Tag Archive: Onboarding

  1. 3 Ways to Get Creative With Video Interviewing

    Video interviewing sounds self-explanatory, right? It enables recruiters and hiring teams to screen candidates remotely rather than in person. But, there’s much more to it than meets the eye!

    As you look deeper into live and pre-recorded video interviews, you’ll begin to see opportunities far beyond what a basic video chat can provide. Then factor in scoring and collaboration, and the technology becomes even more powerful, driving the selection process from scheduling to decision making and everything in between. But that’s not all video interviewing is capable of – in fact, it’s not limited to selection at all!

    Depending on the source, anywhere between 49 and 60 percent of employers rely on video interviewing, which means that roughly half of hiring teams have the technology at their disposal. So, it comes as no surprise that companies are thinking outside the frame and finding innovative uses for video interviewing, beyond interviewing.

    Really, the applications are limitless. Here are a few ways we’ve seen companies get creative with video interviewing:

    Connecting mentors and mentees

    One early adopter of video interviewing almost immediately identified a unique use case for the platform. In addition to using on-demand interviews in place of time-consuming phone screens, this organization also uses the technology to match its high potential employees with mentorship opportunities.

    It works like this: Using the video interview platform, hi-po’s answer a few questions about themselves, in essence, generating a personal profile, which HR then shares with its executives for selection purposes. Doing this, the organization sees higher engagement and a faster response rate from mentors. At the same time, hi-po’s are given a touchpoint with senior leaders and the support they need to advance their careers, which in turn boosts employee retention and satisfaction rates.

    Getting instant feedback after onsite interviews

    Another organization, focusing on the onsite candidate experience, set up video interview ‘stations’ to collect feedback from candidates immediately after their onsite interviews. Previously, this hiring team relied on surveys to measure sentiment about its onsite interviews, sending these out to candidates after their meeting. To avoid any delay, this organization began using live video interviews to capture how candidates feel before they leave the building. Thanks to video, candidates are given the chance to fully express themselves while the onsite experience is fresh in their mind.

    For candidates, this reinforces the organization’s commitment to them while offering an immediate outlet for any thoughts following an interview. At the same time, the organization benefits from an increased completion rate on feedback forms and an additional reference point for each candidate – all in all, improving both the candidate and recruiter experiences.

    Introducing candidates and employees

    There’s always the opportunity to innovate within the selection process, too, as we’ve seen happen at several forward-thinking organizations. One in particular, with a two-person campus recruiting team, uses video interviewing to introduce current employees to student job seekers.

    To do so, they have various employees – from hiring managers to custodians – share their role and a little about themselves before recording an interview question for the candidate to answer. When these interviews are sent out, they deliver an inside look at the organization that showcases the breadth and diversity of its workforce. So, in a seven-minute interview, candidates get to ‘meet’ seven different people in seven different positions and really get to know them – and the organization – better. This is especially important in today’s candidate-driven market, where many job seekers have their pick of potential employers.

    Finding your use

    Until the advent of video, it was tough to get creative with interviews (outside of asking odd-ball questions like, “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?”) Now, with technology fueling the way, interviewing has become inventive and immensely flexible, opening up a host of use cases.

    As a platform to pitch community outreach ideas or help keep remote workforces engaged, video is the best medium for connecting with an audience, whether that’s job seekers, employees, or both. And, if you’re already using video interviewing, or considering it, why not share the love with other parts of the business and get as much value from the tool as possible? There are no hard and fast rules with this technology, and the best part is, it’s incredibly easy to implement, adapt, and experiment.

    Where you go with video interviewing is completely up to you. It all depends on what you’re looking to accomplish – and how creative you want to get!

  2. Culture Fit vs. Culture Add, and How to Ensure Diversity in Your Organization

    Organizational culture is more than a popular talking point. According to a 2018 People Management Report, 84% of employers say that organizational culture is critical to the success of their business. This widely-held belief has sparked countless conversations about organizational culture – including how to define culture, how to measure culture, how to manage culture change, and how to hire for culture fit.

    The topic of hiring for culture fit came up in a recent webinar on How to Reinforce Your Culture with a Strong Onboarding Process. I/O expert Chelsea Petrie had an excellent response when asked by an audience member:

    Culture fit versus culture add: What are your thoughts on hiring people who fit your culture, versus hiring people who will add to your culture?

