Posts by "Roxana"

Employer

The Importance of Rewards and Recognition Programs

February 7, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Better results, higher engagement, complex recognition programs. We are not just randomly mentioning buzz words related to modern business goals but giving you the concepts with a high correlation that are conducting to improved business results.

Let’s start from the beginning.

If you’d like your business to have higher customer ratings, increased profitability, and productivity, less turnover, decreased absenteeism, product defects, and shrinkage and little to no safety incidents you have to do something to increase engagement. And it’s plenty of room here for only 29% of employees are highly engaged working at a superior level, while 18% of employees are actively disengaged, hurting the organizations they belong to. 53% of the employee left in the middle are just performing at a mediocre level.

When speaking about engagement we speak from hiring to separation and lately we are more and more concerned on the candidates’ engagement too, for a disagreeable experience as an applicant can hurt the company’s bottom line. In the Rullion Candidate Survey, from 2014 and in the Ph Candidate Attraction eBook from 2015 you can see that 75% of the applicants were already customers of the company they applied at and 1 in 4 applicants consider stopping purchasing products and services as a result of poor candidate experience.

Let’s take an extra step forward. We now know that engagement is of paramount importance, but why correlate engagement with recognition and reward?

Experts point that there are for engagement drivers for engagement consistent among employees around the world:

The work itself, including opportunities for development
Confidence and trust in leadership
Recognition and rewards
Organizational communication that is delivered in a timely and orderly way

With a solid place among engagement drivers, recognition and rewards should be on the spot lite for all companies around the world when working to increase employee engagement. Add to this that, according to Gallup, number one reason people leave jobs is they don’t feel appreciated and the fact that Organizations with Recognition programs had 31% lower voluntary turnover, according to Deloitte, while 60% best-in-class organizations state that employee recognition is extremely valuable in driving performance. (Aberdeen Group) and I hope I’ve grabbed your attention to the reward and recognition topic.

Let’s talk about the way recognition was done not long ago. The manager remembered from time to time what he/she had learned in management/leadership training and gave the employee a tap on the back accompanied by the familiar “good job”. Sometimes he remembered that recognition should be public other time he/she didn’t remember such a small detail. Anyway, this type of recognition was rare to very rare and most of the time not accompanied by quality feedback. The employee of the month or employee of the year programs created on happy persons while all the other employees were unhappy. The other types of recognition programs, mostly related to increasing in seniority, remember the golden watch people received at retirement, had little to do with performance and competency improvement.

So, forget about these old programs for they never worked then and for sure they will not work now when Gen Y is almost 80% of the working force and Gen Z is starting working too.

You need a program based on social wisdom, on crowdsourcing, a program where peer to peer recognition and feedback is as important as manager’s recognition and feedback, a program where recognition and feedback are immediate and public to everyone in the company. To implement such a recognition and reward program you need a platform that provides the framework for an organization to structure and implement such a complex recognition program that reinforces behaviors and improves individual team performance while aligning it with organizational values and result.

Via such a program you offer your employees, beyond recognition and feedback, you offer rewards that are meaningful for them, customized to their needs, wants and preferences.

Employer

Are we facing a workforce crisis in the Cyber Security sector?

February 5, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

The employment situation – or should we say lack of – on the cybersecurity front seems somewhat dramatic if you look at it through the lens of statistics.

Even though cyber attacks on businesses are steadily increasing, and the number of data breach victims are constantly rising every year.

What could possibly be at fault for the tremendous shortage of skilled professionals!? We need to answer whether the market is going through a crisis in talents or companies that offer such positions struggle for different reasons.

ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association) conducted a survey among hiring organizations to find out how long it takes them, on average, to fill in a cyber-security/information security position.

Long-term vacancies are the more accurate term

The survey brings to light the hard time enterprises appear to have when recruiting specialists for cybersecurity or information security positions.

The majority of companies surveyed admitted that it takes them 3 to 6 months to find proper candidates. A hire in less than a month is only reported by one in 10 employers. All the while, approximately 6% of the respondents say they are unable to fill these positions.

