2020 has forced a significant shift in how people do work and where they do it. Most notably was the move to remote working. For many people and companies, this has been a completely new shift in how their teams operate, and business is done. To ensure your employees stay engaged and happy while working remotely, building a strong virtual company culture is vital. Here are four quick tips on how to do it.
Focus on the Company Core Values
Now more than ever, it is crucial to focus on your company’s core values. These core values should be the compass for every decision your company makes. It’s also vital your employees are aligned with the core values while working remotely.
With all the uncertainties and challenges we are facing, having core values serve as the guide for your business and your employees will help you and your team navigate these times better and come out stronger on the other side.
Communicate with Your Team Often
This probably goes without saying, but communication with your employees is key right now. The chances are high that your employees have many questions and concerns right now, as many company leaders do as well. It’s okay if your company doesn’t have all the answers right now; what isn’t ok is not communicating. Being open and transparent in all communication, from a company level to a direct support level, is crucial to navigating a remote culture. Your employees want to know what’s going on and what’s expected of them. Over-communicating is one of the best solutions right now to ease some of their fears and anxieties.
Moreover, communication is essential since people are not in the office together. Get input from your employees on what they want and need to be successful while remote, not only to perform their job effectively but to build and maintain relationships with their co-workers. Good communication leads to great remote company culture.
Encourage Safe Socializing
While physical gatherings are pretty much out of the question, there are still ways you can encourage your employees to socialize with their co-workers safely. Here at EG, we held semi-regular virtual happy hour calls during the summer where our team could get to know each other; personally, we hold our quarterly meetings virtually over video conference; earlier this year, we implemented a virtual shout-out software called Bonusly, and we’ve recently introduced a virtual wellness program that team members participate in together virtually.
Some other safe socializing that employers should encourage include having a virtual lunch with your team over a video call and having virtual 1:1 meetings with a direct report to share how they are doing on a work level and on a wellness level. What safe socializing activities has your company tried since the start of working remotely?
Plan Video Calls Regularly
Since we aren’t seeing each other face-to-face as much anymore, it’s important to make those meetings video conferences instead of simply over the phone. Having a video conference allows your employees to see their co-workers and leaders. When you use video calls, it will enable your team members to get to know each other face-to-face, read body language, and communicate more openly.
While email, texting, and phone calls are great for communicating the business’s day-to-day operations, group video calls allow your employees to communicate face-to-face, which leads to higher engagement and boosted morale amongst the team.
This has been hard, and it’s not about to get easier any time soon. Ensure you’re taking care of your employees’ well-being by building a strong virtual company culture that helps them feel valued, included, and aligned with your company’s core values. Using these five tips to build a strong virtual company culture will lead to more engaged, happy, and successful employees.
About EG Workforce Solutions
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work, or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
Preparing for an interview starts even before you arrive to meet the hiring manager. Interviews can be stressful or even increase your anxiety, but they don’t have to fry your nerves! To start prepping for your next interview properly, you’ll want to start by using these three ways to mentally prepare for an interview.
Visualize it Going Well
To start helping yourself mentally prepare for the interview, begin by visualizing it going well. In fact, research shows that visualization is an excellent way to reduce stress and has been shown to increase the likelihood of achieving your goals.
Visualize the outcome that you are hoping for, in this case, obviously getting a job offer. Picture in your mind that you will respond to questions with ease. Envision yourself asking a few pointed questions. You should even imagine yourself getting that job!
Get Your Body Ready
Make sure you mentally prepare for an interview by getting your body ready. This means getting plenty of sleep the night and eating a nutritious meal beforehand. Sleep is essential because not only will being well-rested make you more alert and focused; it will also help ease some of the nerves.
Eating a nutritious meal is also just as important as getting enough sleep. Eat a meal that will give you energy, such as lean proteins (like eggs or Greek yogurt), blueberries, coffee, nuts, greens packed with B vitamins. These foods will give your body the boost it needs to stay alert, focused, and ready to ace your interview.
