Company details

Industry: Real Estate Investment & Development

Role: HR Director

Headcount: 75 (UK-based, with European offices)

Division: Human Resources

The Challenge

The employer is one of the UK’s largest multi-let urban logistics property developer and investment asset manager, with a strong ESG-led approach and ambitious growth plans across Europe. As the business expanded beyond the UK, the need for a senior HR leader became increasingly clear.

The organisation required an HR Director with the depth and breadth of experience to support a growing, multi-jurisdictional workforce. This individual would need to navigate complex European employment legislation, support entity set-up across new territories, and work closely with senior leadership to build scalable people processes aligned with the business’s long-term strategy.

Given the seniority of the role, its breadth of responsibility, and the requirement for hands-on experience across multiple European markets, this was a highly specialist search.

The Solution

Tiger HR led a targeted and highly focused search. The brief centred on identifying candidates with proven experience operating across the UK and Europe, particularly those who had supported expansion into markets such as France and Germany and had first-hand experience of establishing HR infrastructure within new entities.

They conducted a discreet headhunt, prioritising candidates with strong technical HR expertise, a solid grasp of European employment law and compliance, and the ability to partner confidently with C-suite stakeholders. Throughout the process, clear communication and a streamlined approach ensured minimal administration for the client while maintaining momentum.

The shortlist presented closely aligned with the employers requirements, enabling them to appoint an HR Director who could immediately support both day-to-day operations and longer-term strategic objectives.

The Impact

The successful candidate is expected to play a pivotal role in supporting the employers continued growth across the UK and Europe. Their appointment strengthens the business’s HR capability at a critical point in its international expansion and provides senior leadership with the expertise needed to manage risk, compliance and culture across multiple jurisdictions.

Feedback

“The process was straightforward and efficient, with clear communication throughout. The shortlist met our expectations very well, and the successful candidate exceeded them.”

Looking ahead

Following the successful appointment of the HR Director, Tiger HR continues to partner with the employer on further hires across business support functions, supporting the organisation as it scales both in the UK and internationally.

The post Case Study: Appointing a Senior HR Director to Support European Growth appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Burnout is no longer just a wellbeing issue. It has become a talent retention and recruitment challenge, and organisations that fail to address it risk losing high-performing employees at an increasing rate.

According to Tiger Recruitment’s UK Salary and Benefits Guide 2026, burnout is now almost as influential as salary when employees decide to leave their jobs. In our survey of almost 1000 UK professionals, 15% reported resigning due to exhaustion, only one percentage point behind those who left for a pay increase (16%).

For HR leaders, this signals a shift in the employment landscape: pay alone is no longer enough to retain talent. The ability of managers to protect their teams from unsustainable workloads is becoming a critical differentiator.

One of the most effective ways organisations can respond is by training and upskilling managers to recognise and prevent burnout before it becomes a resignation risk.

Burnout is becoming a structural issue in many workplaces

Several workplace trends are accelerating burnout across professional roles.

Our research shows that 84% of desk-based professionals now work overtime, while 68% regularly work weekends.

At the same time, economic uncertainty has led many businesses to operate with leaner teams. Fewer permanent hires and an increased reliance on temporary staff mean that remaining employees are often absorbing additional responsibilities.

The result is a workforce that is productive but increasingly stretched.

Even when companies respond with salary increases, the effect can be limited. The guide found that 39% of professionals who received a 5–10% pay rise still plan to leave their roles within the next 12 months, demonstrating that financial incentives alone cannot resolve deeper workplace pressures.

For HR teams, this reinforces an important reality: burnout is often driven by management practices, not compensation packages.

The role of managers in preventing burnout

Managers sit at the intersection between company expectations and employee wellbeing. When they are equipped with the right skills, they can identify early warning signs and rebalance workloads before employees reach breaking point.

However, many managers are promoted based on technical expertise rather than leadership capability. Without proper training, they may unintentionally contribute to burnout by:

• Allowing workloads to grow without reassessment
• Failing to prioritise tasks effectively
• Normalising excessive overtime
• Missing early signs of disengagement or exhaustion
• Struggling to communicate expectations clearly

Our research also highlights that culture and management quality continue to influence resignations, particularly among younger professionals and women.

Developing leadership capability is therefore not just a wellbeing initiative, it is a retention strategy.

What burnout prevention training should include

For HR leaders looking to strengthen their management teams, training programmes should focus on practical leadership skills rather than abstract theory.

Key areas include:

1. Workload Management and Prioritisation

Managers need to evaluate team capacity realistically and adjust workloads, particularly during hiring freezes or restructuring. This can be achieved by mapping tasks and holding regular check-ins to spot overload early. Reallocating or reprioritising work using frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix helps ensure teams focus on the most important and urgent tasks without becoming overstretched.

2. Early Identification of Burnout Signals

Recognising early signs of stress, such as disengagement, mistakes, or presenteeism, allows managers to intervene before issues escalate. Monitoring behavioural changes through short pulse surveys and having structured, low-pressure conversations gives employees the opportunity to raise concerns and receive support promptly.

3. Psychological Safety and Communication

Employees are far more likely to raise workload or wellbeing concerns when they feel heard and safe. Managers can foster psychological safety by leading through example, acknowledging mistakes and demonstrating openness. Establishing regular feedback loops ensures every team member has a chance to be heard and reinforces a culture of trust and collaboration.

4. Managing Hybrid and Flexible Work Effectively

With satisfaction around workplace flexibility falling to 54%, managers must ensure cohesion and productivity while supporting hybrid or flexible arrangements. Setting clear expectations and measurable goals for both remote and in-office work, along with maintaining consistent touchpoints, keeps teams aligned and connected regardless of location.

5. Supporting Mental Health and Absence Management

Empathetic leadership is increasingly important as employees expect better handling of mental health-related absence. Managers can support their teams by holding compassionate, non-judgmental conversations and planning phased returns or workload adjustments to ensure a sustainable recovery. These approaches help build resilient teams that remain engaged and productive even during challenging periods.

Why burnout prevention is also a recruitment strategy

From a hiring perspective, organisations that fail to address burnout risk damaging their employer brand.

Employees are increasingly prioritising work–life balance when evaluating new roles, with 73% ranking it as one of the most important factors when considering job opportunities.

In a competitive hiring environment, candidates are paying closer attention to leadership quality, team culture and workload expectations.

Companies known for strong leadership and sustainable workloads will naturally have an advantage when attracting top talent.

Building a more sustainable workforce

Burnout cannot be eliminated entirely, particularly during periods of economic uncertainty or organisational change. However, businesses that invest in leadership development can significantly reduce the risk.

For HR teams, the goal should be to ensure managers are equipped not just to deliver results, but to build resilient teams that can perform sustainably over time.

As our latest research shows, employees are willing to leave roles even when salaries increase if the underlying pressures remain unresolved.

Organisations that recognise this shift and act on it by strengthening their management capability will be better positioned to retain their people and attract the next generation of talent.

The post Why training managers to prevent burnout should be a HR priority in 2026 appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

With significant changes to employment law on the horizon this year, we want to make sure all employers in our network feel prepared and supported. In partnership with leading employment law firm Birketts, we held a live discussion focusing on the first wave of changes taking effect in 2026.

With several key reforms due to take effect from 6 April, our Head of HR Division, Kate Headford, sat down with Employment Lawyer Sarah Bull to discuss how HR teams can start preparing for changes to day-one rights for paternity leave, unpaid parental leave, statutory sick pay (SSP) and redundancy protections:

Below is a practical checklist of areas HR teams should be reviewing now, ahead of the April changes, to reduce risk and avoid having to make last-minute policy updates.

Update your family-friendly policies

The Employment Rights Act makes paternity leave and unpaid parental leave “day one” rights for all employees. From April, employees will be entitled to these rights, removing the need for a qualifying period.

While the 26-week qualifying period for paternity pay remains unchanged, new regulations will introduce a day one right to paternity leave for employed parents of babies with an expected week of childbirth on or after 5 April 2026, born on or after 6 April 2026, or children placed for adoption on or after 6 April 2026. Parents will also be able to benefit from the day one right to take unpaid parental leave from 6 April onwards (Department for Business & Trade).

Action: HR teams will need to review and update their company’s family-friendly policies to reflect these changes and train line managers to ensure they understand how to manage leave requests in practice.

Amend your sickness absence policies and update payroll systems

The lower earnings limit is being removed to make statutory sick pay (SSP) available to all employees, regardless of weekly earnings. The rate of SSP will now be 80% of an employee’s earnings or the current flat rate – whichever is lower (Department for Work & Pensions).

By removing the waiting days from the SSP system and amending the period of incapacity for work, employees will now be entitled to SSP from their first full day of sickness absence, rather than the fourth. SSP enforcement and disputes will now be handled by the Fair Work Agency: a newly established enforcement body.

In practical terms, this means more employees will qualify for SSP, and payments will begin earlier than under the current framework. The Department for Work and Pensions believes that these changes will “support all employees to take the time off they need to recover by providing better financial security, whilst also limiting the costs to businesses and reducing the spread of infectious diseases.”

Action: Payroll teams should update their systems to remove the lower earnings limit and apply SSP from day one of absence. HR teams should also revise their sickness absence policies to align with the new ERA and consider completing additional training on sickness management in the workplace. This can serve as a proactive measure to reduce staff sickness levels.

Prepare for collective redundancy changes

In April, the maximum protective award for breaches of collective consultation obligations is increasing from 90 to 180 days per employee (Department for Business & Trade). This significantly raises the cost (and ultimately the risk) of non-compliance, making early planning and manager awareness especially important where workforce changes are being considered this year.

Action: Senior managers should be trained on new legislation to ensure they are aware of changes ahead of any redundancy plans. Further changes to organisation-wide thresholds on redundancy are expected later this year, and we will keep you updated in due course.

Stay informed of strengthened harassment prevention

The Act introduces a strengthened responsibility for employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment (Department for Business & Trade). From April, sexual harassment will be added as a ‘qualifying disclosure’ for whistleblowing protection, providing employees with a further legal mechanism to pursue claims of sexual harassment. This change simply enhances existing legal protections, rather than introducing something completely new.

Action: HR teams should conduct audits to assess the risks of harassment and implement appropriate controls. Policies should be updated, and training provided for staff (especially managers) on the new protections, so that they feel confident in addressing harassment complaints. It’s important that your team keeps records of all actions taken to demonstrate compliance.

Revise your probation policies

As day-one rights expand, probation periods will no longer delay access to certain statutory protections. HR teams should therefore review probation policies and make updates to reflect the April ERA changes.

For further information and suggested actions around the changes expected this year, Birketts has shared a very useful Employment Rights Act 2025 summary table to help you create an implementation plan for your business, in line with the Government’s roadmap.

We’re continuing to work closely with industry experts to provide clarity to HR teams, helping them minimise disruption and maintain compliance. If you’re considering new hires over the coming months, our consultants can share market insights and practical considerations to support your planning. Please get in touch to request a callback.

The post Preparing for April Changes to Day-One Employment Rights appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

When changes in senior leadership suddenly occur within an organisation and there is no strong affirmative succession plan in line, can a company survive? With the market fluctuating both rapidly and unpredictably, the disappearance of valuable members in a company’s body has become more apparent and frequent. A solution that invites continuity that is often overlooked is succession planning; This introduces growth within an organisation, employee morale and progression, and allows for a company to be prepared rather than reactive. If it’s this easy, why is succession planning not being implemented?

The job market is in such a competitive landscape due to economic data release, investor behaviour, geopolitical events and corporate news, and these factors are leading to quiet resignations, client poaching and natural bias to external hires. These stark changes cause companies to scramble and make urgent responses that are not always in their best interest, potentially costing millions as well as tainting the working environment. Whilst succession planning is a reactive response, it doesn’t have to be desperate and disjointed

Proactive succession allows for a range of steps to be taken to ensure stability- steps which should be led by an HR senior. The approach would include identifying critical roles, assessing employees who embody both technical and soft skills that can be nurtured, and investing in internal development such as mentorship, training, and project work. Succession agility will allow the company to pivot no matter the market condition, and using tools in anticipation allows for continuity if a company loses a key employee.

Senior leaders within HR will be key in driving the continuity resulting from succession planning. This role should be conveyed as a strategic partnership as opposed to process ownership because they will be the ones embedding the plans into the workforce. HR will have the knowledge on all candidates that can fill in the gaps when skilled people depart; they know the career aspirations of the people and who the high-potential clients are. They have the understanding and knowledge to communicate transparently with the board and stakeholders, encouraging growth within the company as opposed to external recruitment. This will also boost office morale and progression, which also tackles the quiet disappearances of current employees.

The geopolitical and economic state of the world is taking a toll on businesses globally, and people are rightfully making decisions to better their living situations, but where does that leave the company? Adapting to the ever-changing market demands is crucial, especially during this economic climate, and succession planning, along with the use of HR professionals, can alleviate a lot of future stresses. What are the ways your organisation is future-proofing leadership?

The post The Need for Succession Planning in a Volatile Market appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Few HR challenges are as complex as managing parental leave policies across multiple jurisdictions. Global employers should not only consider duration and pay, but also cultural and social differences. As mobility across borders continues to rise, companies are increasingly being asked to explain how they approach parental leave policies.

For example, a London-based employee decides to relocate to Sweden, where parental leave laws are among the most generous in the world. Swedish parents are entitled to 480 days (68 weeks) per child, with 390 paid at nearly 80% of their salary. Comparatively, in the UK statutory maternity leave is capped at 52 weeks, with only 39 weeks paid, and at a significantly lower rate. It’s not hard to see why employees might consider starting a family overseas.

Overview of parental leave entitlements across leading commercial nations (October 2025).

So how do international employers ensure fairness when national legislation dictates unequal benefits?

“Global consistency is a noble goal, but local compliance has to come first,” explains Rebecca Siciliano, Managing Director at Tiger Recruitment. “The challenge lies in balancing what’s legally required with what feels equitable across the business. Employees notice when policies feel inconsistent, especially if they’re working side-by-side with colleagues in different regions.”

One approach gaining traction is the creation of global minimum standards for parental leave. This is a company-wide baseline that applies regardless of location. For example, a business might offer a minimum of 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave to all new parents globally, even if the statutory period in some countries is lower. In places where local laws are more generous, the company simply meets or exceeds those terms.

This strategy simplifies communication around benefits and promotes fairness. It also sends a clear signal that the organisation values parenthood consistently, regardless of geography. Netflix and Spotify have both implemented global parental leave standards to align with their values of flexibility and inclusivity.

While this might sound like a simple solution, it’s not without challenges. “What seems generous in one market might be financially unrealistic in another,” notes David Morel, CEO and Founder of Tiger Recruitment, “you also have to consider how others will perceive the change in some regions; taking extended leave might impact future career opportunities in some cultures.”

An alternative model is to offer flexible policies that complement local legislation. For example, a company could provide additional weeks of paid leave or introduce shared parental leave, giving parents greater control.

Flexibility can extend beyond leave itself and instead allow employees to work remotely or temporarily reduce hours before or after leave. “Support doesn’t stop when the baby arrives,” says David, “it continues when that parent returns to work.”

Navigating employee movement and fairness

One particularly difficult element of managing these policies across borders is when an employee moves between countries. The question of which policy applies becomes complicated. Should the employee benefit from their new location’s laws, or should their entitlement remain tied to their home country?

Most multinational employers address this through a principle known as ‘home-country consistency,’ meaning the employees’ original location policies continue to apply during temporary relocations. Others adopt a ‘host-country’ model, aligning benefits with the country where the employee physically works. Each has pros and cons and requires clear communication to prevent perceived unfair treatment.

Global employers that get global parental leave policies right tend to focus less on mirroring legislation and more on building an inclusive culture. This means normalising parental leave for all genders, supporting those undergoing fertility treatment and offering re-entry programs to ensure the transition back to work is smooth.

The post Understanding and Adapting to Global Variations in Parental Leave Policies appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Company details

Company: Wellgate

Industry: Social Welfare

Role: Head of people & engagement

Headcount: 50+

Division: Human Resources

The Challenge

Our client, Wellgate, is a leading provider of care and support services, headquartered in London and expanding across regional sites throughout the UK. They approached Tiger HR with a unique brief.

Unusually for an organisation in the care sector, Wellgate offers an extensive employee benefits programme, Club Wellgate, featuring perks ranging from private healthcare to exclusive access to company-owned holiday homes across the country.

However, despite these fantastic offers, staff uptake was low. To address this, Wellgate sought a new head of people & engagement to boost participation and ensure their employees were making full use of the opportunities available. The role would be a senior part-time (three days per week), remote working, and require weekly travel to engage with the regional teams.

The Solution

Identifying a senior-level candidate willing to work part-time while travelling regularly proved challenging. However, the remote nature and national scope of the role opened it up to talent across the country.

With this in mind, head of Tiger HR Kate Headford conducted a fully tailored, UK-wide headhunt for a candidate. They would need a strong HR and people background, knowledge of the care sector, and communications expertise to effectively engage with a diverse workforce in culturally varied regions.

Despite the considerable difficulty of the search, Kate succeeded in identifying a highly suitable candidate who possessed the necessary experience, embraced remote working, and lived within easy reach of several key regional offices.

The Impact

Not only did the new head of people & engagement fit the profile on paper, they hit the ground running when in the job. By regularly meeting with multiple staff across all their sites, they are helping Club Wellgate gain the visibility and engagement it deserves.

Client feedback

“Great – Kate and the team at Tiger are responsive and lovely to work with. The successful candidate is thriving and I am thrilled Tiger found him for us.” Millie Powell – Wellgate

Looking ahead

Since placing the Head of People & Engagment role, Tiger HR has continued to work with Wellgate. The team has most recently placed another senior, part-time role, working directly with the CEO.

The post Case Study: Recruiting for part-time senior positions appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Company details

Company: Centre for Justice Innovation

Industry: Not for Profit

Role: Head of people & operations

Headcount: Small organisation

Division: Human Resources

The Challenge

The Centre for Justice Innovation is a charitable organisation operating with a small team, but a growing influence in its field. Their recent growth and re-structure created a vacancy in senior leadership, as an internal promotion left several key functions in need of a division head. CJI approached Tiger HR to help fill this gap with a single, multifunctional new role – head of people & operations.

While the focus of this role would be HR, the position would need to lead in areas as broad as finance, communications, and operations. Being a newly established role, it presented a challenging yet exciting opportunity for the successful candidate; a blank canvas that could become a vital cornerstone of the organisation.

It was important to find the right fit for culture too. As a small charity organisation working in justice, CJI’s team are purpose-driven, striving for integrity and accountability in everything they do. The ideal candidate would need to share their values and vision and bring gravitas to the senior position that would inspire other employees.

The Solution

To find an individual with the right blend of people skills, financial acumen, hands-on problem-solving, and time-management, head of Tiger HR Kate Headford began by focusing the search on candidates with experience in smaller organisations. We wanted to attract individuals accustomed to managing diverse responsibilities within their roles.

It was equally important to account for the broader organisational changes in progress. Taking on a newly created role while supporting an evolving leadership team would require strong interpersonal skills and exceptional communication.

Factoring all these aspects into her search, Kate was able to secure an individual with the versatility to step into this unique role and make it their own.

The Impact

This individual has only recently taken up the position and we’re looking forward to hearing about the impact they’re having at CJI.

Client feedback

“Exemplary! It was smooth, we felt listened to, we received good advice and were updated throughout the process.” Vicki Mulligan – Centre for Justice Innovation

The post Case Study: Recruiting during a restructure appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

As we move towards 2026, conversations around employee benefits have never been more important. Our latest salary survey revealed that while salary remains critical, benefits now play an equally decisive role in attracting and retaining talent. More than half of professionals (56%) told us they want their employer to help with the rising cost of living.

So what matters most to employees in 2026?

1. Annual Leave

With employees consistently ranking annual leave as their number one priority, paid time off tops the list again this year. Despite the statutory minimum remaining unchanged, employers are now going beyond the standard 20-25 days. Some businesses are offering senior staff additional holiday entitlements or simply rebranding ‘duvet days’ as ‘recharge days,’ designed to reduce burnout. Others are offering additional PTO to employees who commit to full-time in the office, sometimes up to 15 additional days.

2. Hybrid and Remote Working

Flexibility remains a non-negotiable for many. However, the survey found that satisfaction with flexible working has dropped as employers increase mandatory office days. Over half (54%) of professionals are satisfied, a worrying sign given how closely flexibility ties into retention.

Employees are seeking alternatives where flexibility is shrinking, such as banks of remote-working days or shorter working weeks. Some businesses are offering work from anywhere schemes, often one or two weeks a year and typically used in the summer as an alternative to traditional sabbaticals.

3. Cost of living support

Household expenses are still high and jobseekers want to see more from employers. Some examples we’ve seen include:

4. Health Insurance

Private medical cover continues to be one of the most valued core benefits, particularly in larger firms. It’s now being extended to include greater mental health provision, fertility treatment and cover for dependants.

5. Personalised benefits

Three in ten employees now say they want the ability to tailor benefits to their personal circumstances. This means moving away from a one-size-fits-all package, which often fails to cater to differences in lifestyle, age, family commitments or career stage.

Many employers are turning to flexible benefits platforms, which allow staff to shape their own package. Employees are given a set allowance, or credits to spend on a menu of options, from extra holiday, training courses and gym memberships to childcare support, wellbeing stipends or enhanced healthcare. This not only ensures individuals can choose what’s most valuable to them but employers avoid wasted spend on underused perks.

6. Retirement and financial planning

As the workforce ages, finance wellbeing is climbing the agenda. Pension contributions above the statutory minimum are offered by over a third of employers according to our survey. Employees increasingly expect financial education, savings schemes and planning support alongside them.

7. Professional development and training

Two-thirds of professionals told us they want more learning opportunities and many feel this is lacking in general. It shouldn’t just be a nice-to-have; it’s central to retention. One of the top five reasons employees leave their jobs is due to lack of progression and learning opportunities. Employers should be building clear development pathways to keep staff engaged long-term.

8. Mental health and wellbeing

While requests for wellbeing support have slipped slightly in the rankings, the issue remains acute. 15% of professionals told us they resigned due to burnout, just one point below those who left for higher pay. This is a stark reminder that wellbeing isn’t a secondary concern.

The best employers are taking a proactive approach, such as offering access to Employee Assistance Programmes, wellness apps, “recharge days”, and in some cases, wellbeing stipends that employees can spend on what works for them, whether that’s yoga classes, therapy sessions or a gym membership.

The future of benefits

It’s temping to focus on headline-grabbing perks, from Christmas hampers and turkeys, to unlimited holiday (which in reality, often leads to people taking less time off). Our research shows employees care most about the essentials, time, flexibility, financial security and wellbeing. While creative benefits can differentiate you as an employer, it’s important to ensure the basics are in place first.

The post How to build a benefits package employees will love in 2026 appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Inclusive hiring has always been at the forefront of my mind throughout my career. Prior to becoming a recruiter, my interest stemmed from my own lived experience, from reflecting on inequalities during maternity leave and supporting my neurodivergent daughter to witnessing the wider impact of movements like Black Lives Matter. When I stepped up into a leadership role, my experiences evolved into responsibility, I now had an obligation to use my position to drive meaningful change.

I’ve worked with professionals across a number of industries but one area I’ve seen a consistent need for change is neurodiversity in hiring. For most employers, the confidence to act on their desire to change is often lacking. HR leaders have such a crucial role in closing this gap.

So what can HR leaders do to build confidence around Neurodiversity in Hiring?

Be vulnerable

A couple of years ago, I shared a LinkedIn post about neurodiversity in hiring, and by doing so I was unexpectedly inundated with messages from individuals who I had encouraged to share their own experiences. A senior candidate who had applied for a role I was advertising reached out to say the post had given them the courage to disclose their neurodivergence to the employer, which was something they hadn’t spoken about since she was in school. With reasonable adjustments made to the recruitment process they were able to display their suitability for the role and as a result, were offered the job. I saw the impact of simply being transparent and learnt how valuable it is to share your own experience, because it might encourage someone else to do the same.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions

Most employers are eager to support neurodiverse candidates, but often aren’t sure how. Some say the terminology is daunting, or are afraid they might say or do something to offend. Others just aren’t sure what accommodations might look like in practice and worry it might just cause confusion. Encouragingly, this is beginning to change. More businesses are educating employees on bias in job adverts and including positive action statements explicitly welcoming neurodiverse applicants. But it’s not just about what you say that will have the most impact, but how you act. HR leaders should feel empowered to ask questions, seek guidance and work together to create a process that works for everyone.

Challenge the status quo

A huge part of a recruiter’s role is constructively challenging hiring processes that inadvertently exclude talent. I recently supported a neurodivergent candidate who asked for the interview questions in advance. At first, the employer felt this might give her an unfair advantage, but I suggested the questions should be shared with all applicants. Although their resistance resulted in the candidate withdrawing from the process, the next time I partnered with them, they implemented this change from the outset. I worked with them to prepare the questions further in advance, to allow them to be distributed. As a result, the interviews were more structured and insightful, and the panel was better prepared.

Similarly, I worked with a leading non-profit to rework their recruitment process for a director of people role. Instead of submitting their CV, applicants were given the opportunity to answer three questions, in a written or spoken format. Candidates also experienced inclusive language, an adapted format and received job packs. They were given clear fixed timelines for each stage of the recruitment process and were provided with financial support for travel and additional childcare costs required to attend the interview. Most importantly, the interview process featured structured questions with clear criteria, levelling the playing field for each of the applicants. As a result, the successful candidate was neurodivergent and they have since played a pivotal role in applying the same changes across the organisation.

Consider the working environment

Candidates who successfully navigate an inclusive recruitment process, don’t necessarily thrive in the workplace. More often than not, employers place so much importance on the accommodations made during the interview that there’s not much support once they start their job. As a result, a new hire feels let down and may struggle to perform to the best of their ability. On a basic level, employers should consider the working environment, offer flexible working arrangements, provide clear onboarding documentation and regularly check in on what’s working and what isn’t.

Start Small

Businesses often fear making adjustments for candidates because they think it’s expensive and time-consuming. However, it’s possible to make simple changes to the recruitment process that cost nothing. Employers can create a psychologically safe environment by merely asking the question, “Are there any reasonable adjustments required?” This will make them more comfortable disclosing their neurodivergence, even if it’s at a later stage in the recruitment process. Other examples include providing interview questions in advance, offering extra time for tasks or providing clear, structured communication.

I’ve seen firsthand how transformative inclusive hiring can be, for both the candidate and employer. A candidate I worked with has since launched a neurodiversity committee at their organisation, another helped reshape an entire onboarding process. As HR leaders, we don’t need to have all the answers but we must be willing to listen and learn. As a result, we create workplaces where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, which is beneficial for all.

The post How HR Leaders Can Build Confidence Around Neurodiversity in Hiring appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

While awareness of neurodivergence in the workplace is growing, there’s still a long way to go in closing the employment gap. According to gov.uk, less than a third (31%) of autistic adults in the UK are in employment, compared to 75% of the general population.

As Associate Director at Tiger Recruitment with nearly 20 years of experience in the industry, inclusive recruitment has always been a passion of mine. Since moving into a leadership role, I feel an even greater responsibility to drive change.

Hiring managers are happy to offer reasonable adjustments when candidates ask for them, from their point of view, they feel they’re being supportive. What many don’t realise is that applicants may not feel confident enough to disclose their neurodivergence. As a result, they may turn down opportunities due to a lack of support during the hiring process, often seen as a sign they won’t be supported in the role itself.

One of the most common reasons I hear employers give for not adapting their hiring or onboarding process is a lack of time or budget. However, there are several small changes businesses can make that can have a significant impact on neurodivergent candidates:

1. Normalise disclosure

Even if candidates aren’t ready to disclose their neurodivergence, asking about adjustments early on helps create a sense of safety and inclusion.

2. Share interview questions in advance

Individuals with ADHD or autism often benefit from having extra time to process information. Sharing interview questions in advance gives candidates the opportunity to consider their responses carefully. My clients who have actioned this felt more prepared, and the quality of candidate answers were so much better. It’s a win-win!

3. Be clear about timelines

Some organisations offer financial support for travel or childcare to help candidates attend in-person interviews. For those unable to offer such benefits, clearly communicating the interview date, time, and location at an early stage can be just as helpful. With enough notice, candidates can make the necessary arrangements and are less likely to drop out due to disruption.

4. Provide a clear onboarding plan

New environments can be particularly challenging for neurodivergent individuals. A detailed onboarding plan outlines what to expect, helping to reduce stress and give them a sense of control. A written plan is especially useful, allowing them to revisit the information and process it at their own pace.

It’s essential that inclusive recruitment policies are embedded throughout the organisation, not just used as an attraction tool. This lays the groundwork for long-term retention and success for neurodivergent hires. If you’d like advice on inclusive hiring, onboarding, or workplace adjustments, I’d love to speak to you!