    This debate that has gotten a lot of attention recently. Culture add has been defined as someone who shares the same values, but can bring something new to the team, while culture fit is often seen as ‘someone who looks like us and thinks like us.’ The underlying concern is that hiring for culture fit will lead to group think, and inadvertently discourage creativity and individuality among employees. This is also a concern in terms of diversity and inclusion in the workforce.

    culture fit

    Here’s how Chelsea explained culture fit versus culture add:

    “When we talk about culture fit, we’re talking about the values that are prioritized the most within an organization…

    For example, if you have a highly collaborative, team-oriented work environment, but you’re hiring individuals who don’t prioritize that value, you’re going to have a jangley culture, and it’s going to cause behavioral issues. You might start to see performance lacking, engagement lacking, and turnover occurring.”

     

    Chelsea continued by saying, “In the hiring process, I would definitive encourage that employers seek out a strong culture fit, and then look for the culture add piece in any role-specific knowledge, experience, or education that someone would bring to the table. Anything that’s above-and-beyond is fantastic!”

    For more insight on maintaining a cohesive culture, along with best practices for effectively onboarding new hires into your culture, check out Chelsea’s full webinar on-demand: How to Reinforce Your Culture with a Strong Onboarding Process

     

  3. Onboarding Best Practices: Making Your Company Culture Stick

    Onboarding Best Practices with Chelsea Petrie

    When asked how well their talent acquisition processes reflect their company culture, only only 1 in 4 employers answered ‘very well.’

    That when I/O expert Chelsea Petrie, Talent Strategy Partner at Outmatch, shared her insight on how to improve employee retention, reduce ramp-up time, and increase engagement – all through a strong, culture-focused onboarding program. In the Q and A following her presentation, Chelsea answered audience questions about training, onboarding best practices, and cultural disconnects.

    1. What types of metrics do companies use to monitor onboarding success?

    There are three important ones:

    Ramp-up time: When you identify certain milestones that an employee should hit in order to be effective in their job, you can track whether are or not they are on target. That’s a really key indicator.

    Turnover: If you’re seeing a significantly higher turnover of new hires in the first 90 days, there’s likely a problem with your onboarding process.

    Employee feedback: Use a survey tool or ask for direct feedback from your new hires. They can give you great insight into what’s working and what’s not.

    2. What’s the difference between new hire training and onboarding?

    Training does take up a significant portion of the onboarding process, because you have to include job-specific training to ensure that new employees get up to speed quickly. But, training and onboarding aren’t the same thing.

    Training is tactical, where you’re teaching employees to understand their roles and responsibilities.

    Onboarding is about the overall experience of being welcomed into an organization, connecting with the company’s culture and purpose, and building those initial bonds with the people they’re going to be working with. Think about how you want new employees to feel during the onboarding process, then create an experience that reflects that.

    3. Are there ways to identify cultural disconnects or detractors during the onboarding experience?

    The best thing you can do is ensure that a candidate is a good fit before the onboarding process begins. You do this by communicating your company culture throughout the hiring process, and making sure the candidate is fully bought in. But realistically, you’re going to have some individuals slip through the cracks.

    Culture is made tangible through behaviors, so looking at a new hire’s behavior is an indicator of how well they embody the values of your organization. For example, if your organization values collaboration, but new hires aren’t following through on tasks to meet with others, or they’re not taking initiative to build relationships, you’ll know there’s a red flag.

    To learn more about onboarding best practices, and the payoff of a strong onboarding process, watch Chelsea’s webinar on-demand: How to Reinforce Your Culture with a Strong Onboarding Process

  4. Company Culture: 3 Frequently Asked Questions

    Employers everywhere are paying close attention to company culture. But the term ‘company culture’ can mean so many things. Are company values synonymous with culture? Do perks, like ping pong tables or team lunches, create stronger cultures? And can a company culture get too homogeneous, to the point where it stops evolving?

    To answer these questions, let’s get back to the basics with a quick Culture Q&A. Here are three of the most common company culture questions:

    What is culture, exactly?

    Company culture is a system of shared values defining what is important, and norms, defining appropriate attitudes and behaviors for employees within an organization. In other words, your values, whether expressly stated or interpreted based on rewards and recognition, are the roots that your culture grows from, spurring the development of norms, behaviors, and other cultural activities.