Make a Logistics Plan
It may seem basic and obvious, but making a logistics plan is an important way to mentally prepare for your next interview. Know where you need to go, or if the interview is virtual, test your tech and internet connection beforehand, know what day and time the interview will be held, if you’re traveling, have transportation lined up.
Having all these details sorted out and planned for before the day of the interview will reduce your stress levels and help you feel more confident since you won’t be scrambling to figure out these basic details.
Doing these three things to mentally prepare for your next interview will help increase your chances of acing it and getting a job offer. Begin by visualizing the interview going well, getting your body ready by getting plenty of rest, eating a nutritious meal beforehand, and finally making a logistics plan for how you’ll connect or arrive to the interview.
About EG Workforce Solutions
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work, or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
If you read our previous blog, we laid out the importance of why you need to be hiring for value alignment; this week, we’re sharing how to do it. Hiring people who are a fit with your company’s culture and mission will lead to better employee engagement, retention, and increased productivity. Here are three ways to hire for value alignment.
Ask the Right Questions During an Interview
Asking the right questions during an interview is a great way to start sorting out who will be a good “value-oriented” fit vs. someone who is a fit solely based on past experience. Start by asking behavioral and situational questions that will show you how candidates react in specific situations to understand how they problem-solve, work with a team, learn, and collaborate.
While not fool-proof, prior behavior is a pretty good indicator of future behavior. Learning how a candidate reacted in the past is a good way to determine if they share your values. Make sure you’re consistent in what and how you ask so you can accurately compare different candidates.
Emphasis “Fit” and Train for Skill
Values-based hiring is about identifying how a person’s core values align with those of the company. A candidate may look great on paper, have all the skills and qualifications needed to succeed at the job, but if they’re not a “value fit,” there will be issues down the line with them integrating into your organization.
Skill is something that can be trained for; being a cultural fit is something you cannot. To put it simply, you just cannot teach someone how to share your company’s core values and mission. If you go for a cultural fit over skill in your recruitment process, you will hire people who will perform a fantastic job in their role, which will help you drive growth. Hiring a cultural fit also helps retain your current employees. When a new hire seamlessly integrates into your organization, you’ll decrease the chances of losing your current top talent over a new addition who doesn’t share the same values.
Leverage Referrals
Even though studies consistently show that employee referrals improve quality-of-hire and retention rates while lowering hiring costs, they are still underutilized. Leveraging referrals is a great way to find more like-minded people to join your organization. It’s a good possibility your current employees will refer people who also line-up with your company’s mission and culture.
In fact, referrals is one of the top drivers of recruitment. Not only will your company save money by not having to advertise the open position(s), they’ll most likely have higher quality candidates coming into the pipeline.
Hiring for value alignment is a crucial piece to a successful recruitment strategy. The benefits go beyond what we’ve mentioned here, but once you start aligning your hires with your values, you can expect to see improvements in your bottom line. Hiring for value alignment begins by asking the right questions in interviews, hiring for “fit” and training for skill, and leveraging referrals.
About EG Workforce Solutions
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work, or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
Your company’s core values are more than just nice words or phrases your staff reads on a wall or a poster. They serve as the compass for how your company does business, solves problems, innovates, and treats its employees. In short, your company’s core values are a big deal. To keep your core values at the center of your business, it’s time to start hiring beyond someone being just a good fit on paper. Rethink hiring mainly on past experience – hire for a cultural fit and train for skill. After decades of our business being lead by our core values, we’re sharing three reasons you should hire for value alignment.
New Hires Will Integrate into Your Company Faster
Hiring based on your core values means you will have employees who integrate faster, are more productive on teams, and are more likely to stick around in the long-term versus hiring solely for experience.
When you hire someone who’s already invested in the mission, vision, and values, they’ll establish themselves within the company culture more quickly. Research shows, the sooner a new hire assimilates to their team and the company culture, the more likely you’ll be to have long-term retention.
You’ll Have Stronger Cross-company Alignment
How many times have you seen or struggled with an organization becoming siloed or departments failing to work together cohesively? It often happens when teams, and the people on those teams, are not aligned with its core values. When you hire for a cultural and value fit, you’ll have stronger cross-company alignment.