The post Small Adjustments, Big Impact: What Inclusive Recruitment Really Looks Like appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Table Of Contents

• Introduction
• Money Talks
• Development and Training
• Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
• Flexible Working
• Employee Wellbeing
• Relationships At Work
• Employee Turnover
• Summary

Introduction

Tiger Recruitment hosted a roundtable event, bringing together a select group of HR leaders across a range of industries. The discussion focused on their experiences of employee retention and acquisition.

There are plenty of reasons why staff leave their jobs — from low salary, poor management and lack of flexible working through to a long commute. According to Forbes, however, the most common reason an employee leaves is because of a toxic company culture, which ranks number one for 62% of jobseekers. With this in mind, the ever-evolving challenges that HR leaders face are far from simple.

Throw in the cost-of-living crisis, and employers now face even more pressure to improve working conditions for their employees. With junior jobseekers and graduates receiving lower salaries, compared to the average UK business support salary at £40,656, graduate retention and attraction came up time and time again as a key concern among our HR leaders. Is it possible to attract entry-level staff without the same attractive salary that might be offered to those with more experience?

In 2022, workplace trends, like the Great Resignation and quiet quitting, exploded, prompting many to reconsider their retention strategies. From boosting salaries to protecting employee wellbeing, read on to discover what our HR Leaders will be investing in over the next 12 months.

Money Talks

Our latest Salary and Benefits Review revealed that 51% of UK office workers received a pay rise in the last 12 months — almost twice as many as in 2021 (28%). While that might not present too much of a shock, given the current cost-of-living challenges the UK is facing, what may surprise employers is that many employees are prepared to receive less money overall (inclusive of salary, benefits, bonuses), in return for an increased base level of pay.

As bonuses are usually positioned as a job performance incentive, some employees aren’t confident that their performance will be accurately evaluated. Those in roles without commission also have less faith in the bonus system, as the value that they bring to a role has more vague indicators of performance. According to Employer News, 83% of HR professionals believe that compensation should be linked to performance. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that new employees who are yet to ‘prove themselves’ have concerns about the effectiveness of bonuses.

Some employers are experiencing an increase in requests for salary raises from junior candidates, due to a generational trend of open discussion about salary ranges. With 64% of UK-based employees wanting greater transparency from their employers about pay practices, and over half of employees across the US wanting to know what everyone at their organisation is paid, it’s clear that the push for more open communication is strengthening.

What employers are finding difficult, however, is not the request for transparency, but the lack of variable allowance across different industries, roles, type of pay, and experience. If these factors are omitted, the reality of an individual’s desired pay may fall short of their expectations.

At our roundtable, employers spoke openly about graduate salaries, with most — in light of the cost of living — agreeing there is a growing pressure to increase them. Many have altered their graduate bonus and salary structure, to accommodate for higher salaries with lower bonuses.

Employers mentioned that they were getting to the stage where the grads that they hired five years ago were starting to think about buying a home. But with the cost to buy being so expensive, these employees were looking to move further out. One employer expressed how disruptive this was for the business, and that they were planning financial support options for employees looking to buy their first home, to retain talent effectively.

Key actions

• Consider offering financial support to long-term employees looking to buy their first home. This will help to retain staff who are debating whether to relocate.
• If the budget doesn’t allow for an increase in the overall employment package, increase the base pay and reduce the bonus.
• Only consider pay transparency or banding if you can accommodate variations across experience, sector and role type.

Development and Training

Career development remains a leading factor in employee retention. In our Salary and Benefits review, over 40% of jobseekers reported that career development was a priority in their next job. Around the table, HR leaders made it clear that their retention efforts were focused on strong employee development structures, regardless of role or industry.

Some shared how they had realigned their career development framework to prioritise visibility in their structure. In doing this, they found employee feedback overwhelmingly positive as a result of all staff being able to map out a clear path of personal progression.

Some HR leaders said that they were trying to improve the level of training offered to roles that traditionally lacked in this area. For example, one company was in the process of launching a new training programme with the Institute of Executive Assistants and Administrators. This employer also planned to implement a top-to-bottom training plan, allowing for a diverse group of employees with varying experience to capitalise on peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, thereby encouraging transparency at the same time.

Training, as part of graduate apprenticeships, is a key focus for 2023. Many are evaluating these, with the majority seeing apprentices working weekends and unusual working hours, due to off-the-job training requirements. Following a full day of learning and working, many employers received negative feedback from their grads a contributing factor to feeling burnt out.

The training and development piece for grads is a key focus for employers, with most leaders at the roundtable saying that they find graduate employees the hardest to retain. In the Wiley Edge 2021 report on graduate retention, 16% of employers surveyed found that a staggering 51% – 100% of their graduate employees typically leave the business within 24 months. A further 38% found that between 21% and 50% leave within two years. With this in mind, HR leaders at the roundtable were either thinking of scrapping apprenticeships completely or had done so already.

Demonstrating to your staff that yours is a business where they can develop a career will play a huge role in their decision to stay or go. The more your company gives people the opportunity to improve themselves, the more likely it is they will stay to find out how. By nature, we don’t want to stagnate. This is self-perpetuating because as our career furthers, the more important our decision-making inevitably becomes – which in turn heightens our emotional investment in the business.

Key actions

Retention efforts should be focused on strong employee development structures, regardless of role or industry

Prioritise visibility in the career development framework, so staff can take greater ownership of their personal progression within the business

Extra hours and “tick-box” exercises enforced in certain graduate apprenticeships are proving to have a negative impact on graduate retention. Companies should consider assessing these schemes, by requesting feedback from their graduates

Equity, diversity and inclusion

Diverse workplaces make better decisions 87% of the time. Research has also shown that diverse staff are more innovative, creative, and faster problem-solvers.

The push for a more diverse workplace is still front of mind for many employers. HR leaders at our event declared that their diversity and inclusion had improved across the board, and that they are still reporting rising numbers in their data.

Several employers have made significant progress as a result of establishing ED&I committees, with one claiming they were inundated with applications for the committee elections. Another stated that increased maternity and paternity payments have been a great success in regard to a more inclusive work environment. With new strategies in place, employers also have more accessible data on ED&I, which has been pivotal in their plans to make further changes.

One leader said that by requesting ongoing feedback on their ED&I initiatives, they are able to ensure that new strategies are well received, and gain greater insight into the thoughts of a wide range of employees.

Although progress is being made, equity, diversity and inclusion remain an area that still needs sustained and continued attention. The majority of employers agree that moving forward, actively hiring a more diverse workforce is essential in striving for equality.

It’s still as important as ever for employers to be part of the change, and at Tiger we will continue to champion the efforts made for progress. If you are looking to improve your ED&I, here are a few tips on how to do so.

Education

• Education can be in the form of training, discussions, and open communication. A good place to start is by creating an ED&I guide for staff.
• Learn from previous mistakes; educate yourself and your employees on what can be improved.
• Lead by example as an employer; pass on the importance and benefits of inclusion in the workplace.

Reach wider audiences

• When writing job openings, descriptions should be catered to reach broader audiences. These jobs should also be sent to a wider net of platforms and outreach programs.
• Advertise your company values on ED&I. Most companies forget to celebrate their workplace culture in their job listings, website, and media channels, but this should be a very visible part of your employer brand.

Communication

• Inclusive language is very important and a powerful tool for managers to open up internal communication.
• To make sure you are using inclusive language, avoid biases, slang, and expressions that discriminate against groups of people.
• By asking your diverse workforce for feedback you will ensure transparency as well as ownership of your actions.

Offer meaningful opportunities

• Take an individualistic approach to career development by nurturing talent and asking people what they want. Offer equal opportunities and be inclusive of all diversity groups.
• Set measurable goals, whether it be through quotas or feedback. Use this data to help direct progress in the right areas.

Foster at all levels

• From management level down to graduates, diversity should be a consideration when hiring for any position.
• Whether via blind CV, skills testing or widening your candidate pool, make a commitment to remove biases from the recruitment process.

Offer better workplace flexibility and policies

• Allow employees to take time off for religious holidays that may not be officially observed by the company.
• Be flexible with RTW parents and offer competitive parental leave.
• Ensure your office is well-equipped with inclusive facilities, including wheelchair access and non-gendered bathrooms.
• Offer the option for flexible working hours.

KEY ACTIONS

• Actively align the recruitment process into DE&I initiatives, involving key stakeholders and training managers where needed.
• Review existing policies to make sure they’re inclusive. Installing an ED&I committee in the workplace can support internal change.
• Even with improved ED&I data in 2023, more still needs to be done, as equality figures remain unbalanced across the board. Hold those in management accountable to change.

Flexible working

In the second half of this year, we saw a wave of employers insisting on workers returning to the office full time and, as a response, many employees started to look elsewhere. While most people enjoyed the flexibility of WFH and found greater productivity, some employers were not convinced. According to a BBC report, 87% of workers believe they’re performing just fine, while only 12% of employers say they have full confidence their team is productive.

Many of the HR leaders that we spoke to said that post-pandemic, they had asked workers to come in three days a week, but received a lot of pushback. People couldn’t benefit from the savings of a five-day season ticket, and, as a result, some employees were asking companies to expense the difference. Under the assumption that remote working was a permanent fixture, some staff relocated further away from their offices during lockdown and were more resistant to coming in for three days.

Since then, most employers have decided to judge flexible working on a team-by-team basis. Certain businesses have found this altered approach to be a popular strategy, as there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. As for travel expenses, the HR leaders we spoke to were unanimously opposed to reimbursing these costs.

However, the rise in the cost of living has shed light on the pressures for employers to help out with rising energy prices. As remote working has become less affordable, some employees have campaigned for businesses to reimburse their energy usage whilst they’re working from home.

Uswitch estimates that full-time home workers increase their daily gas use by 75%, while electricity use is predicted to rise by 25%.

If an employee is seeking financial support, employers agree that encouraging them to return to the office would help with the reduction of home energy usage. Collectively, our HR leaders agreed that they would rather increase salary than recoup energy bills.

Being inclusive of new starters has continued to be a struggle in the remote landscape. Some employers have emphasised the importance of new employees being in the office in the first few months of their role, even if their role is fully remote. By having direct access to their superiors, some employers have noticed learning has been faster, and new starters have built better relationships within their teams.

That said, some employers felt that we should perhaps be embracing the new way of working to be more accommodating to the younger generations, by finding better solutions in the remote world. One HR leader expressed that it’s just a matter of showing them the right tools and changing the mentality of how leaders can knowledge-share. By adapting how we mentor, we can provide learning and development opportunities without forcing them back
into the office.

While hybrid working has its benefits, employers have noticed a greater risk of burnout in those that work exclusively remotely. Some have said that remote workers are more likely to work longer hours to try to keep up with the workload. Given these circumstances, employers have encouraged these members of staff to attend the office more. In doing so, they’ve resolved workload anxiety organically by collaboratively sharing the load without the fear of bothering colleagues over the phone.

At our roundtable, the concluded outlook on flexible working, was that flexibility goes both ways. On the whole, employers were more open to offer flexibility to those employees who showed willing and, in return, met the needs of the company.

• Recent evidence suggests that companies with a 90% remote workforce reported being just as happy with manager-employee face time as those with a 10% remote workforce. Of those with face-time concerns, engagement and culture – not productivity – emerged as the primary challenge.
• 1.8% According to the ONS labour productivity report, output per hour worked was 1.8% higher in Quarter 2 (Apr
  to June) 2022 than the average level in 2019, pre-pandemic.

KEY ACTIONS

• Employers should stand by employees’ flexible working, as productivity remains higher compared to those working in the office full time.
• There’s no one-size-fits-all to hybrid working. Flexibility should be judged on a team-by-team basis, allowing managers to decide what works best for their individual teams.
• If employees are looking for help with their energy usage and/or travel expenses, consider implementing a designated cost-of-living bonus rather than a reimbursement.

Employee Wellbeing

More than 50% of employees want employers to do more to support their mental wellbeing, and feel that workplace stress and anxiety can result in increased absence and dissatisfaction with their job. With this in mind, employee wellbeing has been in the spotlight. By implementing workplace support, employers have noticed a positive shift in office morale as well as sustained productivity. Some have been actioning an individualised approach, whereby one-to-one coaching and therapy sessions are offered to help employees build coping mechanisms when confronted with anxiety and stress.

The wellbeing of newer members of staff is of particular importance, especially those with limited work experience, as they’re less likely to ask for help when their workload becomes overwhelming. Many employers believe this is partly because new starters don’t feel completely comfortable yet within their team relationships, which could be hindered by the lack of social exchanges in remote working.

Successfully onboarding a new employee into the workplace is all about trying to provide opportunities for the new employees to build key relationships and make new connections, whether they are working from the office or from home.

Small interactions can make all the difference when integrating new starters into the workplace. Many employers have encouraged their senior management to take initiative and the time to introduce themselves to new starters whenever they catch them in the office. Saying hello by the coffee machine or sparking conversation in the communal areas of the office, are all simple but effective ways in making a less intimidating work environment.

People don’t want to be ignored or feel excluded from decisions that directly relate to them. Be transparent with your staff about the business’s performance, your frustrations, your hopes, and any news. Encourage open plan areas in the office where staff can communicate with each other. Offer regular 1:1s and listen. You’ll encourage buy-in from staff if they’re feeling heard. Listen to their concerns and observe how they feel more valued as a result.

Relationships at work

According to m3, half of people stated that company culture is the most important factor when deciding whether to accept a new role, while 41% said that culture is one of their main considerations. This suggests that publicising and promoting the company culture should form a key part of the recruitment process, yet businesses are failing to effectively capitalise on this opportunity. Disappointingly, one in 10 businesses do not promote their company culture to potential new employees at all.

While flexible working remains highly sought after, the office social life has become tumbleweed to some. In the hybrid world of working, Friday has become a popular WFH day for many employees — a world away from pre-pandemic Friday evenings when co-workers would gather and go for drinks.

The HR community has had their fair share of challenges in reintroducing a post-pandemic social life to the workplace — with one notable issue being the increased popularity of sobriety. In fact, 26% of 16–24-year-olds are not interested in drinking alcohol at all. Our HR leaders recommended social activities such as sporting events, bowling and even candle-making workshops, with the most creative approaches being the most well-received among staff.

Recognition needn’t be in the form of cash, and reward needn’t be in the form of a prize. A simple ‘well done’ in front of the wider team can do wonders if it’s genuinely delivered. Even better, see how well an unexpected early finish on a Friday goes down! Offer employees the opportunity to listen to your reasons for making decisions. By giving them a glimpse into your rationale as opposed to barking orders, you’re much more likely to incite trust. For the business and staff to feel a collective sense of purpose, you’ll need to tap into their emotional values and personal visions. Offering them the opportunity to come together as part of a team effort will enhance this, so be sure to encourage teamwork and open communication.

KEY ACTIONS

• HR leaders are planning more inclusive work events that cater for sober employees.
• With Friday evening socials off the table, employees are enjoying more activity-based social activities.

Employee Turnover

Employee turnover rate and retention both play a crucial role in shaping the success of an organisation. By prioritising staff retention, HR teams can build a loyal workplace with increased productivity and a positive impact on the company’s overall performance. It’s important to make sure there’s a balance between managing the turnover and implementing successful retention initiatives. When the balance is right, employers can expect productive, thriving employees who are fulfilled and excited about contributing to the long-term success of the business. Reducing employee turnover requires a proactive approach that supports the longevity of your employees.

A successful onboarding process is vital for ensuring new employees feel welcomed during what can be an uncertain time. Successful onboarding goes much further than administrative tasks and paperwork, to ensure that the new employee is given as positive start as possible.

If you don’t have an HR team or dedicated person who can help with this, use your office manager to help with onboarding. The process should start before their first day, and can include a welcome message alongside a pack on what they can expect in their first week or month. Supporting the social aspect of your company ahead of their start date can be beneficial. For example, a coffee or drinks could be organised with your new hire and the rest of the team so that they see some familiar faces on their first day.

Encouraging employees’ work-life balance goes a long way to supporting their wellbeing and overall happiness. From the top down, by promoting a culture that values the importance of personal time, employers and leadership teams will find that that staff are more energised and productive when at work.

There are a number of ways that HR teams can implement this, with one of the easiest being flexible arrangements such as remote work options and flexi-hours. Importantly, managers should also set realistic workload expectations to avoid excessive overtime and prevent burnout.

Leading by example and promoting self-care, offering resources for stress management and wellbeing initiatives will further demonstrate the business’ commitment to supporting a healthy balance between work and personal life.

Having personal development initiatives in place provide employees with the necessary knowledge and support to excel in their role. By investing in continuous learning opportunities, employers are demonstrating the ways that they value their staff, prioritise their growth and offer opportunities for career advancement.

Summary

In 2022, we witnessed trends like the Great Resignation and quiet quitting, which formed the basis of recurrent recruitment and retention difficulties. In response, we have also seen employers prioritising the upskilling of their existing staff to compensate for hard-to-fill roles. If you’re doing this, we encourage you to put in place a clear career development
plan. This allows staff to progress in new areas of the company or role, motivated by a supportive structure and the promised rewards of expanding their skills.

In 2023, we expect to see the ratio of job vacancies to candidates to be more equally matched, ahead of the Great Rebalance. The January “big move”, where employees leave positions in the new year after bonuses are paid, is a trend that we see repeated year after year. With this in mind, we advise employers to recognise the employees who have gone the extra mile in their EOY appraisals and to consider offering competitive salaries and career development training for the new year.

At Tiger, we expect to see flexible working as a continued attraction to jobseekers in 2023, and we encourage employers to offer hybrid working as part of their employment package. Like many of the employers at the roundtable, we suggest judging flexible working on a team-by-team basis, to better meet the needs of the employees and company.

At our roundtable, job perks were a discussion highlight in the context of 2023 retention strategies, and we were pleasantly surprised to hear about some of the innovative ways companies were prioritising employee wellbeing. Organised activities such as massages and mindfulness lessons were most popular among staff, with the consensus being that these directly impacted improved morale and positivity.

Free office lunches were also suggested as an easy win. Employers noticed an increase in office attendance when they provided food, and plan to continue organising free meals as part of making a small difference in the cost of living. One HR leader also mentioned that this was a great way for new starters to socialise with other staff, as they found attendance was up and everyone took some time to chat whilst on lunch.

As many as two-thirds (67%) of employees who have free food at work class themselves as “extremely happy” or “very happy”.

Some HR leaders are also finding value in employee apps that provide financial advice, mindfulness techniques, yoga etc., which employees can access at any given time. Some of these include Welbot, Headspace for Work and Ben. Private financial planning was another retention strategy that some employers were looking to help their employees within 2023.

KEY ACTIONS

• Ahead of the January big move, recognise the employees who have gone the extra mile in their EOY appraisals, and consider offering competitive salaries and career development training for the new year.
• The key to retention in 2023 is securing a strong benefits package. Where relevant, this should also be updated to suit the hybrid working model.
• Employee wellbeing is in the spotlight for 2023. HR leaders are trying to incorporate mindfulness into the workplace, as well as perks that make employees feel valued.

The post Retention and Acquisition Trends appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Table of Contents

• The state of play
• The future of work post-Covid-19
• The future of hiring
• Leadership post-pandemic
• Motivating and fostering collaboration within remote teams
• Stay in touch with employees’ mental health

Given the massive transition COVID-19 triggered in businesses around the world, it’s no surprise that almost all existing rules were thrown out the window overnight. Since March 2020, companies have navigated through extreme uncertainty and adapted the best they can. To make sense of this new normal, we’ve put together the following comprehensive guide to help employers navigate the world of work post-pandemic.

The state of play

When the coronavirus outbreak first reached the UK in 2020, no one could have predicted the situation we’ve since experienced. Some of our clients adapted quickly, with a complete transition to remote working within days of the announcement, setting up home offices with monitors, office furniture and Wi-Fi boosters, as well as remote working platforms to facilitate their workers at home. They also prioritised internal communications with daily updates, while social gatherings moved virtually. Employee benefits also adapted, with additional flexible working arrangements offered to those struggling with childcare and subscriptions to apps offered, to help with meditation, fitness and nutrition.

At the time, our MD, Rebecca Siciliano, held a webinar for businesses looking for guidance on remote working in a changing landscape. She revealed how Tiger transitioned to remote working, explained some of the ways organisations could connect to their teams, and the impact COVID-19 had on recruitment activity to that point.

Now that restrictions are beginning to ease in many parts of the world, businesses and their workers are returning to a world of work that has changed irrevocably. Lockdowns and social distancing mandates forced employers and employees to adapt to a very different way of working. With life returning to normal but many workers resistant to the idea of returning to the office full-time, what can employers expect to face when trying to get their business back on track post-pandemic?

The future of work post-COVID-19

In June 2020, we invited three experts on work: Bruce Daisley, host of the Eat Sleep Work Repeat podcast; Dr Heejung Chung from the University of Kent; and CIPD Director David D’Souza, to discuss business’ reactions to the pandemic, as well their predictions for the future of work post-COVID-19. Watch the webinar in full below.

Throughout the session, they covered:

• The post-COVID-19 office
• The future of flexible working practices
• How the HR community has responded to COVID-19
• The importance of employees’ mental and emotional wellbeing
• The impact of working from home on employees, employers and businesses
• The potential impact of COVID-19 on office culture
• The disparity of remote working options offered to male and female employees
• Qualities employees need to adapt to the changing workplace
• Their predictions for the next five years

Hybrid working and flexible hours

While the idea of flexible working has been around for many years with proven benefits to employee engagement, a new era of ‘hybrid working’ is emerging now that employers are encouraging staff to return to the office. There are many perceived benefits of employees working on-site, including increased collaboration and productivity, and there have been recent concerns that those working from home tend to clock more unpaid overtime hours than those on-site.

However, businesses will likely have their work cut out for them as a whopping 74% of professionals expect working from home to become standard practice, and 97% have expressed that they simply do not want to return to the office 5 days a week. Employees have come to attribute flexible hybrid models to a better work/life balance and overall improved well-being, particularly for working parents.

The reality is that the desire for flexible hours and a balance of days working from home is shattering any hopes of returning to the traditional working week. Soon, trend-setting companies will begin to make headlines with their new trail-blazing hybrid working models. For example, in late August 2021, Canva revealed that following some internal research, they are committing to a flexible working model that requires their employees to visit the office a mere 8 times a year.

Flexibility across the board will undoubtedly become a major employee benefit, perhaps even an expectation, and businesses should consider this if they wish to attract, engage and retain their workforce in the coming years.

The future of hiring

While it’s impossible to know how long coronavirus restrictions will affect the way we work, it’s almost a certainty that companies will have to adapt the way they’ve previously hired new staff. Eventually, businesses may be able to return to in-person recruitment, however, it’s likely this will coexist alongside some degree of remote hiring.

Hiring and onboarding remotely

For employers, hiring and onboarding remotely may have seemed like a foreign concept before the pandemic. However, like so many new ways of working, it has become commonplace. For some, this process may now be their default, whereas others are learning to hire remotely alongside their existing practices.

Remote recruitment is a completely different experience from in-person hiring. For example, interviews are conducted over the phone and/or video call, which means body language and other subtle cues are taken away from the experience. Getting a ‘feel’ for someone from a handshake or the way they hold themselves in person may be non-existent.

Some companies may have already experienced onboarding remotely for the first time, and will understand it can be an involved process. For example, whoever is leading the onboarding process will have to be prepared to facilitate regular video calls, organise software to be set up and send physical equipment to the new starter’s house.

Alongside these logistics, there is likely to be a level of uncertainty for the new starter due to the pandemic. They may also feel disconnected from their team and unsure of who they should direct questions to. Companies should anticipate their concerns and put in place many opportunities for the employees to form connections, as well as provide clear communication on who they can turn to for help.

To ensure longevity in an onboarded hire, support from the business is integral. This, as well as experiencing the company’s values and culture, will ensure they settle in and will be ready to take on their exciting new role.

Will we all be working a four-day week?

Similarly, the concept of a four-day week is nothing new, with companies in Japan, New Zealand, Iceland and Denmark having all trialled various versions of a shorter working week in recent years.

Positive feedback led us to believe that the trend would likely continue until the pandemic hit and forced most people into remote working. With things back on track, the lure of a shorter week has returned. It could be that employers are more open to change now that the pandemic has proved that businesses and staff can adapt well to new working structures, or that employees are gaining confidence to seek working patterns that will promote a better work/life balance post-pandemic.

The idea of a four-day week is unsurprisingly a hit with employees, and businesses will certainly enjoy the benefits of engaged and loyal staff as well as more practical things like reduced power bills. However, there are still some important aspects for employers to take into consideration. Would there be extra costs involved to employ extra staff to offset reduced hours? Would they keep the standard 37.5 hour week or increase it to four 10-hour days? Would they need to invest in technology/software to accommodate this new working model?  Would productivity and profit take a hit?

To offset some of these considerations, there have been mostly promising statistics around productivity, reduced stress levels and generally improved employee wellbeing that are driving this new idea forward. In 2019, Microsoft tested a 4-day working week in Japan with great success, leading to a 40% increase in productivity and an employee approval rate of over 90%. In March 2021, Spain announced plans to pilot a 32 hour work week and Scotland unveiled plans in August to trial a four-day week without loss of compensation.

Leadership post-pandemic

Everything about leadership has changed over the past six months. While the transition first shifted to crisis mode, then to a new version of normal, leaders have found their ability to adapt a crucial skill for guiding their teams. What may have been a formal relationship between managers and their employees in the past, has now developed into a more vulnerable, human connection. As we video call into each other’s homes and see members of each other’s families, a leader’s ‘work’ and ‘home’ faces have become one.

To help leaders navigate the coming months, we asked experts Elke Edwards from Ivy House and Nora Grasselli from ESMT Berlin to reveal their insights into how leadership will change. They cover tips on keeping staff engaged, bringing humanity into leadership, teaching employees resilience and offering practical solutions to effective management. Watch the webinar in full below:

Motivating and fostering collaboration within remote teams

For business leaders, one of the steeper learning curves throughout this period would have been the switch to managing teams remotely. One of the top employer concerns relates to their teams not being as productive when working from home. Therefore, motivating remote teams is something many businesses have learned to do by trial and error. Below are some best-practice tips if you’re looking to increase productivity in your remote team:

• Setting expectations
• Increase communications
• Care about your employees’ personal lives
• Instil trust
• Facilitate team learning
• Focus on what’s certain
• Incorporate opportunities to socialise

As the pandemic continues, it’s important to remember you’re also going through the same personal stresses as those you’re leading. In order to manage a virtual team that can collaborate and work together effectively, be open with your own personal anxieties and let your team know your boundaries.

Stay in touch with employees’ mental health

If we continue to work remotely in some capacity, monitoring mental health will be an essential part of the future of work. While an employee’s mental health should always be a top priority, the signals a team member isn’t coping can be hard to read via phone or video call.

While the pandemic has been extremely stressful for everyone, some employees may need extra support. If you’re looking to not only monitor, but improve your employee’s mental health remotely, ensure you act proactively. Firstly, check in with yourself – it’s impossible for you to help others if you’re unable to help yourself. Keep up well-being and social check-ins with employees and facilitate social catch-ups. The signs something might be wrong could include:

• Becoming quieter or more reserved during calls
• A lack of productivity
• Existing triggers of mental ill-health
• Changes to how somebody usually is
• Appetite changes
• Sleeping disruptions
• Planning to do something out of character

Keep in mind, that it is difficult to know what’s going on with someone at the best of times, so continuous check-ins are vital to ensuring every member of your team feels supported.

The post The future of work after COVID-19 appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Table of Contents

• What is recruitment and selection
• Difference between recruitment and selection
• Diversity in hiring
• Writing a job specification
• Writing a good job ad
• Creative candidate attraction strategies
• What to look for in a CV
• How to conduct an interview
• Tailoring interview questions
• The offer process and securing a candidate
• Best practice onboarding process

We have matched exceptional jobseekers with fantastic businesses since 2001 and, for those looking to recruit staff, the recruitment and selection process has changed drastically since then. The pandemic instigated a significant shift in the way we work, and therefore a change in the desires of both businesses and jobseekers.

Now, we’re seeing another dramatic shift in hiring. Both the pandemic and the calls for increased diversity in the workplace have forced many businesses to transform their recruitment and selection processes. From the conversations we’re having with employers in the wake of this, it’s clear there is a need for a simple, straightforward guide to the basics of the recruitment and selection process from start to finish.

What is recruitment and selection?

Recruitment and selection processes refer to the procedure of finding suitable candidates for a company to fill job vacancies. It involves identifying the requirements of a job, advertising the position, defining the requirements of the position, and choosing the appropriate candidate for the job.

Learning the recruitment and selection process effectively is essential for employers who want to recruit suitable staff, save the business time and optimise resources. Following each step of the process through to selection will also lead to better retention rates and long-term hires.

