Do You Offer Your Employees a Long Enough Vacation Package? How much vacation time are you offering prospective employees? 10 days? 14 days? How about a month?
Vacation Days in North America vs EU / UK:
• “On average, Canadian employees receive just 10 paid days of vacation per year”, and “Canada ranks No. 39 out of 43 countries for vacation day offering, tied with Costa Rica and Japan”
• US employees take about 14 days off per year on average.
• “The U.S. does not federally mandate paid vacation or holidays, leaving it up to the discretion of employers. The EU, on the other hand, requires at least 20 days of vacation for all employees while the U.K. requires 28 days.”
Curiously though, even though North Americans typically get fewer vacation days than their EU counterparts, a majority of North American employees don’t even take all of their vacation days; and a majority (70%) of US employees feel they receive enough time off from work, compared with 53% of Europeans, according to a survey conducted by workforce tech solutions company Skynova.
The Relative Workload Burden:
John Bernasconi, project manager at Skynova, suggests that the US and European data might relate to differing perceptions of work-life balance between the regions, and/or to workload – the findings might partly reflect that in North America, “the workload is often too high and employees cannot spare the days off in order to make deadlines or fulfill deliverables. There is also the desire to show commitment and dedication to their employer, often putting their own needs aside.” So, “this could mean a company’s culture is making it difficult for employees to take time off, regardless of what their PTO and leave benefits look like.”
Lack of Adequate Time Off and Burnout
But even if North American employees perceive that they receive enough time off, they also “often suffer from burn out, especially those who don’t take their full vacation.” This could be because, “Taking vacation days provides numerous benefits, including a more engaged workforce, time to recharge, increased productivity, reduced burnout, improved health, and accomplishing more in less time.” In fact, in Europe, we read that employee “productivity does not seem to be diminished because of their time off.”
Time Off and Job Satisfaction
Further, “Skynova found that 92% of those who felt supported in taking time off also felt satisfied with their jobs. [And] Of workers who do not feel supported in utilizing their PTO, just 59% reported feeling satisfied with their jobs.” Bernasconi points out, “‘When employees feel appreciated as humans, not just as task computers, it improves not only their job satisfaction but their performance,’”. And he adds that, “‘It might be cliche, but happy employees are better employees.’”
Keep Your Employees Happy to keep Your Employees
In light of the above, and with vacation time purportedly “becoming more and more important to individuals and companies anxious to keep their employees happy”, perhaps your company might want to research the potential benefits/upsides and risks/downsides of offering more vacation days and/or creating a company culture in which employees feel encouraged to take their full vacation time?
(NB – bird’s eye view, not business advice)
The concept of the “heir” and the “spare” is usually associated with the British monarchy, where the eldest child of the reigning monarch is known as the heir to the throne, and the second born is known as the spare.
In business, this concept is also relevant when it comes to decision making regarding two equally qualified candidates.
An example of how having a “spare” works concerns a company that had a difficult time deciding between two equally qualified candidates. The job was offered to Candidate A who accepted their offer but quit a few weeks later for a much better paying job. This left the company in the lurch but luckily they had the “spare’ in the wings who was more than willing to take the job and the company was been very pleasantly surprised to find that the “spare” was doing an outstanding job.
Internally, having a spare can create healthy competition between employees. When two employees are competing for the same position, it can motivate them to perform at their best which can lead to better work quality and higher productivity.
Succession Planning is another area where having a “spare” allows a company to develop and groom an executive to fill a key leadership role in the future. This ensures that business continuity is maintained should a key leader become unexpectedly unavailable.
The concept of the “heir” and the “spare” may seem outdated but it is still quite relevant in business. It can provide a backup plan, create healthy competition, as well as be an asset in succession planning. Therefore, companies (and recruiters) should always consider have a “spare” in place, just in case. Who knows? The “spare” may just turn out to be the missing piece that takes the business to the next level.
Ideas we’ve gathered for our readers about why people job hop, how your company can recognize possible value in seeming job hoppers, and how to limit hopping away from your company.
In May of 2022, the Financial Post reported that “more Americans are quitting their jobs than ever in the U.S., and fewer are sticking around in their new positions.”
Someone who switches jobs frequently is sometimes described as a “job hopper”. According to Monster, “frequently” may be less than every 2 years. For reference, according to CNBC, 2021 CareerBuilder research compared average time in the same in job across different age ranges and found, for each range:
• Gen Z (up to 23): 2.25 years
• Millennials (25 to 40): 2.75 years
• Gen X (41-56): 5 years
• Baby boomers (57 to 75): 8 years
Why would job hopping be afoot? We have been reading about this, and have identified a few possible catalysts:
• With the many opportunities that arose with pandemic recovery, and with the trend to remote work, switching jobs became more of an option for many.
• The desire for higher pay, more benefits, increased flexibility (hours, work-at-home) — in general, for greater happiness, especially among younger workers.
