The Benefits of Automating Your Accruals

The Benefits of Automating Your Accruals

by | Jul 15, 2022 | Accruals, Blog

What Are Accruals?

In the HR world, accruals refer to time off, sick leave and vacation time that ‘accrues’ as an employee works for the organization. For example, a company may offer four days of paid leave per quarter. When the employee has worked six months, they have accrued eight days of paid leave and continue to build up a bank of time.

Paid Time Off (PTO) is time employees take off during normal working hours for which they are paid. Employees either earn PTO as they work their regular schedules or receive a set number of hours at the beginning of the year. Businesses generally measure the time in hours.

Note: Accruals can also refer to unpaid leave that accrues according to FMLA or state family leave laws.

 

How Is PTO Different Than Traditional Paid Leave?

Traditional paid leave is categorized as sick days, personal days, and vacation. In contrast, PTO refers to leave that is uncategorized and employees can use as they choose. Some employers have a combination of PTO and sick time.

 

What is a PTO Policy?

The foundation for accruals tracking is a carefully designed PTO policy. When creating a paid leave policy, there are many considerations:

  • How will leave be awarded? Accrual, allotment or unlimited?
    • Will you front load a set number of days at the beginning of the year, or will they accrue based on time worked?
  • How many employees can be off at a given time?
    • Does the number change throughout the year?
    • Will there be blackout periods when nobody can take time off?
  • How will employees request time off?
    • How will you handle overlapping requests?
    • How far in advance do employees need to submit requests?
  • Will unused PTO roll over into the new year?
  • What state or local laws affect your PTO administration?
  • How will your policy affect your financials/balance sheet?

 

Why is it important to track all of your employee’s accruals correctly? 

Vacation time that is accrued (or even front loaded for that matter) is a key benefit. Earned vacation time is also considered compensation.

Imagine that your employer does not have a system in place to properly track your accruals. You then decide that you want to take a two week vacation to check off your bucket list trip of fly fishing in Alaska. You believe, based on your own tracking of accruals, that you have two weeks of paid vacation in the bank. You proceed to put in your vacation request and find out you only have 5 days of vacation in your bank.

You talk to HR and they tell you to look at your paycheck stub because your available vacation time is on the stub. You never look at that line item on your stub so you did not relaize that a discrepancy existed. Now you have to reconcocile your vacation accruals to show that you have accrued the two weeks of paid vacation time.

Unfortunately, the framework of this story comes from a real life example. The company opted to track vacation accruals on a spreadsheet. The bookkeeper assigned to this task fell behind, then was out on leave, and all of the company accruals fell behind and become inaccurate.

 

So the importance of accurately tracking accruals is –

  • Employees that end up with incorrect accruals will start to doubt the company they work for.
  • The company has to spend time and money to review all of the accruals and make sure they are updated and correct.
  • The manual process of tracking accruals is inefficient, lends itself to human error and is a direct cost on the P&L. The person in charge of tracking accruals manually can focus on other more productive tasks once you automate your accrual tracking process.

Automating your accrual tracking creates efficiency, reduces liability, gives employee the confidence their records are accurate, and positively impacts the P&L by removing the manual labor associated with manual accrual management.

 

What Are the Different Types of Time Off Policies?

Let’s look at the most common types of leave structures used by U.S. employers:

  • Traditional Leave—categories may include:
    • Vacation
    • Sick Time/FMLA
    • Federal or State Holidays
    • Floating Holidays
    • Jury Duty
    • Emergency Leave
    • Bereavement Leave
  • PTO (Paid Time Off) Banks—Employees can use the time as they choose
  • Unlimited PTO—Employees can take as many days as they want
  • PTO Purchase Plan—allows workers to buy and sell vacation days
    • The ‘currency’ is their regular salary–this type of policy is often included in a cafeteria (or flex) program
    • Employees can use pre-tax earnings to purchase benefits of their choice, which may include health insurance, life insurance, supplemental insurance, and flex spending accounts

 

Automated PTO System Simplify Leave Management

The method for tracking PTO is as important as the actual policy. Many small businesses don’t have an automated tracking method. Some use spreadsheets or Google Calendar. Employees submit requests verbally and it’s up to the manager to keep track of them, determine how they impact schedules and approve or deny.

