Are you hiring for #startup?

We are in age where being an entrepreneur is a career choice but still more than 50% fail.

The current market dynamics though have been favorable for startup but execution is a key which many miss on to. However for any startup to run successfully it’s important to have the right talent at the right time. Yes RIGHT is very crucial here and all the more when attracting one is not an easy task. No matter how brilliant the Business plan looks like but without the resources actually on boarded it might just be good as a PowerPoint presentation.

Working for startups for a while now and managing this fire fighting here are some quick tips to follow out of my personal experience.

Invest on career page: Go check your career page, will you ever apply to an organization you have never heard of and even the website looks like from 90s. Following the latest trends and what your competitors or similar player doing in the market might give a baseline at least and later is your creativity to add more appeal. After all it’s all about creating an experience!!

Don’t ignore social: The current generation is truly a ‘social animal’. Social media is a free & interactive marketing tool, which has come out as a boon for startups. Not just one but has numerous platforms to target audience as per there interest. Channelizing the social efforts in the right direction will help in branding and also help to connect with passive and genuine job seekers. Such hirings come through pull affect and also help is spreading the word of mouth. If you are a starter better focus one platform to start with rather being everywhere with no impact at all!!

A day at work: Giving a feeler for how a day or a week looks like at your organization can be a good attraction and also will fetch you genuinely motivated talent and not just the one who thing startup means higher salary. Working with startup has its own charm and challenges, and this period though might not give full but at least a partial hand on experience to both the parties.

Talent holds prime importance: Reality is that instead of running after industry expertise better attract talent profiles that have zeal and enthusiasm to work for a startup. For various reason startup might find it difficult to hire experienced candidates and even after hiring retention will be a prime concern due to the past expectation and environmental influence of the candidate. In such cases Onboarding someone will lesser experience but potential to execute might be a better choice.

Pitch at its best: Do you have a call pitch? So how did you close the last deal? Well hiring has never been out of sales, and when it’s about selling a new workplace which is new in all relevance, it becomes even more imperative. A pitch which makes sure meets the aspiration or at least incites a desire to know more is what we are talking here. Listen to talk!!

Let the JD stand out: Revisit the Job Descriptions and see does it stand out? Make it interesting enough for the candidate to write back to you and hit your website before simply ignoring your job posting for some run of the mill work from an unknown name. Yes, sometimes we do judge the book by its cover J

Hiring for startup is a challenge for sure but as said it the RIGHT fit which can make the strategy look like a master plan.

 

The new buzz, Employee Wellness

 

 

 

 

What’s the new buzzword in the HR circles which may show stronger trends in 2014?  

Well, a lot of buzzwords for sure, but one critical one that seems to be catching the combined attention of the community is Employee Wellness. It’s really not a new-age concept, but has certainly been redefined and remoulded to suit the needs of the current times. It has gone beyond the gamut of employee wealth, health and safety, to reach a different level.  

Initiatives in this area are not restricted to company insurance plans, hospital tie-ups and club memberships only. They cover provisions such as onsite healthcare facilities, online health assessment tools, programs and information providers for healthy living, employee health screening camps, wellness and nutrition coaching. Organizations are also slowly opening up to the idea of addressing specifics such as women’s health and stress management counselling. More progressive organizations look at even providing assistance to those employees who have a tobacco or alcohol dependency as well as raising awareness in HIV/AIDS.

So with this kind of interest and of course investment, it’s time to try and see what are some key reasons for organizations to start focusing on this area.

1.       There is a slow but steady understanding of the fact that there is a linkage of employee health to business productivity. How organizations track this or measure this is far from developed in terms of a process, but at this stage, suffice it to say that the acceptance of this linkage as a reality, is the driver.

2.       Employer branding and employee value proportion – The rising need for a balanced work-life approach in the current workforce, is forcing organizations to evaluate how they want to position themselves as a an employer brand. Hence the emphasis on providing a stress-free work environment with focused commitment towards the overall well-being of an employee has risen.

3.       Such investment is a long-term spending and when weighed against other opportunity costs such as loss of work hours due to absenteeism, sick leaves, attrition / turnover cost, retraining and so on, it might not seem that significant.

Reading the undercurrents related to this future trend, SHRM India introduced the Employee Wellness Award for organizations, within its set of HR Awards, at its Annual Conference. The winner was Scope International, while SAP Labs and Reliance were runners’ ups. It is therefore evident, that this is a fast-paced trend, which will pick up speed in 2014 and so the more prepared we are, the higher our employee competitive edge will be as organizations.

About Author 

 

Simran Oberoi

Sr. Knowledge Consultant - SHRM India