Difference between recruitment and selection

What is the difference between recruitment and selection?

Recruitment refers to the process of finding potential applications for a role. If you’re working with a recruiter, this might be with an initial briefing to understand exactly what you’re looking for, so that they might then write a job ad, search for candidates, and provide a shortlist. Once you’ve signed off on this, the next step would involve an interview process. Selection then follows, which is the route to hiring your preferred employee from those you’ve met.

In other words, selection is the process of choosing the right person for the job.

Recruitment and selection policy?

A comprehensive recruitment and selection policy ensures consistency in the process and helps to manage expectations for all parties. Such a policy serves as a guiding framework that outlines the organisation’s principles, procedures and best practices for attracting, assessing, and hiring potential candidates.

Firstly, a well-defined policy ensures consistency and fairness throughout the recruitment process. By establishing clear guidelines and criteria, it helps minimise any potential biases and ensures that all candidates are assessed on their merits and qualifications. Moreover, a recruitment and selection policy promotes transparency, both internally and externally. It provides employees with a clear understanding of the company’s hiring practices, ensuring a consistent approach and reducing ambiguity or confusion. Externally, it presents a professional and ethical image of the company, fostering trust between jobseekers and employers. Additionally, a robust policy helps mitigate legal risks and compliance issues by ensuring adherence to applicable laws and regulations. It outlines procedures for handling sensitive information, ensuring confidentiality and data protection.

Overall, a recruitment and selection policy is crucial for maintaining a fair, efficient and legally compliant recruitment process, ultimately leading to the identification and hiring of the most suitable candidates for the organisation’s needs.

Tiger’s recruitment and selection process

Let’s look at Tiger’s recruitment and selection process.

Diversity in hiring

Diversity is about including, embracing and empowering a range of people by respecting and appreciating their age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation and education. Diversity is important because everyone deserves to have the same opportunities in the workplace. However, due to discrimination, prejudice and systemic racism, this is rarely the case. So, if a workplace promotes diversity and inclusion through actionable initiatives, it can help provide opportunities for those from underrepresented groups.

Everyone brings a unique perspective to the workplace and, if an office is diverse, these different perspectives can make organisations stronger and more successful. There have been many studies to support this, one being the McGregor-Smith Review, which found that the benefit of having a representative black and ethnic minority workforce would add an additional £24bn a year to the UK economy, which represents 1.3pc of GDP.

Protected characteristics under the Equality Act

Legally, unlawful discrimination is dealt with under the Equality Act 2010 (applicable in England, Scotland and Wales). There are nine protected characteristics under the Act:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation

The Act states that unlawful discrimination includes:

• Direct: Someone is treated less favourably than someone else because of one of their protected characteristics
• Indirect: When an employer applies criteria to all employees, where as a result, those with shared protected characteristics are discriminated against
• Harassment: Unwanted behaviour that relates directly to someone’s protected characteristic – could be in the form of intimidation, humiliation, hostility or offence
• Victimisation: When an employee is treated unfavourably because an employee has made a complaint, raised a grievance or given evidence in respect to a complaint about discrimination

The Act states that employers must not discriminate against those applying for employment during the recruitment process.

Effective tools for encouraging diversity include:

• Blind CVs
  • Removing names, ages and genders from CVs before they are passed to the hiring manager
  • These can be still read in a certain way, so should not be the only measure put in place to remove bias
• Skills testing
  • Using skills tests as the first step in the recruitment process can help jobseekers progress through to the following stages in the recruitment process, based entirely on their skills
  • This can help remove bias based on protected characteristics in the first stage of the recruitment process
• Creating a role-based scorecard for interviews
  • Using a set scorecard for each interviewee which is weighted towards essential skills/ characteristics – this can make interviews more objective
• Diversity targets
  • These can be based on the location of the office (reflecting the general population of that area)
  • Communicate your diversity targets to your recruiter in the first instance
• Including a hiring metric based on diversity
  • If an employee’s potential contribution to the diversity of a team is taken into account in the recruitment process, it will result in a more diverse talent pool

Find a more comprehensive guide to diversity in recruitment, and read our diversity and inclusion in the workplace guide. If you’re looking for a diversity and inclusion or freelance HR consultant to help your business, get in touch today.

Writing a job specification

A job specification (job spec) or job description is a document created for candidates to understand the details of the job, before they apply for it. It’s an easy way for them to understand what the job will entail and conclude if it’s the right position for them.

Why is a job spec important?

• It will convey the company’s expectations for the position in a transparent way
• It helps the business stay competitive in the market, as well as prove its investment in employees through details about benefits and company culture
• It will help distinguish between suitable candidates and those who don’t have essential skills or requirements
• It makes the recruitment process easier from the very start, as the job spec clearly sets out expectations
• It gives the candidate a clear understanding of the role and what’s expected from them
• It can attract and entice candidates
• A good job spec comes across as professional and organised, helping to represent the employer brand in a positive light
• The more detailed the job spec, the easier it is for a recruiter to find the best possible person for the role

Format of a good job spec:

• Information about the company
• Day-to-day duties
• Requirements/skills/experience needed (this can be separated into essential and desired categories)
• Personal attributes
• Benefits of the role

Writing a good job ad

If you’re not using a recruiter, it’s likely, that you will also write a job advertisement for the role, in-house. The ultimate goal of a job ad is to attract the best talent, so it’s worth taking the time to write a fantastic ad.

While you want to attract the best talent, it is essential that all role expectations are communicated clearly and understood by the employee before any type of commitment is made. If a role includes a large amount of administration or irregular hours, mention it – otherwise, a discrepancy between what an employee expects and what can you deliver could arise.

Other elements to consider when writing a job ad include spelling and grammar, tone of voice, a clear heading, simple language and enthusiasm. Writing the best possible job ad will also reflect positively on your employer brand, which ensures your opportunity is considered by the right candidates.

There are also common mistakes that we see many employers make when writing their own job ads. The following are some things to avoid:

• Exaggerating the position or company
• Ignore company culture
• Be evasive about salary

What’s the difference between a job ad and a job description?

Remember, a job ad and a job description are different: a job description describes what a candidate does for you, whereas an ad should focus on what you can for them.

If using a recruiter, it’s likely they will write the job ad for you, once you’ve provided them with a thorough job description or spec.

Creative candidate attraction strategies

Our MD, Rebecca Siciliano, hosted a webinar in March 2019 where she offered her expert insight to hiring managers around creative attraction strategies in times of uncertainty. She discussed:

• Going above and beyond what’s enshrined in law
• Creative attraction trends
• Streamlining your hiring process
• Remuneration and reward
• Work-life balance and flexible working
• Working initiatives and career progression
• Sending positive messages to candidates

Find the full session below:

When looking to attract talented candidates, it’s useful to think outside the box (and the traditional job ad). It could be as elaborate as a creative job ad or as simple as setting up a strong referral process. Looking for inspiration to get you started? Head over to our blog on creative ways to attract the best talent.

Remember, by 2025, millennials will make up three-quarters of the workforce, so it’s incredibly important you take them into account as part of your attraction strategy. You can do this by investing in your digital presence. They were the first generation to grow up surrounded by digital technologies, and as such, will rely on the internet for information about your employer brand. Invest in building a digital presence that’s attractive to the best talent, with consistent messaging and experiences across all sites. Don’t be afraid to use social media for sourcing – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Glassdoor can all be effective.

What to look for in a CV

When looking at candidates’ CVs, it’s important to know what to look out for with a quick scan of the document. Below, we outline what we look for in a great CV, along with common misconceptions we’ve heard along the way.

CV Layout

So, what should a CV look like? Look for:

• Consistent formatting
• Correct spelling/grammar
• No more than two to three pages in length
• Simple design and font use

Education

Education is clearly important, but often employers will rule out candidates who don’t have a bachelor’s degree, even if they are clearly intelligent (e.g. strong A-levels but have chosen not to go to university). We see this quite often when hiring personal assistants and office managers. Remember, if you do rule out a candidate based on their university qualifications, you’re at risk of narrowing your pool of candidates and potentially excluding your dream hire!

Interests/achievements/further information

These sections are a fantastic opportunity to learn more about a candidate on a personal level, behind the CV. This, in turn, gives you a better indication of their personality and if they are likely to be a good fit for your workplace. It’s also a good indication of the level of imagination and creativity a candidate possesses, as there isn’t a lot of room for individual expression on the rest of the CV. As recruiters, we actually use this information to help us do just that, so we would highly recommend more than a cursory glance at these sections.

Soft skills

It can be tempting to hire prospective employees based on specific skill sets, past experience, and referrals. Personality type and soft skills like patience and enthusiasm, however, factor into workers’ success just as much (if not more) than their ability to carry out the role. Unlike industry experience and technical skills, soft skills often cannot be taught, though they can make or break a successful onboarding process.

While CVs may outline the soft skills of a candidate, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to completely understand the breadth of these from this alone. Therefore, you should always try to go into soft skills in more detail in later stages of the process.

Movement on a CV

A number of employers find a CV with little movement unusual or an indication that the candidate won’t stay in one role for long. While this may have been the case in the past, it’s now very normal for a candidate to ‘hop’ from one role to the next, particularly millennials.

When you review the CV of a job-hopper, consider the following points:

• The calibre of the companies they have worked for
• Why they might have left their previous roles (ask your recruiter for more information about this if you’re unsure)

Essentially, hoppy CVs aren’t necessarily a negative thing, so never exclude a candidate based on this reason alone.

For more tips, read our blog on how to screen CVs.

How to conduct an interview

Effective interview techniques are essential to get the most out of the experience. If done well, you’ll better understand your employees’ motivations and be better equipped to nurture their desired career path for the benefit of your business.

As the interviewer, it’s your job to make the candidate feel at ease in the situation (as they are probably nervous) when conducting interviews. Remember: a calm, informative and honest interview will ensure the candidate performs at their best, allowing you to ultimately make the right decision. It’s also a good idea for hiring managers to prepare for an interview beforehand.

Set the scene for the interview

There are different types of interviews, mainly consisting of 1:1, panel and group assessments, with 1:1 being the most common. By explaining the format of the interview and what the candidate can expect, will allow them to feel comfortable and will make for more effective interviewing.

Make interviewees feel at ease

If the candidate feels at ease, you will get the best out of them in the interview and have a more accurate representation of their character/ skill set. If working with a recruiter, brief them on what the interview will entail so that they can prepare the candidate on what to expect.

This includes:

• Who will they be meeting?
• What is the interview type (i.e. panel, telephone, video)?
• Will there be a skill or psychometric test?

In the interview, you can make the candidate feel at ease by adopting friendly, open and warm body language. As mentioned above, start the interview by outlining what the candidate can expect. It’s also a good idea to give the candidate an overview of the company and the role as this will allow them to settle in and calm their nerves before answering questions.

There are topics you should avoid venturing into during the interview, as they have no bearing on the candidate’s ability to perform the role successfully. These include those topics to do with protected characteristics (as mentioned above), but also questions about social media accounts and leading questions.

Structure of interview

In the beginning, reiterate what structure the interview will follow and give the candidate an overview of the company and role. This is an effective interviewing technique as it will make the candidate feel at ease and give them time to tailor their answers and choose the best examples.

Next, talk through a candidate’s CV and experience. This, alongside targeted questioning, will take up most of the interview. The goal here is to find out about the candidate, their previous experience and what they’re looking for in a new role. Questions to ask at this stage may include:

• Their reasons for leaving
• Why they want to work for the company
• What can they bring to the role

After your questions, give the interviewee a chance to ask their own. This allows them to show an interest in the role and company, as well as proves they’ve done background research into the company.

End the interview by explaining what the next steps might be and when the candidate can expect to hear feedback. Regardless of how well the interview went, always thank a candidate for their time and finish on a positive note.

How long does a job interview take?

The length of the interview depends on the role, the level of experience and the number of stages in the interview process. We recommend a minimum of 20 minutes for a first-stage interview (if there are several stages). A single interview could take up to 45 minutes, but try not to keep the candidate too long, especially if they are meeting different people.

Tailoring interview questions

While it’s important to tailor interview questions depending on the specific role the candidates are applying for, there are a number of general questions employers should always ask in an interview. Below, we break down the specific types of questions that can be asked when assessing a candidate.

Different types of interview questions

There are different types of questions that an employer can ask when conducting interviews. These include:

• Open and closed questions – closed questions have a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, whereas open interview questions are those which require further explanation from a candidate.
• Competency/behavioural questions – these are designed to test/ask questions about a candidate’s specific skills or behaviours
• Situational – focuses on a hypothetical circumstance and asks how the candidate would react in that situation
• Probing – often used to learn more about the candidate’s personal qualities, skills and experiences, based on their initial answers to questions

A combination of both competency and situational questions will provide you with a holistic view of a candidate’s thought process and problem-solving abilities. These are open questions and will therefore require the candidate to tell you a bit of a story and paint a complete picture of their experience and approach to work. These should be defined ahead of the interview with the desired competencies in mind.

Closed questions can be useful too. These are the ones that only need the one-word answers. They have their place, especially in an interview environment where you might be asking prospective permanent staff technical questions to test their understanding. Equally, if you’re rushed for time, closed questions can be a speedy way of generating easy conversation at the start or end of a meeting.

Competency-based interviews are becoming increasingly popular, with companies opting to ask broad questions that reveal a candidate’s skills and personality behind their CV.

What is a competency-based question?

Competency-based questions typically lead a candidate towards describing a situation and/or task.

For example, you may start a question by saying:

• Tell me about a time when …
• Give an example of when …
• Describe a time when …
• Have you ever been in a situation where …

Competency-based interview questions always require an example of something a candidate has done in the past (to use as an example of their competency or behaviour in a certain situation).

Pros of competency-based interviews

Competency-based interviews allow you to use a set script or a score-based system for assessing candidates. This typically means that all candidates are asked the same questions, allowing there to be a fair interview process in place, where every candidate has an equal opportunity to shine. Competency questions force candidates to recall their personal experiences, which may then be elaborated on.

Finally, these questions allow candidates to show they have all the experience and capabilities to do the job well.

Cons of competency-based interviews

As with every type of interview, there are cons associated with using competency-based questions. In some cases, candidates spend so much time preparing polished answers that they unintentionally give the impression they have a robotic personality. Also, some may struggle with the open-ended nature of the questions and end up giving poorly constructed or unclear answers. Typically, these are the most challenging types of questions — some employers report that they find candidates will freeze if they feel they’re put on the spot with a competency-based question. Finally, if an interview focuses exclusively on competencies, a candidate might not get the opportunity to convey their emotions or motivations.

Examples of competency questions

Influencing or persuading others:

• Tell me about a time when you were able to change someone’s viewpoint significantly
• Tell me about a time when you were asked to do something that you disagreed with

Interpersonal and team skills:

• What experience have you had working with a team?
• Which skills and personal qualities have you contributed to the teams you have been a part of?
• Tell me about a time when you used tact and diplomacy
• Tell me about the last time you had a disagreement with someone
• Tell me about the most difficult person you have worked with
• What have you disliked in your past jobs?
• What kinds of people do you enjoy working with?
• What qualities do you admire most in others?

Communication skills:

• Tell me about a time when you were successful in getting crucial information from another person
• Tell me about a time when someone misunderstood what you were attempting to communicate to them

Personal adaptability, energy and resilience:

• Tell me about a time when you felt under pressure
• Tell me about a time when your work or ideas were criticised
• Tell me about a time when you felt frustrated by your work

Self-management, self-motivation and self-knowledge:

• Tell me about a time when you acted over and above the expectations of your role
• What have you done that shows initiative and willingness to work?
• What are three major accomplishments from your last role?
• What does ‘success’ mean to you?
• What does ‘failure’ mean to you?
• What motivates you at work?
• What are your interests outside work?
• Tell me about a major problem you have encountered and how you dealt with it?

Problem-solving and decision-making:

• Tell me about a difficult decision that you have made
• Tell me about an unpopular decision you have made
• What significant problems have you faced in the last year?
• How do you work under pressure?
• How would you motivate an employee who was performing poorly?

Conflict management and ethics:

• How did you resolve conflict in the groups or teams that you were a member of?
• How would you resolve a dispute?
• Tell me about a time when you bent the rules. When is it okay to do so?

Personal and career objectives:

• What are your short- and long-term goals?
• What are the most important things you are seeking in a career?
• Who do you admire most and why?
• Why do you want this position?

Knowledge of the organisation and role:

• Why did you apply for this position?
• What skills and personal qualities are essential for success in this role?
• What would you like to know about this organisation?
• What do you believe you can contribute to this organisation?
• What do you know about our organisation?
• Why are you interested in working for our organisation?
• In what kind of work environment are you most comfortable?
• What qualities should a successful manager possess?
• Describe the relationship that should exist between a supervisor and those reporting to him or her

Work experience:

• Tell me about the best job you’ve ever had
• What did you enjoy most or least about your last job?
• What extracurricular activities are you involved in?

Ability, competence and achievement:

• What two or three accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction? Why?
• What do you feel qualifies you for this position?

Stress questions:

• How do you react to criticism?
• Can you accept criticism for poor work?
• What causes you to lose your temper?
• Aren’t you overqualified for this role?
• How long would you expect to remain with this organisation?

Essentially, what you’re looking for is someone who can positively contribute to the business by using their pre-existing knowledge and any new skills they learn on the job. It’s important to establish that they possess the relevant skills for the advertised role, which can be conducted through a small skills-based task.

The offer process and securing a candidate

Congratulations! All your hard work throughout the interview process has paid off and you’ve found your dream hire! Below, we outline the next steps to take to ensure you win over your chosen candidate as quickly as possible.

The pre-offer stage

The offer process is an integral part of securing your dream candidate. Essentially, strong communication and acting quickly are key.

This process begins before interviews start, as communicating timings and setting expectations around the interview process are essential. If working with a recruiter, talk to them to learn important information, such as where the candidates might be in recruitment processes for other positions and salary expectations.

Offer and acceptance

When making an offer to a candidate, this usually begins with a verbal conversation. During this talk, you may mention salary, benefits, an expected start date and reference requirements.

In some cases, there may be some negotiation and working around a counter-offer from the existing employer.

Once the candidate accepts, you will be able to get in contact with them directly (if you’ve been using a recruitment agency up to this point). At this stage, the contract and offer letter is sent to the candidate.

Elements to include in the contract/offer letter

There are a few key points to include in a contract or job offer letter. These include:

• The job title and key duties
• Compensation, benefits and terms i.e. start date, working hours, notice period, probation period
• The name of their direct line manager

You will also need to carry out any background and reference checks and talk to the candidate about when they will hand in notice with their current employer (if applicable).

Finally, communicate any final information pre-starting with the candidate. This could include the start date/time, who to ask for on arrival and how the onboarding process will go ahead.

Best-practice onboarding process

The hiring process doesn’t end at the candidate’s acceptance of the job. Without a smooth introduction to the organisation in the days following their acceptance, you are in danger of alienating your new recruits and impacting their motivation and productivity.

Effective inductions are timely, organised and engaging. The aim is to inspire and excite new starters while giving a good first impression of the company. They should set out an organisation’s mission and vision for them, while educating them about the company’s history, culture and values.

Your employee onboarding process could take up to three months, depending on the level and scope of the role. HR staff, line managers or the office manager can help onboard new staff. We’ve outlined the best practice for onboarding below:

Planning the onboarding in advance

A successful onboarding process doesn’t begin from the new employee’s start date. As soon as the individual accepts the role, you should be managing your new recruit’s perception of the organisation’s brand and the team they’re about to join.

How to structure a new starter’s first day

On a new starter’s first day:

• Welcome them in and show them around the office, all the facilities and their desk
• Introduce them to their line manager, colleagues and senior managers
• Put in place a well-planned timetable
• Make sure they’re aware of any soft benefits that they can take advantage of on a daily basis (casual Fridays, free lunches etc.)
• Tailor the induction to suit the new employee — for example, a graduate’s onboarding is likely to be different to a new employee who has extensive experience with other companies, or someone returning to work after a long absence
• Provide them with a training manual that they can refer to which includes all company procedures, including health and safety and company information

A new starter’s first weeks

It’s a good idea for HR to organise catch-ups with individual managers once they’ve started the role. Communicate to managers that this is an important step in the new starter’s onboarding process, as it will also help them to feel as though senior staff are taking a genuine interest in them and their skills.

The first few weeks are the most important time for any new starter. In this time, they’ll form an opinion of your company which will be hard to change if it isn’t a positive one.

Send around an email asking their colleagues to introduce themselves so that they have informal introductions over a few days. Introducing them to everyone at once will be overwhelming and the recruit is unlikely to remember any names. Organising a buddy who can take them for lunch and show them around the local area is also a good way to relax and orientate them.

Continue holding regular catch-ups and check-ins, and allow different team members to take part in the induction process to draw on their own skill sets and give them some responsibility when training the new starter.

Planning a new starter’s initial workload

Recognise that a new employee will take some time to be able to work at their full capacity. If you enforce deadlines too quickly, you could get the wrong impression of their capabilities as they may be tempted to rush tasks in order to deliver them on time. Small mistakes are likely to be made while the recruit is taking in all this new information, so try to set them small tasks and evaluate their performance after each is completed, ensuring that you give constructive feedback.

Remote onboarding

If onboarding remotely, it’s important that:

• Any necessary hardware is sent to a new starter’s home office
• They have scheduled video calls with their team, their line manager and the person leading their induction
• They have a new-starter guide which outlines all of the systems used for communication e.g. Skype, Slack, Zoom
• They are provided with an e-version of their induction schedule
• They are included in any virtual social events with the company
• Their buddy contacts them regularly about work or otherwise

Remember, the onboarding process can be overwhelming for a new starter. It’s important that everyone in the office reaches out and makes them feel welcome.

If you’d like any additional guidance on recruiting new staff, contact us today, and we’ll walk you through the process. If you’d like to request the PDF version of our Interview and Selection guide, please email us at marketing@tiger-recruitment.co.uk.

The post Interviewer’s guide on candidate selection appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

As the UK reopens and people return to work, organisations and governing bodies have worked on tools to help everyone get back to work safely after COVID-19. The focus of returning to work will be to control the risk of transmission of the virus. Safe working practices must be in place to protect employees and give everyone peace of mind.

One of the key things business owners, HR professionals and employees should do is conduct a risk assessment. A return-to-work risk assessment post-COVID-19 will be similar to a general risk assessment. However, as there are some specific risks associated with the spread of the virus, a coronavirus risk assessment will have some additional checks.

What is a risk assessment?

A risk assessment is a way of systematically examining the workplace and processes for potential risks and hazards to employees. The assessment helps you to follow the procedures employees use in their daily tasks to identify potential threats.

It will include all office and workplace areas and will help you identify if measures need to be put in place. You will need to look for high-contact areas that employees may come into contact with (like communal kitchens, toilets and door handles in the office) that could cause the spread of infection.

After the COVID-19 lockdown, returning to work brings with it new additional concerns that may not have been covered by previous risk assessments you have completed. A risk assessment is an essential part of a greater return-to-office plan.

How to write a risk assessment

You may have a standard risk assessment form for your office. While this may be sufficient for a world pre-COVID-19, there are now some additional checks that will need to be included. When writing a risk assessment, you will need to add:

• Hazards associated with coronavirus
  • Virus contaminating communal spaces, desks, computers
• Potential risks to employees from hazards
  •  Catching and/or spreading the virus in the office
• Control measures
  •  Social distancing
  • Disinfectant/sanitisation
  • Masks
  • Ventilation
• Actions required
  • Implementing staggered shifts
  • New office layout
  • Installation of screens
  • Supplying hand sanitiser, high-strength disinfectant, masks etc.

A section should be included for home-working and social distancing measures for the office. High-risk areas will need to be identified, and processes will need to be implemented to combat the risks. Risk assessments for vulnerable staff will need to give clear steps and procedures on how to protect those who are at higher risk from the virus.

The post-COVID-19 risk assessment should include:

• Who completed the assessment and how
• Company information – number of employees, types of workspaces in the office and security information
• Control measures
• Potential hazards
• Follow up plans
• High-risk areas for the virus

What is the purpose of a risk assessment?

Using a risk assessment allows you to look at the whole office and the processes your employees use daily. Using this systematic approach, you can cover everything and make sure measures are in place before employees return to work.

A full and comprehensive post-COVID-19 risk assessment will help you implement the best protective measures for your business and your employees. Going back to work after a lockdown can be extremely worrying for employees and their families. Taking the steps of a comprehensive risk assessment will provide peace of mind to everyone.

What to do with a risk assessment

After you have finalised the risk assessment, you will possess a complete report on the risks and steps to protect people in the workplace. You should send it to all staff (including any on furlough), so they are aware of the changes the company will put in place to protect them. It will also help them to see what the main risks are and any precautions they should take when planning their return to work.

Encourage feedback and questions from employees. Staff may be able to identify risks you have not considered or share suggestions about additional protective measures. Involving staff in the process will also help them feel reassured about their safety in the workplace.

Are you looking for an HR job or looking to recruit for your HR team? Get in touch with us today. For employers looking for guidance in navigating the next few months, our future of work after COVID-19 article will help!

The post A return-to-work risk-assessment guide for HR professionals appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Fatigue, hot flushes, memory lapses and anxiety are just a few of the challenging symptoms that people going through menopause will face, often while juggling demanding professional roles. Despite this, menopause is still widely misunderstood in many workplaces, leaving employees to “push through” without adequate resources. Research proves that workplace support can make a significant difference: 84% of women who feel unsupported report that menopause symptoms negatively affect their work, compared to 71% of those who receive the necessary help. Businesses cannot afford to ignore this issue if they wish to retain valued staff.

In a recent episode of Tiger Recruitment’s podcast From the Tiger’s Mouth, Jane Leese, Head of the Zurich Office, and Dr Ruqia Zafar, NHS GP and Director of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) at Future Woman, discussed how businesses can better support employees through menopause. Ruqia highlighted the tangible impacts of menopause on both mental and physical well-being and offered actionable steps that HR professionals can take to make a real difference. This blog will explore those insights in-depth, helping your business cultivate a workplace that allows women to thrive through this transition.

What HR Needs to Know About Menopause

The symptoms of menopause and their severity can vary significantly from person to person. Menopause officially begins after 12 consecutive months without menstruation, but the transition phase, known as perimenopause, can start several years earlier. During this time, fluctuating hormone levels cause a range of symptoms, from the more well-known hot flushes and night sweats to less obvious (but equally challenging) issues like brain fog, joint pain and anxiety.

Ruqia explained in the podcast: “There is a common misconception that menopause is just hot flushes, but it goes way beyond that. Symptoms are going to be all over the body and can impact your mental health. So, you might notice that you’re more irritable, perhaps experiencing more anxiety. And for women who already had a history of depression, they may notice that becomes exacerbated.”

Given that the global population of menopausal women is growing, the ripple effects in the workplace are significant. In 2021, women aged 50 and over accounted for 26% of all women and girls globally. This was up from 22% 10 years earlier, as women are living longer. These individuals are often in senior positions, making their experience and knowledge vital to business success. Losing them due to unmanaged symptoms not only negatively affects the individual, but also the company.

Practical Ways to Support Employees Through Menopause

Open Conversations and Awareness Training

Creating an environment where employees feel comfortable discussing menopause openly is the first step toward meaningful support. A workplace that encourages open dialogue helps reduce the stigma that still surrounds menopause. Ruqia emphasised the importance of raising awareness, noting that: “Many employees won’t feel comfortable talking to their manager about their symptoms unless there’s a culture in place that normalises the conversation.”

One way to achieve this is by offering menopause awareness training for all employees. Organisations like the NHS have successfully implemented their menopause advocates—trained individuals who offer support and resources to those experiencing symptoms.

Incorporating menopause training into your company’s onboarding process can also ensure the issue remains front of mind. Future Woman can provide corporate menopause awareness training to any business looking to open up conversations among colleagues and encourage those experiencing menopause to seek the support they need.

Flexible Working Policies

The symptoms of menopause, particularly fatigue and sleep disturbances, can make adhering to traditional working hours difficult. Implementing flexible working arrangements, such as hybrid models or adjustable start times, can alleviate some of the pressure on employees.

Ruqia recalled an example of a senior employee at the UK Home Office who, after speaking to her manager, was allowed to start her workday later to accommodate severe fatigue. “This simple change allowed her to manage her symptoms without having to take sick leave, and it prevented her from leaving a job she loved,” Ruqia noted. Offering these small but impactful adjustments will allow employees to remain in the workforce.

Physical Comfort and Ergonomics

Employers can make simple adjustments to create a more comfortable working environment for menopausal employees. For example, providing fans for desks can help with hot flushes, while ergonomic workstations can ease the joint and muscle pain that many experience. These accommodations may seem minor, but they can significantly improve day-to-day comfort and productivity.