When your employees focus on living out the core values, their work will naturally become more aligned across the company. When teams are aligned and centered in the core values, they will all be better focused on how their individual goals and priorities fit together company-wide.
Increased Employee Engagement
You’re most likely already aware of how crucial having strong employee engagement is to your business. When you hire for value alignment, you’ll see an increase in employee engagement naturally. Hiring for value alignment means your new employee will already be invested in the values that drive your business; you won’t have to wait and hope they have buy-in.
When your team is invested in your company’s core values, they’ll be more motivated and engaged to accomplish more than “just what’s required of them.” In fact, highly engaged and aligned teams can increase profitability by 21%. Engaged and aligned employees are the key to increasing the productivity output and bottom-line within your organization.
Value-oriented and engaged employees, along with strong company culture, are the secret sauce for success. Hiring for value alignment leads to new hires being able to integrate into your company culture quickly; you’ll have stronger cross-company alignment and an increase in employee engagement.
About EG Workforce Solutions
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work, or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.
Since we entered a largely “virtual-only” world this past spring, you may think networking has been put on the backburner until further notice. We’d like to disagree, while it certainly won’t look like traditional networking of gathering physically together and mingling, you can still successfully network virtually! We’re sharing our five tips for effective virtual networking.
Start with People You Know
Start your virtual networking experience with people you know. Consider which colleagues, friends, and family members can help you achieve your goals or connect you with someone who can. You never know who you might be able to get connected to just be leveraging the people you know.
Like we’ve learned about many things this past year, networking no longer has to mean going to physical events with name tags and strangers; it now can mean making connections and relationships with people in your field.
Engage People on Social Media
Engaging people on social media is another great way to network virtually. You should keep up an active presence on social media: posting articles (make sure you’re sharing reliable, accurate news though), don’t be afraid to share an appropriately funny video now and then to show your personality, and keep in contact with friends and family on the social media platform of your choice.
Social media is an easy and accessible way to get to know people, get in touch with people, send private messages, and send them articles you believe they would find interesting. It is an organic way to keep in touch and strike up spontaneous conversations.
Join Virtual Networking Groups
Social media also has groups you can join for virtual networking. There are pretty much groups for any industry or interest – from generic networking groups to groups specific to job titles. Joining these groups will give you access to people in the industry you’re trying to get into and allows you to interact with these people virtually.
Update Your LinkedIn Profile
When you update your LinkedIn profile, you’re notifying everyone in your network know you’re not only an active member of the LinkedIn community but open to having conversations with other users.
LinkedIn allows you to invite current connections and potential employers to see your updates, including what you’re searching for professionally. Ensure you clearly communicate what you are looking for and don’t wait for others to reach out. Check your LinkedIn contacts to see if there is someone you should get in touch with that you didn’t think of before.
Schedule Regular Zoom Meetings
Connecting with people face-to-face always helps enhance communication. Once you’ve formed a relationship with someone over social media or through your personal network, set up Zoom meetings to take that connection to the next level.
Zoom meetings allow you to get closer to the physical connection you’re missing by not attending traditional networking events. While, of course, it isn’t the same as physically being with someone and may feel a bit awkward at times, building relationships with your connections “face-to-face” will help get you closer to achieving your goals.
The world looks a lot different than it did eight months ago, but getting creative and embracing virtual, will still help you make professional connections who can help you achieve your career goals. Virtual networking successfully involves leveraging your personal network, engage with people on social media, join social media networking groups, updating your LinkedIn profile, and using Zoom to meet people face-to-face. While it may look much different, networking can still be an effective way to reach the next level in your professional life.
About EG Workforce Solutions
We’ve been in this business for decades and have developed a deep network of professional connections. Whether they’re companies looking for talent, job seekers looking for work, or an up-and-coming store in need of some temporary help, we know the right people to bridge the gap between the hiring and the hired.
But what’s more, we get to know people. From employers hiring to candidates looking, we take the time to listen and learn. We hear your likes, talents, and needs. We gain an understanding, and with it, we’re able to facilitate lasting relationships between businesses and people.