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      How Recruiters Can Adapt to Major Shifts in Candidate Attitudes

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      This past year has greatly altered the dynamics of the U.S. labor market, including job seekers’ expectations of employers, according to a new 2021 Job Seeker Nation Report from Jobvite. It is predicted that many of the changes experienced will be here to stay, bringing about what many believe to be the rise of the optimized workforce. As a result, talent leaders and recruiters must understand how to adjust efforts for the job market today and into the future.
      Remote work & company culture.
      The pandemic has created profound changes in workplace preferences for job seekers, including the desire for remote work. Per the Job Seeker Nation Report, 35% have declined or would decline a job offer that required them to work full time on location, in an office, or at a worksite, and 100% remote work is preferred by 33% of workers.
      Despite an increasing number of employees working remotely, the importance of company culture in applying for a job has continued to rebound. Nearly half of workers believe company culture is very important in their decision to accept or reject a job – a 21% increase since 2019.
      Employers need to implement a hybrid and culture-centric work environment to lure top-quality talent. Likewise, talent leaders must incorporate these company values into the hiring process. This can be accomplished by implementing a cohesive recruitment marketing strategy that includes social media, as more than 33% of job seekers use social media networks to learn about an employer’s culture.
      Diversity hiring is vital.
      With this year prompting many Americans to reflect on what is important to them, it is fitting that those beliefs and priorities are being brought into the job search. This year’s report found a significant number of workers (42%) would turn down a job if the company lacked diversity in its workforce or had no clear goals for improving diversity in hiring.
      Separately, 49% have inquired about employer’s goals and efforts around improving diversity in the workplace during interviews. Based on these results, it’s evident that recruiters need to embrace diversity initiatives, as it significantly influences workers’ decisions to apply, accept, or even reject a job.
      To do this, recruiters must create employment opportunities for all regardless of race, religion, color, gender, identity, age, ability, location, or creed by mitigating challenges in the job-seeking process due to unconscious bias. This can manifest itself in how a job description is written, how a job opening is marketed, what schools an organization recruits candidates from, how a candidate is interviewed, and much more.
      Balance in today’s always-on workforce.
      The majority of surveyed workers report increased stress levels since the onset of the pandemic. In today’s world of competing priorities and unexpected distractions, remote workers are also struggling to transition between “work time” and “home life.” In 2021, 42% of surveyed workers said they are working longer hours compared to the year before.
      Employers must deliver a more thoughtful approach to helping employees achieve a more balanced life based on workers’ individual needs. Talent leaders can then highlight how the company supports its employees through these practices, both now and into the future. This can be delivered through information and videos on the employer’s career site, which continues to be one of the most powerful recruiting assets.
      Interviewing tactics & preferences.
      Here’s the good news for recruiters. Over the past year, an overwhelming majority of surveyed workers consider their most recent candidate experience to be primarily positive. Excellent communication from recruiters, ease of scheduling, and easy job application process were the top reasons for positive candidate experiences.
      A preference for texting is also on the rise. This year’s report found that a majority of job seekers prefer texting for scheduling interviews in comparison to email or phone. This is especially true for workers with children, as 30% are comfortable participating in an interview via texting. Like consumer behavior, candidates have renewed expectations of their job-seeking experience, especially while on a mobile device.
      However, lack of access to adequate technology or Wi-Fi has negatively impacted 35% of job seekers’ ability to participate in a video interview. Recruiters need to consider how this may affect a candidate’s participation and outline strategies to overcome this challenge, as virtual interviews continue to be leveraged in the recruiting process.
      The Rise of the Optimized Workforce.
      The expectations of job seekers and employees have changed forever. As a result, recruiters need a complete understanding of how to adjust efforts to meet the demands of varied realities for today’s workers. To do this, talent leaders must equip themselves with the right skills, knowledge, and strategies to effectively navigate the current reality and engage high-quality talent.
      Kurt Jones is a Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Jobvite, a leading end-to-end talent acquisition suite provider that serves thousands of customers across a wide range of industries.
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      Owning Every Moment of Your Hiring Experience