Mental Health Support

Menopause can bring on or exacerbate anxiety and depression, leaving employees feeling overwhelmed or disconnected. Ruqia stresses the importance of offering mental health resources, such as counselling or peer support groups, to those struggling with the emotional toll of menopause.

Many companies already provide Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that include access to therapy or mindfulness workshops. However, tailoring these programmes to address menopause-related mental health issues can make them even more effective.

Nutrition and Wellbeing Initiatives

Good nutrition plays a key role in managing menopause symptoms, but it’s often overlooked. Ruqia advocates for a diet rich in antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids and protein, which can help reduce inflammation and stabilise energy levels.

Ruqia explained that: “Many of the more troublesome symptoms, like fatigue and joint pain, can be managed better through proper nutrition, but most people aren’t taught to realise this.”

Employers can support this by advocating for balanced meal options in workplace cafeterias, providing healthy snacks in the office (perhaps arranging for a regular fruit basket delivery) or organising nutrition workshops as part of a broader wellness programme. This will not only contribute to the overall health of employees experiencing menopause, but to all staff within the workplace.

Tailored Support Makes the Difference

Menopause is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Some may experience relatively mild symptoms, while others could struggle with debilitating fatigue, anxiety or physical discomfort. The key is to offer individualised support, tailored to each employee’s needs.

This could involve adjusting workloads for those experiencing brain fog or allowing extra breaks during the day. By remaining flexible and responsive to individual needs, employers can help staff navigate this transition while maintaining productivity.

Why Investing in Menopause Support is Good for Business

Businesses that take menopause seriously are not just supporting their employees, they are strengthening their organisations. Women in their 40s and 50s often hold key positions and have a wealth of experience and can’t be easily replaced. Creating an inclusive environment where menopause is openly discussed and support is readily available will increase employee retention and loyalty.

As Ruqia concluded: “When women feel supported through menopause, they are far more likely to stay with the company, and their loyalty and productivity often increase.”

Taking Action

The level of workplace support received by those experiencing menopause can make an incredible difference in their day-to-day lives. From flexible working policies and mental health support to nutritional guidance and physical accommodations, there are numerous ways businesses can make a real impact. The companies that get this right will not only improve employee wellbeing but also strengthen their workforce for the future.

Supporting your employees through menopause is an investment in both people and performance. To learn more about creating menopause-friendly environments, you can listen to our full podcast with Jane and Ruqia here.

The post Supporting Employees Through Menopause appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

I hosted a webinar with three mental health specialists – Jo Yarker from Affinity Health at Work, Business Psychologist Julie Osborn and Ruth Cooper-Dickson from Champs Consulting – who offered their tips for employers managing employees’ mental health during the pandemic.

They cover:

• Tips for managers in looking after their own mental health
• The importance of wellbeing and social check-ins with employees
• The signs that employees may be suffering from mental ill health
• How to keep furloughed employees engaged in the social side of the workplace
• Tips for future planning
• Great online mental health resources

Watch the webinar in full below:

Looking for more guidance to help navigate the coming months? Our future of work after COVID-19 article will help! You can also find out more about alternative working arrangements in our guide to flexible working. Our HR recruitment specialists are also on hand to help with your recruitment needs.

The post Watch: Improving Employees’ Mental Health Remotely appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Sometimes, once your recruitment agency has presented you with a shortlist, you may prefer to carry out a telephone interview ahead of a more formal face-to-face meeting or a video interview with a potential candidate. There are several reasons for this; for instance, you might be looking to relocate someone from another country or have an extremely busy diary and want to make sure that a meeting with a potential candidate is not going to be a waste of time.

In any case, should you follow this route, it is important that, as the employer, you get the most out of the conversation.

• Consider this first conversation with an applicant not as an interview, but as a “pre-interview” or screening process. In this way, you won’t try to cover too much ground in a short time span and you’ll concentrate on getting the really important answers, which will determine whether you invite them in to meet you face-to-face.

• It is not all about the questions and answers. If you have called the candidate, how did he/she pick up the phone? Do they sound on the ball, enthusiastic? Sometimes the negatives can be telling – if you had arranged to call at a particular time and the candidate didn’t pick up the phone, what does that say to you? If they were meant to call you and didn’t on time, if there is not a good reason for this, then again this might raise an issue over timekeeping.

• Keep your questions short and to the point. It is a telephone interview so you don’t want to be on the phone for too long. Prepare five good questions and assess the answers to those. As a telephone interview is one-dimensional, you’ll find yourself concentrating on how a candidate answers much more than you might in a face-to-face meeting. For instance, is he/she answering the questions in a concise manner? Have lots of good examples been given? On the negative side, is the candidate unable to answer your questions fully and is there too much waffle? At the end of the day, trust your gut instinct on the phone as much as you would in an interview. For instance, does the conversation flow? This may be the most important thing you can take from the conversation as it will determine whether they can communicate in the way you would like with someone they haven’t met before.

• Finally, at the end of the call, keep your options open. It sounds obvious, but there is no need to commit yourself by telling the candidate that you will be in touch regarding a face-to-face meeting. Much better to thank them for their time and say you’ll be in touch either way.

• Once you have put the phone down, take time to think about the interview and digest how things went. As always make sure you are speaking to a number of people on the telephone so you have comparisons.

On the hunt for new permanent or temporary staff? The Tiger team can help organise telephone interviews as a pre-screening initiative. Get in touch today.

Looking to find out more about hiring? Our complete interview and selection guide for employers covers best practices on many steps throughout the interview process.

The post Interviewers, Here’s how to conduct a telephone interview appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

The world of Human Resources (HR) is rapidly evolving, and at the forefront of this transformation are two game-changing technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation. As we venture deeper into the digital age, HR professionals and hiring managers find themselves on the cusp of a revolution that promises to improve processes, elevate candidate experiences, and unlock the full potential of their workforce.

In this article, we’ll explore the insights of two HR experts, Lorenzo Chiozzi, HR Director at Hikvision UK & Ireland, and Tess Hilson-Greener, CEO of AI Capability Ltd, as they share their experiences and visions for the integration of AI and automation in HR. Alongside this, the article looks at the wider HR function and how areas like talent management, administration and onboarding can be developed and improved by HR teams that are willing to embrace AI and automation.

Enhancing HR Processes through AI

OpenAI, the creators of Chat GPT, published a research paper estimating that “80 percent of jobs can incorporate generative AI technology”. In HR, there is great potential for companies to incorporate AI into performance reviews, talent acquisition, evaluating large pools of candidates, administrative tasks, and other repetitive and data-driven functions. This view is shared by a leading thinker of AI in HR, Josh Bersin, who remarks that much of the data taken by HR is “numerically focused, involving surveys, feedback forms, data” which is then correlated with “business results against various people metrics”. This data-driven approach to HR is one that AI and automation can support, from developing best-practice employee engagement surveys to evaluating large numbers of CVs against the job requirements and a profile of a desired candidate.

In simple terms, AI frees up HR teams to complete business-critical projects by automating administrative tasks. Lorenzo Chiozzi explains, “In recruitment, you can use predictive analysis, interview scheduling, chatbots and candidate sourcing to boost productivity. Reporting has changed with predictive reporting and automated report generation.” These AI-powered applications allow HR teams to work more efficiently, saving valuable time and resources.

Tess Hilson-Greener agrees, emphasising the diverse applications of AI and automation in HR. “These include talent acquisition and recruitment, employee engagement and performance management, workforce planning and analytics, learning and development, and HR operations and administration”. This showcases the wide range of opportunities that AI presents to HR teams, enabling them to strengthen various aspects of talent management.

Delving deeper, Workable mentions that AI can also help businesses “anticipate and plan for outcomes using predictive analytics and machine learning.” This can be especially useful for small businesses without the resources or expertise to map out detailed HR strategies. Utilising AI can help HR teams understand best practices and case studies so that AI can digest and provide actionable ideas tailored to individual organisations.

Enhancing HR Operations and Administration

AI and automation have instigated a fundamental shift in HR operations and administration, significantly reducing administrative burdens and freeing up valuable time. Lorenzo shares, “I use AI daily in some HR processes, recruitment, and in a variety of different contexts.” Tools like automated applicant tracking systems, chatbots, and virtual assistants streamline candidate interactions and deliver seamless experiences throughout the hiring process.

For those new to AI, Tess recommends starting with “policy management and reporting” and to “use Chat GPT and other AI video/voice solutions.” AI-powered chatbots can answer employees’ frequently asked questions and provide prompt assistance, enhancing employee self-service options and fostering a more efficient HR service delivery.

The efficiency of operational tasks can be improved by using AI, which can help with speeding up the onboarding and acclimatisation process for new employees. An article by Oracle, referencing data compiled from 34,000 exit interviews, notes that “40% of new employees quit within the first year of being hired”. Whilst employees choose to leave their jobs for a multitude of reasons, delays and inefficiencies in the onboarding process can lead to employees feeling overwhelmed at work, unsuited to the role, or struggling to adapt to the company’s culture or way of working.

Utilising AI allows the onboarding process to support employees 24/7.

It can also ease the time-consuming administrative tasks involved. Furthermore, Oracle state that AI can “equip an employee with intelligent suggestions for courses or reading that will aid in day-to-day job duties”, which highlights the value that AI and automation can provide in career development too.

Mitigating Risks and Embracing Opportunities

Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index Annual Report sheds light on employee attitudes towards AI. Whilst 49% of respondents noted that they have concerns about AI replacing their jobs, 70% would be in favour of delegating as much work as possible to AI. HR teams can leverage this curiosity and act as the champions of AI and automation, to upskill employees in its wide-ranging uses.

This view is echoed by Gosia Adamczyk speaking to HR Magazine, who suggests that HR teams should build confidence, “starting with the acceptance that these tools are here to stay”. Companies and HR teams can jump on the AI revolution and develop programmes and initiatives aimed at allowing employees to harness the potential of AI in their work, rather than allowing them to see it as a threat.

These initiatives still need to be developed with a degree of caution, and it’s important to remember that with any technological advancement, AI comes with risks and challenges. “It can be very dangerous if the model is totally trusted, as it can generate manipulation or systematic biases,” cautions Lorenzo. HR teams must ensure transparency, fairness and oversight when using AI algorithms to avoid unintended consequences. Tess adds, “To mitigate risks, organisations should ensure transparency and fairness in AI algorithms, regularly monitor and validate AI outputs, and have appropriate safeguards for data privacy and security.” Embracing opportunities with AI, while being aware of its limitations and risks, is essential to maximising its use within HR.

Ethical Concerns and DEI

As AI and automation continue to play a more significant role in HR, addressing ethical concerns becomes crucial. Tess reminds HR professionals that, “Human oversight and review are important to catch and correct any potential biases or errors.” Ensuring AI algorithms are transparent, fair, and free from bias is paramount in upholding fairness and equality in HR practices.

Incorporating AI into DEI plans ensures that AI-driven decisions align with organisational values and promote a diverse and inclusive workplace.

By investing in AI-qualified consultants and experts, HR teams can mitigate risks and maximise the value of AI and automation in driving positive outcomes for both employees and the company.

Supporting this, Sameer Maskey remarks in a Forbes article that “AI-powered internal survey assessment tools can help HR teams conduct sentiment analysis and deploy data-driven organisation initiatives that focus on employee morale and things today’s workforce considers a priority, such as diversity and sustainability.”

There’s no doubt that AI offers an important, unbiased tool for HR and talent acquisition teams in assessing employee morale and diversity within a company. And for hiring, AI can assess a wide pool of candidates without unconscious bias, not to mention provide a fresh perspective on ideas for employee engagement, for businesses that are ‘set in their ways’.

The Human Touch in HR

While AI improves efficiency, it cannot replace human empathy, creativity, and critical thinking. As Tess explains, “Balancing automation with human interaction and personalised experiences is crucial.” Lorenzo emphasises the importance of strategic implementation, saying, “AI should be implemented strategically, always considering the human factor. AI can make happen what has always been missing in people management – the ability to read information and analytics in a holistic and meaningful way.”

Josh Bersin remarks that AI can pull together data that can be used to make better hiring decisions, and likewise decide “who to promote, who to demote, and who should make it to the very top ranks of the company”. Regarding the internal movement of employees, it’s important not to rely completely on AI to make the decisions but to use human intuition and the insight of managers working with employees to ensure that balanced decisions can be made regarding an employee’s potential, suitability for a promotion, and other factors.

Likewise, AI is not yet advanced enough to accurately grasp the values, feel or culture of a company, and HR teams are best placed to decide whether benefits or initiatives are working well, rather than simply relying on data and figures to cast judgment. Small initiatives can have a large impact on employee engagement and morale, and soft benefits can be crucial in retaining and attracting talent, that might be overlooked in a hiring strategy based on ‘hard data’.

The Future of HR

Both experts agree that the progression of AI and automation will have a significant impact on the future of HR. Tess predicts that, “There will be new professions, and organisations that manage to crack the AI code for a practical and useful HR approach will prevail.”

The seamless integration of AI and automation will empower HR teams to make data-driven decisions, optimise talent management, and drive employee performance, ultimately ushering in a new era of HR excellence.

As generative AI develops further and becomes widespread in the workforce, new regulations will be developed to ensure that it is safe and beneficial to society. There will be plenty of firsts when it comes to AI, and Jack Aldane, writing for Global Government Forum, mentions that Romania recently “unveiled the world’s first AI government adviser.” The working world will be moulded in the coming years to incorporate AI, and HR teams will be at the forefront of harnessing its capabilities, while upskilling workers to fluidly utilise it, thereby firmly positioning it as an ally rather than a threat to job security.

Conclusion: A Journey of Progress

AI and automation have transformed the landscape of HR, promising to revolutionise talent acquisition, employee development, workforce planning and HR operations.

As HR professionals and hiring managers navigate this transformative journey, they must strike a balance between leveraging AI’s capabilities and preserving the human touch.

Embracing AI strategically, with a keen eye on ethics, transparency and fairness, HR professionals can unlock the true potential of their workforce and create a thriving, future-proof organisation.

As businesses embrace the power of AI and automation, HR’s role will evolve into a pivotal one, overseeing the co-existence of human expertise and machine intelligence in companies. Navigating this path with foresight will pave the way for HR to emerge as a strategic driver of business success, steering businesses towards a future of limitless possibilities. The journey towards HR’s AI-powered future has only just begun, and the possibilities are as exciting as they are limitless.

The post AI and Automation: HR’s Evolution into the Future appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Businesses have long been focused on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) efforts and, in the past few years, advances have been made to address gender, race, and ethnicity as employers strive to reap the benefits of a diverse workforce. Despite this, neurodivergent individuals have often been overlooked. And, given that 15 to 20% of the global population is neurodivergent, there is much opportunity to improve.

Below, we explore the benefits of neurodiversity at work and actionable strategies that HR professionals and management teams can implement to empower neurodivergent employees. Neurodiversity experts, Toni Horn, a neurodiversity consultant and Founder of Think Differently; and Kassandra Clemens, a transformational coach and Founder of Heal Your Confidence CIC weigh in with their thoughts.

What is neurodivergence?

Neurodivergence is an umbrella term that encompasses individuals who have at least one condition that alters their cognitive function. These could include Asperger’s, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, dyspraxia, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), epilepsy, and Tourette’s. Many of these individuals contribute effectively to the workforce, especially in businesses that offer personalised initiatives and soft benefits.

For employers seeking to accommodate neurodivergent workers, it’s important to be aware of the correct terminology and what it entails. Spring Health defines the following terms:

• Neurodivergent refers to a person or group with atypical brain functioning
• Neurotypical refers to individuals who are non-neurodivergent
• Neurodiverse is a mix of people from the two groups. Supporting a neurodiverse workforce means accommodating neurodivergent individuals

Benefits of a neurodiverse workforce

Numerous studies show that diverse businesses are more innovative and agile due, in part, to a greater variance in thinking and approaches. This can lead to disruptive breakthroughs by offsetting a tendency for companies “to all look in the same direction,” according to Harvard Business Review.

Neurodiverse individuals are often excellent problem solvers, due to their ability to think in non-typical ways and identify solutions that other employees may not find.

Toni Horn explains how “those with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might excel in pattern recognition and detail-oriented tasks, while individuals with ADHD could offer high levels of creativity and dynamism.” Kassandra Clemens adds: “they may benefit the workplace through their ability to ‘dream deeply’, demonstrating visionary abilities.”

Companies that embrace neurodiversity have reported impressive statistics. They are “45% more likely to report market share growth and 70% more likely to capture new markets,” Toni explains. Furthermore, she highlights the economic impact, stating, “in the UK, increasing employment rates for people with autism could add £23 billion annually to the economy.”

An increase in reputational value is also a considerable return for employers investing in a neurodiverse workforce. Hiren Shukla, Neuro-Diverse Centre of Excellence Leader at EY summarises that “our clients want to do business with companies that do good. Candidates want to work with companies that do good.” With Gen Z and Millennial jobseekers increasingly desiring to work for organisations that are positive contributors to society, a neurodiverse hiring programme can allow employers to tap into diverse talent and receive a boost in reputation.

Further, neurodivergent employees are on average more loyal, and likely to stay at a company for longer than neurotypical workers. According to JP Morgan Chase, their Autism at Work initiative discovered that neurodiverse hires were “90% to 140% more productive than employees who had been at the company for five or 10 years”. Therefore, investing in accommodating neurodivergent workers will not only provide a positive reputational boost, but can also create loyal, well-oiled teams that approach tasks in creative and dynamic ways.

Steps to create a supportive workplace culture

The bedrock of supportive workplace culture for neurodivergent workers is, as Pamela Furr notes in a Forbes article, to create “an open and safe environment where employees feel comfortable speaking up about their accommodations”. Key to this is ensuring employees are not penalised when asking for accommodations and that these conversations are kept confidential.

Leadership plays a pivotal role in fostering this environment. “Leadership from the front is crucial,” Toni emphasises. “When company leaders openly support and advocate for neurodiversity, it sets a powerful example for the rest of the organisation.” Leaders should be trained not only to understand neurodiversity but also to recognise and nurture the unique talents of neurodiverse employees. She notes that “by doing so, they demonstrate a commitment to inclusivity and diversity that can inspire others within the organisation”.

Businesses can consider creating their own, tailored awareness programmes for employees. For example, PWC implemented a neurodiversity interactive learning programme for all 32,640 UK employees. It “explores the topic of neurodiversity and includes bite-sized resources, as well as stories and experiences from PWC employees.” By learning from the lived experience of employees, the programme is designed to help the rest of the workforce understand neurodiversity and how they can best accommodate neurodivergent co-workers.

If an employer doesn’t have the budget for an awareness programme, inviting a neurodivergent speaker to educate staff is an option. Gaining an understanding can help avoid discriminatory scenarios, as Toni recounts a neurodivergent woman whose promotion was retracted, stating, “her employer expressed concerns that she wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure, a decision based more on stereotypes than her actual abilities and performance.”

Hope Gillett, writing for PsychCentral, discusses numerous ways employers can take steps to evolve their workplace culture to be accommodating to neurodivergent employees. From offering designated quiet areas and providing headphones to “prevent distraction or overstimulation”, to including breaks in long meetings to allow employees to “re-centre”, and “eliminating mandatory attendance at work social events”. Recognising that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to workplace culture, and adding small initiatives that appeal to neurodivergent employees may work wonders in fostering a healthy and inclusive working environment.

Inclusive hiring practices

While the benefits of a neurodiverse workforce are clear, organisations often struggle to recognise and tap into this talent pool. Toni states, “with an estimated 15-20% of the population being neurodiverse, this is a significant segment of potential talent that can contribute to various industries.” HR professionals should actively work to identify and attract neurodiverse talent, going beyond traditional recruitment channels. This can be done by engaging the local community, and partnering with groups such as “government agencies, non-profits, vocational rehab centres, educational institutions, or offices for disabilities”.

Harvard Business Review states, “the behaviours of many neurodiverse people run counter to common notions of what makes a good employee”, which often includes “solid communication skills, being a team player, emotional intelligence, persuasiveness, salesperson-type personalities, and the ability to network”. When hiring managers adhere to the above criteria, neurodivergent employees are often at a disadvantage when applying for roles. This issue is echoed by Claire Hastwell, who notes that “many superficial norms, such as a strong handshake or looking someone in the eye, are difficult for neurodiverse individuals to perform.”

Instead, Kassandra suggests employers provide full interview information in advance for neurodiverse candidates, allowing them to prepare adequately and showcase their skills effectively. Kassandra states, “reasonable adjustments benefit everyone! When a business treats diversity as a company asset, it naturally caters to the whole workforce.”

Including task-based assessments or job trials that mirror actual job responsibilities will also allow neurodiverse individuals to adequately showcase their skills.

One interview method that can help neurodivergent jobseekers feel at ease and demonstrate their potential is discussed by Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano, entailing “comfortable gatherings, usually lasting half a day, in which neurodiverse job candidates can demonstrate their abilities in casual interactions with company managers.”

Employers should consider offering new recruits neurodiversity awareness training to allow them to get up to speed with inclusive practices. As part of this, Pamela Furr suggests including an “introduction to neurodiversity, explaining what it is and how it affects different people in different ways.” In addition, during onboarding, employers may wish to assign a mentor or buddy to help new employees navigate the workplace and understand company culture, which can be particularly beneficial for neurodivergent hires. If you’re unsure where to begin, becoming familiar with these DEI recruitment guidelines is a good starting point for employers.

Conclusion

Empowering neurodiversity at work involves leadership by example, inclusive policies, open dialogue, and ongoing adaptation of company processes. By embracing neurodiversity, companies not only benefit neurodiverse employees but can also enrich the entire organisation. Kassandra concludes, “creating a truly accessible work environment benefits employee retention, closes skills gaps, and prevents employee burnout.”

For HR professionals and organisations looking to be inclusive towards neurodiverse professionals, the key lies in a commitment to diverse hiring, educating employees on accommodations, and taking steps to nurture neurodivergent employees that allow them to perform at their best.

The post Empowering Neurodiversity at Work appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Table of Contents

• A seismic shift
• The future is now: AI in HR
• Knowledge management and chatbots
• AI’s role in recruitment
• Improved onboarding and retention
• Data management and privacy concerns
• Leadership development with generative AI
• Tools and technologies in HR
• Future Trends

The post The Future of Artificial Intelligence in HR appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Welcome to From the Tiger’s Mouth! Tiger Recruitment’s podcast series is the number one place for workplace insights, thought leadership and topical issues across the global job market. In each episode, we’ll be inviting an expert guest to share their thoughts and advice within their professional field. Whether you’re looking to reinvent the way you run your business or to hear new opinions and ideas on the state of the market, we’ve got you covered! So, if that sounds like your kind of thing stay tuned!

Listen to previous episodes on Apple and Spotify.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Creating Impactful Charity-Corporate Partnerships

In this episode, we spoke to Brendan McGowan, a Senior Consultant at NPC, with 20 years of experience working with the charity sector.

Our host Jess Umasuthan, Senior Consultant and Charity Ambassador at Tiger Recruitment, asks Brendan to share his tips for establishing meaningful corporate-charity partnerships and effectively measuring your impact. If you’re looking to improve your charity partnership for both social impact and internal benefits, our latest podcast episode is your go-to resource.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Supporting Employees Through Menopause

Join Head of Zurich Office Jane Leese and Dr. Ruqia Zafar, NHS GP and Director of Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) at Future Woman, as they explore how businesses can better support employees going through menopause

In this episode, Ruqia offers an insightful overview of menopause, its symptoms and the impact on women in the workplace. We share practical ways HR teams can foster open conversations and put in place adjustments and policies enabling women to thrive throughout this transition.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Employment Law Post-Election: Future-Proof Your HR Practices

Join HR Consultant Jamie Power and BrightHR Operations Manager Lucy Cobb as they share top tips on navigating employment law changes post-election.

In this episode, Lucy provides essential insights on family-friendly leave, flexible working regulations and more.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Maximising Executive Efficiency – The Evolving Role of Administrative Assistants

Managing Director Rebecca Siciliano speaks to Lucy Brazier OBE, CEO of Marcham Publishing and leading authority on the administrative profession. From PAs to EAs, Rebecca and Lucy explore all the latest trends in administration.

This episode shares frameworks to upskill assistants, opportunities to embrace AI, top tips on delegation, and more.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Strategies For Aspiring Female Leaders

Happy International Women’s Day! In this empowering podcast episode, we dive into the world of leadership with a focus on strategies tailored for aspiring female leaders. Join us as we bring together a panel of accomplished professionals from Tiger Recruitment, each with a unique perspective on climbing the career ladder, overcoming challenges, and thriving in leadership roles.

Our esteemed host, Katie Hawksley-Blackburn, a senior recruitment consultant at Tiger Recruitment, leads an insightful conversation with a dynamic lineup of guests. From the Managing Director, Rebecca Siciliano, to the Director of the London City office, Angela Lopes, and the Head of the MENA region, Zahra Clark, to the Head of Zurich, Jane Leese, our panel represents a diverse range of leadership experiences and backgrounds.

Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tips on navigating the corporate landscape as a female leader. Our guests share their personal journeys, discussing the obstacles they faced and the strategies they employed to succeed. Whether you’re just starting your leadership journey or looking for ways to advance your career, this episode provides a wealth of knowledge and inspiration.

Discover how to build resilience, cultivate a supportive network, and leverage your unique strengths as a female leader.  This International Women’s Day, empower yourself with the tools and strategies needed to not only survive but thrive in leadership.

Join us for an engaging and uplifting conversation that celebrates the achievements of women in leadership, while providing actionable advice for those aspiring to make their mark. Don’t miss this special episode!

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Empowering Neurodiversity at Work

HR Consultant, Jamie Power, interviews Dr Samantha Hiew, award-winning professional speaker and Founder of ADHD Girls, which she founded after receiving an ADHD diagnosis at the age of 40.

With neurodivergent individuals making up 15-20% of the global population, this episode addresses steps for businesses to empower neurodivergent workers and reap the rewards of a diverse workforce.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Unlocking the Secret to Hiring Gen Z

Principal Consultant Katie Hawksley-Blackburn discusses everything Gen Z hiring-related with Global Employer Brand Manager Charlotte Steggall, who specialises in early careers at WTW.

The episode provides employers with a comprehensive overview on what attracts Gen Z to a role, and what will make them want to stay long term at a company.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Bringing Games Into Your HR Strategy

HR Consultant Jamie Power and Andy Yeoman, Strategic Developer at Totem Learning discuss what games can bring to your business. The conversation exhibits key insights into the value of gamification in HR.

This episode looks at how HR teams can use games and gamification to improve recruitment and onboarding processes, foster positive work environments and improve team dynamics.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: The Power of AI in HR

Technical Consultant Arian Hasanyan, discusses the hot topic of AI and automation with Devon Lovell, People Partner and HR Consultant at Fitzgerald HR. The conversation unveils key insights for businesses to elevate their HR function.

This episode looks at how HR teams can use AI and automation to reduce their administrative burden, improve talent acquisition, create a company strategy and policy around AI, and more.

From the Tiger’s Mouth: Cultivating Success with Employee Wellness and Mental Health Initiatives

Tiger New York’s Senior Consultant Jessica Krisburg, sat down with Jessalynn Hudgins, founder of Whole Health Wellness, to discuss how HR teams can leverage employee wellness initiatives to improve mental health, and workplace morale, and resonate with jobseekers and employees alike.

They also analyse the future trends in employee wellbeing, how HR teams can utilise technology to support wellbeing policies, strategies that companies should take note of, and much more.
Listen to the episode below!

The post From the Tiger’s Mouth: podcast for HR professionals appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Exceptional, innovative, industry-leading employees won’t simply walk through your company’s front door, no matter how impressive the reception. Competition is too high at the moment to be complacent or passive when it comes to hiring talent acquisition staff. To adapt an old saying, good things come to those with… a strong talent acquisition team – and building that strong team means knowing what to look for in a candidate.

But what is talent acquisition? It’s not simply a matter of recruiting to fill existing roles – it encompasses elements of HR, business strategy, marketing and trend forecasting, and thus calls for people with several strings to their bow.

Five key attributes of talent acquisition specialists

A good judge of character

It may seem overly simple, but an essential starting point for any talent acquisition professional is a strong intuition about who is the right fit for the role in question. This goes beyond gut instinct; a top talent acquisition specialist will train this perception by being deeply immersed in the ins and outs of their company, its industry, and the wider culture.

Within this context they will need to weigh the prospect’s personality, skillset and experience against the company’s needs, the dynamic of the team already in place, and the challenges in the future. The latter point leads us to another important trait.

Future-conscious

Time waits for no company, so staying ahead of the curve requires constant attention. The ways we do business have changed drastically even in the last 10 years, often leaving skills gaps within your workforce that must be plugged swiftly.