Manual PTO tracking takes a lot of time and persistence to keep track of employee requests, treat everyone fairly, and ensure business operations aren’t impacted when employees take time off.

In contrast, inexpensive automated PTO tracking software makes it easy to manage leave. The most powerful systems sync with Timekeeping, Payroll and Employee Scheduling.

 

What Are the Benefits of Automated PTO Tracking?

  • Ensures equitable PTO for all employees
  • Provides a standardized way for employees to request time off
  • Helps managers keep track of employee vacations
  • Syncs with timecards and scheduling to avoid shift coverage gaps
  • Gives employees access to their PTO balance without calling HR

 

When researching PTO systems, make sure they can accommodate your policy. If you have anything more involved than a basic policy, you’ll need a provider that offers custom scripting and there are few in the small business space.

 

Accruals Reporting

Another advantage of an automated PTO system is ease of analytics. Employees and administrators can run reports (for any time period) and see accruals by date and which hours have been deducted from the employees’ balances. This helps business owners administer leave policies and evaluate their effectiveness. Utilizing an automated system for PTO management gives you data that can be used to make forward looking decisions.

Automating certain HR administrative functions is not just smart business, it also improves the P&L. Download our free e-book on How to Manage Employee Paid Time Off.

http://scaleocityworks.hubspotpagebuilder.com/download-this-free-ebook-to-supercharge-your-pto-plan

If you have questions about our cloud based HRIS solutions, please feel free to email us at proactivehr@scaleocityworks.com!

How to Overcome the Anxiety of Delivering Tough Feedback

How to Overcome the Anxiety of Delivering Tough Feedback

by | Jul 1, 2022 | Blog, Feedback, Feedback

Delivering feedback… for some readers, just clicking the title of this blog post may have been enough to give you a slight trickle of anxiety. While some leaders naturally feel comfortable giving direct, honest feedback to their direct reports, that isn’t the norm. Most managers actually prefer to not give corrective feedback, even though as we’ve previously discussed, employees favor receiving it.

Think about the last time you had to have a conversation that you knew had the potential to go poorly due to challenging feedback you were delivering. How did you feel beforehand? What did you do to prepare? How did it go? If you felt like your nerves got the best of you and prevented a strong delivery of your message, you’re not alone.

Luckily, like all things, the skill of delivering feedback is like a muscle, and the more you flex it, the stronger it gets. Practice and preparation can help to ensure a productive and positive conversation. This post will provide a 6-step process to help you deliver constructive, actionable feedback in a stress-free manner.

Step 1: Plan in advance

This strategy can help with many situations you may be nervous for – prepare your thoughts in advance and ensure you have a plan for how to proceed. Outline the conversation, including the major topics you want to ensure your employee understands. Leave room for flexibility, but anticipate some potential outcomes to plan your response.

Within your key points, come up with a list of facts and examples to illustrate your point. Avoid providing a laundry list of endless negative feedback, but do provide specific examples that will explain to the employee the behavior that requires correction. Also, provide examples of the outcome you would’ve preferred to have seen. Finally, review your list to double-check for opinions or extrapolations – this should purely be behavior-based, factual representations of gaps in performance.

Step 2: Reframe the conversation mentally

Now that the conversation is planned, prepare yourself mentally for the conversation. Reframing the conversation in your own mind can help to reduce your anxiety, and help you enter the conversation in the best mindset for a productive conversation.

There are several “affirmations” or reframing thoughts that you can remind yourself of prior to beginning the conversation. Read through them all, but focus on the one or two that resonate the most with your specific situation:

1. Your ultimate goal is to help, not hurt, your employee. Providing this feedback is in the best interest of both your employee and your team overall.
2. Your team member will appreciate your honesty. They may be unaware of their performance gap, and hearing the feedback will help them to take steps to correct it and improve.
3. It is your job as a leader to provide feedback if a team member is not performing. This helps ensure that all team members are treated equally, and that the team can count on each other to pull their own weight.
4. You cannot hold someone accountable to something you’ve never told them. Delivering feedback the first time is a first step to continued follow-up and measurement of progress to ensure accountability over time.
5. Everyone has the potential to operate with a growth mindset, and as a leader, you can lead your team with this mindset. Individuals with growth mindsets believe and understand that they are capable of change and improvement, not stuck in a predetermined set of traits that can’t be changed.
6. Offering feedback provides a chance for continued follow-up, which will result in an opportunity for positive recognition.

