I attended the really valuable APSCo HR and LD Forum about mental health, and how to keep recruitment staff healthy during this time of Covid and beyond. Here are some working from home tips for marketers and recruiters.
This dovetailed really well with last month's forum which I wrote about Returning to Work After Covid (but, oh, the irony of this week's "stay at home" message is not lost on me.)
Julie Bowen kicked of the meeting with some great points:
We are witnessing a slow and staggered return to work. And there are pockets of recruiters (and their clients and cands) working from home. The boundaries between home and work are blurred. This is causing angst, stress, confusion.
Some WFH (Working from Home) Stats to Warm You Up
(These WFH stats are from my own research and are pre-Covid)
40% of people feel the greatest benefit is the flexible schedule.
Companies allowing remote work have 25% lower employee turnover
People who work remotely at least once a month are 24% more happy / productive
74% are less distracted / 86% are less stressed
21% would give up holiday allowance to have flexi-working (69% of millennials would give up other benefits)
WFH saves at least 11 days per year travelling
How Can We Support Recruiters and Marketers With Mental and Physical Health and Well Being?
Rob Stephenson gave a fantastic presentation on mental health and working from home, and some great tips of how to improve “form” for recruiters, their leaders, marketers and teams.
Sleep / nutrition / exercise – don’t underestimate how you can ensure your teams are aware of what they need to do to care for themselves. How can you engage them to be effective in these areas?
Financial wellbeing – can you invite financial experts to run webinars / sessions for your team to educate them and alleviate any stress in this area?
I loved his comments on “creating of purpose” – as its likely that working remotely has eroded our sense of purpose, and we need that back to help us stay engaged
Connections – We are disconnected, from our staff, our bosses, peers, clients and candidates.
Stress management – WFH creates a different type of stress. Recruitment is known to be a “positive” stress job, but there are new stresses that you and I have not planned or trained for.
Helping others – Working at home may feel like a disabler when you’re used to helping other people.
You can read more about Rob’s thoughts here – there are some great insight and ideas.
My Suggestions for Helping Your Recruiters, Marketers, and Their Teams With Mental Health Whilst Working from Home
Exercise is something that I was lucky enough to continue throughout lockdown, but others may be limited due to health or situation. How can you get your teams motivated and those endorphins going? Could you have a “power hour”. Any of you up for a bit of lycra and Zoom HIIT? Could you nominate a personal trainer in your team?
Reconnecting – Your 3Cs (candidates, clients, colleagues) need help staying connected. Half daily video scrums (09:30/12:45) with the team to keep them focussed and engaged is what we do at Barclay Jones. More regular video calls with clients and candidates are key for recruiters. What can you do to reconnect your staff and teams? Waiting to go back to work is not a solution. This is the new normal. Keep your staff connected through tech. Can you leave Teams (Zoom) “on”, and not just use it for meetings. Be present as leaders. Communicate with the team throughout the day, like you would in the office.
To help you all move forward positively, stay focussed and engaged, set goals – and don’t be afraid to reset them if they are genuinely not viable. My team used to have 90 Day Rocks (a Traction term) where we smash issues and implement ideas. We have reset these Rocks to 30 days, to help us be more agile and react positively to the change around us.
Praise – It’s easy to say thanks when you’re in the office. If you use Teams, try the Praise App and call out some great behaviours – perhaps even focus on Values-led behaviours?
And talking of Teams – what are you doing to really “get” Teams (or Zoom) as these are crucial tools, as crucial (if not more so) as your phone. We’re building out a Trail on our Recruitment HIIT on demand training platform to help recruiters learn how to use the channel not simply to communicate but to help them run their desks. Bullhorn, Adapt, Job Adverts are live, and we're about to go live with HIIT+ where you can add your own training. A great way to connect your teams.
