The impact of Covid’19 pandemic on the business landscape was substantially catastrophic but at the same time, served as a great eye-opener to the viability of remote and hybrid work models.
Today, 87.4% of global respondents are now of the notion that remote work is the future hence the need to build a remote workforce as part of organisational strategy.
But attracting and retaining top candidates for your remote workforce is nothing short of nerve-wracking. You must be aggressive and unwavering in your recruiting strategies because oftentimes, your preferred choice of candidate has multiple job offers.
Not to worry, if you’re a hiring manager, manager, or leader still contemplating how best to successfully scale through the process of onboarding, preboarding, and reboarding top remote candidates, you can leverage this piece as your one-stop solution.
Basic Tools to Consider When Hiring Remote Workers
Technologies play a key role in your remote hiring as well as employee remote work experience, so it’s important that you stack up your HRM with tools that facilitate the processes. Check out these basic tools for remote working;
Employee assessment tools
Employee assessment comes in different forms depending on your business needs but oftentimes, most work-from-home roles require tech-savvy remote employees with exceptional typing skills.
In that case, a simple online speed typing test platform allows you to assess your candidates and make sure your next remote hire is a typing pro. Job postings pertaining to clerical, administrative, accounting, and other similar roles may find these tools coming in handy.
Transcription and subtitle platforms
Adopting remote working could only mean that you’re opening a window of opportunity for employees from diverse geographical backgrounds. Thus, you need a tool that bridges the gap of language barriers.
For instance, during job interviews, you can make real-time transcripts and convert subtitles with Happy Scribe transcription platform to enable an easy and comprehensible flow of conversation with applicants that have different dialects.
This tool is equally beneficial when having virtual meetings with your remote employees as it gives room for a smooth flow of communication with and between employees with varying regional languages.
Video Conferencing Software
This is undoubtedly the most important tool for remote working. After all, it’s the most common and effective communication modus operandi that brings the touch of in-person experience despite being far apart.
With video conferencing tools like Google Meet and Zoom, you can hold virtual meetings with your remote workers either one-on-one or as a team. The intriguing part of these platforms is their ability to record online sessions so that absentees can get full details of what they missed.
Collaboration and project management tools
The fact that employees are more productive when working from home doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep a tab on ongoing activities.
Perhaps, I need a little nap, or cooking something delicious should do the trick. Do you get the gist? Collaboration and project management systems can allow you to monitor employee activities and ensure they’re kept abreast of organisational activities and updates.
Tips To Attract Top Candidates For Remote Working
You might wonder why you need to redesign your hiring process to attract remote employees. After all, you have an excellent brand reputation and a working scheme that has successfully brought in top talents for your in-office roles.
The little yet significant difference is that remote hiring implies sourcing candidates from a much larger talent pool. As advantageous as that may seem, you’re setting up your business for more dreadful competition from rivals around the globe.
Check out these tips to attract quality candidates;
Bring your hiring team up to speed
Expertise gives you a head start! Nothing beats having a team of highly experienced hiring personnel as they know just the perfect way to establish relationships with job prospects and appraise their process.
Although it gets a little more onerous since all conversations and evaluations will be conducted online unlike the regular face-to-face interviews. So, it’s equally important that you get your hiring team the know-how of conducting remote interviews.
Another factor that makes remote hiring a backbreaking activity is the battle for employee retention. What does that mean? As remote working continues to gain ground, organisations are becoming more compelling with their hiring tactics, so your desired candidate can be lured away if you fail to optimise your preboarding and onboarding programme.
Optimise your online presence
An excellent brand reputation keeps you one step ahead of rival businesses in your local area but when sourcing and attracting talents from distant geographical locations, your digital presence decides the outcome.
For instance, you own a highly-placed consulting firm in your city but paid little attention to establishing an online presence or updating your web pages, and just recently, you felt the need to grow your business and onboard a diversified range of remote employees.
There’s every tendency that you may not record much success as your online absence sends negative impressions to candidates.
As most job seekers have become tech-savvy, it’s equally important that you exploit the versatility of cyberspace to attract and engage your job prospects.
Make it clear that your job openings are remote-friendly
More than 60% of job seekers give preferences to job ads that showcase remote work options, so rather than burying that detail in the paragraphs, you may want to incorporate it in your headlines or better still, put in the titles as in “Remote content creator”.
Additionally, you may need to be more explicit about how remote the role is going to be. If it’s going to be a hybrid work model, that is partly in-office and partly work-from-home or it’s going to be a 100% remote role, you need to shed light on that.