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      Companies often believe candidate experience begins and ends with the job application on your website. It definitely does include the job app, but there’s so much more to the hiring experience that deserves close attention.
      To create an overall amazing hiring experience, you first have to define its wider boundaries. The experience starts when people become aware that your organization exists; in other words, it’s your brand. It’s how you show up in the world, what you say on relevant current events, and how you portray life at your company through pictures, videos, words, and anywhere your brand is present online. The next touchpoint is when candidates apply for a job and hear (or don’t hear) from you with an enthusiastic, transparent and timely follow-up. Then hopefully they get an interview, then an offer and they accept.
      But it doesn’t stop there. The candidate experience extends beyond accepting their role to the first day on the job, and even through their onboarding period. There are easily dozens of touchpoints in the candidate experience, whether organizations realize them or not. That means dozens of opportunities to impress or fall short of expectations in the eyes of the people who are going to help you achieve your business goals. A negative or inconsistent candidate experience can damage your brand’s reputation and your ability to hire and retain the right people you need.
      Here’s some much-needed guidance on how to think about and shape candidate experiences to make them as meaningful and beneficial as possible, both for candidates and for everyone involved in the hiring process in the company.
      You no longer directly control your reputation
      The days when companies controlled what information was released about them are long gone. Today, in the time it takes to eat a ham sandwich, a person can get a full data dump about your company from Glassdoor and corroborate that information with other social media and connections on LinkedIn.
      Mathematically, most applicants and candidates for your jobs will never get an offer from you. However, many won’t hesitate to describe the experience, no matter how far they got in it, on Glassdoor and on very public social media channels. And these channels will help inform the decision of the next star candidate that you so badly want and need to hire.
      You’re no longer in control—at least not in the same way as 10 or 15 years ago. The only way you can be in control of your employer brand now is to think about the hiring experience and make it so good at every step that perfect strangers will interview with you and write you glowing reviews, even if they don’t get the job.
      What are you posting?
      Many organizations do not make a clear distinction between three documents:

      A job description is the internal document which outlines the responsibilities, requirements, expectations, pay and so forth;
      A job post lists the open role on an organization’s website, with enough information and enticement to appeal to talented people so they decide to submit their information; and
      A job ad is a placement on an external site like Indeed or ZipRecruiter, meant to get people to click through and apply.

      Don’t post your job description. It’s usually paragraph after paragraph of dense, bullet-point language and meaningless jargon. Instead, create job posts and ads that are customized and tailored for specific audiences that actually aim to attract great talent and give a real feel for what taking on this role entails.
      What are you mapping?
      Have you mapped every impression and interaction of your candidate experience? If not, you should. Mapping all your interactions with prospects during the hiring process will help you understand where you can improve and how you can stand out from competitors. A few areas to consider:

      Emails that go from your organization to applicants
      Which employees are contacting an applicant and coordinating an interview
      Creating useful materials to provide candidates before they interview (from employee profile blogs to brand videos to company milestone timelines)
      Understanding how to correctly pronounce a candidate’s name
      For in-person interviews – who will greet the candidate; where will the interview happen; is the candidate left alone in a room; is a beverage offered
      During any interview, regardless of stage – is there an agenda; does the candidate get a chance to ask questions; will someone share what next steps with the candidate without being asked
      After the interview – how do you provide updates on timing and follow-up interviews; how do you inform candidates you won’t be progressing with them.

