03Aug

4 Ways to Mitigate Bias When Recruiting and Hiring

Jolene RischEmployee Retention, Hiring Process, Team Building

4 Ways to Mitigate Bias When Recruiting and Hiring

It’s a difficult time to be hiring. The future of many industries is uncertain, the market is flooded with candidates, and the pressure to find the right person to fill a vacant position is at an all time high. Many leaders are also reflecting on their business practices, especially recruiting and hiring, to ensure they’re doing all that they can to support an unbiased, inclusive, and diverse company culture.

It’s not new information that businesses who embrace diversity perform better. But it’s tempting for many companies to rely on precedent and tradition to find their new hires–and those methods aren’t always the best ways to ensure an inclusive and unbiased hiring practice.

If you’re committing to encouraging an unbiased recruiting, interviewing, and hiring process at your company, here are a few things you can consider to get started.

CREATE A HIRING PLAN

A hiring plan can set the course and the tone for the entire process. Think about who needs to be involved–both within your organization and externally, what you’d like the process to look like, and how to best use everyone’s time. Consider your company culture and values when discussing potential candidates to fill a role. Rather than subconsciously looking for a candidate who is similar to the employee who is leaving, this article suggests building a business case around the value of the position and what you envision the role will contribute to the company.

ASK YOURSELF DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ABOUT BIAS

One of the best ways to mitigate bias when we hire is to acknowledge that we all have it. It’s not unusual to find more in common with candidates who share our alma mater or remind us of someone we know. But, it’s important to ask ourselves questions about how our conscious or unconscious biases impact our hiring decisions. Here are a few to ask:

  • Do I source candidates and post in the same places every time I hire?
  • Do I tend to favor certain schools or organizations?
  • Do I tend to hire people like “me”?

CAST A WIDE NET

To attract a pool of candidates with diverse talents, backgrounds, and perspectives, you have to cast a wide net in your search. Consider using new databases and referral sources. Look for transferable skills outside your industry, and don’t limit your thinking to traditional career backgrounds and trajectories. Network with candidates, even on LinkedIn, to meet people outside your direct network.

BRING MORE VOICES TO THE TABLE

Finally, to truly support an unbiased hiring process, you’ve got to include multiple perspectives in every step–from writing the job description to vetting candidates to interviewing. It will build employee morale and engagement if your team has a voice in the process. Large or small businesses may consider including an external advisor, or running their interview questions by a diversity and inclusion expert. Of course, it’s important to create common guidelines and criteria to ensure the process can be efficient, true to your company’s mission, and aligned to your hiring plan.

28Aug

Why Customer Experience is Vitally Important

Jolene RischBlog, Hiring Process

Why Customer Experience is Vitally Important

 

Providing excellent customer service has always been something that successful companies prioritize. However, today business are seeing a shift in this focus from simply providing good service for their consumers to providing a great and memorable experience.

What is customer experience and why is it so important to a company’s success? Here are a few facts that today’s burgeoning businesses need to know to keep their loyal clients and continue to grow market share.

Catering to Today’s Customer

Some fast facts that might surprise you about the importance of customer experience include:

  • Over half of consumers polled are willing to abandon a company they are currently loyal to for a competitor if that competitor provides a better experience.
  • Around two-thirds of polled consumers say they are willing to pay more for a better experience with no other differences in products or services. 
  • Over 80% of consumers say that the experience a company provides is just as important as the products they sell or services they provide.

Creating Great Customer Experiences starts with the Best Talent

Now you know a little more about the importance of creating great customer experiences – how can you ensure that you’re doing this for every customer you serve?

While there is something to be said for appropriate training, recruiting top talent is a key component to great customer experiences. Here are some examples of how Risch Results enhances our own customer’s experiences while helping them find key talent.

  • While many recruiting firms pride themselves on sending clients as many resumes as possible, at Risch Results, we enhance our client’s experience by introducing them to only the best talent. 
  • Finding great talent for hard to fill and unique positions is common for Risch Results. But to make our clients feel at ease with the process we air on the side of overly communicating so that our clients are aware of where we are in the search process.

For the best in recruiting and staffing to get great results in creating quality customer experiences, see the industry experts at Risch Results. With meticulous, comprehensive processes created to find the perfect matches between talented individuals and companies looking for their services, you’ll be glad you trusted your recruiting to Risch Reuslts. Remember – if you’re in business, you’re in the business of creating experiences from the inside out. Let Risch Results help you do exactly that!

07Jul

What Happened to Our New Hire?