And talking of training. Leaders need to admit that perhaps their staff were not as effective as they’d like before Covid. Now WFH creates even more risk of low productivity and unchecked poor quality. And these team members are unlikely to stick their hand up and admit their weaknesses. There has never been a better, or more important time, to train your recruiters, resourcers, marketers. (Grab a free trial of our on demand training Recruitment HIIT)
And plan for Covid - I've had a stressful week for me awaiting Covid test results for my 8 year old. All of us in isolation, not able to leave the house. The school websites were not geared up for isolation learning, and we didn't necessarily have the right food etc... My work diary was choca! It was super-stressful. Create a plan, so that you know if you need to isolate, you will be ready.
Good luck, recruiters, leaders and marketers. It's going to be a challenging few months. Let's go into it with our eyes open, a plan, and at least the hint of a smile.
Now is the Time to Save Time, for Your Mental Health
Could you save an hour a day, and make an extra £18,750 a year (or £187,500 if there are 10 of you?)
Or indeed save 1 hour a day to stay mentally healthy?
Our high intensity interval training - Recruitment HIIT - helps recruiters source, convert quicker, and develop healthy pipelines, and recruitment marketers attract, engage, and retain candidates, generate leads, and colleagues (3Cs).
TRY RECRUITMENT HIIT
READ ABOUT OUR RECRUITMENT TRAINING
BOOK A CALL TO DISCUSS RECRUITMENT TRAINING
media centre
Read more-
Blog
How Many Candidates (and Clients) Do Recruiters Really Need?
Recruitment leaders and their resourcers / recruiters need to read this blog for insights on how much data they really need, and how much data they can realistically manage, to run a successful desk and recruitment business.We’re all human (even recruiters) and we all have limits. In recruiting world, our limits can be how many jobs we can work, how many calls we can make, how many temps we can manage. One significant human limit is our ability to nurture relationships. Data = RelationshipsRecruitment is a relationship business. A recruiter’s job is to build and maintain relationships. Candidates need managing, clients need managing, colleagues need managing. Dunbar tells us that humans have relationship limits – we have “a number” we can manage. Robin Dunbar is a Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Psychology of the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group at Oxford Uni he knows a few things about human behaviour. Think of your relationships a bit like a layered onion with you in the middle. 5 loved ones 15 good friends 50 friends 150 meaningful relationships 500 acquaintances 1500 people you can recognise People can move in and out of these layers. What is Dunbar’s Number? And What’s It Got to Do with Recruitment? Where does a “typical” recruiter sit in their ideal candidate / contact’s layer? And where do their candidates and contacts sit? Recruitment Leaders! What should you be considering if you want to maximise the value of your database, and the relationships you want to maximise, optimise, monetise? How should you focus on and nurture the right relationships? What’s the Number of Candidates and Contacts a Recruiter Can Actively Manage? Dunbar suggests that humans are capable of building, nurturing and maintaining 150 good meaningful and trusted relationships. Of course, there are variations to this, such as extroverts vs introverts and social networks – for example women tend to have more contacts in the closest layers. Dunbar v Recruitment Dunbar’s study isn’t focused on recruitment or recruiters, but it’s definitely food for thought. 150 meaningful relations is not that many people when you consider the average recruiter has a database in the 1000s. But could you really market your recruitment business on a database of “acquaintances” or “people you recognise”? Where do your candidates and clients fall within these categories? Have you got any in the magic 150 “meaningful contacts”? Is your database segmented in such a way, or do you have a “data dump” which needs a good clean?