      Have you asked how you’re doing?
      While mapping out every interaction will help give you think about the candidate’s experience from their perspective, you won’t actually know how well you’ve executed unless you ask them.
      Sure you should monitor Glassdoor, but it’s often the case that only a small (yet loud) percentage of all candidates will leave a review. Forward-thinking companies gather useful information through candidate surveys in addition to monitoring Glassdoor and other similar sites. We’ve found that around 20 percent of the surveys get filled out — giving us more data than what we’d gain with Glassdoor. These surveys should go to both candidates who received an offer and those who didn’t get the job.
      Having a consistent flow of feedback and information will help you continuously refine and improve your hiring process.
      Onboarding
      Many companies think of new hire onboarding as the logistics of getting people a desk and a computer, with a side of paperwork to sign and documentation to complete. While that’s partly true, a new hire’s onboarding experience should include a whole lot more.
      Onboarding should be about how a candidate becomes part of the community as an employee. It should include opportunities and information to help them learn the real culture and philosophy of the company. During the interview phase, we may have established that a candidate will be able to do a particular job. During the onboarding phase, we show that person how to do that job, and how to begin to navigate the company teams, processes, and culture.
      You have the ability to transform onboarding from a boring bureaucratic function into a customized experience that will blow away new hires and compel them to want to tell everyone about how you gave them the red-carpet treatment.
      Add to that the efforts you make to improve the hiring experience in general, and not only are you likely to have increased the Employee Lifetime Value of this person, but you may well have your newest, enthusiastic referral source.
      Take ownership of the hiring experience
      By owning every moment of your hiring experience – from job post to onboarding – you are making the process easier and more productive for both candidates and your organization.
      The experience of applying for a job shapes how candidates form their impressions of your brand. Unless you’re a company like Google or Facebook, and maybe even then, most people don’t know what it’s like to work for you. If your hiring team is disorganized or unprofessional, that’s how the candidate will perceive your entire company.
      By taking ownership of the process to ensure a candidate has a good experience, you can improve your ‘talent brand’ and make it easier to hire great candidates who are excited to work with you.
      By Jon Stross, Co-Founder and President of Greenhouse Software, and Co-Author of TALENT MAKERS: How the Best Organizations Win Through Structured and Inclusive Hiring.
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      5 Ways to Prepare Yourself for a Job Market Bounce-back 

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      Despite a lull in business for some agency recruiters over the past 12 months, the UK job market is expected to take off towards the middle of 2021, thanks to the vaccine rollout and easing COVID-19 restrictions. This means we can look forward to better, busier times ahead in recruitment! Here are a few actions you can take to ensure you’re fully prepared.
      Familiarize yourself with industry changes
      If you haven’t worked with clients within a particular industry over the past 12 months due to low hiring activity, now is the time to make sure you’re up-to-date on any industry-specific changes or new legislation. By reading up on sector publications and subscribing to newsletters from companies who work in that space, you’ll soon get up to speed on areas such as the sector’s unemployment rate, the impact of Brexit and competitor performance. It will also give you clarification on government policies, like furlough or other COVID-related schemes.
      Take advantage of the talent pool
      As we’re all aware, there has been an influx of fantastic candidates over the past 12 months. If you’re not as busy with live roles, it’s a great idea to register as many of these candidates as possible.  This will ensure you have access to a strong talent pool from which you can quickly pull candidates when jobs are called in. You can also take advantage of the people who are on your radar by communicating regularly with them. They can tell you how they’re finding their job search and where else they’re interviewing, giving you a better understanding of the market. It will help you to develop a relationship and a degree of loyalty among your candidates, which will be extremely important when the market improves.
      Showcase your expertise
      If you’ve always wanted to invest your time in developing your personal brand, take advantage of this opportunity and put yourself out there! As recruiters, we have a unique insight into the market, and our conversations with our clients mean we are well informed on workplace trends such as diversity and inclusion, wellbeing, and remote working. So, use your expertise and start producing your own content. Whether you want to try your hand at writing articles and publishing them via LinkedIn, or you want to start your own podcast or video series, the possibilities are endless.
      Prepare your candidates
      When talking to your candidates, it’s a good idea to give them an indication of when you expect the market to pick up, so they can prepare for it. Help them by working through their CV to ensure it’s up-to-date with no errors, and by practicing common interview questions. It’s also a good idea to go through any gaps on their CV, so they know how to explain them to an employer during the interview process.
      While we’re expecting an influx of new roles over the coming months, the competition for jobseekers is also likely to be fierce. As a result, you should prepare your candidates so they’re as responsive as possible. Let them know you will likely be moving very quickly from receiving a job spec to sending over a shortlist, so they need to jump on any opportunity they’re interested in.
      Keep your clients informed
      When reconnecting with your clients, remember that they may not have prioritized hiring lately. They’ll likely be interested in hiring trends in their industry, so prepare a handful of key points you can share. As many companies are likely to retain more flexible working practices moving forward, your clients may also have questions around remote hiring and onboarding processes. By preparing your best-practice tips, they will feel encouraged and supported as they tackle a new way of hiring while positioning you as a thought leader in your space.
      As recruiters, we can take advantage of quieter periods in hiring, allowing us to prepare ourselves for when activity picks up in our sector. If you know how to spend your time wisely, it will put you in good stead for the hiring boom to come.
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      [Webinar] “State of Software Engineers: Using Data Insights to Meet Your 2021 Recruiting Goals”