Jolene RischBlog, Employee Retention, Hiring Process, Team Building

What Happened to Our New Hire?

 

Has your company encountered a scenario in which a new hire seemed thrilled to be offered a position on Monday, only to reject the job before the week was over? These sudden changes of heart before the job truly begins are not just puzzling – they’re becoming increasingly common.

Sue Shellenbargerin the WSJ article, “Wait, Where Did Our New Hire Go?” explains that one of the main reasons this happens is the candidate’s experience or lack of experience with negotiation. 

Why Is This Happening

Negotiation is something that doesn’t come naturally to everyone, the need to do so doesn’t feel urgent until it is absolutely unavoidable – like the day before the offered job is due to begin. New hires who seemed gracious to accept an offer just days before suddenly back out of the position because they have offers elsewhere, but the employer doesn’t know this and is left wondering where their hire disappeared to.

Or, a candidate may not receive the kind of offer they need. Instead of asking for a better offer or letting a potential employer know that they have a better option elsewhere, many new hires will simply wait until the last minute and withdraw their acceptance of the job – again leaving the employer scrambling and confused. 

What Can Employers Do?

Reducing the chances of ending up on Day 1 without an employee requires consistent communication throughout the recruiting process.  At Risch Results, we make sure we have a clear understanding up front of what our candidate is looking for and the range of compensation for our client. We also recognize that the candidate who wasn’t looking for a job when we first reached out to them may actually be interviewing at other organizations by the time our client has decided to make an offer.  Therefore, we have to ask if they are considering other offers multiple times. Also, understanding our client’s organization besides the salary is hugely important.  We typically ask our clients what makes them unique and why people like to come to work every day.  This way, when we speak to candidate’s about the organization, they are weighing out more than just the compensation.  They are also considering the culture of an organization. 

21Mar

7 Tips for Attracting and Retaining Talent

Jolene RischBlog, Employee Retention, Hiring Process, Team Building

How small business owners can build
their team for the long term

In the midst of a global pandemic, it may be more crucial than ever that businesses have reliable talent to navigate an uncertain future. But with foundational changes to the ways we run our businesses, a flooded candidate pool, and the challenge of onboarding remotely, building an effective team can feel overwhelming.

Despite it all, it’s still possible for small businesses to attract talent, engage their teams, increase retention, and ultimately grow! Here are seven simple ideas for attracting and retaining talent that hold true no matter what’s happening in our world.

No. 1: Create a Culture of Collaboration

Employees leave bosses, not companies. If a manager is ineffective or unsupportive, employees may feel marginalized or underappreciated, which increases the rate of attrition. Small businesses have the opportunity to make employees feel like their voice matters by involving them in decisioning and strategizing. In today’s business environment, there’s no room for an us vs them culture.

No. 2: Ensure Your Employees Feel Like Owners

The great game of business is a business methodology and set of integrated tools proven to engage employees to drive profitability and sustainability. (It’s also the name of a book around the concept, written by Jack Slack.) Business transparency ensures that every employee is involved with the understanding and tracking of key business numbers. If there’s a decision to be made, people with relevant knowledge or expertise are asked their opinions — and rank doesn’t matter.

No. 3: Conduct Behavioral/Cultural Assessments

Considering “fit” in the hiring process is one of the best ways to hire the right talent and increase engagement and retention. Risch Results believes by using a reliable behavioral assessment to measure the innate characteristics of how a person thinks and is truly wired, employers can create teams that are more productive.    

No. 4: Brand Your Business

Every external and internal communication is an opportunity to brand your business as employee centric. Whether posting on LinkedIn, a blog, or the company website, communicate what makes your company unique, reinforce your mission, and highlight how your employees have helped you get to where you are. 

No. 5: Seek Feedback and Refine Accordingly

A business can’t grow without understanding what’s working — and what needs improvement. Provide employees with the tools and solutions they need to successfully perform their responsibilities. Talk to your employees about what they like and what they wish would change by conducting “stay interviews.”  And engage your employees in the solution process. 

No. 6: Practice Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an important leadership skill.  As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”  One way to build this skill is to practice empathy by seeing situations from the perspective of your employees.  A culture that encourages forgiveness will improve well-being and increase productivity. 

