What is the hiring process?
The hiring process refers to the process of attracting, selecting and hiring new employees, however at Culture Shift the onboarding process and probationary period is just as important to make sure potential candidates and new hires feel they will be welcome and supported. Furthermore, the hiring process for many organisations can be stressful as it can be time-consuming, costly and sometimes even fruitless and it is not something hiring managers want to keep doing, especially for the same role. When the average employee turnover rate is approximately 15% but many companies do not know the reasons for those rates, it is absolutely essential for them to do their best to lower it or keep it low. Want to enhance your hiring process? Read on…
The importance of effective hiring
On average it can cost £30,000 to find, hire and train a new employee and the only time companies really want to be spending that kind of money is when they are expanding their teams, not replacing ones who have left. Whether that person resigns because of personal reasons, because of working options or benefits you don’t offer, to further their career that they can’t do with you, or because they are experiencing bullying, discrimination or harassment that they feel unable to speak up about or tolerate anymore, retaining current talent in addition to hiring new talent has never been more important.
If your hiring process is effective enough, having to keep on rehiring will be less of a problem and the hiring process itself will be easier, with the right candidates being attracted and the right ones also being given fair chances to show how they can add to your company and culture.
How to enhance your hiring process
These five tips to enhance your hiring process are ones we try to adhere to at Culture Shift to make sure it is as diverse, inclusive and effective as possible.
1. Diversifying your talent pool
We all know that having a diverse workforce comes with many benefits to your organisation and your people but some are not doing enough. 46% of employees we asked said their workplace could do more when it comes to diversity, including recruiting more people of varying abilities, having a better gender balance and more people of different religions or faiths (23%), recruiting more people from ethnic minority backgrounds (23%) and having more LGBTQ employees (19%). Of course, hiring diversely is just the first step – managing and promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace should be just as important going forward.
If you use agencies, think about how committed they are to helping you find diverse talent and if they align with your own company’s values. It may also be worth thinking about how diverse the hiring and interviewing panel is. Are those with the power to decide reflective of the diversity you want and have attending interviews or more reflective of who sits at the top level of the company? And is it just the department manager interviewing who has the final say or do other team members who they would be working closely with also have the opportunity to share their opinions on potential candidates as well as develop their interviewing skills?
2. Writing inclusive job descriptions
Of course, attracting diverse talent often comes down to how you promote your jobs and encourage people to apply. A study found that just 1 in 8 job descriptions currently include diverse and inclusive language. This needs to change. Simple tips to do this can include: using gender-neutral language, talking about the diversity of your current team and inclusive work culture, removing qualification requirements that are not needed for the role, avoid using personality traits that can put off neurodivergent candidates or adjectives that can exclude candidates of different ages, and even don’t specifically ask for a “CV”, which many may immediately think only text-based or heavy resumes will be accepted. And you may be interested in blind CV and application reviewing processes, which have often proven to remove or at least reduce unconscious or conscious bias when recruiting.
3. Making reasonable adjustments to the interview process
When you have the mindset of conducting all interviews in the same way so they are “fair for everyone”, you will inevitably be excluding candidates at the same time. Many companies will ask candidates if there’s any adjustments that can be made prior to an interview. The answers to that question may be few and far between but employers should be prepared for all eventualities. Do neurodivergent candidates need the questions sent to them in advance to prepare? What accessibility can you provide beyond adjustments for physically disabled candidates or wheelchair users? Some candidates may find interviews longer than certain amounts of time or online interviews too overwhelming while others may just not be able to attend in-person interviews.
Those hiring should also consider disabilities or other barriers when conducting interviews. For example, some neurodivergent candidates’ body language may differ from others and those who don’t speak English as a first language may struggle to understand or answer questions. Would you consider any adjustments to these if requested? Not doing so may already cost you a good applicant and your image as a diverse and inclusive employer.
It is worth noting that 75% of neurodivergent employees do not disclose their status at work and 50% of those who do disclose later regret that they did. In addition, Another study found that 43% of employees with a less visible disability haven’t disclosed it to their employer. It is not mandatory for anybody to do so but it may be good to think of ways you can support those who do or anyone so that they feel safe and comfortable enough to, since currently half of UK’s employers admit that they would not employ someone who was neurodivergent. By making your commitments to ED&I clear and what your company does to nurture diverse talent that apply for roles in your job descriptions, you may see more candidates wanting to disclose information with you. Furthermore, just 17% of employers who report on the number of people with disabilities they employ use it to inform recruitment practice and only 16% use it to inform talent management practice. As well as enhancing your hiring process and diversely, how are you enhancing other People processes with ED&I at the forefront of them?
4. Remembering hiring is a 2-way process
When there are more job vacancies available now than there are people searching for jobs, greater power now lies with the candidates rather than employers. And with 83% of Gen Z candidates saying that a company’s commitment to Diversity and Inclusion is important when choosing an employer, transparency over your practices, culture and benefits, and your online presence perhaps matters more than ever. Some candidates may be bold enough to check online if current employees’ are saying anything about their working life at your company and if so, whether it’s positive or not – they may even message them to see what it’s like or ask during interviews if they are present, as we suggested earlier. In fact, statistics say 23% of candidates check the background of prospective employers with current or former employers and 73.6% of them value employee testimonials.
Our research also shows that 44% of people say they wouldn’t apply for a job with a company that had poor Glassdoor reviews, 66% wouldn’t accept a job with a company known for having a bad culture, and 45% of employees say they would leave a bad Glassdoor review or warn people about applying for a job at a company with bad culture. So how will you make sure your reputation doesn’t suffer in this way and you are attracting the best possible talent and ensuring they choose you as much as you choose them?
5. It’s also about retaining employees
So you’ve enhanced your hiring process and taken on someone who not only is a great culture-add and you think would be a great and talented addition to the team, but also someone who really wanted to work with you and chose you over other job offers or companies! But how can you ensure that you are living up to the greener grass they envisioned so they don’t leave for the wrong reasons we mentioned earlier? Because research by specialist recruiter Robert Half says a whopping 9 in 10 new hires would leave a job that fails to meet expectations within the first month.
Some examples of what you can do to stop this trend include: checking the thoroughness of your onboarding process and whether all information they need is clear and easy to find (from policies and procedures to reporting processes and support available, from all the wellbeing and other benefits you offer to the tools they need to do their job to the best of their ability), making sure that their advice, ideas and opinions are asked for, listened to and taken into consideration no matter what their role or “rank”, and that reasonable adjustments are continually being made should they need them.
Summary
From our research, 42% of people have left a job due to bad workplace culture, 23% of people said they would leave the organisation as soon as they could find a new job if they witnessed or experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment, and even 8% would leave without having another job lined up. This coupled with our statistics on how a reputation can affect your organisation when it comes to attracting, hiring and retaining employees will hopefully help you think how you can change that and reduce turnover and the costs that go into recruiting.
You can download our report to read more about the reputational risk of problematic behaviour here or our report on the importance of adopting and maintaining a people centric workplace culture here.