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      In our recent panel-style webinar, “State of Software Engineers: Using Data Insights to Meet Your 2021 Recruiting Goals,” we featured industry leaders from Amazon and General Assembly, and Hired. During the webinar, Rob Stevenson, Head of Hired’s podcast Talk Talent to Me, spoke with Erin Ford, Sr. Manager, Student Experience & Career Services at General Assembly, about the importance of hiring for skills, not labels, and how this broadens your talent pool and promotes diversity in your pipeline. The webinar also featured exclusive advice and recruiting tips from  Jonathan Kidder, Technical Recruiter II at Amazon (and creator of Wizard Sourcer) as well as insights from the hiring manager perspective from Dave Walters, Hired’s very own CTO. The panelists shared valuable strategies on how to use data from our 2021 State of Software Engineers Report to define and attract the most in-demand tech talent in 2021.
      Discussion Topics
      Industry trends and insights from our SoSE Report   
      What engineers want in their next role
      The power of skills-based hiring 
      How to leverage data in your hiring processes
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      How Should Candidates Request Feedback from Employers After a Rejection?

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      For many job seekers, knowing how to progress in a job search without employer feedback can be frustrating. Interviewing takes practice, and like any skill, how can one improve without constructive criticism? In addition to possessing the knowledge and experience needed to help an employer’s business succeed, the quickest way for job seekers to become employees is to make a great impression in the application and interview process. For those to whom this doesn’t come naturally, or who are up against the stiff competition, feedback may be required in order to land their desired role.
      The simple solution to job seekers’ feedback requirement is to just ask for it. After all, employers should respect an applicant who seeks criticism and takes steps toward self-improvement, right? But there are reasons why hiring managers rarely provide feedback to candidates, as well as best practices for obtaining it. Let’s look at a few of each.
      Why Are Some Employers Reluctant to Provide Feedback?
      First, it’s important to understand why employers may be hesitant to provide feedback to candidates who aren’t hired. One reason involves legal liability. Regardless of why an employer rejects one candidate in favor of another, if the candidate who isn’t hired simply perceives the reason to be unjust and files a discrimination lawsuit, it could result in thousands of dollars in legal fees, months in court fighting the charges, and irreparable damage to the employer brand just to prove innocence. Often, it’s easier to avoid the risk by keeping hiring rationales confidential.
      A second reason is the time commitment. An employer may be looking to fill several positions in the company. Depending on the nature of the positions, each may receive dozens, if not hundreds of applications. Providing unsuccessful applicants with feedback on why they were disqualified could add weeks or months to the recruiting process. Even hiring managers with the best intentions can only help candidates if their schedule and workload allow.
      How to Ask for Feedback
      When requesting feedback from an employer, timing is important. Job seekers should make a point of following up within one day (two days at the most) to reaffirm interest and ensure their application or interview is still fresh in the hiring manager’s mind. Candidates should also respond using the same method of communication that they received the rejection (phone or email).
      When posing the initial question to an employer, job seekers should never ask why they weren’t hired. Instead, they should explain that they are looking to improve in their job search, and are seeking constructive criticism. They should then ask if the hiring manager can pinpoint any areas in the application or interview process where they were lacking and if the manager has any recommendations on how to better showcase their skills and experience when applying to future roles.
      Ending on a Positive Note
      If job seekers speak to or receive an email response from an employer who is willing to provide feedback on their application or interview, they should always keep an open mind and respond positively. Candidates should remember that employers are under no obligation to tell them why they weren’t hired. Managers who offer suggestions on how applicants can improve truly have their best interest at heart.
      Under no circumstances should job seekers act defensively or argue with a hiring manager’s feedback. This won’t change the outcome of the hiring decision and could make the manager regret trying to help the candidate in his or her job search. Also, there’s always a chance that the applicant who was hired for the position won’t work out, and the employer will need to choose a second- or third-choice candidate as a replacement. Or, the company may be looking to fill a similar role in the near future. By reacting positively to the hiring manager’s feedback and showing appreciation for his or her time, candidates leave the door open to consideration for future opportunities with the company.
      If a job applicant lacks the qualifications and experience a position requires to be successful, no amount of employer feedback regarding interview preparation or self-promotion will change the hiring outcome. However, for candidates who just need a bit of guidance on interview etiquette or how to market themselves for a particular role, a few helpful tips on where they’re lacking could be all that separates a job search that lasts several more months from one that ends shortly after their next application. Though they should be prepared to politely accept “no” for an answer, job seekers shouldn’t be afraid to ask employers for feedback after a rejection and show they are always willing to accept criticism, continue to learn, and better themselves.