No. 7: Consider the intrinsic benefits of the position

Leaders need to know the non-financial benefits of a position to attract and keep the best talent.  The best talent is interested in a career, not a position. You don’t have to be Toyota to offer your employees opportunities for growth and development.  Equally important is an opportunity to work with talented colleagues.  If the company is too small, consider affiliating with trade organizations and training events.  7

11Mar

Real World Match: How We Search for Candidates

Jolene RischBlog, Hiring Process, Team Building

Real World Match: How We Search for Candidates

When a company engages our firm to assist with a candidate search, we spring into action, working behind the scenes in ways that the client doesn’t see.

We screen candidates by analyzing their resumes and work history.

We check references via calls and emails.

We dive deep into their background.

And most importantly, we actually talk with candidates. Not just interview them to confirm resume facts, but to converse with them on a more personal level.

Because cultural fit, or lack thereof, is one of the top reasons employees leave their jobs, we make it a priority to ensure that any candidate will be a good match on a character level with the existing employees, managers, and the company as a whole.

For example, one of our recruiters identified a candidate for a manager position at a national wellness company. The candidate looked great on paper, but upon talking with her, the recruiter detected a few red flags. So, she checked references and then investigated the candidate’s activities on social platforms. Some questions arose and we never presented the candidate to the client.

While we had to then go back to the drawing board with our search, something more important happened. We saved the client from hiring someone who could possibly work out for a short while but would ultimately be a mismatch when it came to cultural fit.

By spending time and energy on a comprehensive search, our firm is able to present the best and brightest candidates who not only look great on paper — but are also a true fit in the company’s real world.

26Mar

The Talent You Need, When You Need It

Jolene RischBlog, Hiring Process, Team Building

The Talent You Need, When You Need It

We can help you fill talent gaps in your department with contract or interim resources.

In the lifecycle of any business, staffing needs expand and contract based on a variety of internal and external factors. An employee takes a leave of absence; your company is launching a new product; high level expertise is required to create processes; training is needed for less experienced employees on a new product or system; interim talent is needed until permanent talent is found; OR, additional support is necessary to get through a busy period.

Risch Results offers staffing solutions for interim talent in several key areas to support the constantly changing demands and needs within your organization.

  • Marketing Strategy
  • Digital Marketing
  • Human Resources
  • Sales Strategy
  • Supply Chain
  • Training/Development
  • Bookkeeping
  • Accounting
  • Project Management
  • Administrative
06Feb

We Specialize in Finding the Right Talent to Meet our Clients’ Unique Needs

Jolene RischBlog, Hiring Process, Reference Checks and Credit Reports

We Specialize in Finding the Right Talent to Meet our Clients’ Unique Needs

Risch Results was recently engaged by a North Texas-based manufacturing company to replace a controller who had just resigned. The company knew they needed an experienced individual to lead the department, but they were struggling to identify the level they would need with the budget available.

After meeting with the company to better understand their goals, Risch Results was able to determine the type of hire that made the most sense for their business. We recommended an interim controller to take over while we sourced a strong accounting manager looking for an opportunity to lead their own small department in a growing company. The new accounting manager now handles all day-to-day accounting functions and the interim controller has moved into a part-time CFO role where he oversees the higher-level financial strategy.

At Risch Results, we specialize in finding the right solutions to meet our clients’ unique needs. In the lifecycle of any business, staffing needs expand and contract based on a variety of internal and external factors. An employee might be taking a leave of absence; the organization might be getting ready to launch a new product; extra hands may be needed for a new system implementation. We watch hiring and staffing trends and help our clients examine which strategies work best for their specific situations. Because the workforce is constantly changing, both in demographics and demands, we offer full-time permanent as well as part-time, contract and interim employees.

26Jul

How to Recruit in a Tight Labor Market

Jolene RischHiring Process

How to Recruit in a Tight Labor Market

The job market ebbs and flows with employment rates, and as the economic fundamentals stay positive, we can expect employment across most industries to remain tight. Low unemployment means we are in what executive recruiters call a “candidate’s market.” As such organizations looking to hire need to “sell” firms to potential recruits—and understand that a lateral move is no longer enough to attract talent.

In a tight labor market, organizations need to up their game, push the opportunity, and meet the demand. To attract the best talent, companies need to leverage technology, networks, and innovative solutions … and it all starts with establishing a new and improved recruiting strategy.

Happy to Make a Move

As professional employment continues to rise, companies across industries will see the problem of talent acquisition accelerate. As Forbes points out, today’s job seekers are in the power position, emboldened to dictate salary and ancillary benefits. There will be continued job growth in a number of industries, prompting some professionals to switch career paths to take advantage of new and better opportunities. The tighter labor market is also prompting some companies to consider relocating their headquarters to tap into the talent pool. In addition, companies have to make branding a priority, and outwardly communicate the benefits of the firm.