Step 3: Start the conversation by asking questions

Start the conversation with a temperature check by asking the employee questions first:
● If the feedback is related to a specific task or project, ask them how they feel it went.
● If it is related to their job performance overall, check in on how they’re feeling about their current responsibilities and role within the team.
This will help you to gauge whether the employee has a sense of awareness of their performance gap. Listening to your employee’s perspective will also help you to provide better, more balanced feedback.

If the employee indicates a gap in their performance, and provides some examples of where they haven’t met expectations, it will be easier for you to add on with your own examples and talk to them about potential reasons for the challenges. However, be aware that the employee may not indicate a gap in their performance. There are multiple possibilities for this:
● The employee may have their own anxiety about admitting to their mistakes or failures
● The employee may truly be unaware that they are not meeting expectations. However, note that a study by leadership development consultants Zenger/Folkman found that 74% of employees who received constructive feedback already knew there was a problem.

In either one of these scenarios, it will be helpful for you to recognize their unwillingness to identify their performance gap prior to initiating your feedback delivery, knowing that you may need to be very direct in providing examples while also ensuring sensitivity to their perception of the feedback.

Step 4: Set expectations and provide specific feedback

When you begin providing feedback, set expectations for the conversation early on. Provide specific, direct feedback based on the behaviors you’ve observed and the list you created in Step 1. As you discuss, check for understanding by asking questions to ensure the employee understands what you’re describing.

Ensure that the employee understands not only what you are saying, but what you are not saying, to ensure that the employee is not overemphasizing the negative or catastrophizing the scenario. For example, reiterate to the employee that you feel they have not been performing to their potential, not that they lack the ability to meet expectations.

Step 5: Work together to action plan

Ensure that the meeting includes time for creating an action plan that helps the employee feel they will be able to be successful. Work on this action plan together, but allow the employee to take the lead as much as they seem capable to do so. The action plan will be their responsibility to complete, so they should be comfortable with what goes into it.

However, do offer resources, including your own time and expertise, to help within the action plan as needed. Ensure the employee is adequately supported to improve. Your action plan should have built in follow-up and metrics for reporting improvement. This will allow you a simple mechanism for accountability and ensuring your employee is progressing as you’d hope and expect.

Step 6: Check for understanding

Before concluding, ask your employee for their main takeaways from the conversation. This serves a few purposes:

1. It ensures they understand the feedback that you delivered, and the action plan for progressing.
2. It ensures the employee hasn’t catastrophized the conversation into a worst case scenario.
3. It level sets the employee’s understanding of next steps and potential for improvement, and provides you a chance for course correction or refinement as needed.

While this process may not turn tough conversations into your favorite activity, it should help to alleviate some of the anxiety from the situation, and ensure that your conversations are productive and actionable. For even more progress and comfort in delivering tough feedback, build a culture of accountability in your organization, and ensure you’re accustomed to providing feedback to your team quickly. Once feedback is the norm, it will feel less uncomfortable both to deliver, and to receive.

Five Hidden Red Flags to Remove from Your Job Postings

Five Hidden Red Flags to Remove from Your Job Postings

by | Jun 14, 2022 | Blog, Hiring, HR, Remote Hire

This blog post starts with a memory exercise: think back to a job you posted 2-3 years ago. How many candidates were in your candidate pool? How qualified were they? How long did it take to weed through the resumes and determine who to interview?

Now, think to your last job post. How has the candidate pool changed? Do you have a stack of resumes to weed through, or are you trying to determine if anyone is well-enough qualified for an interview?

If you’re like many organizations today, hiring has become increasingly challenging, and your candidate pools are likely not what they were even a year ago. While it is clear that the market has changed, it is also important that you are putting your best foot forward with a stellar job description. Before you post your next job, double check it for these five hidden red flags before posting.