    If values tend to be conceptual in nature, then norms and behaviors become the building blocks that characterize your culture and give your values meaning. Take innovation as a value, for example. What does innovation mean in terms of behavior? At Outmatch, we’d say that innovative cultures are characterized by employees who are willing to experiment, who are comfortable with risk, and who are quick to take initiative—these are the behaviors that underpin the value of innovation.

    How can we manage corporate culture?

    While culture as a concept may seem a bit intangible, it is something that can be managed (even on a large scale). Traditionally, companies have managed culture thorough 1:1 interactions, consistent communication, and alignment of incentive systems. More recently, new survey and analytics tools have emerged to help capture and measure company culture, which is a key challenge, especially for companies with large, decentralized workforces. The more insight a company can get about its culture, the more proactive leadership can be in aligning talent management strategies to meet and reflect that culture.

    What’s the difference between employee engagement and culture?

    The terms culture and engagement are often used interchangeably. They both involve an employee’s relationship with their workplace, but there is an important distinction:

    Employee engagement is how employees FEEL, whereas culture is what employees BELIEVE and how they ACT.

    Engagement is more volatile and can fluctuate from day to day. Culture, on the other hand, is deeply rooted and slow to change. Looking at the relationship between culture and engagement, you’ll see that cultural strength predicts employee engagement. A blow to engagement on a team with a strong culture will rebound over time. Which makes sense: If employees are highly aligned around the beliefs, values, behaviors, and incentives that drive how they act in the workplace, then strong alignment will lead to less social friction and higher productivity, which in turn leads to higher employee engagement on average. Low engagement accompanied by a trend toward lower cultural strength, however, means there’s a breakdown in beliefs and behaviors happening on that team.

    To learn more about why culture matters, and how to successfully onboard new hires into your company culture, check out our webinar: How to Reinforce Your Culture with a Strong Onboarding Process.

    Company Culture Questions

  5. Here’s Your HR Success Pack

    Does your talent strategy bring in the very best employees and help them reach their full potential? Are your efforts supporting a healthy workforce, or could you be doing more to boost performance, retention, and revenue growth?

    Inside the HR Success Pack, you’ll find telltale signs of a healthy workforce and a checklist for driving success at key stages of the employee lifecycle, plus 3 bonus success stories from best-in-class companies.

    Open the pack to start building your high-powered workforce today!

  6. Automotive Retailer Fuels Growth through Targeted Assessments and Stronger Onboarding

    Tasked with doubling its revenue over five years, company executives needed a better way to identify key players and get them up to speed quickly.

    Executive summary
    With aggressive growth as part of its five-year strategic plan, executives at this 70,000-employee automotive retailer needed a solution that was quick to implement and effective. They needed a better way to evaluate key sales and management employees for important characteristics, with the goal of moving key players from roles such as branch manager to area manager. The company chose Outmatch because the platform was easier to use and put into action than other vendors.

    Auto retailer uses data to make more accurate hires and improve onboarding
    Since the retailer needed to grow quickly, there was no time to waste. They already understood what made their key employees successful – what they needed was a more effective way to identify those traits. Outmatch built an assessment that spotlighted key characteristics and matched them with appropriate job competencies. The assessment data showed where the candidate or employee fit or didn’t fit within required job skills. It also revealed where development efforts would be needed to succeed in the role.

    What did the retailer like most about the solution? It liked that the assessments were quick and easy to use. New hires only had to complete the assessment once and then HR staff could evaluate fit for different roles (comparing their results to multiple profiles). Management was also trained to show the value of these assessments – how they could link them to growth and best practices. Hiring managers could now use this data to make more consistent and objective hiring decisions and provide candidates with better onboarding guidance post-hire.

    Targeted reports assist with selection and development too
    Once the retailer zeroed in on a promising candidate, they interviewed the candidate using the Outmatch report which included targeted interview questions based on assessment results. This interview guide enabled hiring managers to quickly understand the candidate’s strengths and potential weaknesses and dig into any areas of concern during the interview. Then, if candidates were hired, a report was generated that gave hiring managers feedback on how the candidate’s innate characteristics aligned with the required job competencies.

    The bottom line? The retailer improved hiring speed and accuracy. Onboarding also benefited because management had a better understanding of strengths and development areas. Now, this auto retailer is poised for smart growth over the long-term.