ISACA offers various certifications in the cybersecurity sector for professionals who want to level-up their career path. The demand for skilled individuals is very high and the need to attract new talents is continuously increasing.

Another survey performed by the ESG on the state of IT highlights the steady growth of cybersecurity professionals seen over the years. as we can see, the percentage of companies reporting a cybersecurity skills shortage has almost doubled in just five years

2014: 23 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2015: 25 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2016: 46 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2017: 45 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills
2018: 51 percent of respondents said their organization had a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills

One of the most in-demand cybersecurity roles is security analyst, Security analysts work to prevent and mitigate breaches on the ground. Another hot job is security manager. Security managers develop and implement overarching processes to keep information private. To get as a job as a security manager the applicant will probably need a professional certification to be considered for such a role, like a CISM (Certified Information Security Manager) or CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional).

You would think people would be running toward a career with almost-guaranteed job security. However, very few people are entering the cybersecurity field.

But there is a way out of this. Here are three areas you can start working on:

Ongoing training and clear career paths
Adopt new education models – Education can be more exciting through hands-on training, hackathons, and gaming. The Intel Security survey found that hackathons were a great way to identify talent and develop skills
Diversify the industry – Cybersecurity is currently a male-dominated industry. Another option to increase the number of cybersecurity professionals is to make it more attractive to women and minorities, this way you will also widen the talent pool.

Employer

Pressing Need for Cybersecurity Specialists on the Market

January 31, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Cybersecurity is threatened not only by hackers and outside sources but also by the lack of talents on the market. Skilled professionals are in great demand according to a study conducted by the Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute.

Currently, companies who employ such specialists are in dire straits. 68% of them are looking to recruit talents that are not available since the gap between supply and demand has reached a score of 25%.

The senior executive of Deloitte and a recent graduate of a master’s programme in cybersecurity, has pointed out through her study, that by the year 2022 we will suffer a 1.8 million shortage in this particular area of expertise.

Is there a solution to closing the gap?

The first step consists of stimulating and attracting young talents to pursue a career in cybersecurity. This entails the following:

Coming up with creative and forward-thinking strategies of attracting talent
Build a story around the organization and work environment in the field
Target groups and hotspots of already trained professionals
Creating talent from within the company

The second step consists of efficient retention of current professionals. Ideas on how to improve the process include:

Creating goals and motivation for them to advance in their expertise
Coming up with a career plan system to help specialists grasp a better picture of their professional future
Promote an unbiased acceptance environment for all genders and orientations
Make tasks more challenging and entertaining to maintain enthusiasm by automating the dull ones

Closing the gap is not realistic, but bridging it can be an effective and progressive approach. The Human Capital Agenda for Cyber Security strongly encourage active collaboration among organizations in this sector.

Active involvement and collaboration could take the form of:

Providing controlled training in many sections of cybersecurity. Access to education can open up opportunities for young talents who would otherwise choose differently.
Facilitating access to extensive career plans that would emphasis on long-term benefits, quality of life, income and the sense of belonging in a close community
Promoting cybersecurity as a viable option for future talents and young professionals
Creating support groups and skill sharing communities among professionals to widen their expertise
Attracting students through events, competitions, and challenges like hackathons
Leading conferences and events to provide role models in the field and sharing stories on professional paths
Expanding beyond universities and college degrees to people of diverse backgrounds who may have the abilities to learn and excel in the cybersecurity sector

It would be a shame to leave untapped potential dormant while the market is suffering a major deficit.

Employer

Hot IT Hiring Trends and Trends Going Cold

January 29, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

A top challenge in the modern IT industry is that of hiring the best tech talents to bring about the achievement of goals and promote organizational development, this is partly due to the fact that tech talents are in high demand and also their paucity in the labor market. However, despite these challenges, companies have been able to adapt themselves to this seeming difficulty through various means, this article showcases how companies now carry out IT hiring and trends getting cold in the process of IT staffing.