 

Red Flag 1: Unclear Salary Range

This red flag is increasingly common: posting a job description without a salary. The creative compensation descriptions are wide ranging: “Depends on experience or DOE”, “Competitive” or “Commensurate with experience”. However, this can certainly be a red flag, as it sends a message to potential candidates that you’re not going to pay them fairly. The benefits to posting a clear salary range are wide-ranging both for the employee and the employer:

Employee benefits include:

● Increases trust and transparency in employer from beginning of relationship, knowing that they don’t need to start off guessing their value
● Decreases likelihood of gender or racial wage gap, increases equity regardless of final candidate selected
● Increases transparency across employees within company, as there are no secrets about what new employees are being offered
● Provides prospective candidates a good tool for gauging their interest in the position
● Saves the candidate time in needing to research the likely salary range for the position

Employer benefits include:

● Weeds out candidates that would not accept a job offer within your planned budget, saving time and preventing other great candidates from leaving the candidate pool as the search time period is extended
● Encourages candidates to apply who may not have interest without knowing the salary range

 

Red Flag 2: Misaligned Job Qualifications

Having misaligned job qualifications in your job description can be a bit trickier to identify. However, there are two potential possibilities here that could send a red flag to potential candidates. The first is that the job qualifications do not align with the actual requirements of the job. This misalignment can be extreme, and seemingly deliberate, or honest mistakes by companies who are just looking for great candidates. Regardless, this red flag is likely to drive away candidates that are capable of doing the job.

In your job posting, examine your stated duties and responsibilities. What will this individual be doing on a day to day basis? Now, take a look at the requirements. Are the requirements truly necessary for completion of the duties and responsibilities? Is it possible that someone who does not check all the boxes might be able to perform the responsibilities? A college degree is a great example. You might like for your full customer service team to have college degrees. However, is there something in their day-to-day responsibilities that truly cannot be done without having completed a degree? In this case, consider adding desired qualifications, and assess those “nice-to-haves” separately.

Similarly, avoid asking for supervisory experience for a position who is not truly a manager, or asking for a wide variety of technical skills for a position only focused on one particular system. Not only will these wide-ranging job requirements be challenging for candidates to live up to, savvy candidates will see that the organization is unclear about who they’re looking for, and will look for opportunities elsewhere.

This leads to the second possible misalignment: job qualifications that do not align with the likely candidates for the job. In some cases, your posted qualifications might align with the responsibilities somewhat well, but still be worded in a way that is likely to weed out a high percentage of your candidate pool. For example, “entry level” positions likely will not have 5 years of experience on a particular skillset or system. Even more particularly, consider how recent the skillset or system in question is. If it is a particularly new technology, the skill, and especially years of experience in the skill, may be even
harder to find.

 

Red Flag 3: Misaligned Job Title

Finding the right job title for your job posting is not only tricky – it is critical. Unfortunately, there are a lot of potential fatal flaws here that can send your candidates looking elsewhere. The first potential red flag is the inflated job title, in which a “Director of Recruitment” is actually the person scanning the resumes as backup documentation into the HR system.

Similar to the second red flag, this involves scanning your full job posting for consistency. Does your job title truly align with the day to day responsibilities of the job?

Some organizations consider job titles a “benefit”. Hiring someone in as a Director offers them a sense of importance and value, and can accelerate their career. However, if they are not leading a team or initiative, the title likely is not aligned with their job responsibilities. In some cases, this tactic may work, and increase your candidate pool. However, there are a few risks:

● 1: As your organization grows, it may be hard to continue offering these titles to individuals not in true leadership positions. After the precedent is set, it will be hard to stop.
● 2: Some savvy candidates may recognize it as a “tactic” and see that they’re likely to not truly have the responsibilities that the title would typically assume.
● 3: Many candidates applying for leadership positions would also hope for opportunities to promote and advance. If your job titles do not align with responsibilities, will you have additional job titles available for promotion opportunities?
● 4: Your job posting may attract a candidate pool at the typical industry level for the job title. If you are not going to compensate them according to the industry standards for that job title, your pool may not be well-matched.