What all of these trends mean is that finding talent is difficult. Within specific industries where unemployment is at a celebratory low, the task becomes even arduous. In most cases it’s skilled professionals that have the highest employment rate, making an already shallow talent pool ankle deep.

Executive Recruiters More in Demand

It may seem counterintuitive for me to say that as the unemployment rate drops, executive recruiters are more in demand… but this is exactly the case. While our job is more difficult in a productive employment market, this is when we are at our best. Executive recruiters are trained to use a host of tools—from understanding how to interpret what is not explicitly outlined on a resume to networking to effectively using social media—in order to identify and vet candidates, even those who are not actively looking for a job.

One way to help achieve this goal is by working with an executive recruiting firm. At Risch Results, we come to the table with a robust toolbox that includes:

  • Unique Search Process: We provide a highly customized search for each position based on the specific needs of our client, as well as consider the culture and working dynamics.
  • Research: Our team meticulously researches and recruits candidates who are typically gainfully employed using a combination of strategic networking, data analytic, and web-based sourcing to attract the most promising candidates.
  • Scalable/Flexible Solutions: We watch hiring and staffing trends to help our clients examine which strategies work best for their specific business. We can provide full-time, interim, and contract employees.
  • Value-added services: We offer organizational assessments, third-party compensation negotiations, and workforce assessments in addition to our recruiting services.
  • Confidentiality: As a retained search firm, we are able to provide higher-end screening of qualified candidates while offering confidentiality for both the client and the candidate.

Recruiting isn’t easy, and if companies aren’t willing to incentivize with ultra-competitive wages and benefits, the job is even harder. But a skilled recruiting team can find gems in every industry. We do it every day.

29May

Benefits of Hiring Contractual Employees

Jolene RischBlog, Hiring Process

Benefits of Hiring Contractual Employees

In the lifecycle of any business, staffing needs expand and contract based on a variety of internal and external factors. As such, it makes sense for some companies to take an agile and flexible approach to hiring employees by using a contract-to-permanent job placement model.

Contract staffing offers several benefits, including filling unpredictable short-term staffing needs or the ability to try out a candidate for a position to ensure there is a good fit for the future. As the mobile workforce grows, these shorter-term positions can also help businesses embrace economies of scale.

While employees and independent contractors may be paid the same amount for a job, from a tax standpoint, the positions are quite different. A company withholds income tax, Social Security, and Medicare from an employee’s paid wages. For an independent contractor, the employer doesn’t withhold any taxes, leaving the responsibility to pay the required taxes on the contractor.

Filling the Growing Business Need

At Risch Results, we watch hiring and staffing trends, helping our clients examine which strategies work best for their specific business. Because the workforce is constantly changing both in demographics and demands, we have recently begun offering staffing solutions for contract-to-permanent placement in several key areas. For example, our clients are hiring contractual consultants for project management and change management to assist with specific programs and activities. Because consultants with these specific skill sets aren’t needed on a full-time basis, and this type of expertise lends itself beautifully to project-by-project work.

We have also seen a need for interim marketing managers and leaders to assist a company with a specific campaign or project. As is the case with marketing, some companies don’t have the need or budget for a full-time marketing staff, but do need periodic expertise to support a new product or service campaign.

In addition, we see an increase in the need for interim sales leadership to help an executive or management team prepare for a new offering, product, or service. Sales leaders are also excellent in helping a firm identify the right sales team for an expansion.

In this same vein, we see the demand for interim HR support and are working with clients to fill these positions.

The Value of Flexible Contract Staffing

The most obvious driver for contract staffing is the cost savings. Because employees are one of the top expenses of any business, it’s a win any time a company can optimize payroll.

Contract staffing also benefits employers because of the limited legal liability, shorter recruiting and hiring lifecycles, and the ability to “test drive” these professionals before offering them a possible full-time position. Oftentimes having a contractor on board boosts productivity from your internal staff because they are exposed to new expertise, projects, and tasks that may increase engagement and performance.

Fully Vetted Candidates… Every Time

As Risch Results works with clients to fill their contract staffing needs, our recruiting process remains the same as it is for full-time candidate searches. We fully vet all candidates and present only the ones that best match the position and company culture. Whether our clients need contract, contract-to-hire, or direct hire recruiting, Risch Results leverages our deep expertise, tools, and networks to meet our clients’ staffing needs.

 

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