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      Here’s What Motivates Your Candidates in 2021 

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      As hiring activity across many industries slowed in the wake of the pandemic, we experienced several unique challenges in the recruitment sector. However, as we step into 2021, the new year has brought with it a renewed optimism! Not only is the vaccine roll-out in full swing; the Brexit trade deal and US election result have also delivered a level of certainty businesses have been craving for a number of years.
      As these global events start to influence the market in a positive direction, identifying and understanding your candidates’ motivations throughout this period is essential to being able to guide your clients in attracting the best talent.
      At Tiger, we’ve just released our Salary and Benefits Review 2021, a comprehensive report which collates data from over 2,700 workers and jobseekers. We asked them about their priorities and anxieties, as well as the benefits they’d look for in their next role. The information below will help guide conversations with your clients moving forward, allowing you to provide reassurance where needed.
      Candidate priorities
      The top priority for job seekers in 2021 will be securing a competitive salary, followed by job security and, thirdly, work/life balance. This is likely a reaction to the uncertain financial situation many workers experienced throughout 2020. Despite this, salaries have remained relatively stable (with a nominal increase in some cases) and 46% of our surveyed respondents expect a pay rise in the next 12 months. Therefore, if your clients are in the position to offer a competitive, regularly-reviewed salary package, this will help them attract top talent in the market.
      Flexible working is another huge priority for candidates, with 49% reporting this as the number one positive aspect to come out of the pandemic. When taking into account the money saved on commuting and the time this has given back to workers, their reluctance to give up this new-found flexibility is logical. As such, it’s essential that employers continue to offer some form of flexible working in 2021, whether through an ad-hoc or hybrid scheme or by allowing employees to work from home indefinitely.
      Candidate anxieties
      The majority of our respondents (73%) reported that their main anxiety concerned their career, rather than their health. In fact, just 35% are worried about catching the virus – it doesn’t even register in their top five concerns. This suggests that employees value the security of their job above anything else. It follows that roles that offer longer-term stability will be highly valued by top candidates. Therefore, it’s essential that clients are prepared to answer candidate questions about personal development and career progression, regardless of the role. This will ensure workers are reassured about their value and future prospects, which in turn will increase productivity.
      According to our survey, 38% of workers are worried that the pandemic will have changed the office culture. This may be rooted in a shift to home working, or social-distancing restrictions in offices. Other cultural influences, such as team lunches, after-work drinks, or similar bonding activities may also be affected. This is then another important aspect for your clients to keep in mind – any extra steps they can take to foster a positive working environment will be beneficial to their attraction and retention in the long run.
      Top benefits for candidates
      A good benefits package remains absolutely integral in attracting candidates, and businesses should adapt what they offer to reflect the changing times. For employers to truly stand out, benefits should take a tailored approach. Whether this is in the form of encouraging flexible hours for those who have caring responsibilities or organizing private transport to prevent commuting, it’s essential your clients understand the power of offering these types of benefits.
      The best examples we’ve seen of adapted benefits include the provision of ergonomic workplace equipment for home working, along with online access to mental health support and subsidized health-related subscriptions. The majority of employees (67%) believe their employer is adequately supporting their mental health and wellbeing, which is essential as we continue to work through uncertain times.
      In summary, while candidates may be more cautious about finding a new role this year, there are many tools your clients can utilize to encourage the best talent to move. At Tiger, we believe 2021 will bring with it an extremely positive change, and, as such, recruiters should be standing by!