[link to clean webinar]. Recruitment in the Good Old Days Before tech and data began paralysing recruitment (too much / never enough), recruitment was much more of a relationship business. You knew your candidates, their dog’s names, their kid’s ages. Relationships were easier to sustain, they were more valuable, and we charged more for our services. It’s likely that Dunbar would say a recruiter pre-social media had 150 meaningful relationships with candidate and clients, and perhaps even some friends? Now with infinite data and technology allowing for massively increased reach and volume, relationships, ironically, are a harder to start and sustain. Are you / your recruitment teams engaging with the right people, or just lots of candidates? (Too many applicants, not enough candidates?) Are you working the right opportunities, or just a list of one-off jobs? (Too many jobs, not enough sales?) Is Your CRM Simply a Datadump of Strangers? Recruiters who try to maintain too many relationships actually limit their own success. They dilute the relationships they’re trying to build, resulting in weaker, less meaningful, and less valuable relationships. Could Dunbar help you run your recruitment business? For example: Recruiters who run a busy temp desk and managing 100+ temps might not have the capacity to take on more or even do other activities such as Business Development or Sourcing. 360-degree recruiters will have more relationships to manage than a 180-degree recruiter, so this could mean a less focused strategy and outcome. Is it always necessary to hire another recruiter to manage more relationships, or could tech do some heavy lifting? 4 Ways to Be Smart with Recruitment Contacts Social Networks can help. Publishing content to your “connections” can help keep you in and around the Acquaintances and People You Recognise category. Your goal, though, should be to get your ideal contacts on to your CRM so you can more actively work them. Ideally you should be aiming to nurture them in the 150 “meaningful contact” space! Your Recruitment CRM/ATS (ideally powered by automation) also has ways to identify and categorise your relationships. Status fields, rating and grading fields are great places to start and will enable smart ways to manage and work the data. Automation (and recruiters) can keep these vital fields current. Automation is helping Recruiters identify, engage, nurture (and monetise) Acquaintances and People You Recognise and capitalising on these relationships. In the automation projects we deliver we are creating functional data so recruiters can focus on segments of contacts and candidates. They can then “work” their data, rather than just collect it. Your recruiters (ideally powered by automation/CRM) need to keep this data updated to ensure you can track, manage and support where necessary. This should also protect your relationships when recruiters move on. Final Thoughts Engaging and nurturing your candidates and clients is an important part of the recruitment lifecycle. Recruiters often struggle with “too much data, too many systems, not enough process”. Any help and support you can provide to your recruiters to create focus, so relationships are stronger and profitable, is crucial. How could you use Dunbar’s theory to help you create focus, function, and sustainability?(Big thanks to Louise at UK Recruiter for initially posting this blog.)Bullhorn ROI + Trained Happy Recruiters = More SalesWe pride ourselves on helping recruitment leaders achieve Bullhorn ROI. We create a Bullhorn1st vision, reduce the need for other tech, optimise Bullhorn, automate their sales-prevention processes and data, and train recruiters to trust it and use it.ARRANGE A FREE CONSULTATION NOW
-
Blog
Automation Tip - Nail Your Date Ranges in Automation Lists
We've got an automation tip to help you ensure that you can really target the data (candidates and clients) you need to source, sell to, and place.We help recruiters to source quicker, and sell more, through our Automation Buddy program. Automation can positively transform a recruitment business - when it works. But when it doesn't work it feels like it simply costs money and keeps you reliant on Linkedin, Job Boards and other expensive data sources and tech.Don't Miss Out On a Hot Date (Or Sale)!When you build automations, they can be date-related, but I often see lists that aren't quite right, date ranges are setup incorrectly, and this means that you'll be missing out on vital sales (and candidate) opportunities. This can really affect automation ROI (and RoE - return on effort!)Damn!In my recent "5 Automations to Make You Money" webinar I explored how to create good quality lists to target your time and attention and keep hungry recruiters busy with the right calls. For example, you'll want to target lapsed clients, wake them up, and get them back into paying clients. These automations really need to work!But I have a fix for you to ensure that your lists and automations really drive revenue.Watch My Quick 1-Minute Automation Video, Nail Your Date Ranges, and Make More MoneyAutomation BuddyWe are Automation Buddies set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses who want to drive revenue using automation.READ ABOUT OUR AUTOMATION BUDDY SERVICENeed more Bullhorn / Automation Tips?Try our 1-minute tips.Be sure to sign up for (or watch the recordings of) our regular free Bullhorn and Automation webinars.CHECK OUT OUR WEBINARS
-
Downloads
Your Recruitment Training Playbook