Hot Trend: Workplace Flexibility

While companies still want their staff working in a specific base, an increasingly observed phenomenon in the IT world today is workplace flexibility which allows employees to work from home, café, coffee shop or even overseas during breaks or trips. The advantage of this is to aid retention and system burn out. Therefore, these days, employers are leaving rooms for their employees to work flexibly for greater efficiency.

Cold Trend: Full-time Remote Work

Full-time remote work has appeared to be a trend on the decline in the IT industry and fast getting outdated as a workplace practice. This is because there is usually always room for employees to strike a balance in their various engagements and duties and a full-time remote work doesn’t allow for this. Close proximity among staff, working together is proving more effective than a remote system of working.

Hot Trend: Flexibility Staffing

A standard pool of staff is being made possible in the IT industry, this system allows the availability of employable flexible staff who are well equipped and skilled to handle different challenges which might be thrown at them and even excel at this. Hence, this provides easy access to employees who are willing to work and deliver the required service at any time they are needed.

Cold Trend: Rigid Recruitment

The impact of the imbalance between the demand and the supply for tech talents have made it practically impossible for tech talents to be treated to a very stiff requirement before they are recruited. Hence, employers now rely on hiring employees who are less experienced but motivated to acquire new skills quickly.

Hot Trend: Incentives

Despite the fact that IT talents hiring is very competitive, IT talents are not immune against following the path of incentives and better workplace welfare, IT talents also follow the direction of “perks” if they are found as part of the employment package. Some of the popular perks include flexible work schedules, regular social events, remove work opportunities, free gym membership, a compressed schedule, and free food.

Cold Trend: Prolonged Hiring Period

Since the nature of the IT market is competitive, one thing which turns tech talents off is if the recruitment process extends beyond two weeks after the interview. Many tech professionals have explained that they lose interest in a job if there is no follow-up within two weeks after an interview, hence, employers are advised to look for ways to make their hiring process smooth and fast to avoid losing desired workers.

Developer

Migrate Your Windows App to iOS and Android

January 25, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Microsoft Corporation has announced its plan to stop its support for its mobile operating system on the 10th of December, 2019. This news only points to one clear suggestion for users of the Windows 10 Mobile version 1709, which is simply for them to migrate to another platform, Microsoft announced that from that time, there would be no more product or security update for the platform. The announcement was made on a life cycle support page and the announcement also applies to all Windows 10 Mobile products as well as Windows 10 Mobile and Windows 10 Mobile Enterprise. Microsoft is not supporting its Windows phone on December 10, therefore, loads of apps have to be migrated from Xamarin to iOS or Android native.

We should not forget that Microsoft also carried out a similar process in 2017 when it canceled Windows 8.1 Mobile Support and declared that it wasn’t going to continue developing any new feature for the OS in addition to the fact that it wasn’t working on their latest phones, although security updates were still being provided for it. But this time, by December, no security update will be provided for the Windows 10 Mobile Support hence, Microsoft has clearly advised current users to switch to Android or iOS devices. In an FAQ, Microsoft said “with the Windows 10 Mobile OS end of support, we recommend that customers move to a supported Android or iOS device. Microsoft’s mission statement to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more compels us to support our Mobile apps on those platforms and devices.”

Microsoft has been trying with an increasing focus to get its services on devices such as iOS and Android. In actual fact, Android has become the mobile OS for Windows users, most especially with the advent of Windows 10’s feature called “Your phone”. This feature allows you to replicate an android feature on your desktop, thus effects like transferring photos, sending and receiving texts are made possible. The same goes for iOS users, although most of the Windows 10 services are embedded in the Edge App.

Therefore, this new recommendation is for Windows 10 Mobile users to move to iOS or Android devices as Microsoft prepares to withdraw its support by the 10th of December 2019, after this period, the device backup for settings and some apps will continue to run for three months until March 10,2020. Microsoft also revealed this bit of information, that “some services including photo uploads and restoring a device from existing device backup may continue to work up to another 12 months from the end of support.” It should also be noted that Microsoft previously ended Windows 8.1 support on the 11th of July, 2017, so the end of Windows 10 Mobile support is which is topping the news now is not surprising. The main focus of Microsoft now is to build apps and services for iOS and Android.

