August 12, 2021
This is a guest post from OnTheClock’s CEO & Founder Dean Mathews.
Hiring is more than finding the right employees to fulfill a role and perform the necessary tasks at any given moment. A long-term vision is essential, especially if a company has ambitions to scale up in the coming years.
One way that businesses can ensure they have the insights to tackle problems they might face further down the line is by ensuring their teams not only have the expertise but also consist of people from different backgrounds. Diverse teams have broader access to life experience, mindsets, and ways of approaching challenges that they can draw on when standard approaches fall short.
The benefits of hiring a diverse team for long-term growth are varied and numerous. Here’s how companies can achieve this goal.
Every job departure is unique and no one scenario applies in all instances, but many employees quit their positions for similar reasons.
There is a general assumption that employees quit their jobs because they’re looking for more money. While this plays a role in some decisions, it’s not as common as you think.
One big reason people leave is a lack of flexibility, which has become even more evident in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a survey reported by Bloomberg in June 2021, 39% of participants said they would think about quitting their job if they were forced back into the office full time.
Another reason could be a lack of interest. In a 2021 survey by Gallup, 34% of employees in the US and Canada considered themselves to be “engaged.” Though this number was higher than the global average of 20%, it’s still well below half.
Other reasons leading to an employee being disengaged:
When a mid-level or higher position opens up, it’s a good practice to consider existing personnel for the spot. Making an opening known internally before posting job ads can benefit in a number of ways.
Here’s when to consider hiring from within vs outside of your organization.
A strong company culture is critical for long-term growth. Over half (56%) of participants in Glassdoor’s 2019 Mission & Culture Survey said they believe culture is more important than money when it comes to job satisfaction.
In the same report, 65% of participants pointed to their company culture as one of the top reasons they remained in their position.
Hiring from within helps companies to maintain their culture because the candidate already understands the work environment. Managers can bring in someone without worrying whether or not their values align. Additionally, since employees will see their hard work pay off, they’ll become more prominent advocates for maintaining progress and harmony in the office.
If employees feel like their career growth within the company is being blocked, chances are that they’ll become less interested in what they do. This is especially the case for employees who see patterns of non-inclusivity while others move ahead of them—despite them deserving it more.
Depending on the role you are trying to fill and the skillset of your current team, you may need to hire externally for more senior positions. However, if there’s a deserving team member with the potential to step into the role, promoting them motivates and inspires other employees to follow in their footsteps. They can see that the company values hard work and contribution. This is especially true if you’re hiring people from less privileged backgrounds that already work within your organization.
One benefit of promoting diverse talent from within is that you could attract great candidates from outside the organization in the future too. People from a diverse background will likely have an interesting network of highly-skilled potential employees, especially if they’ve also lived in other countries or worked across numerous industries.
With this insight, businesses can create well-curated profiles and use technology to determine whether or not they’re a good fit. Through combining these, companies could source excellent candidates that they might otherwise have missed.
To hire a diverse team for long-term growth, segmenting candidates is essential. Gaining a more precise overview of each employee’s skills is easier with technology, which can also help remove unconscious bias.
Using technology, like Fetcher, to source and segment candidates also helps companies save time on having to sift through them manually. This frees up HR staff for more involved, meaningful tasks.
Often, the ideal long-term candidates aren’t yet the complete package. However, as long as they can perform their current role and are willing to learn, they can become valued assets.
Businesses can look for potential in numerous areas, including:
A job does not necessarily define the person in the role. Often, professionals fulfill roles—and are good at it—but also have growth ambitions that include their passions.
When hiring with the long term in mind, asking employees about their interests outside of their job is a good idea. For example, a graphic designer might also have a love for photography—and a business might need a corporate photographer sometime in the future.
If an HR team knows what employees enjoy doing outside of work, they can keep these individuals in mind for possible future opportunities, rather than outsourcing.
Businesses must analyze their hiring success if they want to hire for long-term growth. Ways to measure hiring success include:
By tracking the success of their hires, hiring managers can tweak their strategy accordingly and use lessons learned to inform decisions in the future.
When building a strategy for long-term growth, a company must first look at the type of people it wants within the company. Employees are more than workers. They’re brand ambassadors and will repay companies that treat them well and offer growth opportunities with better output and stronger loyalty.
Hiring a diverse team for long-term growth requires foresight and identifying potential. Technology via a recruiting automation platform with robust sourcing tools can help towards building a well-defined company culture—as well as a genuine interest in the people, their potential, and well-being.
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Dean Mathews is the founder and CEO of OnTheClock, an employee time tracking app that helps over 10,000 companies all around the world track time.
Dean has over 20 years of experience designing and developing business apps. He views software development as a form of art. If the artist creates a masterpiece, many people’s lives are touched and changed for the better.
When he is not perfecting time tracking, Dean enjoys expanding his faith, spending time with family and friends, and finding ways to make the world just a little better.
Check out our other blog posts for more talent acquisition tips and insights into recruiting trends.
At Fetcher, our mission is to introduce companies to the people who will help them change the world. Our full-service, recruiting automation platform automates those repetitive, top-of-funnel tasks, so you can focus more on candidate engagement & team collaboration. Simplify Sourcing. Optimize Outreach. Hire Top Talent. Learn more at fetcher.ai.
Recruiting Strategies, Workplace Trends
