/U;/U/People;/U/U – USA;/U/U – AUS;/U/U – NZ;/U/U – UK;/U/U – AUS/15-10;/U/U – NZ/15-10;/U/U – UK/15-10;/U/U – USA/15-10;

Below are a few tips that you can use in your seasonal staff-hunting efforts this year. Check them out and see what you can apply in your business.

On finding great hires:

Everyone is familiar with the usual hiring routes of posting to job boards and using sites such as Monster, Indeed, and CareerBuilder. So rather than rehashing these points, this section will shed light on tactics beyond traditional job ad posting. Have a look at the following employee hunting tips you could try:

TURN TO YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS OR FANS

You’ll want to hire people who are naturally enthusiastic about your brand or products. The best way to find these individuals is by looking at your customer or fan base.

“Who would be better to represent you and your business over the holiday season than a enthusiastic customer, vendor, or fan?” says business consultant Jennifer Martin of Zest Business Consulting. “Contact any cheerleaders personally with a special offer just for them.”

One example of a retailer is doing this vape shop (and awesome Vend customer) Good Guy Vapes. Owner Shoaib Iqbal shares that they regularly hire existing customers as their employees. In fact, when they decided to expand their business, their first hire was one of their patrons.

“Our first employee was a customer and we’ve continued that tradition ever since. We mostly hire enthusiastic customers.”

See if you can go down the same route in your business. If you’re looking for new staff members, get in touch with customers and fans and see if they’re interested in working for you.

TALK TO YOUR EXISTING EMPLOYEES

Having trouble finding new hires outside the company? Consider asking your existing employees for help.

Doing so won’t just make staff hunting easier, but it may also make onboarding and training faster and simpler for everyone. As Jennifer puts it, “A new hire may also enjoy working with someone they know and their ramp up time to train might be faster because they’ll be more engaged.”

Just be sure to set boundaries, she adds. Retailers should lay out rules for “what is acceptable and what is expected when hiring friends and family.”

GET IN TOUCH WITH PAST EMPLOYEES

Think back to your previous employees, identify individuals that you enjoyed working with, then get in touch to see if they’re willing to come back to work this season.

Again, this will make prospecting and training a whole lot easier. Since these employees already have experience working with you, they’re already familiar with your store’s policies and processes, and will require less training.

GET CREATIVE WITH YOUR JOB DESCRIPTIONS

Remember, you’re not the only retailer looking for great seasonal hires, so you need to find ways to stand out. One of the ways to accomplish this is to write compelling and creative job postings.

Check out what FUN.com is doing. The company, which also owns HalloweenCostumes.com, hires around 1,500 temporary workers during the Halloween season.

And because of the large number of people they need to hire, the company has to write job posts that stand out. FUN.com’s VP of Marketing Troy Eaves, told us in a previous article that they do this by getting “really, really creative to attract such a large number of potential employees” and by writing job posts that “create a sense of overall joy from the company and people.”

Have a look at this sample job description that they posted last year:

Consider emulating their tactics when you’re hiring new people. Ditch the generic job posts and write something creative. Publish a job post that not only shows off the personality of your brand, but also makes applicants feel positive about working for you.

BE PROACTIVE AND CREATIVE WITH YOUR STAFF-HUNTING EFFORTS

Speaking of creativity, you’ll also want to think outside the box when staff-hunting, advises Jennifer. Rather than just going with traditional hiring methods or waiting for people to come to you, why not be more proactive with your efforts?

“If you have a few key employees and you want to find others just like them, then learn about them just like you would with defining your ideal clients,” she adds. “Find out what their hobbies are, where they spend their down time, and what they do for fun. If you find that a number of your ideal workers take yoga, then guess where you’ll find more people like them? Yup, at yoga classes.”

On training and motivating seasonal hires:

Once you’ve found the right employees, it’s time to train them for the season ahead. Now, having seasonal hires poses a challenge for retailers because some of them may not be as motivated as full-time employees who are in it for the long run.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to train, engage, and motivate them to fully exert themselves on the job. Here’s how:

USE MULTIPLE TRAINING METHODS AND MATERIALS

Utilizing multiple training methods and materials can facilitate learning and help your staff pick up and retain information more effectively.