Employer

Why Candidate Engagement Matters in Recruiting

January 22, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Employee engagement is one of those often talked about but rarely understood concepts. We all know that a fulfilled employee is more productive, but in order to attract and retain top talents, companies need to engage employees in the long run.

To realize how important the candidates’ engagement is you’ll have look at your recruitment and selection processes from the candidate’s perspective and change things accordingly. Some of the most common problems we find embedded in each process are:

The application form, candidates find on your website is too long and too complicated.
There is no confirmation email that a human being has seen that a new candidate filled the application form
The recruitment and selection process has too many steps and/or is too long or worse no expectation is set on this.
The candidate is unable to contact a recruiter for no contact info are available.
No notice is given when the position is filled/closed or just a standard automatic mail is received weeks after the job was given to someone else.

Communication is key and by simply addressing some of the basics above and further scrutinizing your process most will understand if another more qualified candidate has been placed in the role or recognize if the organization is no longer hiring. Be clear and notify candidates if passed over or not, answer promptly to all candidates’ questions/emails, explain the timeline of the selection process. Also, ensure you offer feedback to all candidates after each step including after interviews or tests and questionnaires applied.

The improvements shouldn’t stop here make sure to survey the candidates and the newly hired employees by asking them for feedback on what they like or didn’t like about your application process and change things accordingly.

Candidates will always prefer the human touch but this doesn’t mean automation is obsolete, on the contrary. Use recruiting technology or even the trendier Artificial Intelligence (AI) for speed, to automate repetitive tasks, such as screening, use chatbots to answer questions that potential applicants have about posted job offers, use AI to generate insights that you as an HR professional wouldn’t think of by yourself, for example. Thus, recruiters will have more time for tasks that really add value such as network-building and communication. AI is clearly the future as discussed by LinkedIn and other but is now only coming to the fore and gaining acceptance because the experience is more human-like. However, AI is only as good as the logic you invest in it and technology will only execute what you’ve told it to automate so don’t skimp on the investment of time in engineering your process for a successful candidate experience all around.

Take time to understand how these new trends match with your current hiring process and you will be able to add extra more valuable tasks to your “to do list” for improving the candidates’ experience and engagement but also for attracting and hiring top candidates from the marketplace.

With all this info at hand is time to act, so be critical when scrutinizing your hiring process and improve it using candidates feedback, common sense and of course the 80-20 rule (Pareto distribution). Results will show but you need patience for this is not an overnight transformation. Analyse, change, measure again and change again and don’t forget that recruiting is changing fast and so should your ways of doing it.

Employer

Hiring In Tech: Potential Over Experience

January 17, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Every growing and advancing company seeks to recruit additional staff to handle and further their growth. In that light, companies usually seek the best minds and hands in the fields they intend to hire from. One such field is that of Tech; in which likely recruits fall into the categories of either those with experience in the industry or those with little/no experience but with potentials.

During the recruitment process, employers are usually faced with the question of whether to choose someone with experience over one with potentials or to do otherwise. This choice, of course, isn’t a straight forward one, as both categories of likely recruits each have their advantages and their drawbacks, and depends on what the company values most at the point of recruitment. But then, we will look into why tech companies should choose potential over experience.

Companies spend a lot of resources in order to get top talent for hire and have always favored those with experience. The reason for this isn’t far-fetched, as many think it is obvious that those with experience in the field will be able to handle more tasks and challenges and thus, are better suited for the job. But this approach no longer serves the best interest in today’s job market, as experience is not everything.

Potential is the capacity to develop into something great and everyone in the tech space will understand that jobs in this field are very competitive and need to be creative and innovative in order to stand out. These key areas of innovation and creativity are better handled by recruits with little experience but high potential than the experienced folks.

