Every human, animal, plant and nowadays even some machines have the ability to learn. So what is learning? Learning is the act of acquiring new, or modifying and reinforcing existing, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. Researchers disagree on the attention span of a human. According to Statistics Brain, some think that most healthy teenagers and adults are unable to sustain attention on one thing for more than about 20 minutes at a time, although they can choose repeatedly to re-focus on the same thing, however, others disagree and state that a human attention span is as short as 8 seconds which is less than a goldfish.
Different people have different learning capabilities and pace. There are different learning methods. Some people learn better visually. Visual learning is a style in which a learner utilizes graphs, charts, maps and diagrams. Others learn better auditory. Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. An auditory learner depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. So what are the best methods to keep employees/students engaged during the learning period?
1) Use their devices: Use traditionally known distracting devices as educational devices. This keeps them more excited making sure you keep it an engaging session and not a lecturing one.
2) Gamify your classroom: Use games as a source of learning and quizzing your employees’/students’ knowledge. This makes the learning process more exciting and engaging for all parties.
3) Learning ownership: Empower employees and give them ownership of their learning so they understand how important what they’re doing is.
4) Explain to them the bigger picture: Show them why it is important to take care of the intellectual health and what there is in it for them.
5) Be enthusiastic: Be positive, funny and active. Speak their language. If employees/students see you as a human being who is on their side and trying to help them, they’ll look at what you’re saying through a different lens and are more likely to actually pay attention.
6) Incentives: Give employees/students incentives to take a class and if successfully passing they would receive an award that can be either monetary or for example tickets etc.
7) Experience/opinion sharing: Discuss different topics. Take employees/students opinions. Allow a conversation/ ideas’ sharing session. Maybe even a competitive game session through splitting them into groups. This improves team work skills and which could motivate some employees/learners to stand out among their peers. This keeps the learner more engaged and excited throughout the learning session.
There are different learning methods that you can use to suite different learner types. However referring to the points above visual and auditory combined methods create the best learning methods which also leads us to emphasize on the importance of communication and interaction between the different parties to ensure the best learning outcomes. This might differ from one culture to another. So which of the above do you think is a suitable learning method for your organization?
One piece to creating a successful employee engagement is having events in your company. Events, big or small create a sense of bonding between coworkers. They help establish relationships, which can lead to a sense of belonging to the company. Each company has their own way of bringing unity within the company. Below is a list of different types of events that your company is already doing or could maybe start to liven things up.
“A little Party never hurt nobody”
Different types of events:
Holiday parties- Oh the holidays! How they bring about such a wonderful, happy time. That happy time can create quite a positive mood with office employees especially when it comes to holiday parties. Having a holiday party is good about bringing unity and a good time outside the office. But make sure to keep a limit and don’t have the event get to out of control.
Fitness Classes- Fitness classes that the company provides, such as yoga or boot camps show another side of your coworkers. It’s a place where everyone can let off some steam before going back to work. And is a great added benefit or incentive if the company is willing to provide this outlet for their employees.
Happy Hour- an easy after work get together where everyone can go and enjoy a quick drink or some appetizers before heading home. It’s a nice way to end a work day. Some companies let employees leave a little earlier to attend, or some have the means to be able to have the happy hour in the office break room or a conference room, so employees don’t have to go far and can just head home.
Team building – Team building shows coworkers in a different light. Depending what the activities are for the day, usually they are exercises that show we need to rely on each other to get the job done. For example: Some companies have team building exercises at Escape rooms because everyone in their room is working together to get out before the time is out. Other teams do outdoor activities or go bowling to just create a relaxed environment outside of the office that also creates time for conversation besides work. Having an activity to bond about or talk about makes it easier to engage in those types on conversations as well.
Some other honorable mentions are attending Conferences with your team members and Employee Appreciation Day. The goal and benefit of all these activities is to create bonding experiences with coworkers outside of work in a more relaxed setting so that they feel a part of a community. What are other events that your company could put on to build your employees up?
For some companies and for some types of jobs, it is not uncommon that as soon as a job is posted online, applications come flooding in. But what about the times when that isn’t the case? Or when you need a highly specialized hire that may not be looking for a job at this time? This is a perfect opportunity to take a look at other options, and one great resource to pursue is working with external recruiters or recruiting agencies.