According to Jennifer, it would be ideal to have your systems or processes documented in a variety of ways. “For example if you want to teach someone how to ring up a gift card, have ready not only written instructions but pictures or videos showing the dos and the don’ts so your new employees will know when they are getting it right.”

The same goes for operating your equipment and software. In addition to showing your staff how it’s done in-store, prepare a written or recorded tutorial that they can refer to later on.

Tip

If you’re a Vend customer, you can easily accomplish this with Vend U, which contains various courses and how-to videos on using the software. Check out these materials by logging into the learning portal, and use them to train your staff.

PAIR SEASONAL HIRES WITH REGULAR EMPLOYEES

Melissa also recommends that you let your old-timers mentor your seasonal employees. Not only will this help them get up to speed faster, but it’ll also minimize having an “us and them” type of environment.

PUT CASH BONUSES UP FOR GRABS

“Because of their generally lower wages, temps are highly motivated by money,” writes Rieva Lesonsky on SmallBizTrends.com. That’s why she recommends that employers incentivize seasonal workers with cash bonuses or prizes.

She furthers:

Consider holding contests with cash prizes (it doesn’t have to be a ton of money) or setting goals for each temp with a bonus to be awarded if the goals are reached by the end of their employment term.

You could even offer a bonus for perfect attendance, since absenteeism can be a problem with temporary workers.

OFFER THEM A CHANCE AT FULL-TIME WORK

If there are opportunities for full-time employment at your stores, be sure to let your temps know. This could encourage them to be more invested in your company.

And since these individuals have already undergone a bit of training in your store, you’ll spend less time educating them in the future, if you do end up hiring them full-time.

Final words

The holiday season is always hectic, but with the right team members, staying on top of everything is completely doable. If you haven’t done so yet, get started on your seasonal hiring and training by following the tips in this post.

When it comes down to it, your culture is your brand, and your brand is your culture. This is demonstrated throughout the entire customer journey. It’s the feelings that your customers and your employees have when they think about your company. When it’s done well, it’s pervasive, deep and embraces every organisational touch point. From the way that you respond to a phone call, to an email or any engagement with customers, vendors and your fellow employees.

For a brand to come to life, it needs to be internally aligned to the company’s values. A great workplace culture revolves around people. They must be engaged, empowered and believe in the company vision.

The importance of alignment was highlighted in ‘Managing brand performance: aligning positioning, execution and experience’ in the Journal of Brand Management:

“For internal branding the company must align its people, resources and operations. The most important asset for a company is its employees, who need to be fully engaged to deliver on the brand promise… The company culture is the leader of the brand is it guides decisions for the staff.”

Without a clear vision set in place, employees will struggle to understand what the company stands for and what differentiates them from the competition. It was recently reported that only one in four employees is fully engaged at work. This would suggest that most organisations are not doing a great job communicating brand values to their staff.

The bottom line is, in order to create a successful culture and brand, your employees should be living and breathing your company values. To build that kind of ecosystem, a company has to be committed to its long term vision that expresses the brand’s core values. Without this, there’s a disconnect between what you say, how you act and what your customer thinks and feels.

So, how do you build a strong ‘brand’ culture?

1. Define The Purpose

It begins with a meaningfully differentiated, purpose-driven idea. One that the organisation can rally around. Here, a top down approach works to share the purpose. A leader who can define the values, vision and expected behaviours. One who shares with simple, clear and easily demonstrated behaviours. Companies like Apple, Tesla, Facebook and Amazon each have brilliant leaders who share the core values with their employees. This is the beginning of the business values spreading into culture. Key leaders sharing their ideas with an additional injection of personality.

2. Hire the right people

Before the business landscape changed, there was an old management mantra that said “Hire slowly, fire fast.” Many companies are still doing this, but often the best practice to create innovative workplaces is to move fast in both areas, instead using the phrase “Hire fast, fire fast.”

With the right framework in place, there’s no reason not to take a chance on employees who you believe will be a great cultural fit for the organisation. On the same token, when someone isn’t pulling their weight or doesn’t believe in the company’s values, it’s important to be honest to both yourself and to the employee. Soon, you’ll have a team of people who have the right attitude, believe in your company and who are a cultural fit.