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      [Webinar] “Going Digital with Your Employer Brand: How to Revamp Your Recruitment Messaging for 2021”

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      Recently, Hired partnered with Lever to host a webinar featuring Atlassian on “Going Digital with Your Employer Brand: How to Revamp Your Recruiting Messaging for 2021.” Our co-hosted webinar featured Devin Rogozinski, Head of Talent Marketing at Atlassian, and Rob Stevenson, Head of Hired’s podcast Talk Talent to Me, who explored strategies on how to shift to a digital-first hiring strategy. Specifically, Devin Rogozinski addresses his experience on how talent marketing has shifted from conferences to the digital world and offers solutions on how to create and measure campaigns that will expand your talent pipeline. 
      Discussion Topics
      How to approach creative and messaging 
      Resources for supporting  a digital-first strategy 
      How to measure the success of your campaigns 
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      How to Smash Lockdown Recruiting and Retention

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      For all of us involved in scaling a business, having the right team is an essential ingredient.  The second half of that is to retain them.  When lockdown first hit businesses, many people looked with horror at both those challenges.  Some are still struggling.  I set out to find the expert secrets of the people who are triumphing.
      Finding people to recruit
      Jimmy Williams is the CEO of the Urban Jungle, which provides insurance to generation rent and millennials.  They doubled their team in 2020 and anticipate doing the same this year. Jimmy finds they are swamped with applications, but not necessarily people with the right qualifications, so they plan to improve their filtering.  They find Zoom works for interviewing, but they like to do practical tests, so they also plan to develop these in exploding formats to prevent sharing between applicants.
      Jimmy says that it is “harder is getting to someone’s personality, so we often ask more direct questions about that. It’s not like anyone has any out of work interests at the moment, so we have to get it out of them!”
      Donald Lindsay is People Operations Director at the hugely successful FreeAgent, which makes award-winning cloud accounting software for small businesses and their accountants. While FreeAgent has had low turnover, when Donald has needed to recruit, he too found a great pool of motivated talent in the market last year and expects to see much the same this.
      Natalie Lewis of Dynamic HR Services also feels that with so many good people who will be made redundant, the talent pool will be large in 2021, but the key will be in the selection.  The choice is even more comprehensive than before. Entrepreneurs worldwide are no longer restricted to employing people locally or even nationally.  A global company in San Francisco might be hiring someone who lives in a remote Cornish cottage.  But pulling precisely the right fish out of a worldwide ocean will challenge everyone in the business of recruitment in 2021.
      Integration post recruiting:
      Both Jimmy and Natalie agree, the biggest challenge is often not the recruitment but integrating them remotely.  “It’s not like it can happen by osmosis or down the pub,” Jimmy points out.  Urban Jungle encourages everyone in their team to bring their personality to work, but Jimmy admits it is hard to do.
      Companies have to create that crucial buy-in to vision, mission, and culture, and this has the crux of the lockdown challenge, which Natalie describes as behavior onboarding.  “Previously, with people in an office together, it was much easier for newbies to pick it the culture and internalize it from the people around them, what they hear and see, embodied in the physical room.”  Without it happening naturally, leaders have to create it.
      Natalie believes it is the companies that have been open to change and adapting that are thriving and cites Gitlab as a perfect example.  They have a flat structure, high accountability, and responsibility.  Natalie believes that even post-pandemic, companies like this will retain hybrid working.
