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Welcoming New Hires

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Employees need to feel welcome to settle into your company properly and ultimately want to stick around! Helping an employee settle in quickly can increase their productivity, as they become more confident in their role the more comfortable they get.

Ensure that they feel prepared

Make sure that your employees know what to expect and how to prepare for their first day of work. Before their first day of work, tell them what time they need to arrive and what they may need to bring for their first day. Provide them with the company dress code and give them clear instructions on how to get into the building. Provide them with the name/information of who will meet up with them and welcome them in when they arrive. Doing so makes the new employee feel comfortable and confident for their first day at your company.

Introduce them to their coworkers

An employee’s first day is about orienting themselves to how your company runs. Make things a little easier by creating space for them to interact with their new coworkers. If possible for your company, have a couple of people take them out to lunch during their first week. Coworkers can show them the restaurants around the area in addition to getting to know them. Taking the time to do this for an employee makes them feel like they are valuable and welcome to the company and expresses your excitement to have them there!

Provide them with company S.W.A.G.

Everyone appreciates a little “welcome!” gift. Providing your new employee with a few branded items can help integrate them quickly into the company. A company mug, shirt, or even pens can make them feel like a part of the team. Check out this article on why giving company swag to your employees boosts morale.   

New employees are naturally outsiders when they are first hired at a company. Bring them in quickly and make them feel like they are one of the crew, as they should be!

Finding a Job that You Enjoy

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In decades past, one usually looked for a job simply as a means to provide income. Times are changing. Companies have become more employee-focused to create an enjoyable work environment. We spend much of our lives at work—why shouldn’t it be a place we enjoy frequenting?

The People

Look for jobs that would allow you to work with people you enjoy. If possible, ask for an in-person interview to feel out the energy of the office. If you want a diverse office, search for that! Would you benefit from having more coworkers your age? Look for that! These are people that you will spend the MAJORITY of your week with; you need to like them at least a little bit. In fact, you should have coworkers that you would like to get to know!

The Benefits

Does the company give you enough vacation time? Do they offer a fair healthcare plan? Look for a company that seems to care about its people and their well-being. Good benefits can signal a good overall attitude from the company of care for the employee. A company that cares about taking care of its employees is more likely to have company events, celebrate birthdays, and do things their employees enjoy.

The Mission

Work can be a lot more fulfilling when you believe in your company’s mission. Your company doesn’t have to be a place that supports the exact niche you are passionate about (e.g., pottery with special needs adults). However, it can have a mission that you still care about furthering (e.g., recruiting to help unemployed people find jobs). If you specifically do NOT believe in a company’s mission, RUN—working there may lead to self-loathing.

Working a job that you enjoy can dramatically improve your quality of life. Take the time to find a job that brings you some joy. By no means does it have to be perfect in every way, but finding a job that brings you little joys throughout the day is something to seek after.

Assessing and Hiring for a Good Company Culture

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Culture can make or break a company. While good culture leads to high retention and happy workers, bad culture can lead to stress, burnout, and high turnover. A healthy company is a balancing act. Below are a few tips on how to walk that tightrope.

Assessing Your Current Culture

There are a few ways to analyze your current company culture, depending on how much you trust your intuition. If you do trust your intuition, you can simply start paying attention to your employees’ attitudes when they are at work. Are they talkative and energetic? Or are they sluggish? If you want more of a deep dive into the inner thoughts of your employees, send out an anonymous survey. Ask about their general attitude when coming into work and provide a place to suggest improvements and voice issues. A survey allows employees a place to speak their minds freely and (hopefully) respectfully.

Hiring for the Right Culture

You should keep the assessment of your company culture are the forefront of your mind when hiring, so you can build a team that supports a healthy workplace. To “test” for a good culture fit, it can be helpful to have some of your strong office personalities help in the interview process. If you have a couple of current employees who help set a great tone for the workplace, have them interview the candidate. These could be casual conversations, just for them to get the general vibe from the potential employee.