3. Make sure your HR and Marketing work together as one

Within your organisation, human resources and marketing departments must work together as one to embed brand driven value across elements like position descriptions, key performance criteria and ensure feedback. Creating cascading goals from the company values enable every employee to understand how the tasks that they’re completing fit into the greater organisational vision.

Engaging in regular feedback using survey software like Tinypulse is another great way to make sure that the vision isn’t falling behind at any point. Regularly checking in on employees establishes ongoing communication, vital to understanding what’s going on in the day-to-day runnings of the company and when changes need to be made.

4. Celebrate Behaviours

Just as you should open up communication channels with your employees, it’s important recognise their wins, and celebrate the behaviours that are developing and growing the company’s culture to where you ultimately want it to be.

Morning meetings to check in on what’s happening for the day, quarterly themes and reward and recognition programs are great examples of activities that a company can quickly set up that go a long way in engaging employees. A structured reward and recognition program, like Power2Motivate, encourages not only management, but employees to recognise and reward one another for helping each other out.

Ultimately, the culture that you create from within is what will define what your customers, future candidates, vendors and competitors say about you when you’re not around. Culture isn’t something that comes just from a marketing or HR department’s exercises and activities. Culture comes from your employees passionately living and breathing it. Your culture and your brand are a state of mind. Done well, it’s an intoxicating and rewarding journey.

Some examples would be helpful here. Apple was founded by the two Steves in a garage. Microsoft began in a similar fashion. UPS was founded by two teenagers with $100 and a bicycle.

The meme of the maverick entrepreneur is widespread. Yet the majority of successful entrepreneurs are not high school dropouts. On the contrary, most of them completed school and further education, perhaps gaining an MBA along the way. The successful maverick is the exception, not the rule. It’s just that exceptions are more easily remembered.

So which type of entrepreneur are you? Do you fit into the category of the studious and educated, or are you a clever maverick flying by the seat of your pants? And does it matter?

Whose footsteps are you following in?

From the entrepreneurs I’ve met and interviewed, the early years do matter. They influence office behaviour, decision-making, awareness of opportunities, level of risk-taking, life goals, staff interactions and financial expectations. It’s not that one approach is better than the other. It’s that the path to success is very different.

It’s hard to tease out cause and effect from all of this. Psychologists would call it a false dichotomy – you can’t easily separate the behavior from the personality.

But if you’re starting a new business or planning to expand an existing one, you can certainly get some hints. The trick is to identify the type of entrepreneur you most resemble, then learn from them.

This is different to emulating people you admire. Admiration won’t change your personality. No matter how hard you try, if you’re a spontaneous creative type trying to emulate your favourite logical analyst, you’ll get nowhere.

Far better to identify someone similar to you who’s already successful. Look carefully at what they did and how they did it. Since you’ll have a similar frame of mind to them, this will give you useful insight into what steps to take next.

You don’t have to be perfect, any more than the investors who follow Warren Buffett’s public stock trades need to match his exact behaviour. Many of them do quite nicely simply by ambling along in his shadow. By copying some of your role model’s actions, hopefully you’ll also emulate some of their successes.

Unfortunately I’m still searching for my ideal business role model. I completed further education but started my own business because the money was better and I had no respect for authority. I suspect I’m also a bit lazy. I’ve done OK in my career, but I’m no Bill Gates.

If you can think of someone successful who fits this description, let me know. I’ll knock on their door and ask them what I should do next.

Meanwhile, try to identify your own entrepreneurial role model. Then see what you can learn from them. There’s no guarantee of success, of course. But sometimes following in someone’s footsteps is a lot easier than forging a new path all on your own.

Sound familiar?

Unfortunately this pattern is all too common in the creative industry. But most managers tend to think it comes with the territory. They had to work hard for little reward when they were young and for them it’s a “rite of passage” thing. But that’s the worst attitude you can have as a creative leader. The rules of the game have changed and you need to do something – fast – otherwise your high achievers will walk right out the door into the competition’s waiting arms.

We’re being a little melodramatic, but the creative industry is small – it pays to look after your top talent. The last thing you want is a competing agency poaching your best and brightest.

So how do you nurture that talent and keep it from walking out the door?