A different set of risks arises if the level of responsibility associated with the job duties exceeds the job title. First, individuals tend to search for jobs based on title. You may attract candidates based on the job title, rather than the actual responsibilities, who thus are not truly qualified for the job. Second, most candidates will recognize the challenging nature of the job, and not be willing to settle for a job title that does not align with the job responsibilities.

The third potential title-related red flag is the ever-popular “buzzword” job title. Many companies today like to hire “Social Media Gurus”, “HR Ninjas” and “Advertising Rock Stars”. This may attract a specific type of candidate – but it is also likely to alienate a lot more, who would prefer to have a job title they can put on their resume in the future without embarrassment. This leads us into Red Flag number 4, Unfavorable Culture.

 

Red Flag 4: Unfavorable Culture

“Fun” job titles are one sign of a potentially unfavorable culture. Buzzwords also pop up in job postings too – many job descriptions today ask for individuals who “hustle”, are “rockstars” or “wear many hats”. A few red flags may be less obvious, though:

● Fast-paced: Yes, your organization may be fast-paced, so yes, it is okay to say that it is. However, over-emphasis on this trait can lead prospective candidates to feel that they will be overworked, constantly pushed to changing deadlines, and never given time to meet objectives.
● Flexible: Again – many jobs today require flexibility as resources are thin and teams must be nimble. However, over-emphasis can suggest a work environment where individuals will be regularly asked to do the jobs of others or work outside of their regular schedule or job responsibilities. It can be tempered within a job description to explain what kind of flexibility is appreciated in the organization.
● Thick Skin: A job description asking someone to have “thick skin” is likely to send the message that not only will they receive feedback, they’ll likely need to be accustomed to potentially insensitive leaders, changing metrics and regular assessment.

 

Red Flag 5: Unclear Job Duties

When posting a job description, especially for a new position, there may be unknowns. However, a candidate should be able to read the job description and understand what the day-to-day will generally look like. Have a family member or friend read your last job posting. Can they explain the job to you? How far off are they?

Someone with experience and expertise will of course have a better understanding – but even someone outside of the industry should be able to read the job description and understand the duties. A job posting with unclear job duties sends a red flag to potential candidates that the organization does not have the job clearly defined, and is likely to make it up as they go. This is likely to send potentially great candidates applying elsewhere.

The next time you start crafting a job description, come back to this blog post. Re-read for the hidden flags that you may typically have within your job postings, and be sure to remove them in the future. For some additional commentary on the red flags, listen to our podcast on the same topic

10 Leadership Training Paths Every Team Needs

10 Leadership Training Paths Every Team Needs

by | May 6, 2022 | Blog, Leadership Styles

If you’ve been reading our blog, you already know the importance of having a mature training and development program. Your employees perform better within their current roles, develop for future roles, and gain confidence – among other perks. However, you may still be wondering how to get there, and what programs to offer. Truly, the options are endless. You can (and should) consider offering training options specific to skills you see as gaps within your workforce, new skills emerging in your industry, or even skills you see your competition excelling at.

 

In addition to those industry or skill-specific training courses, most organizations can (and again, should) choose to offer leadership training opportunities to help prepare their team for leadership opportunities, and strengthen the skills of current leaders. There is a wide range of leadership training curriculum available, so it can be difficult to know where to start. Below, we’ll describe ten leadership training paths that you should consider your minimum starting point for your team.

 

Training Path Sample Learning Objectives Team Benefits
Conflict Management

●   Recognize the importance of interpersonal relationships in the workplace, and understand the impact of conflict within a team

●   Identify the signs of conflict within a team or interpersonal relationship and demonstrate the use of appropriate communication skills to respond

●   Effectively demonstrate conflict intervention strategies that can be applied within the workplace

 A team that is able to recognize and respond to conflict will be able to quickly resolve disputes in a professional manner, inside and outside of their team.
Navigating Change

●   Understand the principles related to implementing change initiatives in an organization

●   Identify change management practices and communication styles that can assist in the sustainment of new changes in the workplace

●   Demonstrate appropriate communication tools that can support change initiatives in small and large scales

 In today’s fast-paced world, a team that understands the complicated nature of change, and how to better facilitate it, will only serve an organization’s growth.
Critical Problem Solving