Your TA team should be in the vanguard looking for potential challenges and opportunities up ahead and keeping a close eye on the competition. This way they can report to business heads on the company’s blind spots, and advise on recruitment drives and in-house staff training to ensure future-proofing across the whole business.

Tech-savvy

Hand-in-hand with a forward-thinking mindset is technological know-how. Recruiting for roles is becoming increasingly data-driven, and while the latter stages of choosing the right candidate will always benefit from the human touch, starting with the data approach is more and more essential.

The best TA teams understand this and are well-trained in the latest data software and analysis. They put in research on candidates through a variety of means that go well beyond the typical CV and interview route.

Speak the language

It’s often new technology and changing cultural norms that expose holes in a company’s operational knowledge, so it follows that those with the necessary skillset are typically in the younger demographic. It’s important then to be able to communicate with them in a way that will catch their interest and draw them in.

We’re not suggesting going all-out on memes or TikTok videos, but tweaking certain aspects of company branding and your job adverts will show your company to be a player in the here and now, facing the future. Talent Acquisition teams should work closely with marketing departments to ensure they’re talking to the right audience in the right language.

Relationship-minded

Identifying a highly promising prospect is only half the battle for talent acquisition managers; attracting and then securing them as a new hire requires a different set of relationship management skills. We’ve spoken of the importance of talent recruiters planning for and targeting business growth, but they also need to think of the other side of the table and show prospective employees the opportunity for their career growth at the company.

And that’s not all; it’s also crucial that TA teams think internally as well as externally. The best TA specialist will follow through on the promises made in the courting phase and pay close attention to the needs of these new hires (and indeed the full gamut of employee retention), devising training and development plans and wellness initiatives that both attract and retain.

Along with the wider HR department, talent acquisition performs an impressive balancing act between business needs and employee needs, something that has been at the front of everyone’s minds since the pandemic began. Having a strong TA team can thus be a key piece of the puzzle in staying ahead of the competition.

As for acquiring the acquisition, Tiger HR is the leader in placing talent acquisition candidates in all manner of businesses, so please get in touch today to talk to a consultant about your needs.

The post The Five attributes we look for in talent acquisition specialists appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Creating impactful charity-corporate partnerships can generate incredible value, not only for the charity itself but also for all employees involved. From making a difference in your local community to improving team morale, these partnerships present a powerful opportunity to align corporate goals with meaningful social impact.

We spoke to Brendan McGowan, a Senior Consultant at New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), on our podcast From the Tiger’s Mouth to share his tips for establishing meaningful partnerships. With 20 years of experience working in the charity sector, Brendan breaks down the essential steps to effectively define and measure your impact.

Setting up an effective charity partnership

Start with a Clear Rationale

Whether motivated by an emotional connection, a critical unmet need, or a desire to boost visibility for a cause, companies should establish a well-defined purpose for their charitable partnerships. Brendan explains how this clarity helps to establish alignment from the outset and provides a strong foundation for a successful collaboration. For example, Kellogg’s partnership with Magic Breakfast addresses food insecurity by providing breakfasts to children. The alignment of a cereal brand providing breakfasts for children is clear, with Kellogg’s bringing their expertise to make a real impact.

Define Your Desired Impact

Before embarking on any partnership, it is vital to identify what success looks like. Brendan emphasises the importance of understanding both short- and long-term goals. For some organisations, success might mean achieving certain measurable outcomes, such as meeting specific fundraising goals. For others, it could involve broader ambitions like improving wellbeing within the local community or supporting multi-year initiatives. Establishing these benchmarks early on, and continuing to check in on your progress, helps ensure that both the charity and the business remain aligned throughout the entire partnership.

Leverage Your Unique Assets

Beyond financial contributions, consider the unique skills, expertise, and resources your company can offer. Brendan stresses that successful partnerships involve more than just transactional donations. Companies may wish to contribute to the charity’s impact by providing strategic advice, marketing support, or technical expertise. For instance, employees might offer IT training for a charity’s staff or use their own financial acumen to serve as trustees, adding lasting value to the relationship.

Understand the Charity’s Needs

Building a meaningful relationship requires a deep understanding of the charity’s challenges and priorities. Those involved in the partnership should spend time learning about the charity’s operations to confirm that they are addressing real priorities, rather than perceived ones. Brendan shared a fantastic example of Leyton Orient FC, whose foundation, the Leyton Orient Trust, delivers place-based initiatives such as coaching within local schools and youth groups, recovery programmes and employment support for adults in the area. By embedding themselves within their local community, Leyton Orient FC has achieved a profound, long-lasting impact.

Co-Design the Strategy

Work closely with your chosen charity to create a shared roadmap. This should include clear objectives, measures of success, and a framework which lays out how you will commit to continuous improvement. Brendan also highlights the importance of recognising the power dynamics between companies and charities and explains how open, honest communication can help to balance out this relationship. Co-designing the strategy not only builds trust but also establishes mutual ownership of the charitable outcomes.

Use Theory of Change to Measure Success

The theory of change framework offers a structured method for evaluating the impact of charity-corporate partnerships. This process includes completing a situation analysis, defining your target groups, mapping activities to their outcomes and identifying key metrics to monitor progress. Brendan describes it as a comprehensive strategy that helps all stakeholders understand their roles and contributions toward achieving the partnership’s goals. By continuously reviewing and reflecting on the partnership’s aims and plans, both companies and charities can optimise their efforts to achieve maximum impact.

Support with Multi-Year Funding

One of the many ways companies can provide meaningful support is through multi-year funding. This enables charities to plan strategically and invest in sustainable solutions, rather than constantly seeking short-term funding. For businesses, committing to multi-year partnerships signals a genuine commitment to social impact, and ultimately allows for deeper stakeholder engagement.

Enhancing Employee Engagement

Charity partnerships offer much more than external impact; they can also transform the culture of a workplace. Activities like volunteering days, charity challenges, or collaborative projects provide employees with opportunities for skill development and purpose-driven work. For instance, a marketing team might collaborate with a charity to enhance its communications strategy, creating an opportunity for mutual learning. These initiatives help to build camaraderie and pride within teams, ultimately boosting overall staff engagement and retention.

Real-World Examples

Brendan highlighted several examples of impactful partnerships:

• Magic Breakfast and Kellogg’s: This collaboration addresses food insecurity by providing school-aged children with daily breakfasts, aligning Kellogg’s product offerings with a pressing social need.
• Leyton Orient Trust and Leyton Orient FC: By embedding themselves within their local community, this partnership delivers initiatives which tackle health inequalities and unemployment.
• Good Things Foundation and O2: Focused on digital inclusion, this collaboration offers free data to underserved communities, addressing the digital divide.

Practical Advice for Businesses

For companies considering charity partnerships, Brendan recommends that all stakeholders take a realistic and pragmatic approach. Mistakes are inevitable, but maintaining open dialogue and a willingness to adapt can help all involved to overcome challenges. Brendan suggests starting small, focusing on just one charity initially, and expanding partnerships as alignment and trust grow.

Why It Matters

At Tiger Recruitment, we’ve seen the incredible potential of charity partnerships firsthand through our ongoing work with Helen Bamber. Whether through pub quizzes or office fundraising challenges, our initiatives have not only supported a vital cause but also strengthened our team’s bond and sense of purpose.

For employers, hiring managers, and HR teams, these partnerships offer an opportunity to enhance your company’s external reputation while also delivering tangible benefits to both employees and the wider community. By following Brendan’s checklist and committing to long-term, collaborative relationships, you can create charitable partnerships that truly make a difference.

To hear more insights from Brendan McGowan, listen to the full episode of From the Tiger’s Mouth here, and for more information on developing meaningful charity partnerships, visit NPC’s website here.

The post How to Build Impactful Charity-Corporate Partnerships appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Before implementing any initiatives to improve inclusion, it is essential to first assess your company’s progress on workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Failing to do so can lead to assumptions and the oversight of key opportunities for improvement. Without analysing the data, how can you determine where to focus your efforts, which teams lack diverse representation, or where unconscious bias persists?

We know that diverse workforces far outperform those companies who don’t prioritise workplace DEI. A 2023 McKinsey report found that businesses in the top quartile for gender diversity on their board of directors are 27% more likely to financially outperform those in the bottom quartile. Similarly, those in the top quartile for ethnically diverse boards are 13% more likely to outperform the bottom quartile of businesses.

That’s why we asked Luiza Barwood, a seasoned Talent Consultant, DEI Adviser and Career Coach, to share her advice in a recent episode of Tiger Recruitment’s podcast From the Tiger’s Mouth. Luiza discussed how businesses can collect and analyse DEI data to drive maximum impact, even with limited resources.

Understanding DEI: The Basics

Before even starting to measure DEI, it’s essential to first understand what the terms diversity, equity and inclusion entail, particularly in the context of a workplace:

• Diversity refers to the mix of people within an organisation. This includes both visible and invisible characteristics such as gender, race, disability, age, neurodiversity, and socioeconomic background.
• Equity ensures fair treatment, access, and opportunity for all employees. While equality gives everyone the same resources, equity recognises systemic barriers and provides tailored support to level the playing field.
• Inclusion focuses on creating a culture where every employee feels valued, respected, and empowered to contribute fully.

Why Measuring DEI Matters

Measuring DEI is essential for accountability and continuous improvement. Without concrete data, businesses risk engaging in performative programmes rather than implementing meaningful change. Measuring workplace inclusion helps to answer critical questions such as:

• Who are we hiring, and is there diversity across all levels of the company?
• Who is being promoted and are growth opportunities accessible to all employees?
• Who is leaving after a short time? If there is a trend of certain demographics of employees leaving, what is driving them away?

It is crucial to address a broad range of metrics when measuring DEI. For example, an organisation might have a fantastic programme to attract diverse talent, but struggle to retain this diverse workforce once employees are through the door. Analysing a variety of metrics will mean that DEI efforts can be focused on the areas that are most needed, rather than wasting resources on already high-performing areas.

Key Metrics for Measuring DEI

To track DEI progress, businesses must analyse both quantitative (numerical) and qualitative (descriptive, non-numerical) data:

Workforce Demographics

Gathering quantitative demographic data across different levels of the business is the first step. Companies should track diversity in recruitment, promotions, and leadership positions, utilising resources such as DEI monitoring forms, filled out by job applicants. However, it is crucial to handle this demographic data with sensitivity and to explicitly communicate to employees how their data is being used.

Pay Equity Analysis

Analysing salary data by gender, race, disability and other protected characteristics can reveal pay gaps and compensation inequities. Collecting this quantitative data will highlight areas for improvement.

Employee Feedback and Inclusion Surveys

Numbers alone can’t provide the full picture of DEI progress. Conducting anonymous surveys to gauge employee experiences can uncover deeper insights into a company’s working environment. Key questions might include:

• Do you feel your voice is heard in meetings?
• Do you believe promotions are fairly distributed?
• Do you trust leadership to support DEI initiatives?

Retention Rates

Tracking who stays and who leaves can help to identify disparities. Are certain groups of employees leaving at higher rates? If so, what barriers might be driving them away? Whilst some of this retention data can be monitored using quantitative methods, pulse surveys and exit interviews will help HR teams to better understand any barriers preventing employees from remaining and progressing within the business.

Challenges in Measuring DEI

There are some common pitfalls when it comes to DEI measurement. Challenges can include:

Data Gaps

Employees may be hesitant to disclose demographic information due to privacy concerns. It is important to communicate exactly how data will be used and your company’s data privacy policies in order to reassure employees of how their data is analysed.

Lack of Actionable Insights

Gathering data is only useful if it leads to meaningful changes. Businesses should go beyond surface-level statistics to identify root causes of disparities and act swiftly to implement targeted solutions, such as policy changes or leadership training.

One-Size-Fits-All Approaches

DEI strategies should be tailored to a company’s specific needs. This is why measuring data is so impactful, as it enables you to implement strategies that will make a real difference.

The Role of AI in Measuring DEI

AI can transform the way we track and analyse DEI effort, and in particular, can support small businesses who have limited resources.

Inclusive Recruitment Processes

Starting from the very beginning of the recruitment cycle, Luiza suggests using AI to help create unbiased job descriptions. You can ask your chosen AI tool to help you identify and remove biased language that may deter certain demographics from applying. Once at the interview stage, AI platforms can help hiring managers remove bias from interview questions and select a diverse hiring panel.

AI in Data Analysis

AI tools can significantly cut down on resources required to analyse DEI data, when employees know how to use them effectively. Once the data has been gathered and anonymised, this can be plugged into an AI platform to analyse the breakdown of demographics that your company currently is attracting, helping you to see any disparities.

AI can also help examine promotion data, identify gaps and suggest ways to enhance data collection processes.

Innovative Improvement Strategies

Once past the analysing stage, AI can support you in discovering methods to improve your current efforts. Luiza suggests asking your chosen platform to create a schedule of employee resource groups and requesting prompts to initiate constructive group discussions.

Furthermore, AI can be useful if you’re looking to create a business case for senior leadership once a disparity has become apparent. For example, if you’re struggling to attract female engineers, an AI tool can suggest some targeted initiatives and evidence their efficacy within other organisations.

Yet, it is important to remember that AI needs to be used responsibly. Depending on the system in use, some AI platforms exhibit algorithm bias, often stemming from biased training data. Therefore, it is essential to have human oversight on any AI initiative to check for and address potential biases.

Turning Data into Action

While collecting data is a key step to improving a business’ DEI practices, it is just the beginning. Companies must follow through on their findings to initiate real progress. To turn DEI data into action, businesses should:

Communicate Findings Transparently

Employees should understand why their data is being collected and how it will be used. To further improve communication, companies can regularly feedback to employees on how their data has been used to implement inclusive initiatives. This may encourage employees to share their experiences more readily, making future DEI measurements even more representative of the full business.

Set Clear Goals

It is important to establish measurable objectives once you have noticed a disparity in opportunities. Examples may include increasing diverse representation in leadership roles by a certain percentage, or improving trust in leadership to support DEI by providing annual inclusion training.

Implement Targeted Improvements

Identified gaps can be addressed through mentorship programmes, inclusive hiring practices, and equitable career development opportunities. For further support on how to make your hiring practices more inclusive, please see our DEI Recruitment Guidelines.

Monitor and Adapt

DEI metrics should be regularly reviewed to ensure that improvement strategies remain relevant. Goals and strategies may need adjusting based on your findings to ensure they are still having the desired impact.

Measuring DEI is a continuous journey rather than a one-time task. Businesses that authentically commit to tracking, analysing, and acting on DEI data will create a fairer workplace, and ultimately build a stronger, more successful business in the long run. By developing an inclusive environment where all employees feel supported to perform at their best, businesses position themselves as ethical, responsible employers, enabling them to attract and retain exceptional talent.

The post How to Measure Diversity Within an Organisation appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

On 2017’s International Women’s Day, Iceland made waves by announcing that from January 1, 2018, it would be illegal to pay women any less than men. As the first country in the world to do so, they set a new standard for addressing the gender pay gap, with the aim of completely eradicating it by 2022.

Despite having an equal pay act in their national legislation since 1961, until very recently, there were no repercussions for Icelandic businesses who chose to pay women less. The new law means that any public or private company that employs more than 25 people needs to be independently certified as paying equal wages for work of equal value. If they can’t prove this, they will be fined daily until they do.

This initiative, coupled with the requirement that companies with over 50 employees should have boards with 40% women, has reiterated the country’s position as the best in the world for gender equality. It’s a title they’ve held for the last nine years.

What about the UK?

PwC’s 2018 Women in Work report1 also identified Iceland as the top performing Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country for female economic empowerment, sitting in front of its Nordic neighbours, Sweden and Norway. The UK has dropped down one position to 15th, having been overlapped by improvements in job market conditions in other countries. While unequal pay is technically illegal in the UK, there are no repercussions for those who wish to ignore it.

London, in particular, has taken its time in attempting to close the gap, lagging behind other regions such as Wales and South West England. This is partly explained by the location of industries with higher pay gaps – for example, the financial and insurance sector (which has a large showing in the City of London) has a gap of 31%.

What is being done?

That said, small strides are being made across the UK to try and close this gap. The introduction of compulsory gender pay gap reporting means that employers with more than 250 staff are now legally required to publish the following figures on their own website and on a government website:

• Gender pay gap (mean and median averages)

• Gender bonus gap (mean and median averages)

• Proportion of men and women receiving bonuses

• Proportion of men and women in each quartile of the organisation’s pay structure

By increasing transparency, the aim is to place a spotlight on the factors that contribute to the gap and encourage businesses to take tangible action.

What can we do?

The PwC report identified three policies that would encourage the closing of the gap: increased spending on family benefits and childcare; encouraging female entrepreneurship; and improving opportunities in higher-paying, higher-skilled roles by increasing flexibility. In practical terms, this translates to initiatives such as affordable childcare, shared parental leave, the promotion of women into decision-making positions and the introduction of flexible working in senior positions. The end result could convert into a £180 billion boost to the UK’s GDP.

It’s not just companies who should be implementing these policies – the government also has a role to play. While closing the gap is already a policy focus, attention should be directed to improving the support systems for families to help women stay in or return to work. Proactive measures such as tackling workplace harassment and discrimination are also essential in making workplaces welcoming and encouraging career progression.

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Looking for ways to attract more female talent? Tiger Recruitment can help. Get in touch today!

1. https://www.pwc.co.uk/economic-services/WIWI/women-in-work-index-2018.pdf

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In today’s working environment, diversity is no longer an aim – it is an expectation. UK law requires that employers promote equality within the workplace and carefully consider whether they are discriminatory on any grounds.

If you’re looking to hire permanent staff, establishing a diverse workforce doesn’t mean paying lip service to legislation – there is, in fact, a solid business case for increasing diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Organisations that employ people from a range of backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, religions and age groups are usually much more successful because diverse people bring with them diverse skills and ways of thinking, which can positively impact the output of any business.

Diversity monitoring* is an important means of implementing and promoting diversity within the workplace. By collecting data on who your organisation employs and analysing the results, you can address the areas of your business that you feel could benefit from greater diversity, while identifying how it has benefited you in other areas.

But creating a diverse workforce doesn’t have to burdensome for hiring managers and the HR community. Here are some important points to consider when evaluating diversity within your workforce and how to monitor it effectively:

Create your own business case

Think about how diversity can contribute towards the commercial strategy of your organisation. Communicate this up to board level to ensure that its importance is understood throughout the business. With C-suite buy-in, you can help to create an environment that fully supports diverse initiatives. Starting a conversation about diversity and investment in people can also help to stimulate morale, and in turn productivity, among existing employees.

Monitoring forms

Collecting data from your employees, interviewed candidates and applicants is easy with diversity monitoring forms. They can help to measure how diverse your current workforce is and allow you to make equality improvements to ensure your HR processes are fair. These forms will give you information about how good your organisation is at attracting people to apply for roles from a broad spectrum of society. It is important that you communicate exactly why you are asking for this information, how you will be using it to inform your HR procedures and how it will help to create a better workforce.

Review the data

Use the data you have gathered to help you design or amend HR policies that will attract and retain a talented workforce. By comparing and contrasting the data you gather in various parts of your organisation, you’ll be able to identify where your organisation could benefit from broadening the talent pool. You can also contrast these figures to the wider labour market to get an idea of whether you need urgently address equality within your workplace – if so, it will be a useful exercise to investigate how and why this bias might have developed.

Take action

If your workplace isn’t hitting its diversity targets, you might need to consider altering the way you approach the recruitment process. Perhaps you need to reconsider the way you write job descriptions or even the recruitment companies you use to help you hire the right candidates. You could consider a collaborative approach to recruitment, which will provide a broad pool of candidates – from social networks, traditional jobs boards and recruiters – and help you to select the right individual with input from colleagues throughout the business.

If you’d like help to broaden your talent pool and search for candidates, our HR recruitment agency is ready to help!

*http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4071

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Unconscious bias: educating teams towards diverse hiring

The positive impact of diversity in the workplace is not news. For many years we’ve known that business productivity, company culture and employee satisfaction improve with a workplace made up of diverse genders, nationalities, sexualities, ages, ethnicities and educational backgrounds.

Despite all this information, the reality of adopting diversity and inclusion in the workplace is not as easy as simply implementing policy change. Unconscious bias also plays its part in a well-meaning hiring manager not hiring diversely. Unfortunately, the negative impact of non-diverse hiring falls on the minorities themselves. A fifth of respondents in the 2019 National LGBT Summary Survey[1] say they are not open with sexuality at work, and one quarter of businesses in the UK have a gender pay gap of more than 20%[2]. It is therefore very clear that bias has long-term consequences.

So, what is it? Unconscious bias is the subconscious prejudice we all have against different groups of people. This can manifest itself in preferencing one candidate over another, purely based on their personal characteristics, rather than their skills and experience. If it goes unexamined, increasing diversity in the workplace will be almost impossible. HR managers, if you’re working with hiring managers who you suspect might be hiring with unconscious bias, consider the following steps to help kick-start a change.

Unconscious bias training

Unconscious bias training has been criticised in the past for not being an effective solution to the problem. A study[3] has found that it may reinforce stereotypes in the workplace, as the training clarifies existing stereotypes and may give people permission to use them in the office. Another problem is that people may become defensive when confronted with their own ability to discriminate against others.

In order to make training effective, it has to be part of a multi-pronged approach that targets specific actions rather than hypothetical situations. It must also be tailored to your company and your hiring manager. Don’t set unrealistic expectations about timing: it is unlikely that there’ll be a major increase in diverse hires immediately. Just focus on making a small change at first.

Revamp job descriptions

A job description may be the first piece of communication a potential hire receives from your company. There are many subtle ways the wording of a job description can either encourage, or completely discourage, different people from applying. Work with your hiring manager to understand that words like ‘dominant’, ‘rock star’, ‘expert’ and ‘superior’ are problematic as they are seen as gendered and can discourage women. In addition, if you want to attract individuals of varying sexualities, nationalities or ages, include a line about your diversity values within the job description. It will imply that you are open to hiring a more diverse range of people.

Change the way you assess CVs

A blind CV assessment is the easiest way to eliminate bias from the first stage of the selection process, however it may not be enough. It has been found that the types of words used on CVs can actually give the hiring manager an indication of gender, without knowing a person’s name. Using blind CVs alongside other techniques, like an AI software, which is programmed to ignore all demographic information and use data reference points instead. Discuss adopting this change with the head of recruitment at your business, because it does make a monumental difference in the number of minorities considered for the role.

More focus on skills tests

For some positions, a skills test is integral to hiring successfully. But what if the only candidates that progressed to that stage were selected through a biased process? Talk to your hiring manager about re-examining their recruitment practice to put more emphasis on skills tests. Once the results come in, take the people with the best scores through to interview stage as a non-negotiable, regardless of who they are.

If you’re looking for your next great hire, contact our team today!

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/04/gender-pay-gap-figures-show-eight-in-10-uk-firms-pay-men-more-than-women

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25314368

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Diversity and inclusion in the workplace

Diversity continues to be one of the most salient issues for hiring managers and leadership teams. With very little empirical evidence to suggest a series of best practices, it is a challenge that requires serious investment, with ongoing research, experimentation and feedback.

Table of contents

• What is diversity and inclusion?
• Why is diversity and inclusion important?
• How to create a diversity and inclusion plan (webinar)
• How can you raise awareness of diversity, equality and inclusion?
• Effective diversity initiatives
• Diversity in recruitment
• How to monitor diversity 
• The future of diversity and inclusion practices

What is diversity and inclusion?

Diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace is the term to describe the complete participation, respect, acknowledgement, acceptance of employees, regardless of their age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender or physical abilities.

Why is diversity and inclusion important?

The benefits of establishing a diverse workplace are undisputed – in addition to boosting the UK economy by £24 billion a year, a multi-faceted workforce has also been shown to improve engagement and productivity, encourage creativity and lead to a more innovative working environment.

Yet, the current state of play shows there is still plenty to be done. Worldwide Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020 sparked a larger conversation about the state of diversity in every sphere, including business. While this is something that many (particularly those from underrepresented groups) have spoken out about for a long time, it took this global event to be a catalyst for many companies to create better diversity and inclusion practices.

In 2020, the updated Parker Review found that 37% of FTSE 100 boards have no ethnic minority representation on their boards. While this is progress from 51% of those surveyed in 2017, it falls short of the initial target for every FTSE 100 board to have at least one member from an underrepresented background by 2021. In terms of diversity training, the McGregor-Smith Review in 2018 found that only 48% of employees surveyed reported having participated in the past [2].

When it comes to gender diversity, women made up 9.7% of executives in FTSE 100 companies [3] and only 16% of executive committees at FTSE 350 companies in 2018 [4]. In 2016, the government-backed Hampton-Alexander review set a target for a third of UK-based board positions to be held by women in 2020. As of Feburary 2020, this target was reached. However,  Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom has stated that there is more work to be done in certain industries. For example, only 15% of FTSE 100 finance directors are women [5] and the gender disparities within the technology industry are widely known (our research of 1,000 UK workers found that only 1% of female jobseekers wanted to work in a tech startup).

How to create a diversity and inclusion plan

In August 2020, Tiger hosted a webinar with three diversity and inclusion specialists, Simon Fanshawe, Partner at Diversity by Design and Co-founder of Stonewall; Holiday Phillips, Founder and Chief Wisdom Officer at KULA; and Sarah Ramsden, a Management Consultant at The Clear Company. They discussed the increased interest in diversity and inclusion and how employers can create a sustainable diversity and inclusion plan for their businesses. Watch the webinar below.

How can you raise awareness of diversity, equality and inclusion?

Raising awareness of diversity, equality and inclusion within the workplace can be difficult. An important place to start is to know your ‘why’ – once you understand your motivation, you can start to target the areas of D&I your business is lacking. A broad, one-size-fits-all policy is not going to be effective in this area. Instead, create measurable metrics that make sense to your business and put in place specific initiatives based on these.

While most businesses are aware of the benefits of diversity, it can continue to be a huge challenge to see positive changes in modern workplaces. There are a few reasons for this:

The first complication lies in the simplification of the concept.

“It’s not enough to want diversity. Every team, office and business needs to decide why diversity is going to help them improve and go from there,” says Simon Fanshawe OBE, co-founder of consultancy, Diversity by Design.

For Aubrey Blanche, Global Head of Diversity and Belonging at software giant Atlassian, the term doesn’t do enough to represent the issue as a whole.

“I’m actually not a fan of the word ‘diversity’. According to Atlassian’s research, people associate the word ‘diversity’ with people who come from underrepresented backgrounds, rather than being about everyone,” she says.

“According to Atlassian’s 2018 State of Global Diversity & Inclusion Report, 68% of tech workers in the UK identify women as an important part of the diversity discussion, but the drop off is steep for other groups (and severe for identities in majority groups).”

This unintended exclusion of certain identities from the conversation is a key contributor to a lack of progress in representation: “Businesses should strive to create teams with a balance of perspectives – which is strongly influenced by our identities and life experience,” says Aubrey.

Simon agrees, noting that organisations need to value the difference people can bring: “Research says high-performing teams work because they have an ability to encompass and embrace difference and set new norms of ways of working,” he says.

In fact, it is these situations that positive diversity results, or diversity dividends, come about. Scott E. Page, a University of Michigan professor in complex systems and political science argues that “when solving problems, diversity may matter as much, or even more than, individual ability.”

Other benefits of diverse hiring include improved employer branding, better hiring management practices, increased employee satisfaction and better business performance.

Effective diversity initiatives

So, what practical steps can businesses take to start their journey of creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace culture?

While successful initiatives will differ depending on the company, size and culture, examples of effective diversity initiatives can include:

• Empathetic leadership – every leader should have a personal interest in creating diversity and be able to promote this in their daily actions
• Facilitate mentorships, sponsorships, networks and training opportunities for employees from underrepresented backgrounds
• Sustainable, ongoing training programs for diversity and inclusion (rather than a one-off session)
• Implementing flexible working policies, including equal parental leave
• Taking part in external events celebrating underrepresented groups, such as Pride

With these in mind, it’s clear diversity initiatives need to go beyond quotas and broad policies.

“Good intentions are not enough. Leaders have to see the value in the process, but research tells us we can’t re-educate.” Simon says.

“Creating a new norm is fundamentally important to the ways we change our behaviours.”

At Atlassian, the concept is ingrained into their mission, with each employee expected to contribute according to their role. Taking a data-informed approach, they measure, experiment, learn and iterate, and where possible, share these findings with the global tech industry, recognizing that it’s an industry-level problem that requires broad solutions.

“We’ve pioneered a team-level approach to measuring workforce diversity, and have used those insights to drive a greater sense of belonging amongst our global workforce,” says Aubrey.

Depending on the company and industry, the success of initiatives will vary. The steps to improving diversity in tech startups, for example, will differ compared to a global investment bank.