01 – Start by identifying your top talent

Top performers produce as much as 10 times more than the average worker, while they often require less than two times the pay (Sullivan, 2012, read in Halogen Software).

So find out who your star performers are!

Top talent are the ones that push the business forward, who proudly exemplify your culture, live your values and always deliver above and beyond. They’re ambitious, intelligent and passionate about what they’re doing and where they’re headed. Using a complete project management software like WorkflowMax makes this step is easy. With instant access to real time data, you’re able to gauge the most productive employees, and even generate detailed reports for “billable time”.

02 – Give them a cause and get behind it

People want to feel invested in their work, the younger generation even more so. Show them how your agency differentiates itself from others, through the work that you do, the culture you embrace, by the purpose-driven approach to everything your agency does. If your staff feel a sense of ownership and pride in their work, they’ll stay the course and become the best brand champions you could ever have hoped for.

03 – Listen to learn

Time to put that beautiful ego to one side. Try to understand where your top talent is coming from so that you can develop and implement a talent retention plan that achieves both your needs. What are their career goals? What do they value besidesmonetary incentives? Is it flexible work hours? In that case, it pays to know how to manage flexible staff. Perhaps they’re more concerned with wellbeing initiatives? Or designated work environments that encourage experiment and “play”? Google acknowledges the positive impact these kinds of spaces have on “productivity, collaboration and inspiration” and makes them an essential ingredient of any HQ. Facebook even has its own Analog Research Lab! Learn from global best practice and implement as necessary.

04 – Be open to new ideas

The creative industry is constantly evolving – and the new generation brings with it an understanding of new mediums, fresh ways of working and a dynamic energy. Your top talent wants to have a voice, so give them one. You might be surprised at what you hear.

05 – Time to get transparent

The more visibility employees have over their professional development, the more likely they are to stick around for the long haul. For example, openly state in their contracts (or perhaps your company-wide intranet) exactly what internal/external development opportunities are available to them. Open education models are another highly worthwhile development option. Include information on any long-term incentive schemes in place and designated support people (HR).

06 – Praise well and praise hard

High achievers don’t want a pat on the back – they want credit where it’s due and meaningful feedback which helps them grow and develop. Annual performance and recognition rewards are some tangible incentives you can put in place to recognise great staff. Harvard Business Review notes that fifty percent of high performers expect at least a monthly sit down with their managers but this expectation is often not met. Scheduling in regular reviews, informal meetups, one-on-one coaching or even a formal mentoring programme can help track progress and provide guidance.

07 – Keep it interesting

High achievers thrive on stimulation, which is exactly what any creative agency worth its stuff is all about. However it’s almost too easy to fall into the comfortable pattern of what’s always worked and unknowingly taking your top talent for granted. Don’t be afraid to give them challenging work. They’ll love it.

08 – Give away your power

Encourage your top talent to follow their optimal career paths, direct their own learning and even grow their replacements.

And finally, the most critical one of all…

09 – Trust your people

Great leaders lead, and know when to step back. Trust that the time and effort you have invested in your top talent will pay off, because if you’ve done the hard yards you will reap the benefits.

Don’t lose your high achievers out to the competition. Show them their value by following the steps above to keep them for the long haul.

There’s been talk about the end of HR for over a decade now. That proves we’ve all known one thing for a long time – HR needs to change. And now, with rapid advances in technology and automation, it has to. It’s time to trade in the paperwork and rigid processes. The new HR needs to build itself on strategy, creativity and agility. And it needs to put the human into human resources – at last.

Let’s pay our dues and move on

In a world where technology lets us work wherever and whenever and engage and collaborate in new ways, the transactional systems of the past are floundering. Not that they didn’t play their part. Administrative systems like ERP, payroll and first generation HRIS, with their hard-coded rules and processes, paved the way for the incredible economic expansion of the last sixty years. Without their hardiness and reliability, we’d be looking at a slower, smaller and much more chaotic business landscape.

But times are changing. These days, businesses need more. Gone are the days when there was competitive advantage in capturing and reporting on information. The rapidly changing world of today is calling out for faster, more dynamic processes that foster creativity, communication and collaboration.

Today, the word on the street is agility. Adaptability. Businesses need to be ready to seize opportunities as they arise and their systems need to not just keep up, but actually help them to do it. They need to work intuitively and be programmed strategically, hardwired to work towards the organisation’s goals.

