What candidates want from a job advert - 7 priorities

Important questions: How much will replacing key roles cost you and your business? What will the cost of recruitment be? Are you prepared for a surge in flexible working requests? How can you retain your best staff and increase productivity, whilst accommodating employees’ requests? Is there a valid business reason for rejecting the flexible working request? Could you consider a trial and see if any reasonable adjustment can be made? Important stats: Companies rated highly on flexible work arrangements saw 137% higher headcount growth (LinkedIn) Employees said the three most contributing factors to quitting their jobs were a lack of career advancement opportunities, low pay, and the absence of a salary pay raise (CareerAddict.com) More than 50% of organizations lack formal processes for return-to-work and stay-at-work programs (The Standard) Covid-19 has revolutionised the way people work. Many staff have been trying new work patterns, including working from home or more flexible hours. Employers and employees alike have had to adapt to reduced customer demand and travel restrictions. Whilst employers can now request staff to return to the office where it is safe to do so, we expect it is unlikely we’ll see an immediate return to business as usual. 94% of employees want to work more flexibly going forward (Working Families survey – 1000+ employees). This will help them achieve a better work-life balance, especially if they have caring commitments. Of course, some employees will be eager to get back into the workplace or to their normal hours. Others, though, are likely to use the right enshrined in the flexible working legislation to ask to keep working remotely, or on reduced hours or a different working pattern. It is important to note that any employee with more than 26 weeks’ service can make a formal request for flexible working; as an employer you must make a reasonable decision within a reasonable time frame – usually 3 months. What if you receive multiple requests all at once? You can, of course, refuse the request on a number of very specific grounds. Reasons to turn down a flexible working request include a valid business reason for doing so. Examples include, an unreasonable cost to implement the change, there will be a negative effect on the business’ ability to meet customer demand or there are planned changes to the business, for example, plans to reorganise or change the business and thinks the request will not fit with these plans However, as the COVID pandemic has demonstrated that people can work from home without negatively impacting on the business, this will be more difficult to justify so what can you do to be an employer who retains and develops talent, rather than having to recruits and replace, and deal with the invisible and visible costs of turnover. Contact us today if you would like advice; enquiries@DandHRassociates.com

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The Challenges and Benefits of Employer Branding

We believe great people practices are a core differentiator for today’s leading companies. Creating conditions where employees can out-think, out-innovate, and out-execute the competition can be the difference between an organisation that thrives and grows, and one that is stagnant.  Here, we lay out the business case for improved diversity, equity, and inclusion, with an emphasis on talent attraction, selection, employee retention, turnover, and well-being.

Be an employer of choice in an increasingly competitive jobs market

Working with Benchmark.games, we developed a gamification took to support senior auditor level recruitment and employee development, specifically for an independent accountancy practice based in London. Why? To better understand trends in behaviour and strengths among high performers in the business; it has been a fun tool to use with the current team. To support candidate selection, improving objectivity and reducing bias in the hiring process. As an additional selection and assessment tool to: o Better understand a candidate’s competencies and predict behaviour o Better understand candidate traits and hire for potential not for experience. o Enhance the candidate attraction and selection o Better qualify not disqualify applicants o To improve objectivity and reduce bias during the selection process. Conclusion: It’s tough to attract and retain great talent in a market short of critical skills. Cultural fit, together with aptitude, is essential to avoid repeat hiring and the associated replacement costs. Something different that candidates had not experienced before to stand out from the competition – very well received. We innovated: There are many examples of amazing companies who have lost competitive advantage through lack of development; the risk of not taking action can be high. Supported with a high-quality recruiting experience that better informed the business and the candidate. A learning experience for all involved which is the way it should be! The Tool: There are two sections - firstly a game assessing key competencies (such as analytical thinking, learning ability, accuracy and conformity) and secondly a short audit-related quiz. The full list of competencies being assessed in the game were: Analytical thinking Learning ability Flexibility Conformity Monotony Tolerance Speed Accuracy Get in touch if you would like to find out more; we would like to help you innovate! enquiries@dandhrassociates.com +447515559703

