the core HR strategy and practice box, influencing both the actual and the perceived practices. Additionally, they feed into and affect one another. This model is one of the most complex HR models, and while it can be effective, it takes more specific thought, training, and analysis to put it into practice effectively. It is broadly more helpful as a theory than as an actual business practice. The ASTD Competency Model The ASTD Competency model is among the most recently developed models, created in 2004 during a conference for the American Society for Training and Development. The model has been tweaked and reworked twice, in 2009 and 2011. This model focuses on three foundational blocks for a business and its HR processes. To quote  6Q : “ The foundational level  includes essential competencies: personal, interpersonal, and managerial. The focus level  introduces Areas of Expertise (AoE) such as coaching, improving employee performance, social learning, career planning, and evaluating. The execution level  focuses on four crucial professional roles: learning strategist, project manager, business partner, and professional specialist.” This model is a people-focused one that encourages the identification of key players, the personal and professional development of those key players, and an analysis of the competencies and contributions they can bring to the organization. This model is also a valuable model for identifying how to replicate the success of key performers and how to train and provide for new hires similarly. The Advanced HR Value Chain Model This model is another generalized model, using the value chain model and adjusting it with contributions from various HR influencers over the course of decades. As such, it cannot be attributed to any one person or group these days. It consists of a chain of value. HR Enablers are the influential parts of a business that enable a good HR process, such as the processes, design, marketing, and budget of the HR mechanism. HR Activities are the specific tasks and activities involved in HR management. These include workforce planning, recruiting, development, and compensation . HR Outcomes are the standard measurement of metrics like retention, engagement, performance, cost, and talent monitoring for employees. Strategic Focus is an external analysis of overall HR strategy and feeds into both HR outcomes and KPI monitoring. KPIs are monitored in three distinct groups, including financial KPIs, customer-focused KPIs, and process KPIs. HR Outcomes serve this monitoring process, and the data from them feed into the outcomes. Overall, this model is sufficiently nuanced and product-focused that it is frequently used, in some form or another, throughout businesses. Modeling the Models It’s one thing to discuss theory and models, but it’s quite another to put them into practice. It requires sufficient institutional buy-in from executives and leadership to allow a dedicated HR manager to implement the monitoring and processes necessary to formalize any of these models. The results can be pretty powerful, but the model must be adhered to for it to work. Did you learn anything from any of these models? Do any of them seem similar to the models in place in your organization? If you have any comments or questions, we’d love to hear from you. Please share with us in the comments section below!