Maintaining Morale

The most important way to maintain a healthy company culture and morale is to listen to your employees. If they have suggestions for improving the work environment, listen to them! They know better than anyone what it is truly like to work for you and would know how to create a happy workplace. As times change quickly, it is critical to stay open and shift with the ever-changing overall attitude toward work as a society.

Though seeing your company culture from an outside perspective can be challenging, I encourage you to take the time to do some reflection and even survey your employees. Happy employees stick around. Be a company where people want to stay!

How To Assess Company Culture During A Remote Interview

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When you interview in person, it’s easy to get a vibe of the office. You can observe how people interact, listen for the chatter around the water cooler, and maybe even interview with additional team members. Remote interviews make it challenging to assess company culture, although not impossible! Here’s your comprehensive guide to evaluating company culture during a remote interview.

Decide what’s most important

Company culture is a pretty broad, over-arching term. So, as you’re evaluating companies, it’s essential to start with what is most important to you. Which company values are non-negotiable for you? Are there cultural aspects that you can’t sacrifice? Consider common company culture facets such as work-life balance, collaboration, communication, career development, dress codes, and diversity hiring. We recommend nailing down three pieces of company culture that are most important to you before diving into your job search.

Be a web sleuth

Now that you’ve narrowed down what’s most important, you know what to look for! Now it’s time to do some digging. Of course, start with their website. Most companies will detail their mission and values there. Then, head to social media to see if you can find proof of those in their postings and photos. Next, check out their reviews on social and sites such as Glassdoor and Indeed. Remember to take reviews with a grain of salt, but look for indications of company culture. Additionally, you should seek out how the company responds to reviews – both positive and negative. These responses can reveal a lot about what they prioritize and how they handle controversy.

Ask specific questions

When it comes to the actual interview, you need to ask behavioral questions, but in reverse. So, instead of “what is the company culture like?”, get specific with what you identified as important earlier. For example, “diversity initiatives are very important to me. How has your company reacted to recent shifts in equality and calls for a more diverse workforce?” When you ask specific questions, you can get direct answers about what is most important to you.

Remember, it is possible to unveil a company’s culture during a remote interview. Not only that, but it’s also necessary to determine if it will be the right fit for your values and career goals. Looking for more interview and job search advice? Explore our candidate resources here!

How to Retain Employees When It’s Never Been Easier to Quit

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With remote work becoming a permanent option for many companies, quitting a job has never been easier. With most or all of your staff working from home or at least in a hybrid environment, it’s more challenging for employees to feel engaged with a new job. If you start a new job working remotely, it’s difficult to establish relationships with your colleagues, and you can adopt an “easy-come, easy-go” attitude. Without forming in-person connections with your co-workers, it takes some feelings away when deciding to leave for another opportunity. So, with remote work not going anywhere, what can your company do to retain your employees?

Expand your leadership team

With new policy and technological changes resulting from working from home, you may need to add a new leadership role. We are still navigating uncharted waters with new issues arising every day as we work from home during the pandemic. As a result, it may be time to add a new position to your team: Director of Remote Work. Facebook added this new position at the end of 2020 to help with the transition of becoming a more remote-friendly company. The creation of this position was to ensure an equitable and supportive environment for team members across the board. Now, this person doesn’t have to be in a director-level role; however, it can be beneficial to create a position responsible for improving your employees’ remote work experience.

Reshaping your company culture

Another way to combat employees from jumping ship while working from home is to reshape your company culture. You can implement a few initiatives to build engagement with your staff and help them develop that connection and sense of commitment to their team. For example, you can encourage your staff to share pictures or stories to help your workers get to know each other a little better. Our team at JSG just shared a collection of our kids’ (and grandkids’) back-to-school photos! This activity was a fun way to get to know some of our co-workers and share an essential piece of their lives. Other ways to bolster your company culture while working remote are establishing no-meeting days, scheduling regular check-ins with your team, and fun competitions.

Encourage communication from leadership

Additionally, to help retain your staff during this unprecedented time, you should encourage more communication from your leadership team. A recent survey revealed that 30% of remote workers believe employers can improve their culture by increasing communication from leaders. During times like these, it’s even more critical for your leadership team to make themselves available and communicate what’s going on with the company. Whether it’s upcoming policy changes, new regulations, or just sharing their support, leaders must speak up during these trying times. A little communication can go a long way with your staff and make them feel more appreciated.