Remote work has changed the dynamics of the business landscape such that most job seekers and employees will even be willing to take a pay cut to work remotely. So, if you’re looking to attract more talents for your remote roles, make it apparent in your job postings.
Showcase remote employee testimonials
If there’s a way to attract top candidates to your business, it’s by presenting testimonials from your remote staff. Rather than making it sound like a bluff, publish real-time testimonials through story-telling.
Urge your remote workers to share their experience on what it feels like to work remotely for your organisation in order to inspire candidates who are already contemplating an application. This doesn’t necessarily have to be in texts, video formats even tend to be more convincing.
Employee Retention Statistic
As much as 20% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment.
—Onboarding Experience Statistics SHRM.
Tips To Retain Top Candidates For Remote Working
Do you know what’s even more tasking than attracting top remote candidates? It’s making sure that you don’t lose them! As much as attracting the right talent is important, when they are hired, they can still end up leaving you even before the first day.
In fact, according to Onboarding Experience Statistics SHRM, as much as 20% of staff turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment. This statistic highlights the crucial importance for organisations to nurture their new employees for a more extended period.
A good onboarding experience is vital as it eases the doubts, fears, concerns, and uncertainties of new employees, increasing the likelihood of their long-term retention and productivity.
To enhance your new hire retention rates and ensure that you’re maximising the investment in your top remote talent, consider these tips.
Lay emphasis on the career development plan
The benefits of remote working are quite appealing; talk of flexibility, healthier lifestyles, and even time efficiency amongst others but if that’s all you’ve got to offer, you may not make much progress with your talent retention.
Every job seeker also has that growth mindset and envisages a successful career path, so it’s only normal that they measure their plans with what your organisation has to offer. In brief, you may want to come up with an employee career growth plan for your remote staff. By providing a clear and structured path for advancement, you can ensure your new hire’s commitment to your organisation.
During the pre-boarding, update successful candidates with your staff development plans to give them a good first impression about your organisation and that you have their best interest at heart. While that serves as a morale booster for your new remote hires, you increase your chances of seeing greater employee retention.
As your employees progress and show potential for leadership roles, they may require specific development tracks and additional guidance. When an employee grows within a company, they would need to be reboarded so they would know what is expected of them in the new role, especially if it’s a leadership role they are going to. By investing in their growth and providing the necessary support, you can retain valuable talent and build a strong, motivated remote workforce.
Show candidates the perks of your remote workplace
There’s no point concealing the extra incentives that your organisation has to offer successful candidates. Aside from competitive salaries and bonuses, fringe benefits play a vital role in increasing employee productivity and retention.
In most workplaces, in-office workers tend to enjoy a host of perks that may not be available to remote workers; talk of trendy workplaces, access to office gyms, health insurance, employee training programs, and other incentives that build employee satisfaction and loyalty.
To bridge the gap between remote and in-office experiences, leverage technology to create an engaging and interactive pre & onboarding platform. By utilising technology such as Introdus, you can deliver personalised content that showcases the unique perks and benefits your organisation offers, providing remote workers with a glimpse of the positive aspects they may not physically encounter. You can also introduce new hires to your company culture, values, and mission, making them feel connected and welcomed from the start.
In the same vein, you may want to incentivise successful remote projects or offer remote employee benefits like technology allowances, vacations, professional advancement opportunities, and more.
Leave no room for redundancy
Do you know what they say about an idle mind? It actually opens up your candidates to other appealing job offers. In essence, you must engage your employees even at the least opportunity you get.
For remote hires, your onboarding, preboarding, and reboarding phase are very delicate in the employee life cycle. You should;
Don’t Be Swayed By Critiques
Despite the increasing adoption of remote work models, some old-fashioned thinkers still consider it a vicious cycle of disengaged and unmotivated employees.
But that’s far from true! Remote working isn’t gaining traction by chance as it has proven to be a viable tool for employee engagement and retention speeding up individual and organisational growth alike.
While the job market continues to get more competitive, implementing the aforementioned tips will likely earn you the best remote talents.
Author
Rilwan is a freelance content writer, explorer, and reader. He has covered topics including digital marketing, HR, emerging technologies, and their intersection with business. Rilwan’s writing has been featured in Leaderonomics, Engagedly, and Newsbreak—where he unraveled “10 simple steps to launch an online business in 2023”, among others.