When it comes to attracting groups like return-to-work parents, initiatives like flexible working are critical. However, without support from management, businesses will be unlikely to retain these talented individuals.

Diversity in recruitment

Diversity in businesses starts with recruitment practices. While some businesses have started to change up their traditional processes in an attempt to minimise bias (by using blind CVs, increasing skills testing and standardised interview questions), others are completely revamping their hiring activities.

One particular win for Atlassian was a growth in technical female hires in entry-level graduate roles to 57% over two years, as well as an increase of overall hiring of women in technical roles to 18%. To do this, Aubrey and her team deployed a number of strategies.

“First, we created branding that appealed to a broader variety of candidates. Our Talent Brand Team updated our careers site to include a more balanced set of Atlassians, and highlighted a more inclusive set of perks and benefits that appealed to people at different points in their life, like career growth opportunities, comprehensive healthcare, and emergency backup childcare,” says Aubrey.

“These changes made most people coming to the site feel like they recognized not only themselves, but the type of activities, social occasions, and work settings they wanted to work in,” she continues.

The second element was to re-examine the requirements of a role.

“According to Hewlett Packard, the majority of women won’t apply for jobs unless they think they meet all the criteria posted. However, most men will apply even if they only meet 60% of listed requirements.”

“We now write job advertisements with requirements as the lowest barrier to entry, instead of a wish list for a magical unicorn,” continues Aubrey.

For Simon, re-designing the recruitment process away from requirements is essential to encouraging diverse mindsets.

“Most diversity work that goes on doesn’t involve enough re-design. When hiring or promoting, businesses need to think very hard about what the team or group is trying to achieve,” he says.

“From there, they need to establish the criteria they want to hire against and question these rigorously. They also need to consider why they are wanting to diversify and what kind of diversity would make their ability to achieve that goal better.”

This process will ensure that potential candidates are chosen on essential criteria alone, rather than any unconscious bias.

One of the other ways businesses can eliminate this bias is through AI. Atlassian has also found success with Textio, an augmented writing platform that helps them identify the highest-impact language in their job ads and highlights subtly gendered works within their copy.

How to monitor diversity

Diversity monitoring is the term used to describe the implementation and recording of diversity initiatives in the workplace. By ensuring that your business continues to work towards diversity goals, you can create more opportunities for underrepresented groups. The steps to monitoring diversity effectively include: creating a business case, using goal-specific monitoring forms, reviewing the data against your company’s goals and identifying what success looks like. Effective diversity monitoring will help you to increase the number of employees from underrepresented backgrounds and close the gender pay gap.

The future of diversity and inclusion practices

With all this in mind, where do businesses go from here? For Simon, it’s not about shifting thinking, but acknowledging that bias exists and creating new norms that remove the need to make decisions that encourage it.

“Research tells us we can’t re-educate out of these decisions but we have to re-design processes.”

He encourages businesses to reject the idea of culture fit and instead bank on individualities: “The new norms come from a combination of difference and that’s where you get the dividends from diversity.”

“The most interesting thing about other people is how they are different from you, not how they are the same,” Simon finishes.

For Aubrey, the objective is simple: “The ultimate goal is to build a balanced team, in terms of skill and ability as well as varied life experiences and knowledge people bring to the table.”

1. https://www.ey.com/en_uk/news/2020/02/new-parker-review-report-reveals-slow-progress-on-ethnic-diversity-of-ftse-boards#

2. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/race-at-work-2018-mcgregor-smith-review-one-year-on

3. https://www.market-inspector.co.uk/blog/2017/05/workplace-diversity-in-the-uk

4. https://economia.icaew.com/news/july-2018/women-on-ftse-350-executive-committees-sees-no-change

5. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/third-of-ftse-100-board-members-now-women-but-business-secretary-says-more-needs-to-be-done

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Employee engagement continues to be one of the greatest challenges for modern workplaces. The current low unemployment rate and candidate-led market mean businesses need to invest in talent retention initiatives to ensure they don’t miss or lose out.

Your employees’ engagement levels can be best measured during busy periods, as this is when they are most susceptible to stress and low morale. During this time, even the most passionate of employees may experience a drop, resulting in reduced performance levels and overall productivity.

Therefore, it is essential to implement structures that boost office morale, recognising that in times of negativity, employees may need their employer to go a little bit further to encourage productivity and performance.

Involvement

It is very important for each employee to be involved in the future of the business, not only for themselves, but to help to generate fresh ideas that you may not have thought about. It may be that you are launching a new page on your website, or maybe that you are taking on a new client – whatever the venture, let your colleagues know and ask for their opinion. Your employees will certainly feel valued if they are included in important discussions about the company’s future. Take their all-important feedback on board – after all, they may offer a relevant perspective that could influence your business strategy.

Team meetings are a great way to communicate with the entire business. Whether you hold a daily, weekly or monthly catch up, your employees will appreciate being involved and getting a better understanding of the business as it stands.

Recognition

All employees like to be recognised for their hard work. Most employees will go above and beyond what is expected of them, working out of hours and on weekends in order to deliver high standards of work. A ‘thank you’ goes a long way, and your employees will be thrilled to see that you appreciate their efforts.

Try to keep a note of birthdays in your Outlook diary, with reminders, so you can wish them well on their special day. You might also consider taking an interest in their outside life. It will be up to them if they want to keep this information to themselves, but they will still be grateful to know that you care.

You may have delegated a task to a particular employee that could have been part of a larger project. When the project comes to an end, show said member of staff the outcome. This way they will understand how important their input was in the entire process and will feel extremely valued.

Company days out

Company days out are a great way to show your appreciation while also fostering a sense of community and camaraderie. These don’t need to be extravagant – they can be as expensive as you want them to be! You can pick and choose the activities – you can to take the team away for a long weekend for a team building exercise, or spend the day locally, getting to know each other outside of the office. You may just want to go for dinner or even just drinks. By encouraging social time outside of the office, your team can step out of work mode and enjoy their colleagues’ company regardless of what’s happening 9-5.

Promotion

When you are next looking to fill a role within the company, think about your current team. Would a certain member of staff fit the role perfectly? Promotions are a great way to boost an employee’s confidence and they will feel as though you have faith and trust in them.

Do try to offer training and coaching to your current employees. This will be beneficial to both yourself and your staff member and they will feel valued since you are investing time and money in them.

Responsibility

Delegate important tasks to your team. By giving them additional responsibility to their current role, they will feel their worth within the company. It will also display your trust in them and that you feel  they are capable.

Targets

Give your employees targets, with rewards at the end. This could be additional days’ holiday, or even money or gift vouchers. This will incentivise your team, boosting staff morale and will help to generate more enthusiastic and passionate employees.

Clean office, clean mind

Ensure that your employees help to keep the office clean and tidy. No one likes to work in mess!
Try to operate a ‘clear desk policy’, where each employee must tidy up before they leave for the day. A tidy desk helps an employee to work to their full potential – it can be a huge struggle to be productive when surrounded by paperwork and empty coffee mugs.

General perks

Some companies like to offer additional perks to their staff. This may be something as simple as leaving slightly earlier on a Friday afternoon, offering free lunch one day a week, welcoming dogs once a month, or by bringing in ice creams for the team on a hot day. Small things go a long way when trying to make staff happy.

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Would hiring a PA, EA or employee experience manager ease the stress of your employees? Get in touch with Tiger today to see how we can help.

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As we look ahead to a time where the government’s restrictions relax and offices begin to reopen, preparing a workspace to help businesses return to the office after COVID is one of the primary concerns for many employers. To help navigate these changes, we recently interviewed one of our PA Collective® partners, Winkworth Interiors, to better understand how offices are changing. Managing Director, Ashley Winkworth, reveals his insights on the practicalities to consider when transitioning to a post-pandemic office space.

What are the current requirements for offices to be ‘COVID-safe’?

Every workplace should have a COVID workplace risk assessment and return-to-office plan carried out by a team member or HR manager prior to staff and visitors re-entering the office or workplace. Organisations will have differing requirements and, as such, need to personalise their approach. In this assessment, there should be a brief summary of the utilisation of spacing, signage and regular deep cleaning regimes. Many businesses are also choosing to add glazed or perspex screens on desk tops to aid in the reduction of transmission of the virus.

We’re seeing many organisations planning to reduce the number of staff occupying the office at any one time by splitting department teams up. If infection should occur, an entire team may be forced to self-isolate, which would risk the operational performance of the organisation.

Unfortunately, a much-neglected area of focus is ventilation (both mechanical and natural), within the workplace. COVID-19 guidance has been developed by REHVA (Federation of European HVAC Associations), with additional content from CIBSE and BESA, which recommends that operation times are extended for buildings which have mechanical ventilation systems, with “ventilation [starting] at nominal speeds for at least two hours prior to use with an adjustment to a lower speed two hours after the building is used. Even if the building is temporarily vacated, it is recommended that the ventilation system remains operational at slow speeds to create a continuous supply and extract of air to reduce or eliminate the presence of airborne virus.” [1]

Unfortunately, a much-neglected area of focus is ventilation (both mechanical and natural), within the workplace.

What is the average spend for an office reconfiguration?

We already had existing teams dedicated to providing fast track changes and reconfiguration of our clients’ office spaces prior to COVID, so we are geared up to operate economically. The cost very much depends on size and extent of the works, which could start from as little as a few hundred pounds.

How are most offices changing post-COVID?

There are two popular changes clients are asking for: installing toughened glass screens mounted directly on to desks/above the existing desks screens, and reducing the number of staff using the office at any one time.

Are office trends breaking away from traditional open plan spaces?

It will ultimately take time to see if this proves popular. In recent years the emphasis, due to the high cost of office space, has been to reduce desk sizes and increase density. There have been a number of reports carried out suggesting that in noisy, open plan offices it constrains productivity and the ability for staff to make effective phone calls and sustain higher concentration levels.

Traditionally, occupiers such as lawyers and accountants have embraced the ‘partner’ office. In time, some senior decision makers may wish to move away from the open plan system. It’s likely that the operational costs of running an office will mean that some organisations won’t be able to afford the large amounts of space needed for social distancing. So, the use of screens and team/departmental divides are likely to become more popular where space and budgets permit.

What is the time frame your clients can expect if they enlist your services for their office reconfiguration?

We have a rapid reaction team and can typically visit a client within 48hrs and can start to make changes at their office in as little as a few days.

Are attitudes changing towards office use and how may it impact on staff?

There is a stark contrast between those companies who appear to easily operate remotely and those experiencing a less positive experience. While some currently embrace the working-from-home ethos, there are others who are not able to work to the best of their ability while working remotely. Increasingly, feedback has shown issues such as distractions of home life, the suitability of their home office set-up, poor internet performance and mobile phone signal can all hamper performance. There is also a certain level of self-motivation needed to be able to operate effectively at home, and remote onboarding can be difficult for businesses who have never had to do so before.

Feedback has shown issues such as distractions of home life, the suitability of their home office set-up, poor internet performance and mobile phone signal can all hamper performance.

Many younger members of staff benefit from the interaction with more experienced team members and informal training available when working in the office. A key factor missing from working from home is the absence of human interaction and camaraderie naturally achieved in the office environment.

Where staff are not required to work in city centres such as London, over the medium-to-long term, there is a knock-on effect in other areas. These could range from cuts in the London weighting allowance, increased rail fares through reduced passenger use, and higher domestic running costs throughout the autumn and winter months (when there is greater use of lighting, heating and power). Issues like these may, over time, leave some individuals wishing to see the pendulum swing back in favour of a return to the office after COVID-19.

If you’re interested in discounted rates and vouchers for your office reconfiguration, email pacollective@tiger-recruitment.co.uk. If you’re an employer looking for guidance in navigating the coming months, our future of work after COVID-19 article will help!

[1] https://www.rehva.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/REHVA_COVID-19_guidance_document_V3_03082020.pdf

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Gone are the days of ladder-like career progression, where a trainee or entry-level assistant would slowly work up the ranks of their company to eventually reach a senior position. The modern world of work has transformed, bringing with it a new approach to career development, where experience and learning are emphasised and pathways appear in a matrix or web, not ladder form.

In Deloitte’s 2018 Global Human Capital Trends Survey, a 21st century career is defined as “a series of developmental experiences, each offering a person the opportunity to acquire new skills, perspectives and judgement”.¹ Technological advances mean that the value is shifting from technological skills to soft ones – with companies surveyed listing “complex problem-solving, cognitive abilities and social skills as the most needed capabilities for the future”. Therefore, business’ learning and development policies need to focus on supporting their employees to maintain a constant state of learning, while encouraging growth and longevity. After all, with careers now reasonably spanning over 50 years, the 21st century worker must be about to “pivot throughout this journey to align with evolving jobs, professions and industries.”¹

Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of administrative professionals. In years gone by, when you hired a PA, you’d expect their career ladder to be quite linear, starting in a junior administrative assistant or junior secretary position and slowly moving up to take on more responsibility and complexity. However, the modern administrator can now diversify into a range of areas, taking on a wide set of responsibilities and developing their career in ways that were previously unavailable. It’s therefore vital to provide administrative staff with regular training.

Lindsay Taylor, specialist in the professional development of administrative professionals, says there is no longer a stock-standard progression path: “The evolution of the PA role over the last decade has resulted in a profession that is both diverse and complex, as a PA sees, hears and experiences what’s going on in their organisation from ‘the shop floor’ to the boardroom table,” she says.

“With a vast scope and breadth of opportunity for career advancement, there is no ‘one size fits all’ typical career path – this can absolutely be determined and shaped by the PA/EA taking ownership of their own career and ensuring they invest in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) as an essential and integral part of that journey.”

Sharing the responsibility

A 2017 study by the Executive and Personal Assistants Association (EPAA) found that 63.18% of PAs and EAs last completed formal training more than four years ago, but over 70% had undertaken some EA/PA specific training at some point in their career and 92.53% engage in activities outside the office like reading, networking and engaging with online resources, including webinars.²

The disparity between the formal training offered and the training administrators seek to do themselves demonstrates that there is a demand for training initiatives, but currently, support professionals are having to be self-sufficient, investing their own time in ensuring they understand the latest developments in the industry.

This is despite the clear evidence that investing in your staff’s career progression will help with your attraction and retention efforts in the long run. The 2018 Workplace Learning Report produced by LinkedIn found that 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if they invested in their career and for 90% of talent developers, people managers and executives, learning and development is a necessary benefit in the race for top talent.³

Lindsay notes this employee loyalty is incredibly clear when administrators sign up to one of their qualifications: “Those whose organisations more readily support the learning and development needs of their employees are proud to be a part of an organisation that invests in their staff and the resulting loyalty, commitment and engagement from these employees is evident.”

Investing in training as part of a career progression programme means that in the short-term, an administrative professional can share their newfound knowledge with your workplace, enhancing their efficiency and adding business value.

In line with the findings from Deloitte’s Human Capital Trends Survey, the LinkedIn research also revealed that leadership, communication and collaboration were the three most important skills for employees to take away from their L&D programmes, while the most important area of focus for talent development is how to train for soft skills.

Bridging the gap

So what can employers do to encourage the career progression of their administrative professionals? Rebecca Siciliano, Tiger’s Managing Director, notes it’s all about formalising initiatives: “We know that administrators such as PAs, EAs and office managers want to progress, so organisations need to implement formal frameworks to get them there.”

“This means establishing a clear reporting structure, feedback mechanisms and allocating time within the working day which they can devote to training,” she continues.

There are a host of secretarial business courses that can enhance an employee’s soft skills, covering topics like time management, prioritisation, diary management and multi-tasking, but not all training initiatives need be external. Rebecca says mentoring is an excellent way for a junior professional to build their skills, both technical and soft: “If an office manager wishes to move into an operations role, organise for some shadowing or a mentoring session with your operations manager, offering the opportunity to ask questions, observe processes and chat through situations.”

Businesses should also consider looking internally when hiring, allowing existing members of staff to take up a new opportunity before advertising elsewhere.

“A PA may start supporting junior members of the team, but could take the next step by supporting a director or executive, should a position arise,” Rebecca explains.

“It’s an easy transition for the employee and allows them to hit the ground running, rising to the challenge, while showing that the company is invested in their development.”

Lindsay suggests that businesses audit their performance review procedures.

“Performance reviews must offer a true opportunity for an employee to set goals and objectives that are meaningful. Having these to work towards will mean the employee is supported with their learning and development needs and because there is a procedure in place, it will be continuous.”

As with many other elements of the workplace, communication is also essential: “Businesses need to foster a culture of open communication where, not only is it accepted but rather it is expected that you check in with your manager, HR or L&D to let them know how you’re doing, so you can identify any gaps in your skillsets or knowledge,” says Lindsay.

“Businesses need to make it easy for employees to put forward ideas, suggestions and requests for development support. They need to encourage the development of soft skills, things such as communication, rapport-building, team dynamics and working styles, alongside subject specific learning.”

In the case of a PA or EA, examples of this support could include encouraging and valuing suggestions like setting up an internal PA network; attending PA conferences, exhibitions or seminars; working towards a recognised qualification, and subscribing to industry magazines and resources.

Measuring return on investment

Continuing professional development (CPD) may apply to each individual, but should be a business-led initiative.

“Supporting staff with their career progression builds loyalty and engagement, resulting in a positive impact in terms of productivity,” explains Lindsay.

“These closely linked elements ultimately contribute to the overall success of a business, whether that be financially, brand awareness or business reputation.”

For Rebecca, investing in the careers of your employees means a happier workforce that is more likely to go the extra mile.

“At the end of the day, a great employee will want to learn, grow and develop. Therefore, the more you can implement structures to do this, the more likely they are to contribute to the business.”
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Is this your year for career progression? Get in touch with our team today.

1. https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2018/building-21st-century-careers.html#
2. https://epaa.org.uk/time-to-train/
3. https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/workplace-learning-report-2018#

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According to a new report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), an estimated 137 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury in the UK in 2016. This equated to approximately 4.3 days per worker which is the lowest recorded number since the series began in 1993. Back then, it was 7.2 days per worker. The optimistic among us might say we’re healthier, but in reality the decrease in figure is down to increasing numbers of presenteeism. And the UK is among one of the worse culprits in Europe.

Nearly three quarters of employers admit to seeing an increase in the amount of people coming to work while sick, and it’s a worrying trend. It means that, for whatever reason, employees are feeling pressured to come into work if they’re feeling unwell or stressed. If employees are working through their illness, they’ll also likely be prolonging the sickness and working to less than their usual levels of productivity.

What is presenteeism?

Presenteeism is the act of employees coming to work whilst unwell and therefore are not performing at their optimum capacity; they’re not working productively. Commonly, this is because of an existing culture within the workplace where it’s discouraged to take time off regardless of health; it could also be because the business has not properly planned for illness so the resource is not there to cover anyone who is unexpectedly absent.

Why should you care about it?

Research from the CIPD shows that the cost of presenteeism to businesses is twice the cost of absenteeism. When an unwell worker comes into work, it not only compromises their performance and prolongs their illness; they also risk infecting others too. The spread of bugs and viruses can then lead to a chain reaction where entire teams are under-performing and producing a sub-standard quality of work.

What can you do to combat it?

Absence management should always start with looking at the data and exploring the reasons why people take time off and why they feel the need to come into work unwell. Once you’re in a position to start identifying trends and patterns, you can begin considering measures that are likely to improve levels of presenteeism in your workplace. (These measures must not be disciplinary!) The data should give you enough that you can start to plan for appropriate wellbeing initiatives to combat it.

If you’re looking to build a wellbeing programme from scratch you’ll need to get the buy-in from senior management as early as possible to ensure that employees feel comfortable about taking on the initiatives. Feel free to call on the expertise of external experts who can add value in a variety of ways. The initiatives should be broad and diverse so as to appeal to all your employees whose interests and personal motivations will be wide-ranging.

Surveys will help you to measure and track how employees are reacting to the initiatives on a qualitative basis. At the end of 6, 12, 18 months you can then use this data alongside quant absence data to be able to deliver hard facts to senior management about the programme performance and how the business is benefiting from it.

Speak to us about how to make your workplace one that candidates want to work for – get in touch today.

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In today’s job market, finding the best talent is proving harder than ever. While some are looking to hire HR staff in London to help with their people strategy, others are now looking beyond the basic salary package, introducing soft benefits that enhance their employees’ working lives. Could you introduce any of these into your business?

Should you be ready to hire, Tiger can help with all your permanent and temporary hiring needs. Get in touch today!

The post The best benefits to encourage attraction and retention appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

As organisations look for ways to attract and retain the best talent in this ongoing candidate-led market, hiring managers are increasingly examining the importance of employee engagement in the modern workplace. However, just as the world of work continues to shift and transform, what it means to engage staff is also evolving as companies look to the entire employee experience.

A report by Cascade, an HR and payroll software supplier found that 44% of the 447 HR directors surveyed said their biggest challenge for the year ahead would be engagement¹. The concern is warranted – a 2020 report from CharlieHR has found that 86% of SME employees don’t feel they are involved in decisions made at work (to the extent to which they’d like to be)² .

“A motivated employee is not only happier, healthier and more fulfilled at work, but they are also more productive,” says Jonny Gifford, a senior research advisor at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

“Research has shown a number of relationships between the way people are managed, their attitudes and behaviour and business performance. Organisations can expect to witness greater profit, revenue growth, innovation, staff retention and customer satisfaction as a result of motivation and other aspects of employee engagement.”

As it stands, just over half (58%) of the UK’s employees feel engaged at work³. So how can companies bridge the gap? One option is engaging the services of an employee experience manager. However, if you want to do this yourself, the first step is acknowledging the difference between the two concepts – and how they translate practically into the workplace.

Engagement v experience

“Employee engagement is the connection to the organisation or the brand, the connection to leadership and management and the connection you have with the job itself,” says Niall Ryan, employee experience consultant and former Head of Employee Engagement at Harrods.

“But the employee experience is how the organisation works internally for the employees who work there, encompassing the experiences they have with the leadership and their manager, all the way through to ‘how do I do my job’?” he continues.

“It’s experiences that shape how engaged people are.”

The end result should be employees that not only want to go the extra mile, but “generally demonstrate a high level of awareness surrounding the wider business context of an organisation, and carry out their work with these in mind,” says Jonny.

Going back to basics

However, before even considering how you implement these connections, it’s essential to consider how you are responding to employee needs at a basic level.

“Maslow’s hierarchy of needs applies to engagement – are you taking care of your employees’ hygienic needs, covering the basics such as good food in the canteen, the right tools to the job and clear guidance from managers? Even the basics of recognition – is anyone saying thank you?” asks Niall.

“When you take care of the hygienic needs, the security of a job, more capable management, you can then start to look at forums for two-way dialogue, where people feel like they are listened to, they feel like they can change things, they are contributing,” he concludes.

Creating connections

It is at this point that the brand, leadership and job role start to come into play. But just how do you make sure that every employee is connected with your brand, their leaders/managers and their role?

You don’t.

“It’s a fallacy to engage 100% of your workforce. It’s not possible and I don’t think you should put your efforts into doing that,” says Niall.

“There are people who are fully engaged, disengaged and then there are people in the middle who are passive. The passives – or the swing vote, as I like to call them – are the ones to give more focus to,” he reveals.

“Passives aren’t ineffective people by any means. They are probably the backbone of your organisation. But they are the people you need to be mindful of, because they are not as immersed in their roles as you would like which can be for many reasons; professional and personal.”

In order to ensure your passive staff members don’t disengage, consider facilitating relationships between them and your fully engaged employees, or engagement ambassadors, those who are enthusiastic about every element of your business. It will get these employees thinking more productively about the role they can play in the organisation, all while contributing to a positive employee experience. While the passive workforce should be your focus, “we can’t forget those who are fully engaged – it is still important to show them how valued they are in the organisation,” Niall notes.

Measuring success

A strong engagement strategy is well and good, but with no way to measure it, there’s no way of figuring out if it works. Prior to implementing any new initiatives, you need to capture a clear picture of where your employees are at, where you want to get to and how will you know when you’ve reached your goals.

“A barrier to engagement can be a lack of knowledge surrounding what motivates employees,” says Jonny.

“Evidence-based people management is vital if employers are to understand what factors are de-motivating their employees and make good decisions on which engagement initiatives to employ. This will often highlight things like poor line management or frustrating HR systems.”

The aforementioned data is traditionally collected through annual employee surveys. Getting this method right is crucial.

“Measuring engagement with composite scores carries a serious risk of over‐simplification. It is easy to fall into the trap of combining a range of distinct factors into an unhelpful single metric,” explains Jonny.

“A better approach is to measure distinct components – for example, motivation, organisational commitment, organisational citizenship, shared values, autonomy and employee voice.”

For Niall, the problem lies in the ‘annual’: “Annual employee surveys are falling out of favour quite rapidly, with a shift into pulse surveys.”

“Your business asks the customer in real time what they think about your brand, so it’s an oddity to only ask your employees once a year. The pulse survey process should allow organisations to be agile in its listening and agile in its response,” he continues.

Shifting strategies

As the world of work shifts, your business needs to shift with it. Taking a pulse approach, with bite-sized changes, can make huge differences to your overall engagement strategy.

“The most powerful thing to exist in my career is communications. Whatever you do, you need a core foundation of communicating whatever you’re doing as an organisation that’s both meaningful and relevant for your employees,” says Niall.

This means building and maintaining a robust communications framework within your business that fosters two-way dialogue and leadership visibility and accessibility, keeping employees connected to the brand, purpose, strategy, their leaders and managers and each other.

Managerial recognition is a well-established element of engagement, but where businesses can find additional value is at a peer to peer level: “The strongest relationships in an organisation are often team relationships, so you need to create an opportunity to support and strengthen those relationships and communities,” says Niall.

“Recognition isn’t just about the company doing top-down stuff, it’s about creating opportunities for people to recognise each other.”

At the crux of the matter is an emphasis on the employee voice.

“It’s essential to give employees throughout the organisation a meaningful voice, to challenge or reinforce organisational policies and procedures,” says Jonny.

“Involving employees in these decisions is key.”

Niall agrees, noting it all comes back to the employee experience: “When things aren’t quite working right, identify a group of people who are passionate about helping the organisation and let them be agents of change.”

“By facilitating a cross-functional group of people – doesn’t matter what level – that all have a common focus, you’re offering the wider organisation a chance to really help and get involved.”

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This piece is the fifth in the series: ‘Make your working life exceptional: a guide to creating a better workplace.’ Read part one about mental health here, part two about flexible working, part three about workplace design and part four about diversity.

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1. https://www.cascadehr.co.uk/hr-landscape-2018/
2. https://www.charliehr.com/state-of-employee-engagement

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In the early nineteenth century, a British entrepreneur named Robert Owen introduced what could be identified as one of the earliest iterations of traditional performance management. In his textile factory in Scotland, supervisors assigned each factory worker a coloured block based on their performance that day. The idea was that high achievers were rewarded and those who needed to improve could do so.

While it has become more nuanced with time, the same traditional practices exist in many modern workplaces today. We may have moved away from manual labour and into a knowledge-based society, but at its essence, performance of employees is still managed by their superiors, with high performers rewarded with a bonus. This begs the question – if the modern world of work has changed, why hasn’t the performance review?

In 2018, a survey commissioned by Ruddington-based HR firm, MHR revealed that 39% of British workers believed the process was ‘pointless’ and ‘time consuming’.¹ What’s more, research conducted by Deloitte found that 91% of companies still follow an annual – or less frequent – salary review system, but only 21% would suggest their programme to others.²

With big names such as Adobe, Microsoft, Deloitte and Accenture scrapping the performance review altogether and corporate thought-leaders agreeing that there is something flawed with their operations, is it time for businesses to seriously consider what value their existing performance management processes bring?

Getting it right

Social media management platform Hootsuite has nearly 1000 employees spread across 14 offices in 13 cities including Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco, London, Singapore and Bucharest. They scrapped the annual review two years ago, in favour of a programme called Cadence.

For Matt Handford, Senior Vice President of People at Hootsuite, scrapping the annual review was driven by a number of elements.

“We found it was hard to assign ROI to the amount of time being invested in performance management systems. There was a lot of bureaucracy and time spent getting 100% of our employees and leaders to look at themselves through a structure of forms and checklists, and eventually assign themselves a rating,” he says.

“The rating tends to detract from hearing the feedback, and the ability to actually grow and build skill. So we essentially had a process that was taking up a lot of time and was hard to understand. Not only was it not additive, but it was also potentially distracting”

In looking to transform their processes, there were two areas in which Matt and his team identified the most value: “In our case, we chose to focus on conversation, connection and alignment, and development. Because we chose to focus on these areas, we didn’t worry as much about evaluation, capability, long-term assessment and the types of things that allow bias to roll in”

“With the new process, we benefit from the cultural, connective and managerial dialogue that we were aiming for.”