JSG is here to help

Those are three changes your team can make to retain employees when it’s never been easier to quit. If you are still struggling to find qualified candidates that will stick around, reach out to our recruiting team! We will work with you to source candidates that will be compatible with your team and won’t unexpectedly jump ship.

What Are Job Seekers Looking for in 2021 & Beyond?

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Labor Day and the unofficial end of summer are (shockingly) just around the corner. As the last quarter of the year creeps upon us, many Americans are turning their attention beyond last-minute summer activities. According to the Pulse of the American Worker Survey: Special Report, 26% of all workers plan to look for a new job opportunity this year. This is encouraging for many employers looking to add new talent to their teams before the end of the year; however, to attract these job seekers during the Great Resignation, you must understand what they are looking for in a new role.

Remote work is no longer a benefit

The pandemic has made it clear that the majority of workers value remote work in some capacity. In fact, 87% of workers would like to work from home at least one day a week after the pandemic wanes. In other words, remote work is no longer a benefit, it’s a necessity for many workers. If your company is not supporting this demand, your candidate pool may fizzle out quickly.

Working from home still gets a bad rap by many employers. Some hiring managers believe that their workers are not as productive working from home or that it’s hard to collaborate. And this is likely true in some circumstances, but most employers ironed out these concerns over the last 18+ months. But with 1 in 3 workers not wanting to work for an employer that requires them to be onsite full-time, it may be time to rethink your post-pandemic workplace.

Why do workers want remote work?

Therefore, it’s clear that workers value remote work and will be looking for new opportunities that offer more flexibility. So, as an employer, it’s imperative to understand why workers care so much about it. According to the same survey, workers desire remote work for numerous reasons, including saving money, saving time (by not commuting), more time with family, better sleep, and improved health and stress levels. These are all great reasons why your team should be supporting remote work in some capacity.

Job seekers want a caring culture

Another aspect job seekers in today’s market are concerned with is healthy company culture. This desire is nothing new to employers, and many companies have been working diligently to foster a more inclusive culture in recent years. However, cultivating a caring culture can be a little more challenging with a hybrid workforce. Currently, 45% of workers still feel disconnected from their employer while working from home. According to respondents of this survey, culture in a remote environment can be improved by:

  • Companies offering remote-work resources
  • Updating company policies to reflect current times
  • More communication from the leadership team

These are three essential changes your team can make to develop a better company culture, even as some teammates continue to work remotely.

Are you looking for more hiring resources?

Those are the key things job seekers are looking for in new job opportunities. If you are looking for more ways to offer a better working experience and attract new talent, review our Client Resources!

How to Foster Company Culture While Working from Home

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Establishing an inclusive, strong company culture has become a priority in recent years for many companies. When the job market was scorching hot a few years back, employers looked for ways to reshape their culture to retain their best team players and attract new job seekers. But as millions of people are working from home, it’s become even more challenging to nurture culture. And as many remote workers begin to feel burnt out and isolated, it’s crucial to confront this issue head-on. Here is how your team can foster a strong company culture while your staff is working from home.

Virtual activities

When everyone is in the office, synergy and teamwork are more natural. Your team can plan office parties, go to happy hours after work, and do other exercises that cultivate culture. But just because the bulk of your team is working remotely, it doesn’t mean that you can’t organize similar activities. You can schedule virtual activities to give your team a break from work and have a little fun. A recent article from the New York Times illustrated that some smaller businesses were doing virtual movie nights, online games, and some in-person outdoor events. These virtual activities are a fun way for your staff to have a little fun, build chemistry with one another, and feel like they are part of a team.

Zoom fatigue is real, and it’s causing some remote workers anxiety. Another excellent strategy some employers are endorsing is meeting-free days. Blocking out one day a week where no meetings are allowed so your team can focus on their work without constant interruptions is a great way to ease the pressure off your staff and improve your company’s culture.