So what does that look like?

Taking cues from social

Perhaps the biggest driver of this shift is the rise of social media. Increasingly intuitive and usable, it’s become indispensable to our lives outside of work. Suddenly, clunky old systems don’t cut it for employees expecting the same usability and seamless design at work.

Next gen systems will be designed with the social networks in mind. Communication, collaboration and sharing won’t be inbuilt parts of the system – they will be the system. Filterable activity streams will deliver information and knowledge in real time with notifications, alerts and reminders for users to save and add to. And with strong visuals and elements of game design incorporated from the get-go, staff will navigate a system that recognises and rewards them.

We can look forward, in short, to smarter, super intuitive systems powered by pattern-based processing. Transactional systems have served us well, and with a bit of an overhaul, they’ll sync seamlessly with the new systems. For businesses, that means the opportunity to identify and capitalise on emerging opportunities sooner. For users, unprecedented levels of engagement. The new systems will be able to sense context, purpose and even sentiment – and use it all to empower their users to make the best decisions at the right times.

That’s a lot to look forward to. And it’s not far away at all.

The HR renaissance

In this new landscape, you won’t think of HR in the same way. You won’t be able to.

It’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. To add value to a business, HR will need to recognise the value of its workforce. That staff are unique individuals with fresh ideas who drive the company forward and need to be nurtured. HR will be on the lookout for employees’ welfare and quality of life – because employees give an organisation its edge. (Hell, employees keep an organisation afloat.)

And what do employees need? There’s the obvious (like a salary) and the not so obvious – work-life balance, engagement and cultural fit. The regular pay cheque, no longer just a welcome addition to their bank balance, now comes with tools to make the most of it.

The new HR is about HR with benefits. And it needs platforms to foster creative collaboration (and give businesses a competitive advantage). Platforms staff and HR love to use, and can’t do without.

We’re on the cusp of change at the moment. It’s time to stop talking and do.

Understanding why

How many conflicts have you had at work that are made worse by, or indeed stem from, an inability to see the issue from another’s perspective?

I can still remember from many years working in the trade services industry the constant battle between office and field staff. The never-ending “us” and “them” attitude.

But how does that kind of attitude affect the team and its productivity? How can a business succeed with such demoralising behaviour?

Before you say, “Yes, but… they never give us the paperwork back on time,” or, “Yes, but… they sent me to a PO Box instead of a proper address,” (and yes, it has happened), stop and think why you are in your respective roles. Think about why each of your responsibilities necessitates a collaborative effort: you are essentially working towards a common goal. When you adopt a positive and collaborative attitude, you will experience an increased cohesiveness of your team – with less misunderstanding and conflict – and will see the business thrive as a result.

I have personally digged for paperwork in technicians’ vans. Yes, it’s hard to understand why, in this instance, the paperwork wasn’t handed in. Sometimes it is truly hard to understand the why of a situation. However, when you try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, and look at the situation from a different point of view, you may very well just find the reason why.

Changing your perspective

Why not take the concept of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes further: near literally, in fact. Why not try their job for an hour? Visit a site and experience firsthand the circumstances that field staff work in and the challenges they face. If this is not possible, at least ensure you communicate with each other. Stay positive and proactive through collaboration.

Come up with ideas to improve situations. For example, make the paperwork easy for the technician, and they will do it: give them enough information, and make sure the site and contact details are correct. Perhaps replace paper-based job cards with Connect and eForms to allow quick job updates and reduce the admin work in the office.

If you are a technician, remember the job is not done until the “paperwork” is done, whether it is manual or electronic.

When we all work efficiently, the business is able to invoice faster, improving cashflow, and everyone is happier in their own shoes.

If you want to change how you view situations, you could try:

• Rotating some responsibilities within your area of work so you can understand each other’s roles and what it takes to get everything done.
• Allowing others to help you with new ideas and improved processes. Being open to suggestions.
• Asking how you can help, and asking for other people’s perspectives.
• Showing that you care.
• Remembering your feelings and being aware of your responses. Don’t judge – replace anger with empathy.
• Choosing your attitude!

So, whose shoes will you be wearing today?