Breaking it down

Hootsuite’s Cadence programme can be broken into two parts: the first is to foster simple, employee-driven, 1:1 conversations with direct managers and the second is to encourage an employee-led and employee-driven conversation on developing and growing capability, from short-term job-specific skill development to career mapping and planning.

“We’re a fast technology business, built on innovation, with a demanding, highly educated, highly marketable workforce that moves at the speed of social media. Therefore, it’s counter-productive to spend a ton of time trying to think about 8-12-month individual goals in the strictest sense,” says Matt.

“What is most valuable is having what we call ‘priorities’. Priorities are going to change, they are going to rock and roll probably week-to-week or month-to-month in some cases in a business like ours,” he continues.

“So we provide a really simple framework, which the employee drives and owns and has the accountability to say ‘here are my top five’ for this week and then their manager just keeps checking in. That becomes the basis of that weekly conversation.”

The second part of Cadence occurs as and when required – usually once a month or once every two months – and covers wider progression, growth and learning.

“The fundamentals in our culture that we see as differentiators and we see as encouraging success are all about the ability to build and develop capability at very high speed,” explains Matt.

“Our employees have high expectations of themselves, the organisation and how quickly they’re going to move through learning and progression in their career, so our performance management system needs to reflect that.”

The results are in

Two years into implementation, and the company is now scoring an 80% positive response on the question Are you having 1:1 meetings on a weekly or bi-weekly basis with your leader? in their annual employment survey. This emphasis on consistent conversations has seen employee alignment improve significantly around performance management.

“In our employee survey, one of the highest scores we receive is in response to the question ‘I understand how my work connects to the ultimate goals of the organisation.’ This question is one of our top 10 highest-rated questions, with 85% to 95% of people responding positively,” says Matt.

“We’re 1000 people, across a dozen countries. We’re way beyond the start-up challenge of having individuals aligned.”

The next challenge is making sure those conversations are as effective as possible.

“We want to make sure that the current conversations are as useful and valuable as they can be, so we’re trying to build that skill in the organisation,” explains Matt.

“It puts pressure on the leader in a different way and on the responsibilities of the employee in a different way, so there’s a developmental muscle that needs to be nurtured.”

With the removal of ratings, the idea of consistency is also an ongoing challenge for the Hootsuite team.

“It’s very difficult to ensure that you’re having a consistent way that people’s performance is being reviewed. We’re trying to create a rubric for a structure – how do we incorporate a uniform, unconscious-bias-proofed structure that allows the experience of the 1:1s and the Cadence programme to stay consistent?” Matt explains.

“For us, that’s the holy grail for the next 12 months.”

What now?

For those starting to move away from the traditional performance management processes, Matt suggests changing your thinking: “If people did the math, they’d see that usually performance management is up there in the top five investments you’re making in your business, but we don’t tend to think about it that way.” “So I would start by trying to think about the process cost and the drag on the organisation, as it frames the scale of a challenge.”

Once you’re clear on the opportunity cost implications, it’s about finding simple solutions that make the process more efficient, and by proxy, adding business value. In doing this, Matt cautions against looking first to complex technology and instead analyzing the business value drivers that you’re trying to hit. At the end of the day, modern performance management offers an opportunity to pull together a high-performing team in a meaningful way, creating community, alignment and dialogue. Whatever your end solution looks like, it is these drivers that should stay front of mind.

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No time to have one-to-one meetings? Perhaps it’s time to hire an executive assistant! As a specialist recruitment agency, Tiger can help – get in touch today!

1. https://www.consultancy.uk/news/17726/uk-employees-losing-faith-in-annual-performance-management-cycles
   2. https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2018/personalized-incentives-talent-management-strategies.html#endnote-sup-2

The post The evolution of performance management appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Diversity is no longer a buzzword. It’s business-critical.

Most of us would agree that diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a positive thing for the economy, however, it goes without saying that for many, it’s still a contentious topic. Hiring with diversity in mind is no easy task: among those businesses who have embraced it, hiring managers continue to struggle with meeting the diversity quotas they’ve been set. Ironically, as executive assistant recruitment consultants, we also find ourselves considering fewer candidates when we know there’s a quota to fulfil.

Despite all this, global thought leaders agree that there are great benefits afforded to businesses who adopt diverse hiring, and that those benefits far outweigh the challenges faced in the process.

1. Improved employer branding

Recruiting a range of candidates from various backgrounds is still, unfortunately, an unusual practice. However, the advantages of diverse hiring will position you as a market leader who thinks beyond traditional stereotypes.

For example, it’s a fact that emerging generations like millennials are actively seeking more diverse workplaces; understanding this and their motivations will help you in your recruitment communication; using the right tools to engage them will strengthen your employer branding and position you ahead of your competitors too.

2. It makes you a better hiring manager

We are, sadly, influenced by unconscious and conscious bias daily. Embracing diversity when hiring will encourage you to challenge yourself because you’ll be pushed to stretch traditional boundaries and think outside the square. In doing so you’ll also need to seek new and innovative methods of hiring great talent!

3. It makes our job easier

Culturally, organisations that embrace inclusivity and diversity within the workplace are ones that tend to prize respect and collaborative practices. It goes without saying that when we’re speaking to candidates – whatever their ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or background – if we’re able to speak about those values that are intrinsically embedded into the business culture, it will undoubtedly make you a more attractive employer.

And it’s both attraction and retention of talent that promises to be improved. McKinsey’s Diversity Wins report [1] shows there to be a real correlation between stronger diversity and increased employee satisfaction.

Finally, if we’re opening the doors to more candidates from a range of backgrounds, we’re much more likely to win the war for talent and overcome the hurdles to finding suitable candidates.

4. Good for business

McKinsey’s report explains how ‘companies with more than 30 percent women executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage ranged from 10 to 30′. Put bluntly, if you’re making more money, it’s better for you and better for the economy. Embracing diverse hiring means you’ll be working more innovatively too which will also contribute to enhanced company performance.

Recruiting diverse talent future-proofs your businesses as you’ll strengthen your long-term management pipeline. To maintain levels of success, your future leaders will need to develop and equip themselves with the tools required to deal with varied ways of thinking.

If you’d like to speak to our human resources recruiters about your next recruitment drive, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters

The post Four reasons why diverse hiring is better for us all appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Updated 19th March 2021

Along with eating, hydration and keeping active, sleep is one of the integral pillars of wellbeing. A bad night’s sleep can result in memory problems, mood changes, memory problems, a weakened immunity system, increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, memory problems, weight gain and affected balance and co-ordination.

In fact, such is the effect of sleep deprivation, that it costs the UK economy £40 billion a year [1]. Tired employees are less productive – or not at work at all – with research showing that those who don’t get a proper night’s sleep aren’t able to make accurate judgements, are often irritable, struggle with creative thinking and communication, and often late to work.

Sealy’s Worldwide Sleep Census in 2019 revealed that 70% of employees felt they could function better at work if they slept better, while 77% believed they didn’t get the rest time needed to feel healthy and happy [2]. Most worryingly, 11% of workers reported a recent accident at work, due to feeling tired.

Despite these overwhelming statistics, sleep is often overlooked in benefit strategies, even those with a wellness focus. In response to this, business-led membership organisation Business in the Community (BITC) has partnered with Public Health England to create Sleep and Recovery, a toolkit that “provides practical information for all employers on how you can create an environment where employees understand the importance of sleep and recovery and are able to make healthier choices at work and at home”.

The toolkit, available for all businesses on BITC’s website[1], notes that there is plenty employers can do to support employees who may be feeling sleep-deprived, in association with a wider health and wellbeing strategy.

Here are just five ways to do so:

1. Conduct a sleep audit, or encourage employees to self-assess

It’s impossible to measure success without benchmarks. Encourage employees to complete a self-assessment of their sleeping habits, or design one yourself. Once you have an idea of the current situation, you can start to create bespoke policies that suit the needs of your employees. As part of the process, consult your employees about the support they would ideally like.

2. Workspace design

Natural light, temperature, ventilation and humidity are all important factors in maintaining a comfortable working environment – and can affect how employees rest at night. If in the office, make sure all these elements are all at the right level and if not, consider investing in tools like daylight simulator lamps and fans. Creating break-out spaces, where employees can take a moment away from their screens can also prove helpful. If your team works remotely, provide information on how they can best set up their WFH space to ensure their workspaces are as comfortable as possible.

If within capacity, encourage employees to take meetings outside, either with a walk, lunch or just a different environment – this can provide a good break and allow additional exposure to sunshine, which helps establish natural rhythms.

3. Establish and implement training programmes

If you have resources for healthy eating, exercise, mindfulness and general productivity, consider adding sleep management to the list. Arm your employees with knowledge about what causes sleeplessness, small actions they can take to encourage a good night’s sleep and what resources are available should they continue to struggle, like sleep diaries or apps. For example, if any employees have work computers, encourage them to install an app like f.lux [3], which makes the colour of the display adapt to the time of the day.

Furthermore, encourage and empower line managers to open a dialogue with employees about any struggles with sleep, ensuring problems are spotted early and can be addressed as soon as possible.

4. Encourage time off from emails and long hours

While being on call 24/7 and long hours are part and parcel with some industries, where possible, consider imposing blackout times on work emails, allowing employees to truly shut off. In the same vein, if your workplace has a culture of long hours, imposing restrictions on how long employees are at work could help encourage better sleep practices outside of the workplaces – for example, suggesting that employees stay out of the office from 8pm on Friday to 6am on Monday. If employees feel like they have too much work to do, perhaps it’s time to re-assess their workload.

5. Offer incentives for healthy behaviours

Sleep is intrinsically linked to other pillars of wellbeing, so any incentives that address these issues will also inadvertently assist in encouraging healthy sleep behaviours. Initiatives like a cycle-to-work scheme, flexitime, additional leave for staying active and mandatory annual leave can help in the long run.

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Is it time to expand your team with a freelance HR consultant or other HR staff? Get in touch with Tiger today to see how we can help with your staffing requirements.

1. https://wellbeing.bitc.org.uk/all-resources/toolkits/sleep-and-recovery-toolkit
2. http://www.sleep-census.com/

3. https://justgetflux.com/

The post Why you need to integrate sleep into your people strategy appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

The pandemic has affected all of us in different ways, but working parents have faced a particularly difficult challenge. With schools closed for much of last year and many employees working from home, the pandemic exacerbated many existing inequalities as parents, particularly women, were forced to take on caring responsibilities alongside their workload. Without support or flexibility from employers, many found it very difficult to continue working at their usual capacity.

This was reflected in McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace report, published in September 2020. Among a discussion of the effects of the pandemic on gender parity and women in leadership, they found that “one in three mothers have considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers because of COVID-19″[1].

Employers have notoriously not had a great track record with supporting parents in the past. In 2019, PWC reported that 37% of new mothers didn’t take their full maternity leave entitlement, citing career pressure and the feeling that taking time off would “undermine their standing” with their employer[2] as the main reasons. However, the pandemic has now forced the issue as women made up 39% of global employment but accounted for 54% of total job loss in 2020[3]. The lost potential means that there is a significant economic cost to employers if they don’t take proactive steps in supporting working parents.

At Tiger, we believe the thinking around this issue needs to be changed. Watch our webinar below to find out how employers can best support their current working parents, moving forward.

Webinar: Supporting working parents post-pandemic

In March 2021, MD, Rebecca Siciliano, hosted a webinar with three incredible speakers: Joeli Brearley from Pregnant Then Screwed, Ursula Tavender from Mumbelievable and Cat Harris from Brandwatch. They discussed how employers can best support working parents moving forward, and revealed their best practice tips and advice for those looking to get started. Watch the webinar in full below.

Supporting return-to-work parents

What about those parents who are currently on leave, or looking to return to work after time off? It’s equally important to consider how to make the transition as smooth as possible for them. We’ve outlined a few considerations employers should take into account when helping return-to-work parents back into the workplace.

Understand that parents’ time off wasn’t ‘time off’

There is a huge misconception around the idea that when an employee goes on parental leave, the gap in their CV means they lose their capability to go back to work in the same capacity. However, caring for an infant can be more stressful and tiring than their regular employment. This means that an employee’s motivation to return to the office can be significant, and they’re ready to work at 110% efficiency. They may also see a return to work as a change of pace, meaning they’ll be more prepared to dedicate their energy to resuming their old role as successfully as possible. With this in mind, sit down with them to fully understand what they’d like to see from their return, brief the team accordingly and prepare a training strategy that will help them get back up to speed.

Utilise their new skills

While every workplace has its unique challenges, the demanding nature of parenthood means that your employee on will have experienced things they never would have in the workplace. Through this new period of their lives, they have actually gained transferrable skills which are too often underutilised by employers. For example, a new parent may have developed their emotional intelligence while they have been away, which can be optimised to successfully diffuse conflicts and manage individuals effectively at work. Another skill they have developed is their time management, as they now have to work efficiently to balance their work and family commitments. Work with your return-to-work parent to ensure these new skills are working for the business as effectively as possible.

Support them through the process

An employee can’t thrive at work without adequate support. There are actions you can take before and after their time away to help them with their transition. For example, ensure a good handover between them and their interim replacement is in place to avoid any hiccups. After a parent has returned to work, it becomes a give-and-take situation between both of you! For example, be transparent that your offered flexibility is dependent on them getting the job done and managing their time effectively. If you create an environment where an employee feels trusted and the communication lines are open, it will go a long way to motivating them to do their best for you.

Practically, you can foster a positive workplace culture for people with young families with the addition of a few initiatives. Implementing ‘bring your children to work’ and ‘keep in touch’ days will allow both parents and children to feel more comfortable with the separation. Schemes like flexible working and returnship options can be a great way to allow your employee to adjust to their new work and family balance. When they are in the office, workshops and buddy programs specifically designed for parents can help when the employee needs support and advice.

Embrace flexible working  

Employees are motivated by the freedom to deliver work on their terms and will consequently produce a standard of work that excels that of a standard nine-to-fiver looking to climb the ladder. It’s been proven time and again that happy workers are the most productive. And its flexibility and empathy from our employer that enables this happiness.

For an employee to feel connected to and motivated by their employer, mutual understanding is critical. This requires the employer to truly empathise with the person – not just the employee – and appreciate the complexity of their lives outside of the workplace, regardless of children. Unfortunately, if this doesn’t happen, the employee will be spurred on to seek out a more ‘caring’ work environment. This is the point when you lose all that accrued intellectual property from your return-to-work parent realise the costs of hiring and training someone new.

True flexible working is much more than a line written into an employment contract. A strategic approach by a business requires a clear, well-coordinated goal driving it forward and ensuring it is part of a broader cultural change, not just a perk. Aligning flexibility to the overall business purpose and objectives will ensure it’s embedded into the company ethos, and thus gets the best possible results.

Tiger has put together a guide to help in improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace

[2] https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/about/diversity/iwd/international-womens-day-pwc-time-to-talk-report.pdf

[3] https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/covid-19-and-gender-equality-countering-the-regressive-effects

The post Supporting your working and return-to-work parents appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

It’s 11am on a Tuesday and your office’s three meeting rooms are all booked out for the next four hours. With a very important team meeting just hours away, you’ve found yourself with no venue and no time.

For the next 30 minutes, your PA is frantically Googling ‘cafes you can have meetings in’ and eventually finds something a 15-minute walk away. By the time you’ve had the meeting, you and your PA have wasted over an hour.

It’s these types of situations that emphasise the importance of office design in modern workplaces. With most people spending eight hours of their day in their working environment, there’s no denying its effect on their productivity and wellbeing. In fact, 2015 research by Steelcase revealed a direct correlation between employee engagement and a working environment¹, with those happy with their overall surroundings stating they had a higher level of engagement. What’s more, a study carried out by architecture firm, HASSELL Studio, found that when combined, workplace culture and facilities outweigh the influence of salary in the attractiveness of a job.²

Emma Morley is the founder of commercial interior design consultancy trifle*. She’s noted a significant change in attitudes to work since establishing the business: “The last 10 years has seen so much change in the way we work and the world of work and therefore the spaces in which we work.”

“When you start to think about how big of a part work plays in our lives, it makes complete and utter sense to us that you would want to have the environment designed to support you, the way you work and the business as a whole.” she explains.

As part of their service, Emma and her team thoroughly interrogate the way in which their clients work in order to make sure they have the right tools to work as efficiently as possible.

While each business may require specific elements, there are common threads that flow through each unique space: “As far as we’re concerned, every office should have a range of different spaces to suit different modes of working, good amenities, proper facilities, be functional, have good air and good light,” notes Emma.

Getting social

For Matt Webster, Head of Wellbeing and Futureproofing at property company British Land, creating opportunities for social interaction through office design also has a direct correlation to wellbeing.
“Designing in social spaces and social interaction is really important. Part of that is about active design – we spend 90% of our time indoors and most of that is sitting down, either at your workspace or on the sofa at home,” he said.

Emma agrees: “What we call engineering collision points, or hubs, huddles – those points where people can connect – are also really important. It’s the classic photocopier/water cooler moment but actually enforcing those.”

Matt’s suggestions for businesses include “anything from centralising your photocopiers or water to putting in staircases, making stairs really accessible and easy to use, to more technological-based things such as providing people with Fitbits and other wearables.”

Working from the outside in

For Matt, addressing wellbeing in the workplace is about more than the actual office itself: “When I think about wellbeing in the workplace, there’s two areas. There’s the internal environment, which is about workplace design, and the external environment,” he notes.

“So that’s the location of the office – does it give you access to local amenities, does it give you access to nature, does it give you respite from work, an opportunity to get out at lunchtime or engage in after-work social activities?”

The internal environment also requires a multi-faceted approach: “There are three fundamental elements of a really good wellbeing strategy – your HR where you’ve got the right policies and framework in place, the cultural element, and then the physical foundation for wellbeing, which is office design,” he said.

“A really good culture plus a really good workspace equals a great place to work.”

Clear the air

When considering designing new premises, both Emma and Matt agree that air quality should be a key focus area.

“Air quality can have such an awful impact if it’s not done properly. Buildings are often designed for a certain amount of people, but then a few more are added here and there and the air quality is compromised, especially in spaces where windows don’t open,” Emma explains.

Matt adds, “We know that cognitive performance is impacted as carbon dioxide levels rise, so we’re less accurate, we’re less likely to spot mistakes – that’s not a good environment to make good decisions in.”
He also recommends bringing the outside in: “Don’t underestimate the importance of greenery and internal landscaping. Our innate connection to nature as human beings means we are supposed to flourish in natural environments,” says Matt.

“Even a view out of a window of a green space can lead to up to 25% increase in productivity.”

Emma also advocates for a green-filled workplace: “We had one client who had quite sizeable plants, each with somebody’s name on them. It was the employee’s responsibility to look after that one plant.”

One size doesn’t fit all

On a larger scale, the most important thing employers can do is consider how they are using their space: “It’s really important to have a landscape of settings”, notes Emma.

“If you are limited on space in your office, then you have to trust people to work from a cafe or home when they need to.” she continues.

Matt agrees, noting that having the choice over where you work and where you undertake your tasks is essential: “How your day looks and how you might be feeling in terms of productivity during the day changes so much, so you need different environments to suit those situations.”

As the nature of work continues to shift, so has the office space. As companies work to attract the best talent, having workspaces that reflect the company’s brand, culture and tasks is set to be more important than ever.

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About trifle

trifle* is a creative commercial interior design agency based in London. They specialise in space planning and designing workspaces, co-workspaces and retail environments, working closely with businesses to create brilliant environments that are fit for purpose. They aim to help businesses to get the best out of people by creating workspaces that enable talent to flourish.

About British Land

British Land is one of Europe’s largest listed real estate investment companies, with a portfolio of high quality UK commercial property focused on retail around the UK and London Offices. Their strategy is to provide places which meet the needs of their customers and respond to changing lifestyles – Places People Prefer – by creating great environments both inside and outside their buildings, using their scale and placemaking skills to enhance and enliven them.

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This piece is the third in the series: ‘Make your working life exceptional: a guide to creating a better workplace.’ Read part one about mental health here and part two about flexible working here. For more on workplace design, click here.

1. https://facilityexecutive.com/2016/05/employee-engagement-linked-to-workplace-satisfaction/

2. https://www.hassellstudio.com/docs/20141218_research_workplaceattaction_webversion_lr.pdf

The post The new frontier of workplace design appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

It has long been known that regular exercise is important for improving physical health, but did you know it can also boost your brain power? A recent study by the Mayo Clinic[1] shows the link between cardiorespiratory fitness and brain health. The study demonstrates that the more you exercise, the greater your ability for oxygen to enter your body, which promotes more grey matter. Essentially, you can increase your memory and perform better mentally when you exercise regularly.

This all confirms what onsite fitness class company, Box Mind[2], has seen happening through their workplace programs for the past two years. Regular exercise at work (or at home if you’re working remotely) also increases team moral, productivity and overall company culture.

Issues relating to stress, injuries, illnesses and employee disengagement in the office are estimated to cost the global economy 10–15% of economic output every year[3]. So, by tackling the problem at the source, you can create real change by investing in the health of your workforce. By encouraging your employees to exercise regularly, you can also help to improve their brain function while working.

The benefits of exercise

When you encourage your employees to exercise, you’ll reap these benefits:

• Enhanced confidence, assertiveness and self-efficacy to help them ask for what they need, make sound decisions and execute tasks with vigour
• Increased positive mood states which drastically affect their daily life and the lives of those around them
• Improved memory, greater perception and less confusion
• Decreased anxiety and depression
• Decreased anger, reduced tension and an improved ability to cope with stress

How much exercise is required to improve?

Harvard Medical School states that participating in physical activity for one hour, twice a week is enough to significantly reduce insulin resistance and cellular inflammation. It also stimulates the release of growth factors, which are chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells and the growth of new blood vessels.

How is this important for your employees?

Teams that communicate clearly have a greater ability to evolve and adapt to new challenges. Adaptable teams are made up of more confident, self-aware individuals who perform to a consistently higher level, which in turn improves team dynamics and profitability. Exercise also improves the mental health of your employees, which will in turn improve their productivity and happiness when working.

Options to encourage employees to exercise

The key thing when encouraging your employees to exercise is proving you’re willing to invest in their physical wellbeing. This could range from offering exercise classes or creating an in-house wellness plan if they work in an office, or offering discounted gym memberships if they work remotely. These solutions can also reduce expenditure in areas like recruitment, team-building and absenteeism in the long term.

If your employees prefer to work out onsite during their lunchbreak, before or after work, Box Mind is an all-encompassing platform offering different classes by expert coaches in order to meet the scheduling and space demands of their clients. They also offer a two week complimentary trial[4], making it a great alternative for employees short on time.

Author: Sara Picken-Brown is a head coach for Box Mind

Tiger Recruitment is a leading secretarial agencies in London.

[1] https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/keep-exercising-new-study-finds-its-good-for-your-brains-gray-matter/

[2] https://theboxmind.com/

[3] https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/statistics-and-facts/

[4] https://theboxmind.com/membership/

The post Why exercise is key to boosting brain performance while working appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

While some stress is a relatively common component among many jobs today, there are professions that can cause tensions to rise more than most. Plus, people can simply respond differently to pressure. Sometimes, the signs are pretty obvious. In others, they’ll be better at concealing it and you won’t be able to tell at all.

In general though, while all of our roles and workplaces will have spikes of pressure, I’m sure most of you would agree that consistently applying stress to staff not only impairs productivity, it impacts team morale and work-place relationships.

Here are some of the tell-tale signs you might have burnt-out staff in your workplace:

Not taking breaks

They’re the first one in, the last one out, and yet they still don’t take their lunch hour. Obvious it may be, but you should be doing all that you can to encourage your staff to take regular breaks away from their desk. If they’re eating at their desks and not going out, chances are they’re rushing to get through their workload to avoid staying in the office too late. Stepping out for fresh air and a walk around the block will significantly impact their wellbeing in the office.

Details slipping through the cracks

Is your normally astute PA with exceptional attention to detail not picking up on the details they ordinarily would? This may be a sign they’re juggling too many balls at once and need to reduce their workload. Speak to them about the options of delegating work to the team.

They’re not smiling anymore

Reflect back to their first few months in the office and their bubbly personality. While they were previously the life and soul of the office, now they’re personalities are flat and the smile is tight-lipped. Pay attention to these subtle differences in character, and offer to have a chat about workload.

Look for the non-verbal cues

In many cases, what we say is less important than how we say it. The nonverbal signals we send out, such as eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, posture, gesture and touch can be extremely telling. These nonverbal messages can either produce a sense of interest, trust, and desire for connection–or they can generate confusion, distrust, and stress. By accurately reading and responding to the nonverbal cues that other people send you at work, you can have better visibility of the situation at hand.

They’re always late

More often than not, someone who is unprepared or lost track of time has lots on their mind. If your ordinarily punctual team member has developed a pattern of tardiness, it could be because they have too much on and are struggling to make meetings. They may even be attending meetings and resenting them, because it takes them away from their more pressing work.

In times of high stress, it’s your responsibility as a manager to act as a positive role model. By remaining calm, you will inspire the same behaviour in others and subsequently create a more enjoyable and productive work environment. Effectively communicating with your employees will improve your engagement with them and better connect you to how everyone is feeling. By listening more carefully, especially if they’re agitated, you can help to calm them down by listening in an attentive way which will encourage them to feel understood.

Hiring temporary staff or an employee experience manager can be a great way to relieve the pressures of a permanent team during periods of intense workloads. Get in touch with the Tiger team to find out more.

The post Five signs of workplace stress and how you can help to relieve it appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Every year, Tiger Recruitment releases a Salary and Benefits Review. This year we collated the data from a survey of 1,836 UK-based employees across business support, private, HR, finance and accounting, and digital roles.

How the report can benefit your business

Setting competitive pay packages and perks is one of the most effective ways to enhance your talent retention and acquisition.

An independent salary review can help you spot gaps and opportunities for improvement. For example, our survey revealed that only 15% of employees are happy with their current benefits.

The report includes salary benchmarking, benefits preferences, and current work trends which will allow you to optimise your hiring and employment packages for 2024. Knowing what your employees and prospective jobseekers want will help you to plan a blueprint for making your organisation a more desirable, inclusive, and productive place to work.

Highlights of this year’s salary survey

Key insights from this year’s review include:

• Out of surveyed professionals, 40% plan on leaving their jobs next year
• When they do, 80% of these will be prioritising salary, followed by work-life balance and benefits
• Half of workers are considering second jobs or already have them, driven by the cost-of-living increases
• Professionals are keen to embrace AI and recognise its value to business
• Most people are unhappy with their benefits and almost half want better financial benefits
• Only 9% of people who intend to leave in the next 12 months are happy with their current benefits

Request your copy of the Salary and Benefits Review here.

We hope you find the report useful. If you have any questions, please get in touch.

The post Salary and Benefits Review appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Establishing and encouraging a culture of learning is one of most important elements of any business. Providing opportunities for employees to develop their knowledge and skills can increase morale, motivation, engagement and productivity, encourages a growth mindset and result in stronger business outcomes.

However, it’s important to consider every employee in your policies, including your support staff. A 2017 study by the Executive and Personal Assistants Association found that 63.18% of PAs and EAs last completed formal training more than four years ago¹, showing a lack of resources for these types of positions.

The same survey found that over 70% had undertaken some EA/PA specific training at some point in their career and 92.53% engage in activities outside the classroom like reading, networking and engaging with online resources, including webinars. This data shows that there is a demand for training initiatives, but currently, support professionals are having to be self-sufficient, investing their own time in ensuring they understand the latest developments in the industry.

Therefore, in this current candidate-led market, it’s worth considering investing in formal training opportunities for your business support staff – it may go a long way in improving your PA recruitment efforts.
Here are five ways you can do just that:

1. Make it formal
It’s all well and good to talk the talk, but strong learning cultures also requiring walking the walk. Instead of casually discussing training opportunities with employees, make it as formal as holiday pay or other benefits by including it in employment contracts and establishing reporting structures. Line managers should also be aware of the opportunities for training and encourage this.
It’s also worth linking learning and performance, including it in performance reviews and demonstrating that professional development is part of daily operations, not a one off.

2. Allow time out of the office for external training
There are plenty of businesses out there that run workshops, courses and lectures on skills that PAs, EAs and other administrative staff would find helpful – Tiger included! However, often these are in work time – over lunch or breakfast – or start too close to the office close time. Therefore, consider establishing a training time allowance, with a nominated set of hours allocated to each employee per quarter or year. It means they’ll be able to attend these opportunities without feeling guilty and bring what they’ve learnt back into your business.

3. Establish a mentor programme
Business management is such an essential part of both an administrator’s role and those that they are supporting. Therefore, consider implementing a mentor program, where support staff can ask questions, observe their principal and chat through situations. Depending on the size of your organisation, this mentorship could also be with more senior members of the support team – for example, an office assistant could learn from an office manager.