A recent advertorial in Sussex press detailing our work. You can download the file here Your company faces major challenges in finding the best employees to fill its key roles. Competition for talent and scarcity of the right candidates can make you dependent on recruitment agencies, but high costs and underwhelming service could leave you feeling dissatisfied. Suddenly, you find yourself further away from having the team you thought would help shape the future of your business. Dand HR Associates is a Lewes-based HR consultancy practice offering tried-and-tested HR services and recruitment expertise to providers of financial and other professional services. Our friendly and professional team can be as hands-on as required, giving you all the tools and support you need for business development and growth. In the current economic climate, businesses have never been more aware of both the financial and personal cost of a poor hire. Recruitment is an underrated and often overlooked skill in the HR sphere, given its pivotal impact on vital business issues such as performance, company culture and customer experience. Leadership teams often come to us following bad hiring and performance management experiences, having been unsuccessful in their own attempts to find talent and let down by the traditional agency routes. And when faced with sensitive and critical challenges about staff, clients value our unique beginning-to-end approach, which features three core services : We offer an outsourced HR strategy and operations service which can address your skill gaps, manage employee relation setbacks, reduce staff turnover and help to maintain a self-sustaining culture. The structured model of career coaching that we use will support individuals to recognise and use their full range of abilities to make career related decisions and to manage career-related issues. We offer a range of recruiting and employer branding services . This can include enhancing your recruitment marketing and presence on professional social media channels, proven to attract the best candidates and save thousands of pounds in recruitment agency fees, to supporting clients with urgent, critical, or sensitive hiring. We advise throughout the whole recruiting process – from redefining the need, designing interview processes and selection tools to effective onboarding – resulting in new employees who are motivated, productive, and proactive in their career paths. Many of our clients simply do not have full-time senior HR staff or access to specialist HR expertise. By working with us, they benefit from our flexible and professional HR insight – but only when it is truly needed. Our approaches are proven to make a lasting difference and to help leadership teams feel more confident, whilst making businesses more self-reliant and keeping down recruiting costs. So, if you are tired of bad hires and hiring in a high-risk way, contact us today.

There is nothing more important than recruiting the right people; this statement from an old manager empowered me as I entered the world of recruitment. Richard Branson demonstrates the importance of Talent Attraction and Management. No matter how big or successful Virgin has become, he believes talent is the number one driver of success and states there nothing is more important in business than hiring the right team. Together with Patty McCord, formerly the Chief Talent Officer at Netflix and author of ‘Powerful; Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility’ they are all saying the same thing: The best person for the job might not always be in front of you, so be strategic on how to find them and set the right culture for them to thrive! If you are interested in how people are motivated to be better, then this article and presentation by Patty McCord is a great read. Patty McCord used the following five principles to help shape Netflix’s approach to talent: Hire, Reward, and Tolerate Only Fully Formed Adults - Adultlike behaviour means talking openly about issues with your boss, your colleagues, and your subordinates. Tell the Truth About Performance - if you talk simply and honestly about performance on a regular basis, you can get good results—probably better ones than a company that grades everyone on a five-point scale. Managers Own the Job of Creating Great Teams - recruit people with the right skills, thinking to the future and the specific results and differences you want to see compared with today. Leaders Own the Job of Creating the Company Culture - Patty's foosball (table football in UK) example reminds me of a clip of Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO and co-founder of digital agency VaynerX stating ‘A lot of companies believe that having a foosball table, open seating and free pretzels mean that you have a great culture, but that doesn’t work’. Good talent managers think like business-people and innovators first, and like HR people last. https://hbr.org/2014/01/how-netflix-reinvented-hr# Enjoy! For all of your outsourced HR needs, and advice on setting the right company culture through the recruitment process and beyond, please get in touch: david@dandhrassociates.com