●   Understand theory and practice related to data analysis and data gathering that can assist with problem solving in common workplace problems

●   Identify different data sources within your workplace that are likely to be useful tools in solving problems

●   Discuss metrics and frameworks necessary for measuring success

 While your team may be lucky enough to have a data analytics team, everyone has the need to solve problems. When your team has the resources and know-how to tackle complex issues independently, they become a greater asset to the organization.
Virtual Leadership

●   Discuss best practices and guiding frameworks to facilitate a highly functioning hybrid team

●   Identify tools and resources that can support your connection, communication and work coordination efforts

●   Demonstrate effective methods for communication and follow-up without a face-to-face connection

 The hybrid workplace may still be forming, but it appears to be the way of the future; effective leaders must learn to adapt their leadership style to fit multiple platforms and connect with their teams wherever they are.
Building Trust and Mutual Respect

●   Discuss the framework and principles for building trust within a team

●   Identify best practices that can assist you with building a culture of trust and respect within your team

 As resignations continue to soar, a highly trusted and well-regarded leader is much more likely to retain their employees.
The Art of Prioritization

●   Review best practices for managing time and eliminating inefficiencies in your day-to-day tasks

●   Identify your own inefficiencies in your regular routine; determine a plan for becoming more efficient

●   Demonstrate effective methods for prioritization after eliminating inefficiencies

 Many leaders have been tasked with extra responsibilities but no extra time – teaching your team the skill of prioritizing to ensure the most critical tasks are the ones that are accomplished first will help to ensure things stay afloat.
How to Coach your Team

●   Understand the background and framework of effective coaching

●   Identify your team’s strengths and opportunities and their corresponding coaching need

●   Determine best practices to assist you in effective coaching of your team

 Teams need a leader, not just a task manager. Ensuring your leaders have coaching skills will help to ensure they’re truly supporting their teams.
Running Effective Meetings

●   Discuss types of meetings, and corresponding agendas and frameworks to effectively accomplish meeting goals

●   Identify key players within meetings and tools to effectively assist with meeting flow

●   Discuss meetings within your organization, and the best approach for implementing effective meetings

 With most leaders spending their days in back-to-back meetings, it is critical to ensure that the meetings in your organization are serving a purpose and accomplishing their goals.
Sharpening Your Communication Skills

●   Understand the underlying principles of effective communication, and different communication styles and formats

●   Determine your preferences for communication, and those of your team

●   Assess the gap between your communication style and those you regularly communicate with; develop an action plan for change

 The best leader may not be taken seriously if they can’t effectively communicate. Offering training on effective communication will help teams to communicate internally, and help leaders to grow by sharpening this skill.
The Need to Innovate

●   Understand the need and value of innovation within an organization

●   Brainstorm opportunities for innovation within your organization

●   Develop an action plan to create more opportunities for innovation within the organization

 The best ideas come from within; the best leaders allow the ideas to come. Ensuring innovation is included as a training course sends a message to your team that new ideas are not only welcome but necessary to continue the organization’s growth.

 

These ten training paths should be considered the minimum starting point for your organization’s training program – once you have these courses up and running, continue your expansion! Ask your team for new ideas; you may find that once they begin engaging in development work, they realize there is much more they have an interest in.

Not sure where to start? Online resources can certainly get you started – you may consider looking into courses available for purchase, or even curriculum that you can utilize to form your own courses. Regardless, the investment you make here is certain to pay off in a more deeply engaged and better performing team.

Five Steps to Optimize Your Hiring through Structured Interviews

Five Steps to Optimize Your Hiring through Structured Interviews

by | Mar 4, 2022 | Blog, Hiring

HR leaders and organization executives alike are struggling with the challenge of filling critical openings on their teams as the global talent pool has evolved and competition has increased. The statistics shown below from the Society for Human Resource Management have not been updated to reflect the recent change in staffing trends, and at this point may even be optimistic. However, it goes without saying that if an organization is going to have a critical position open for an average of 36 days before filling it, they likely have interest in optimizing the process as much as possible.

society hr

While many leaders and hiring managers may like the idea of unstructured interviews in order to put the candidate at ease in a more casual environment, structured interviews provide a much more precise approach to hiring. As shown above, in slower-moving organizations, it can take close to a month to screen applicants, interview applicants and make a final decision. Structured interviews provide firmer guidelines for assessing candidates, streamlining the decision process. Additionally, structured interviews help to protect your organization legally in compliance with regulations, as each candidate will have an equal and fair review process, with equitable information and less built-in bias.