Also in the tech industry is the need for flexibility, adaptability to change, and diversity. These qualities are better found in recruits who have high potentials, as they are more willing to explore new options in the field; which is relatively new to them. This enables them to be able to effectively function and succeed not only in their current roles but also in sideways or upward roles within the company.

As mentioned earlier, hiring for experience definitely has its own benefits, as companies who recruit them can expect fewer errors in jobs, and better character and hindsight. But for a tech company whose main drive is insight and innovation, it is more advisable to go for the ones with potential over those with experience.

Sure enough, recruits with just potentials and little or no experience will have their own drawbacks, but with adequate support and training will be able to continuously improve over time. All the companies need to do is capitalize on the curiosity, motivation, and determination of these recruits to help them learn as much as they can. With this approach, the employers will be able to better understand them over time and give them more appropriate roles where they can function best.

Having said all that we have, we can confidently conclude that for long-term investment and future growth of tech companies, the choice of potential over experience in hiring is the way to go!

Employer

What’s Really Fueling the War for Tech Talent

January 15, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Without a doubt, any careful observer in the tech industry will easily notice what can be rightly called a war for top tech talents. The signs are quite obvious and clearly seen from how much companies battle fiercely to win top tech candidates to their sides, not minding the higher salaries they might have to offer them with additional incentives. The basis behind this is not hidden, and the economical law that backs up this observed phenomenon is simply that of demand and supply:

John Reed, a senior executive director of IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology explained that the continued investment of companies in tech has created an increase in the demand for tech professionals, however, the number of people who chose the field of tech is not increasing, leading to a “supply-demand imbalance.”

However, in the midst of this seeming “scarcity” of tech talents, a tech job-listing website, Dice.com claimed that the scarcity of good tech brains might have been over exaggerated by some companies. This is supported by comments from some other tech recruitment executives such as Tony Martin (Vice President, Recruitment Process Outsourcing) who believes that many companies are not doing their best to attract the best talents which are available, and he expressed the view that a smart way to recruit great employees is by looking at the skills available in the market and looking into ways to apply these needs to meet the specific needs of the company rather than matching a set of skills with job requirements.

Another challenge which might have been responsible for this “tech-talent-scarcity” could also be from the part of employers’ branding which could be inappropriate or unenticing to the prospective employees. This is a marketing problem from tech companies and it boils down to their branding. Funny enough, when people think about tech and its employees, they already have in mind a biased mindset that the employee must be within a particular age-range which is not always advantageous as many times, the desired tech talent wanted might not be in that category being specified, hence it could be seen more like a case of looking into the east when the answer lies idle right in the west. What this could translate to for the employer is to brand the company in a much better way and allow prospective employees know that the company stands for and what they stand to gain by working with the company, and also, the goals and objectives which they are going to fit into work with.

Yet, often left undiscovered in the cause of this war in the tech-talent hunt is the fact the company sometimes have workers leave their work easily while the company is looking for new talents. Many times, the talent being sought for outside a workplace might in the real sense be present at the workplace, and only needs to be identified, hence, there is a need to sometimes consider existing workers when tech-job opportunities open up.

Therefore, it is necessary for employers to look in the right directions when looking for their tech talents and not forget to be proactive and act smart. Also, it is essential to ignore biases and sometimes consider already available talents who might only need to be brushed up with training to meet the job requirements.

Employer

Candidate Engagement Latest Trends

January 10, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Recruitment landscape has changed forever, Baby Boomers are retiring and Gen X is no longer forming the majority of the workforce. Almost every qualified person is already having a job and not actively looking for a new one. The new generations, Millennials and Generation Z require a lot more from an employer, even from the recruitment stage. If we go even further with the labor market analysis and the changes triggered to the recruiting and selection process here are some of the major trends:

The talent shortage is getting worth;
Candidates are having now the power, they pick the company they like not the other way around;
The Millennials and Gen Z have different expectations on what they look for in a company, and they are the majority of the workforce. They also change jobs more often than the other generations. Note that employees ages 20-34 change jobs as an average at every 2.8 years while employees ages 35-44 change jobs every 4.9 years and employees ages 45-54 change jobs only every 7.9 years. This means that retention is the other side of recruitment and companies should put more effort in increasing retention.
Job shopping is now commonplace, so things like your employer brand and career page from your website are more important now than a year ago.
Social media is the new trendy recruitment channel that can increase your pool of candidates but your competition can also tap into this resource.
Flexible hiring strategies are available both for the candidates and for the employer.
Recruitment speed is more important than ever, not just as a quantitative indicator, the old days to fill, but as a must in attracting top candidates. If you are not fast enough your competition will get the top runners.
You cannot consider any more that the recruitment is finished when the offer is signed. Because the candidates are job shopping, other, more attractive offers may show in no time modifying the candidate’s decision.

With all these changes what should a company do to win the war for talent: the new buzzwords are candidate experience and candidate engagement? HR should learn marketing techniques related to customer experience and transpose them in the recruiting and selection process to enhance the candidates’ experience. They also have to learn that employees’ engagement is starting from the candidate phase so this stage should be included in the overall engagement strategy.

This candidate-centric recruiting model requires engaging candidates at the right moment, in the right way, and is looking at every single stage of the overall candidate journey, starting from the moment a candidate becomes aware of your employer brand (“first look”), let’s say by looking at your website at the career page and extending flawlessly and seamlessly into employee engagement once they are on hired and the induction and onboarding process is starting (“first day”).

A new term is emerging regarding how to treat rejected candidates: we should Rejobify them. You may wonder if this is not too farfetched to think about the rejected candidates’ experience and to invest time and not only in their experience.

Employer

How to Calculate the ROI of Your Developer On-boarding Programs

November 29, 2018 Comments Off Roxana read

New employees are a great asset to any organization. When they come in to replace former staffers or even to occupy newly created positions, organizations would want them to hit the ground running.

However, this is not always the case even with experienced employees. Learning an organization takes time. Onboarding programs come in to bridge this gap to reduce the amount of time to acclimatize, become socialized and get productive at work.

Organizations invest in the onboarding programs with so that their new developers can bring more value than what was spent invested. At the very least, the onboarding program should be successful.

How can you calculate, therefore, the return on investment of the onboarding program?

Kirkpatrick’s model of evaluation involves reaction, learning, behavior, and results. This model has been used over the years to evaluate the effectiveness of training.

After the onboarding program, a company may provide the new staffers with a questionnaire to collect information based on their reactions. The benefit of this evaluation is you obtain the employee’s first impression of the organization.

Employee turnover

If an organization’s employee turnover rate is high, it indicates that staffers are dissatisfied with the environment within which they work. With an onboarding program in place, you could orient staffers on the job at hand and get them to understand the processes in the organization. Here employees are also informed about the challenges and opportunities that may arise in the organization.

In the case of a significant reduction in employee turnover, an onboarding program is counted to have been successful.

Employee sourcing

Likewise, referrals help organizations to reduce the cost of advertising and sourcing for candidates who are the best fit for existing positions. Ordinarily, happy employees are more willing to invite their friends over into that particular company.

So, when a firm finds itself in a situation where a large number of interviewees attribute their knowledge of the position to your employees, then onboarding was successful.

Feedback sessions

Immediately after the onboarding program, developers could be asked a few questions on a scale of 1-10 to provide feedback on whether they are satisfied with what the company has to offer, its terms and environment. This is critical as it can capture what employees feel and perceive your organization.

Stay interviews

During these sessions, developers are asked questions why they choose to stay with the organization. It is useful in picking out the specific aspects of company strengths. Firms can, therefore, emphasize these positive aspects to ensure members of staff remain productive.

Exit Interviews

While the stay interviews address why employees choose to remain loyal to the organization, the exit interviews focus on why an employee decided to exit the job. Here, the company could ask if ever the onboarding program was effective or otherwise.

For detailed insights, you could employ the use of each one of these approaches. Employee surveys can be used to determine how effective developers find these onboarding programs are. Also, employee turnover is a quick way to establish whether your company got its fair return on investment (ROI) in the onboarding program.