Share stories and pictures

At this point, most of you probably have your cameras turned off during video calls. You probably haven’t seen some of your coworkers for months (or even longer). When you are not physically together, you can miss out on some water cooler conversations. As a result, it can be difficult to keep up with what’s going on with your colleagues outside of work. An easy strategy to remedy this is to encourage your staff to share pictures and stories. Did someone just have a baby? What were your pandemic projects that you proudly finished? Developed any new hobbies over the last 18+ months? These are all things that are fun to share with each other virtually! So, whether it’s a staff newsletter or a fun Slack channel, sharing stories and pictures with your colleagues is a great way to cultivate culture.

Our team at JSG all submitted our work from home pictures at the beginning of the pandemic. Check them out here!

Friendly competitions

Who doesn’t love a friendly competition? These competitions can be work-related or just for fun. Football season is coming up, so creating a company fantasy football league is a great way to have a little fun and bond with your coworkers. Your programming team can do a virtual hackathon, or you can host a trivia night with some fun questions about your company, industry, or products. You can even do costume competitions for Halloween (which is spookily just around the corner). Whatever your team decides, creating some friendly competitions is an excellent way to build company culture while your team is working from home.

Regular check-ins

Last but not least, your team can schedule regular check-ins with your staff to gauge how they are doing. When working from home, it can sometimes be more challenging to have one-on-one conversations with your team. Regularly checking in to see how they are doing and understand what you and the company can do to support them will go a long way. Your staff will ultimately be better-taken care of and appreciated. Plus, you will learn new ways to help them do their jobs better and provide a healthier work-life balance.

Those are four ways you can foster a more robust company culture while working from home. If you are looking for more ways to support your staff and offer a better experience, check out our Client Resources!

3 Ways To Assess A Company’s Culture During Your Job Search

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Now more than ever, it’s essential to understand a company’s culture before joining their team. According to a report by SHRM, in the last year, one in five Americans left a job due to poor company culture. Additionally, consumers are holding brands accountable. In a recent COVID-19 brand trust report, 90% of people believe brands must do everything they can to protect their employees’ and suppliers’ well-being and financial security. So, it won’t cut it anymore to simply provide a competitive salary. But how can you determine the company’s culture during your job search? Start with these three ways.

Do Your Research

Now, with the presence of social media, it’s easier than ever to get a picture of a company’s culture. Check out their LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Don’t forget to explore employee profiles too! Additionally, browse company reviews on Glassdoor or Google to get an idea of what past and current employees think. (Just remember to take reviews with a grain of salt!) And, if any red flags come up, be sure to address them during your interview.

Observe

If you go in person for an interview, be sure to observe everything around you. Do the other employees seem friendly and happy to be at work? What does the office look like? You want to keep an eye out for how people are dressed, office cleanliness, and updated equipment. As you observe, try to picture yourself as an employee. Does it seem like a place you could see yourself working?

Ask The Right Questions

When the interviewer turns it back around to you, have a couple of great questions at the ready. You want to go beyond the obvious, “what’s the company culture here?” in order to paint a complete picture of the team and company culture. Here are a few of our favorites (and what to listen for in an answer):

Tell Me About A Recent Team Win.

When the interviewer answers this question, you want to hear them celebrate wins, both big and small. Additionally, a hiring manager should give recognition to the team members involved.

How Does The Department Handle Conflict?

Conflict is bound to come up in team environments. However, it’s all about how the leadership handles it. Ideally, they will have a process in place to address inner-team conflict. The answer you don’t want to hear is, “we don’t have conflict.” Chances are, they are avoiding it, or team members don’t feel comfortable sharing any conflicts with their manager!

Are There Opportunities For Development?

Development opportunities are a great indicator of a supportive and encouraging work culture. If companies give their employees the chance to grow their skills and move up in the company, they will invest in your success.

In the end, there’s actually quite a bit you can learn from about a company’s culture from the outside. You just have to know what to look for! Another great way to understand company culture is to partner with a recruiting firm like Johnson Service Group. We have exclusive relationships with hiring managers and get all of the insider information that you need. Ready to get started? Explore our jobs or contact a recruiter today!

