In recent years and especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, working remotely has become quite common. There are entire remote teams and not just contained in the tech industry but in numerous other industries such as marketing, writing, consultancies etc. Hiring remote workers is a great way to tap into a wider talent base and expand your organization’s reach into other markets and regions. However, the key to having a great remote team is to hire the right people and manage your remote workers effectively.
According to Cooalliance, the key is to attract a lot of experienced applicants. Some hiring managers feel the need to place a lot of restrictions on remote workers such as emphasizing their need for co-locations.
However, to appeal to remote workers, the emphasis you need to be making is on their ability to get their work done on time. Remote work is here to stay and for employers, access to better talent, improved productivity and a reduction in operation costs has made building a remote workforce quite enticing. On the other hand, candidates are enticed by remote work due to the lack of location restrictions, flexibility, autonomy as well as managing themselves to have a better work-life balance.
According to International Workplace Group about 43% of U.S. workers work remotely to a certain extent. Hiring remotely is a relatively new field in the human resources industry and hence, managers still make grave mistakes in hiring which results in getting workers who are not a great fit or workers who get bored and move on hence causing a high turnover rate. However, Susan Goebel has compiled this great list of tips for you to review that will absolutely be a helpful guide for hiring remote workers.
1. Define and Perfect Your Hiring Process
If you are hiring a remote team, then you should identify the set of skills that the candidate needs to be able to excel at remote working. Such skills include but are not limited to:
· Great communication
· Strong organizational skills
· Collaboration skills
· Great time management
· Accountability and self-discipline
Without the above skills then you should not consider the candidate as they would end up being a bad fit for your company. Hence, according to Harver, these skills are extremely important in comparison to technical skills as with technical skills, you can upskill or offer training but with such soft skills, it is almost impossible to train the candidate. Listing the kind of skills you need in all your remote workers helps in coming up with pre-employment assessment interviews that can help you shortlist the candidates.
2. Define Your Ideal Candidate
Anytime you are hiring for a job opening, then defining what you are looking for or your ideal candidate. This means defining the skills and personalities you need for the job and you will find that for the most part, only candidates with such skills will apply.
3. Go to the Right Platforms
Remote workers have their own job boards away from traditional job boards such as LinkedIn and Indeed. As a result, to get a wider audience of remote workers, then you need to post your job openings on platforms such as AngelList, Stack Overflow, Remote.co, WeWorkRemotely etc.
4. Be Clear on Expectations of Time
Some companies have abused the remote work option by assuming that this means that workers should be available all the time. However, adopting this culture can be detrimental to your employees’ work-life balance which in turn results in their doing only the bare minimum. Therefore, being clear about when workers are expected to work, as well as the number of hours will result in as more fulfilled workforce and have similar expectations across the ream. Clarity regarding results, time etc. ensures that your remote team sticks to what is expected.
5. Let Candidates Book their Interview Slots
When hiring remote workers giving candidates time options not only communicates that your company knows how to do the remote working process and also saves time spent on email exchanges trying to set a time.
6. Have a Communication Plan
Every organization has their preference for team communications. According to Achievers, a good communication plan results in a deeper connection, camaraderie and sense of belonging among your remote team. In remote working, this is much more important for collaboration and connection as workers can no longer have physical meetings. Whether you prefer emails, phone calls, video conferencing and chats, messaging apps etc. Communicating your methods and avenues of communication, setting check-in times etc. helps set expectations among your workers and also sets a routine that everyone knows about right off the bat.
7. Assess the Candidates Fit for Culture and Values
Besides assessing the technical and soft skills that can determine the candidate’s success in the role, you also need to figure out if they fit your organization’s culture and values through assessment questions and interviews.
8. Hold Several Interviews
For you to get a complete picture of how good a candidate is for your job opening, don’t limit yourself to one interview. After shortlisting, you can have at least three interviews like Buffer to assess technical skills and experiences, culture and values, soft skills etc.
9. Involve Your Team
Get your team involved in recruiting remote workers by allowing them to share new openings on their social media and LinkedIn profiles as they might have a strong candidate in their connections.
10. Keep an Open Mind
Keep in mind that as remote working gains traction, top candidates can come from anywhere in the world. Perks and compensation keep changing as do boundaries and clarity and therefore, keep an open mind to attract the best workers.
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