Read on for steps to include in a structured interview process.

1. Write a detailed job description, with defined qualifications

 

While this may seem premature to include in an interview process, it is essential to plan early to achieve the best results. As you’re crafting your job description, consider the qualifications that are truly necessary to accomplish the objectives of the position. Be sure they are measurable and clear to prospective applicants. Not only will this provide you with a better, more-qualified applicant pool, it will assist you with Step 2.

 

2. Assess your candidates according to the qualifications in the job description

 

Using the qualifications included in your job description, assess your candidates. If it is helpful, rank-order or assign weights to the included qualifications. At a minimum, group your candidates according to whether they fail to meet the qualifications, meet the qualifications, or exceed the qualifications, and then narrow your pool from there. Sticking to the qualifications, rather than your “instinct”, will ensure you’re taking a more systematic approach to selecting the best candidates and eliminating potential bias. Many Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) can assist with this process, and help you track the candidates throughout the hiring process.

 

3. Write a series of behavioral interview questions

 

With your job description still handy, consider what you’ll need to assess in an interview, and  write a series of behavioral interview questions. Behavioral interviewing asks a candidate to provide actual experiences to answer questions, which allows you to more accurately assess their competency and ability to perform the position. An easy way to think about a behavioral interview question is one that begins with “Tell me about a time when…”. Rather than asking your candidate to provide you a hypothetical answer to a question, they will provide you with actual evidence of their ability to accomplish the objective at hand.

To write your questions, review your critical competencies in your job description, and consider how a candidate may have shown an example of that competency. A few examples are provided below.

 

Competency to Measure Behavioral Interview Question
  • Project Leadership or Managing Conflicting Priorities
 Tell me about a time you led or were part of a complex project. What was your role, and how did you navigate challenges along the way?
  • Data Analysis or Problem Solving
 Think about the last time you were faced with a difficult problem at work. What data did you use to solve the problem? How did you identify the data, and who did you work with to implement the solution?
  • Customer Relationship Building
 Think about a time you had a customer with very complex needs. How did you work with the customer to understand their needs and ensure they were met?

 

As you can see, any competency can be measured using a behavioral interview question, which will allow you to better understand your candidate’s experience and thought process. As you listen to their answers, be sure they are providing you four key pieces of information in each response:

 

  • A description of the Situation
  • Detail surrounding the Task at hand within the situation
  • The Actionthat they took to move forward
  • The Result of their action (including, if applicable, what they may have learned or might do differently next time)

 

Because of the structured format of these answers, behavioral interview questions are sometimes referred to as STAR questions.

 

Once you have your questions written, create a scale to assign weight to each question, to assist you with your evaluation later.

 

4. Conduct your interviews

 

Continuing the “structured” format of these interviews, ensure that the interview itself is structured, beyond the interview questions. Each interview should have consistency in the interview panel, information provided to the candidate, and any additional communication or resources provided. If possible, try to schedule the interviews at the same time of the day to ensure there is no unintentional bias in scoring due to a comparatively stressed or tired interview panel.

 

5. Evaluate and recap your interviews

 

Allow your interviewers to independently assess the candidates using the assigned scale to avoid groupthink. Ensure this is done as quickly as possible following the interviews, while the experience is still fresh. Shortly thereafter, schedule a recap meeting to compare findings. Did the interview panel agree on the results? Use the data from the process to arrive at the best decision for your organization.

 

While this may seem like a lengthy process, it should be similar to an unstructured interview process, but with built-in tools and framework to assist with your decision process, which can be particularly helpful if you’re making your decision with a team. If you are using an ATS, you may have the ability to set up customizations within it to align very closely to your process, assisting you in your evaluations, candidate communications, and final decisions. Regardless of your method, following a structured interview process will assist you in finding the best candidate for your position as efficiently as possible.

Photo credit – Photo by Linda Eller-Shein from Pexels