4. Look for ways to up-tech
Artificial intelligence isn’t going anywhere, so there’s no point pretending it’s going away. Instead, embrace the opportunities that the technology can offer and encourage your support staff to explore avenues in which they can make their job more productive. For example – is there an app that your PA could use to streamline travel itineraries? There are plenty of online resources that can help your administrative staff train in these applications – LinkedIn Learning and Lynda are just two.

5. Host internal training sessions
If you’ve got a meeting room in your office, you’re halfway to hosting a training session for your staff. There are plenty of thought leaders and experts out there who are willing to share their knowledge, so it’s just a case of uniting the two! Senior members of your organisation might even have knowledge that the support function will find of use and interest. Organise sessions in lunchtimes or straight after work to encourage attendance and if the budget allows, consider providing lunch or drinks.

If you’re looking to find HR staff to help improve the culture of learning and development in your company, get in touch today!

1. https://epaa.org.uk/time-to-train/

The post Five ways to include support staff in your learning and development policies appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Are you an HR professional looking for guidance when it comes to creating your return-to-office plan post-COVID 19? Our Head of Marketing and Communications, Coralie Fernando, interviewed Rebecca Siciliano, Managing Director at Tiger, on how we’re planning for Tiger’s return to the office.

In the interview, they discussed how Tiger is approaching the return to the office post-pandemic. They discuss the main concerns for our employees, the importance of conducting employee feedback surveys and risk assessments and how important communication has been throughout the process.

The post Creating your return-to-office plan appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

A company is only as good as its people. From the person who greets your customers on the reception desk, to the executives sat on the board, every employee represents a facet of your organisation to your customers and shareholders.

The consequences of poor recruitment and selection can include dips in employee productivity and morale, problems in workplace culture and impacted customer care. Appointing an ill-suited employee is a time-consuming and costly mistake for businesses and could negatively impact reputation and employer branding.

Hiring the right people, however, will help businesses to build a stellar reputation, drive growth and reduce staff turnover.

To ensure business success, it’s critical that hiring teams know how to identify the right candidates and understand the process of best-practice candidate selection. One of the most effective strategies for doing so is robust reference checking.

Why is reference checking important?

Due diligence in the recruitment process helps to ensure that the candidate in question possesses the qualifications and skills required for the role being filled. Reference checking can be extremely valuable in the hiring process as it helps hiring managers to leverage an opinion about a candidate’s capabilities from someone other than the candidate, which in turn helps them to gain a well-rounded picture of the individual, thus increasing the likelihood of a value alignment between the candidate and employer.

It may be difficult to believe that anyone, let alone a top tier candidate you have expertly sourced, would lie on their CV, but a staggering 92.5% of surveyed UK workers have! The majority were dishonest about the duration of previous employment, gaps in employment or about their previous salary.

Using background checks to verify employment history and credentials can help hiring managers to spot dishonest candidates.

How good reference checking helps to improve hiring decisions:

• Gain an unvarnished opinion about a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses
• Learn about the work habits, attitude, capability and skills of a desired candidate by talking to someone who has first-hand experience of working with them
• Form a realistic and objective opinion of the individual
• Verify whether a candidate’s claims about qualifications, experience and previous positions are true
• Understand how the candidate’s aspirations fit with the role in question
• Gain crucial insight into how the candidate performs on the job

Eight tips for conducting effective reference checks

Ensure that checks include the candidate’s most recent work references

It’s important to seek references from the person’s current or former managers and supervisors, and/or educational supervisors. If their current or former manager is not available, other alternatives could be an indirect manager with whom the individual worked, a co-worker or team member.

Check their criminal history

Reduce the chances of hiring an employee with a troubling criminal past and exposing your business to potential liability by conducting criminal record verifications. By establishing if a potential employee poses any threat to the business, you are protecting your customers, employees, and vendors.

Consider taking references over the phone

This gives you, as the hiring manager, the opportunity to ask questions on the fly and to check factual evidence about the candidate in question. It can also be very useful for detecting the level of enthusiasm, or lack thereof, in the tone of their voice.

Look up potential candidates on LinkedIn

To ensure they are who they say are, use LinkedIn to help you in the screening process. LinkedIn can be used to verify information on an applicant’s CV at any stage of the application process. Carefully review the applicant’s profile, recommendations and employment history.

Ask the referee open-ended questions

It’s imperative to ask open-ended and behavioural-based questions to obtain objective information about the individual’s work performance and achievements, technical and soft skills, work habits, attitude, strengths and areas of improvement.

Example reference checking questions:

• What is your relationship to the candidate?
• What roles did the candidate perform while at your company?
• For how long did they work with you?
• What were their main responsibilities?
• How did the candidate deal with the most challenging aspects of their role?
• What are the candidate’s professional strengths?
• What skills do you think this individual can develop further?
• Tell me about a time when x had to deliver a project within x timeframe
• What type of management style did this person work best under?
• What type of working environment did this person excel in?
• Describe a specific problem this person encountered in their role, and how they went about resolving it

Whilst not an open-ended question, it’s always a good idea to ask the referee if they would have the candidate work with them again, as well as paying attention to what the referee doesn’t say about the candidate.

Obtain a minimum of three references

It’s best to avoid seeking personal references as it’s unlikely a personal referee would have worked with the candidate. Their opinion is also likely to be biased and the best they would be able to provide is a character reference rather than a work reference.

Map out your reference-checking process carefully

To ensure consistency, it’s important to develop a process for stringent reference checking. Compose a list of carefully thought through questions that you would like to ask the referee, ensuring that these have been approved by the management team.

Take time to evaluate reference checks on completion

This is particularly important if you are seeking reference checks for multiple applicants. Consider if the information provided confirms or contradicts the impression you have of the candidate, and/or if they raise any concerns that need to be addressed. If you don’t feel satisfied with the information received from the referees, consider asking for additional references, or inviting the candidate for a further conversation to clarify anything you are unsure of.

The bottom line is, never make a hire without having first conducted a robust reference check. Even though the task elongates the hiring process, if you end up hiring the wrong person it will cost you more time, money and headaches further down the road.

If you’d like some help with implementing an effective reference checking process to ensure you are achieving candidate-organisation fit with every hire, please get in touch today.

If you’re looking for more top tips for hiring, our complete interview and selection guide for employers will help!

The post Tiger Recruitment’s guide to reference checking appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

It’s been called ‘The Future of Work’ and ‘The Next Great Disruption’, but does flexible working make sense for your business?

The pandemic forced us all to adapt to new realities, not the least of which was the swift and sometimes stressful shift to remote working for a huge number of employees. While many of us initially saw this as a short-lived solution, as the lockdowns dragged on, it increasingly became a way of life.

With studies last year indicating more than half of employers expect a surge in flexible work requests from their employees after the pandemic, it’s clear the flexi option needs to be given serious consideration if a company wants to stay at the forefront of their industry. In fact, even before the pandemic, research found that as many as 87% of us wanted more flexibility in our work structure, so it’s no wonder that it has become the preferred way to live and work for a lot of Tiger’s candidates.

However, not every employer is convinced by the new dynamic, and feel that its merits remain unproven. This cautious approach could prove costly in the long run though, as we’re seeing candidates go so far as to turn down roles that require 5 days a week in the office. So, in what ways can flexible working be shown to provide benefits for both parties?

Focus on what’s achieved, not what’s perceived

As we’ve mentioned in a recent Forbes article, the pandemic had a significant effect on the culture of presenteeism and long-hours working. The happy result of the reduced micromanagement was that both employers and employees could stop measuring their worth on sometimes misleading metrics like number of hours worked, and focus instead on what has actually been achieved. Less clock-watching takes a load off employees’ minds and frees up much-needed mental energy for delivering exceptional work.

Lower costs on office space

Post-lockdown studies have shown that, on average, surveyed companies are reducing their office space by 30%. These companies are shifting to flexible work options like hot desks, with fewer staff on-site on a given day. Of course, this can reduce overheads significantly, and a quieter office has its own perks, as we’ll see in the next point.

Empowering all personalities in your workforce

Naturally, working from home isn’t for everybody, and many employees thrive in a busy, fast-paced office. But we often neglect those who hit peak performance in quieter settings. Flexible working gives these employees more control of their environment, so they can maximise their productivity and work to their natural rhythms.

A less stressful commute

With more employees taking up the option of a hybrid work-week, the once ubiquitous morning sight of packed trains, buses and gridlocked traffic isn’t such a sure bet anymore. With fewer nerve-jangling commutes, employees are arriving to offices still brimming with morning energy and raring to go. Companies can also offer commute-easing incentives to encourage employees into the office more regularly, such as cycle-to-work schemes, hot desks in more nearby offices, and flexible start times.

Stay ahead in a competitive talent market

Increased market confidence has put the ball back in the employees’ and jobseekers’ court, and businesses hoping to attract the top talent would do well to keep flexible working at the forefront of their offers. This type of tailored benefit shows respect for employees’ wellbeing, and could give you the edge over your competitors.

Increased job satisfaction

Another welcome effect of increased employee autonomy is a deeper sense of satisfaction in their role. They feel more valued and trusted by their employers, and a greater ownership over the work they’re doing. They are thus much more likely to remain loyal to their company, and are a great advert for attracting further talent.

It’s more and more apparent that flexible, hybrid working is here to stay, and is becoming a key enticement for talent. Our Hybrid Working Survey report digs deeper into just how important it is for jobseekers, so be sure to request your copy today.

The post Reasons to adopt a flexible working policy appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Updated 17/12/2020

On 2017’s International Women’s Day, Iceland made waves by announcing that from January 1, 2018, it would be illegal to pay women any less than men. As the first country in the world to do so, they set a new standard for addressing the gender pay gap, with the aim of completely eradicating it by 2022.

Despite having an equal pay act in their national legislation since 1961, until very recently, there were no repercussions for Icelandic businesses who chose to pay women less. The new law means that any public or private company that employs more than 25 people needs to be independently certified as paying equal wages for work of equal value. If they can’t prove this, they will be fined daily until they do.

This initiative, coupled with the requirement that companies with over 50 employees should have boards with 40% women, has reiterated the country’s position as the best in the world for gender equality. It’s a title they’ve held for the last ten years.

The UK gender pay gap

While unequal pay is technically illegal in the UK, there are no repercussions for those who wish to ignore it. In April 2017, MP Justine Greening declared that from April 2018, gender pay gap reporting would be mandatory for businesses with over 250 employees. They are now legally required to publish the following figures on their own website, and a government website:

• Gender pay gap (mean and median averages)
• Gender bonus gap (mean and median averages)
• Proportion of men and women receiving bonuses
• Proportion of men and women in each quartile of the organisation’s pay structure

By increasing transparency, the aim is to place a spotlight on the factors that contribute to the gap and encourage businesses to take tangible action.

According to the ONS, as of October 2019, the gender pay gap among full-time employees was 8.9%, and displayed very little progress since the previous year[1]. The Fawcett Society, the UK’s leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights, reported that even though it has been 50 years since the 1970 Equal Pay act, four in 10 women aren’t even aware they have the right to ask for equal pay for equal work.[2]

While this challenge is by no means new, it has experienced a renaissance of sorts over the last 10 years, gripping society’s imagination as reports shifted from the business pages to the front pages of newspapers. Independent research, such as the Hampton-Alexander review, has endeavoured to increase the number of women on FTSE boards and improve representation in senior leadership, while corporate campaigns such as The 30% Club are working towards 30% female representation on boards and in management levels, world-wide.

The gains could be extremely beneficial economically, with PWC’s 2019 Women in Work Index reporting that closing the gender pay gap in the UK could increase earnings for women by £92 billion[3]. So, what should employers consider when looking to close the gender gap within their own business?

Bonuses, not base

Pavita Cooper is a leading talent and diversity expert and Steering Committee Member of The 30% Club. She notes the complexity of the pay gap lies beyond the base salary: “The bigger gap we see, particularly in financial services, is the bonus, because it’s more subjective and allows for unconscious bias,” she explains.

“You hear bias in people’s conversations. It’s quite loaded – ‘here’s a family man with three kids and here’s a young single woman’. When bonuses are being handed out, those decisions filter into people’s thinking and decision-making.”

What’s more, in the bonus discussions, men are more likely to negotiate, meaning they will walk away with bigger numbers: “Most young girls get less pocket money than their brothers, so girls don’t learn to negotiate,” explains Pavita.

“Many women will say ‘I feel uncomfortable about pay, I trust my boss will do the right thing’, whereas men won’t do that, they’ll go into a bonus meeting with a number in their head that they’ve already discussed with their boss,” she continues.

“Women will often find out in the room when the envelope is handed over.”

Addressing talent shortages

For Bal Gill, UK Lead for Active Inclusion at Capgemini, and Laura Gardner, a member of Capgemini’s UK’s Active Inclusion team, the challenge remains in creating a pipeline for senior roles.

“Our gender pay gap is caused by having fewer women in senior grades and highly paid technical roles, rather than pay for equal or similar work, so we are working on improving this through a focus on the talent pipeline,” says Bal.

“We have focused on ensuring our development programmes have a diverse range of candidates and take gender into consideration when succession planning for all key leadership roles. We have rolled out inclusion education for our vice presidents, hiring managers, recruitment and HR teams and showcased our female role models internally and externally,” Laura adds.

As one of the biggest global consulting and technology services companies in the world, it’s not just the senior roles Capgemini are conscious of. In 2015, the company announced a new target – increasing the proportion of female graduates and apprentice hires to 40% by 2017. They achieved this target by adapting their recruitment approach:

“We revised our recruitment processes, training our hiring managers and recruitment teams in unconscious bias, and ensuring gender-diverse assessment panels,” says Bal.

“We also made several changes designed to attract and recruit from different talent pools, especially women who may not have thought of a career in technology.”

The role of recruitment

The role of the hiring manager in achieving equity has not been lost on Pavita: “Language is really important. When a line manager is briefing on a job, using words like ‘he/she’, being gender neutral and not using loaded skillsets is ideal,” she explains.

In the context of support staff recruitment, where the complication lies in encouraging more men to embrace an EA or PA position, language is also a huge barrier to attracting the right talent.

“When you talk to people describing PAs, they say ‘someone who is going to look after me’, but that’s very nurturing language, it sounds like you’re talking about their mother. Whereas if you talk about someone who has outstanding organisation skills, who is fast, has an attention to detail and can think ahead, then you start to think ‘who do I know who could do that?’, not ‘which woman do I know who could do that?’” says Pavita.

For Bal and Laura, it’s essential that every part of the recruitment process encourages diversity: “Recruitment is a key factor – it’s absolutely critical to attract diverse talent. We have refreshed our processes to ensure an inclusive approach to hiring, and our recruitment suppliers signed a Diversity & Inclusion charter to ensure we are provided with diverse candidates,” explains Laura.

“We also introduced Return@Capgemini, a ‘returnships’ programme that supports women to return to work after longer-term career breaks. With over 90 potential candidates at the launch event, followed by 150 applications within two weeks, we are on track to achieve our target of hiring 30 Returners in 2018,” she continues.

Looking at the bigger picture

The Capgemini team is also looking beyond the immediate hire to long-term solutions: “The continuing war for talent is our biggest challenge. We’re investing in our schools and universities outreach programme to excite young women about technology, but this is a long-term project and a sustained commitment,” says Bal. This holistic approach has also resulted in ongoing success for The 30% Club: “We looked at multiple perspectives from which we could make change happen, so we talked to the media about how they cover women and we worked with universities to look at the pipeline,” explains Pavita.

“We also started cross-company mentoring – we know women need support from senior leaders, but having someone in their own organisation isn’t necessarily helpful. But if you give them exposure to a senior person from another industry, it can really accelerate their learning and that worked really well.”

What now?

For businesses that have reported a gap, Bal and Laura suggest approaching it with an open mind: “Take the time to understand your gap, don’t be afraid of the subject. Once you know the gap, you know the size of the challenge, can understand the reasons why and can put an action plan in place to close it,” advises Bal.

Pavita suggests a similar approach: “Businesses need to establish a narrative, both internally and externally, about what’s happening, why it’s emerged and what they’re doing about it.”

“For example, if it’s because there are no women at senior levels, what is the business doing about that? How are they looking at flexible working policies? How are they looking at retaining women post-career breaks? If women are dropping off really early into entry-level roles, if they’re not even getting to middle management, why is that?” she queries.

While organisations must ask the right questions as a first step, Pavita concludes: “I don’t think it matters how big the pay gap is – the issue now is what companies do about it. How organisations regroup, respond, refocus and take action, that’s what really matters.”

It’s not just companies who should be implementing these policies – the government also has a role to play. While closing the gap is already a policy focus, attention should be directed to improving the support systems for families to help women stay in or return to work. Proactive measures such as tackling workplace harassment and discrimination are also essential in making workplaces welcoming and encouraging career progression.

For more information, Read our guide on improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace. 

[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/genderpaygapintheuk/2019

[2] https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/right-to-know

[3] https://www.pwc.co.uk/economic-services/WIWI/pwc-women-in-work-2019-final-web.pdf

[4] https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/close-gender-pay-gap

The post Now what? Closing the gender pay gap post-pay reporting appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Employee Turnover

Employee turnover and retention is a significant priority for businesses, with high turnover rates leading to increased costs, reduced productivity, and decreased morale.

That’s why having a successful retention strategy in place is just as important as finding top talent. So, how can an employer implement strategies on how to reduce employee turnover?

Employee Turnover Meaning

Employee turnover, in technical terms, refers to the rate at which employees leave an organisation and are replaced by new hires. It’s an important metric that is prioritised by HR teams because it reflects the happiness and productivity of its staff, which in turn indicates the stability and long-term sustainability of a company’s workplace.

Employee Turnover Calculation

Calculating the turnover rate involves first taking a measure of how many employees leave a company in a given period, usually a year. Turnover is then calculated by dividing the number of employees who left in that period by the average number of employees in that time. When you have that figure, multiply it by 100 to show the percentage.

Employee Turnover and Retention

Employee turnover rate and retention both play a crucial role in shaping the success of an organisation. By prioritising staff retention, HR teams can build a loyal workplace with increased productivity and a positive impact on the company’s overall performance. It’s important to make sure there’s a balance between managing the turnover and implementing successful retention initiatives. When the balance is right, employers can expect productive, thriving employees who are fulfilled and excited about contributing to the long-term success of the business.

How To Reduce Employee Turnover

Reducing employee turnover requires a proactive approach that supports the longevity of your employees.

1. Source the Right Talent

Candidate Sourcing is a crucial process for an organisation looking to build a high-performing workplace.

Finding the right employees starts with clearly defining the job requirements, writing a comprehensive job description that outlines the necessary qualifications, skills and experience needed for the role, and posting an attractive job advert that appeals to a diverse range of people.

Having a job description that is as detailed as possible will go a long way to managing the expectations of your potential hire, to ensure that they don’t later realise that the role is different from what they had anticipated.

2. Successful Onboarding

 A successful onboarding process is vital for ensuring new employees feel welcomed during what can be an uncertain time. Successful onboarding goes much further than administrative tasks and paperwork, to ensure that the new employee is given as positive start as possible.

If you don’t have an HR team or dedicated person who can help with this, use your office manager to help with onboarding. The process should start before their first day, and can include a welcome message alongside a pack on what they can expect in their first week or month. Supporting the social aspect of your company ahead of their start date can be beneficial. For example, a coffee or drinks could be organised with your new hire and the rest of the team so that they see some familiar faces on their first day.

Throughout the onboarding period, ongoing training and support should be provided to help the employee grow within their role in the first few months. Setting the foundation early will go a long way to supporting their long-term success and positive contribution to the business. 

3. Recognition For Employees

 Employee recognition supports fostering a positive and motivated workplace which involves recognising employees for their hard work and achievements. Recognition can take various forms, whether that’s simple verbal praises or formal awards and incentives. Additionally, public recognition will be well-received by some, such as acknowledgement during team and companywide meetings.

When people feel valued for their hard work and can see how it fits into the bigger picture of the business’ success, they are more likely to continue their enthusiasm for the role in the long term.

4. Clear Career Paths

 In our latest Salary and Benefits Review which surveyed over 2,000 employees, a lack of career progression was cited as the reason a third (31%) of people left their previous roles. Having a clear career path is beneficial for employees as they provide a sense of direction, purpose and growth opportunities. When people have a clear understanding of the potential career growth plan within the organisation, they will be more motivated and engaged within their roles.

5. Encourage Healthy Work-Life Balance 

Encouraging employees’ work-life balance goes a long way to supporting their wellbeing and overall happiness. From the top down, by promoting a culture that values the importance of personal time, employers and leadership teams will find that that staff are more energised and productive when at work.

There are a number of ways that HR teams can implement this, with one of the easiest being flexible arrangements such as remote work options and flexi-hours. Importantly, managers should also set realistic workload expectations to avoid excessive overtime and prevent burnout.

Leading by example and promoting self-care, offering resources for stress management and wellbeing initiatives will further demonstrate the business’ commitment to supporting a healthy balance between work and personal life.

6. Learning and Development Programs

Tiger Recruitment’s above-mentioned survey revealed that the third most common (21%) reason people leave their jobs can be attributed to a lack of training and development. Having personal development initiatives in place provide employees with the necessary knowledge and support to excel in their role. By investing in continuous learning opportunities, employers are demonstrating the ways that they value their staff, prioritise their growth and offer opportunities for career advancement.

Looking To Hire?

If you’re looking to recruit or looking for support on reducing employee turnover, get in touch with us today.

The post How to Reduce Employee Turnover appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

As organisations around the world commemorate International Women’s Day 2024, the conversation around gender inclusivity in leadership has never been more pertinent. This article explores the benefits of gender inclusive leadership, the barriers that exist, and strategies for nurturing and retaining female leaders. We also feature insights from Tiger’s very own female leadership team: Rebecca Siciliano, Angela Lopes, Zahra Clark, and Jane Leese.

Evolving Leadership

Over the past few years, the workplace has changed monumentally. The pandemic accelerated the flexible work movement, while George Floyd’s death unleashed a tidal wave of corporate support to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The makeup of leadership teams, despite being slower to change, has also undergone a gradual shift in the past decade, with many evolving from “profit-driven organizations focused on “what” and productivity”, to “purpose-driven cultures focused on ‘why’ and their people”. The likes of B Corp are supporting the drive to inclusivity, having certified over 6,000 companies in more than 80 countries.

When it comes to female representation in leadership teams, where do we now stand? In the last ten years, women in chief executive positions in the FTSE 100 has risen from 3% to 9.3%; women in non-executive roles in FTSE 100 companies grew from 24.8% to 47.4%; and female representation in executive roles almost tripled, rising from 10.5% to 29.8%. Progress has been made, but there is still much to be done.

Benefits of Gender-Inclusive Leadership

Time and again, it has been proven that companies with diverse leadership teams outperform their counterparts, driving innovation and bolstering financial performance. Research from the Council on Foreign Relations emphasises the economic potential of women’s participation in the workforce, amounting to billions of dollars for the global economy. Additionally, organisations with at least 30% women in leadership roles are 12 times more likely to be in the top 20% for financial performance.

The benefits aren’t merely financial, though. Our article, Inclusive Workplaces: a Guide for HR teams, points to diverse organisations being ‘87% better at making decisions’, while inclusive companies are ‘1.7 times more innovative’ than those that aren’t inclusive. In other words, diversity in leadership pays off in a multitude of ways.

Gender-inclusive leadership can also help to inspire the next generation of female leaders. Rebecca Siciliano, Tiger’s Managing Director, explains: “Women have been given more role models in leadership, which means that more women will aspire to be in a role like that because there’s someone they can relate to. No longer do they need to have the same traits as men.” In sum, organisations with inclusive cultures are better positioned to attract and retain top talent, and raise future female leaders.

Barriers to Gender Inclusivity

One barrier to gender-inclusive leadership refers to the ‘broken rung’ phenomenon, where “women remain acutely underrepresented in the middle management”. Additionally, women tend to be appointed to people-led positions, “where they hold less influence, have lower salaries and are less likely to be on track to C-Suite roles”.

Fortunately, in 2024, employers are striving to cultivate environments of inclusivity where diverse voices are heard. Male leaders are increasingly recognising the importance of allyship and advocacy in driving gender equity initiatives. A Harvard Business Review article pinpoints that “male leaders — and men more broadly — are increasingly expected to pursue gender inclusion and equity through deliberate allyship with women.” This could include “collaborative personal relationships, public acts of sponsorship, and advocacy intended to drive systemic improvements in workplace culture.” For some male leaders, these acts may seem of less strategic importance, but HR should continue to encourage this, where possible.

Finally, the ‘motherhood penalty’ still plays a significant role in blocking women’s career progression, with mothers experiencing a 60% drop in earnings compared to fathers in the decade following the birth of a first child. Angela Lopes, Tiger Recruitment Director, reflects on her return from maternity leave: “When I left for maternity leave, around 12 years ago, I felt like there weren’t as many opportunities for me when I returned compared to those who did not have children”. Experiences like these highlight the need for organisations to address the challenges faced by parents returning to work.

Incorporating inclusive practices

Understanding and acknowledging diverse gender identities – male, female, transgender, non-binary, and agender – is paramount for organisations to create inclusive environments. It extends beyond policies to encompass everyday practices, such as language usage and communication norms, that acknowledge and respect the richness of these identities. In doing so, companies can create environments where every individual feels seen, valued, and empowered to thrive.

Implementing inclusive language and greetings sets the tone for creating a welcoming atmosphere where all individuals feel valued and respected. These can be small yet impactful changes, such as replacing ‘Hey guys’, with inclusive alternatives like ‘Hello everyone’. Additionally, fostering a workplace culture that celebrates diversity and promotes allyship can instil a sense of belonging for all employees, regardless of gender identity.

It’s also vital for leaders to display transparency in their communication, particularly around initiatives aimed at closing gender disparities, such as pay equity, flexible working policies and parental leave. This will build trust and accountability among current and prospective employees.

Nurturing Female Leaders

HR professionals and management teams play a crucial role in cultivating environments where women can thrive. Investing in targeted training programmes, coaching opportunities, and leadership development initiatives tailored to the unique needs of female employees can foster professional growth and career advancement. Moreover, establishing mentorship networks and affinity groups that provide support and networking opportunities can enhance retention and promote a sense of community.

Empowering female leaders is essential for diverse and resilient organisations. Here are some actionable ways that employers can use to create pathways for women’s advancement and retention.

Promote representation

Importantly, organisations should actively promote female representation and role models in leadership positions through targeted recruitment and succession planning efforts, and by encouraging women to pursue leadership opportunities. This is crucial to encouraging a pipeline of female talent that can be developed into leaders. Further, by identifying and addressing barriers that impede women’s career progression, such as biased hiring practices, employers can ensure they are both developing and attracting top female talent to their organisation. Jane Leese, Head of Tiger Zurich GmbH, advocates starting with the shortlist, highlighting how employers can work towards increasing female representation by ensuring that all shortlisted applicants for open roles are gender-diverse.

Read our guide on best practice DEI initiatives in recruitment.

Foster inclusion

Open dialogue and feedback are key to fostering workplace inclusivity, along with the creation of safe spaces where employees feel empowered to voice their experiences. Further, employers can establish metrics to track progress towards gender-inclusivity goals, with HR regularly assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of DEI initiatives, adjusting as needed to drive meaningful change.

McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace Report 2023 highlights the gains made for women in senior roles, and the significance of flexible working in paving the way for their progression.  Following the pandemic, a fifth of women say flexibility helped them stay in their job or avoid reducing their hours. Working remotely or in a hybrid arrangement also contributed to less burnout and fatigue, and most women reported having more focused time to be more productive. Flexible working is undoubtedly key to fostering diversity at all levels of business.

Develop female leaders

Sadly, women are 12% more likely than men to experience burnout at work – but mentoring programmes can help to alleviate this, in addition to facilitating knowledge transfer and improving career advancement.

By implementing tailored training and mentorship programmes that equip female leaders with the skills and resources they need to thrive, they provide opportunities for networking and professional growth. This will facilitate connections with mentors and peers across the organisation, which can be done through workshops, seminars, and executive education programmes. This is particularly useful in organisations with a clear female minority in the leadership team, where female leaders can greatly benefit from the opportunity to network with peers.

By providing opportunities for women to develop leadership skills and expand their professional networks, employers can help nurture their next cohort of female leaders. However, sometimes, the onus is also on the individual to seize opportunities. Zahra Clark, Head of Tiger MENA, emphasises: “Go for it, be confident and take every opportunity that you’re given.”

The post Gender Inclusivity in Leadership appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Overcoming barriers to DEI
• Representation in management teams
• DEI strategies for HR teams
• Creating inclusive workplaces
• Recruiting diverse talent
• Evidence-based strategies
• Summary

The post Inclusive Workplaces: A Guide For HR Teams appeared first on Tiger Recruitment.