3 Ways Companies Can Offer Flexibility For Employees

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As states across the country start to establish plans for fall education, many companies are finding themselves needing to adapt. As such, you need to offer options and provide flexibility for employees. Everyone is juggling work, assisting their kids with home learning, and following appropriate social distancing guidelines. Here are three ways you can accommodate your team member’s needs while still allowing for maximum productivity.

Implement Work From Home Flexibility

Dozens of major companies have announced that employees won’t be going back into the office until at least 2021, including Scotiabank, Google, and Indeed. Others like Facebook, Slack, and Zillow have communicated that employees don’t ever have to come back to the office in the same capacity. Due to ever-changing lockdowns and changes to the school system, many companies are forced to come to terms with a new future of work. Whether you offer full-time work from home options or flexible workweeks, your employees need it now more than ever. As Google CEO Sundar Pichai explained in a memo to employees, “I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months.”

Expand Your PTO Policies

The pandemic has changed how we think about PTO. Former policies consisting of five days of sick time will not fly moving forward when the minimum quarantine time for Coronavirus is 14 days. Provide clear communication about new sick policies to your team often. Make sure they understand proper protocols if they do need to quarantine or take time off to recover.

Establish boundaries

Recent research shows that since the beginning of the pandemic, the average workday has lasted 48.5 minutes longer. Your employees are feeling the pressure of a global pandemic, an economic recession, and increased childcare demands. By setting clear boundaries (everyone logs off at 5 pm, no matter what), you can help your team avoid burnout.

By offering flexibility for employees, you demonstrate your investment in the team. Interested in more management and hiring tips? Explore our client resources!

5 Ways To Have Fun At Work

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The reasons for wanting to have fun in the workplace are kind of obvious. However, having a bit of fun at work makes your team happier, more productive, and it creates a company culture that others want to join. Employee satisfaction is essential to establishing a good company culture that you can brag about! A study from CIPHR, researchers found that, on average, happier employees range between 12-20 percent more productive. This means you can be happier AND do your job better simultaneously! Here are five ways to start incorporating fun into the workplace.  

Communal Lunches 

Nothing brings people together more than food. Support your favorite local restaurant by ordering takeout to the office. Your employees will leave these team lunches with fuller bellies and hearts after socializing over some delicious food!  

Furry Coworkers 

Working in an office full of furry coworkers sounds like a dream come true. Puppies around the office are fun and a great way not to leave your pup at home all day when you’re working 9-5 pm. Besides, dogs are yet another sly and fun way to increase employee productivity. A new study from Virginia Commonwealth University found that dogs in the workplace reduce employee stress levels and improve productivity!  

Friday Afternoon Games 

When Friday afternoon rolls around, most employees feel that TGIF mood, so why not use these positive spirits to better your team? Conduct some office games to boost energy, introduce some friendly competition, improve relationships, and develop team harmony. There are so many office games to choose from! To start, you can race around the office, bring in a basketball and mini hoop, or play office Olympic tournaments. Office games are the perfect ending to a Friday workday and a great start to the weekend.  

Happy Hour 

It’s essential for your team to connect outside of the workplace. When you’re outside a work environment, you can establish meaningful relationships and bonds with your coworkers. These relationships are easily transferrable to the workplace as well. Going out to happy hour is a great way to bring people together!  

Check Your Attitude at the Door 

Lastly, you need to check your attitude and mood when you enter the workplace. No one wants to work with someone that is always glooming around. Try to leave your personal life and emotions at the door so that you don’t affect those around you. Afterall, moods are contagious, and there’s even a scientific name for it! It’s called ‘emotional contagion,’ which psychologists at Scientific American define as “a three-step process through which one person’s feelings transfer to another.” Affect your coworkers with positive energy instead! 

Get your coworkers on board with some of these fun suggestions and watch your team’s happiness, productivity, and energy boost! If you’re having fun, that’s a sign that you are comfortable enough to let you guard down, which is the perfect storm for creative ideation. Build your team in the right direction by allowing some major fun in the workplace.

Interested in more management and hiring advice? Visit our client resources!