      FreeAgent moved the whole company to remote work in March last year and quickly adapted to virtual recruitment.  Donald says this meant both updating their range of interview guides and processes so they cover online settings and upskilling their staff so they could properly manage and lead this work.
      “Even before the pandemic,” Donald adds, “we were looking at how we could strengthen the employee experience at FreeAgent. 2021 will see us building on these strong foundations.”
      Creating culture and retention from day one
      I asked all three of my experts for their top tips, practices that they find work best to build and retain great teams in new times:
      Jimmy’s top tips:
      Jimmy says that they work “very hard to keep the team both productive and happy.  “We’re trying to maintain our usual levels of transparency, despite being in a physically different space, which makes that difficult.”  One thing they do to maintain transparency is that some of their senior team members now have ‘open 1-2-1s’ with their direct reports so that more junior team members can eavesdrop on what is going on like they would in the office.”
      The second Wednesday in the month is “Workmate Wednesday,” which is just to have non-work chats with colleagues.
      They also use their social budget to send people little treats in the post and include some remote socials. “Remote cocktail making for the Christmas party was brilliant,” Jimmy adds.  In addition, having found that around 20% of their team were suffering from their mental health after lockdowns started in 2020, they replaced their social budget for a mental health fund, offering counseling and yoga session in place of after-work drinks. This does seem to have helped and the team is coping better with this lockdown.”
      Donald’s top tips are:
      Donald believes that “flexible working arrangements will become the new normal going forward when it comes to future recruitment with fewer roles requiring to be based full-time in our HQ.   There will be more of a hybrid split between office-based and remote working from home.”  He believes this kind of flexibility is likely to be an important factor for many applicants in the future, so it’s vital to adapt and meet these expectations as quickly as possible.
      Donald also plans to strengthen FreeAgent’s progression and personal development.  They will offer people the chance to upskill and also to explore other careers within FreeAgent.
      They will also aim to improve things like salary bands, inter-departmental movement, flexible working arrangements, and succession planning “so that employees feel properly valued and nurtured.”
      FreeAgent is also continually reviewing staff benefits packages to ensure they are as strong as possible.  Donald believes that “if our people don’t feel they have a voice or are valued, we simply won’t be able to retain the amazing talent we have here.”
      Natalie’s top tips are:
      For Natalie, it is all about building culture.  One tip is that everyone on a remote team to have google hangouts open all day.  People being able to see each other makes a crucial difference to isolation.  They can always mute for an important call.
      She recommends enforcing virtual coffee meetings a couple of times a day.  Her experience is that people embrace it at first and then lose interest, so you need to really encourage it until they see the benefits – which are huge.
      Natalie says that to retain teams, a culture of compassion and flexibility will be the absolute key in the future.   Many people have to juggle work and family responsibilities in these lockdowns, and they need understanding and flexibility to remain committed and happy.
      Guided by the experts, I conclude that selecting the right talent will be the challenge for 2021 from a vast global pool.  Integration is critical for culture.  And when it comes to retention, the keywords are flexibility, transparency, compassion, and showing you value your team in every way possible.  Just as they have always been, but much more so.
      Jan Cavelle has several decades of founding micro and SME’s behind her and is now a freelance writer and author. Throughout her career, she has worked on various campaigns to support and encourage other entrepreneurs.   Her first book is Scale for Success: Expert Insights into Growing Your Business, Bloomsbury Business, 2021.

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