LinkedIn has a great list of how staffing firms can help you excel and some of the advantages of working with them. Some of the biggest reasons that companies start working with recruitment agencies include:
When the types of applicants they want are in high-demand and probably already in a job (and possibly not looking at this time).
When they have a hard to fill job that is not getting enough qualified applicants through their normal channels.
When they have already looked on job boards and not located resumes that fit their requirements.
When their company has grown significantly and the current team is overwhelmed with the number of job openings and the time required to fill them.
When you make the move to work with recruiting agencies, there are some considerations you will need to keep in mind in regards to the terms of your agreement as well as the responsibilities and expectations of the external recruiter.
What payments terms does the recruiting agency have? In most cases, this will be based on the hires annual salary and paid after the employee is on the job for a certain number of days. For example, you might end up paying out 20% of the employee’s annual salary to the recruiter after the new hire has been with the company 90 days.
What is the recruiter’s warranty period? Many will offer you a timeframe during which, if the hire doesn’t work out of leaves, they will find you a replacement hire at no cost.
What additional services will the vendor complete for you? Make sure that you work with an agency who, at a minimum, will pre-screen and meet every candidate that they send your way and that they will verify the qualifications before sending to you. Also, depending on the recruiter’s field and specialty, some may offer additional services such as skills testing, background checking, drug screening, etc.
Keep in mind that these things can be negotiated – especially if you are making multiple hires through the same agency. Make sure you discuss and come to agreement on the terms and price. Also, make sure you shop around and thoroughly review each recruiting agency you use. You may end up sending out to multiple agencies, but sometimes you can get competitive pricing if you work exclusively with a single vendor.
Additionally, there are some terms and scenarios you might want to review with a recruiting agency that may or may not be a part of their original agreement.
Do they offer a lock-out period? This would be a time during which the recruiter cannot place your candidate in another position at a different company, necessitating you filling the position again.
At what point do you have to pay for the resume? For example, what if the recruiter sends you a resume for someone that already applied through your website? Or what if the same resume is submitted by multiple recruiters? Make sure this is clearly defined and easy to document.
What happens if the recruiter sends unqualified candidates? This doesn’t seem to be the norm, but it can happen, so make sure you have open lines of communication to address this situation quickly.
With all of this in mind, our last piece of advice is to make sure that everything about the relationship and the resumes you receive and hire is well documented. Take steps to ensure you are able to find and report on the information about the resumes that have been sent your way. Utilizing tools such as applicant tracking solutions and vendor management systems can help ease some of the burden of tracking this manually. Also, having this as a part of your ATS makes it easier to track the resumes sent from recruiting agencies and house them in the same place as external or internal candidates which will help ensure consistency in your own hiring practices.
Posting jobs and hiring new employees can be a huge time investment, making it a big disappointment when your favorite candidate doesn’t accept the offer or leaves after being on the job for only a short time period. There can be many underlying reasons for this shock to the system, and one thing that it helps to keep in mind is that your hiring processes cannot always be a “one size fits all” tool. Your candidates may come from many different sources and backgrounds, and how you interact with them during the hiring process can influence their decisions to join or stay at your company long-term.
This blog series will focus on several different groups of candidates and considerations for working with those groups. For example:
How can you attract external candidates to apply to your openings?
How might you adjust the hiring process to meet the unique needs of candidates referred by your current employees?
Are there any special ways to keep in touch and market new job opportunities to respected alumni?
How can you get and keep the attention of the millennial workforce?
How can you make applying to jobs fast and easy for hourly workers?
Over the next couple of months, join us as we provide some best practices when accounting for the diverse needs of today’s workforce. Our focus will be on the candidate sources below, and we would be happy to receive further suggestions from our readers on additional groups you might like us to focus on.
Feedback is a critical component to motivating your workforce. According to a recent study by AccentureTM, providing frequent, direct performance appraisals ranks in the top 5 ways to engage your employees*. A technology solution that facilitates this process by providing ongoing access to documented expectations, departmental objectives and goals, and a location where employees can log their achievements and challenges reinforces to employees that they are an important part of the organization’s success.
With a full understanding of factors that drive your top performers, you are able to ensure they have access to the career development opportunities they require. Top performers are often career driven, willing to go the extra mile to remain on the path to success. With Brilliant HR Performance solution in place, they can identify their career goals and share them with their managers. Managers then have the information they need to keep them engaged in their work and productive at your company.