We also got the sense that different companies might look at the job hopping phenomenon differently. Some companies view it in a negative lens, fearing that a candidate might quit after a few months, others take a more positive view, and for example are
open to investigating the person’s particular reasons for hopping.
To this end:
• One idea is to look for clues in resumes; another is asking about them in interviews, such as was the candidate caring for a family member, was it early in their career and they were exploring, etc.
• As KornFerry points out, it also could have been due to a toxic work environment.
• The person could have worked in several high-growth companies, and in turn they might be very agile and able to help your company increase efficiency.
• Also, during interviews, there is the idea of carefully considering which questions to ask to assess for fit, such as why does a candidate want to work at your company, and where do see themselves in 5 years.
• The idea to clearly describe to your candidate things like what the job actually entails day-to-day, because another reason people quit shortly after hire is the job or company culture didn’t match expectations.
Whatever your view of apparent job hopping, you still might want to encourage staying at your company. To this end, we read about the following ideas that might facilitate this:
Offer a competitive compensation package – a high salary if your company can afford it, and if not, including various lifestyle benefits such as flexible work arrangements.
Have managers create career development plans with employees towards goal achievement, raises, and promotions, and also regularly meet with direct reports – weekly, and for performance reviews each quarter.
Provide the training employees need towards goal achievement and internal career advancement.
Conduct “stay interviews” to learn what’s enjoyable about working at your company, and what needs improving.
And, in general, keep your hiring and management practices and knowledge sharp and up-to-date!
If you would like to discuss further, we would be happy to chat with you about this topic. Note, this blog post is just presenting some happenings and ideas we have informally noticed in our online searching – it is not advice.
Secret to Closing the Gap Between Management and Remote Staff
A recent conversation –
“Is this job 100% remote?”
“No it isn’t”
“In that case I am not interested.”
I have never heard that question and response from a candidate until recently. The pandemic plus technology have changed the labour landscape creating a major management challenge: How do you effectively manage a remote work force?
A few pointers that may help follow.
1) Clarity of expectations – Make sure that your team members understand what you expect of them including a timeline for deliverables. Response times to emails, phone calls and messages as well as when to text for crisis situations should also be very clear.
2) Communications – Scheduled coffee breaks with team members just to interact helps remote members feel included. Encourage spontaneous interactions between employees to increase morale and productivity.
3) Segmentation – Break large projects into shorter segments no longer than 2 weeks so there is a measurable sense of employee accomplishment. Track budgets for projects since projects that are delivered on time are usually also on budget.
4) New team members – Arrange a 20 – 30 minute introduction of the new person to the team. Have the team members describe some of their background and their role on the team. This may need to be scheduled over several days especially if team members are in different time zones.
5) Open door policy – Insure that everyone understands they can approach you regarding issues or queries and that you will be checking in with them to establish informal two way dialogues. Very important to keep up an informal dialogue to reduce feeling of isolation among team members.
Salary Transparency: Consider Getting Ahead of the Curve
Are you aware of the new “pay transparency” trend? Consider:
• The Ontario Pay Transparency Act, 2018, though delayed “to a day to be named by proclamation of the Lieutenant Governor”,“ will require employers that publicly advertise job openings to include information about expected compensation, or the range of expected compensation, for the posted position.”
• “Employers in Prince Edward Island are now expected to include salary ranges in public job postings and are prohibited from penalizing workers for talking to each other about their salaries.”
• New York City is requiring all employers to include salary ranges on job advertisements, and Australia, Britain, and Germany have similar requirements.
• Indeed has started to sometimes unilaterally input a salary range estimate in postings that don’t include a range.
• Culturally speaking, there’s a popular TikTok account called “Salary Transparency Street” with the creator walking around the USA asking people what job they do and how much they make — she initiated this in part because she didn’t know what her earning potential was or how to negotiate her salary.
• You base your offers on a candidate’s particular experience and skill level;
• You haven’t done this in the past;
• Your competitors don’t do it;
• You’re open to salary negotiation at the offer stage;
• And, moreover, there might not (presently?) be any law or proclaimed law requiring you to do so!
And we imagine in turn that some our clients might want to just ignore the trend. We were curious as to why this might be happening, and we wanted to share with you some ideas we came across:
• One article, entitled “Radical Change Toward Salary Transparency” describes that, “With the declining labor force participation rate, the great resignation and talent gaps across numerous industries, the tables have turned in favor of the job seekers” and “Jobs seekers want compensation transparency in job postings, and few companies are doing it today.” As pointed out in Canadian Business by Toronto-based HR expert and career coach Allison Venditti, founder of parent advocacy groups Moms at Work and My Parental Leave, “‘no one is going to sit through three interviews only to find out the job pays $30,000 less than their current role’”! Aligned with this, we read that, “jobs on Indeed with salaries listed … receive up to 90% more applications”.
• Another idea we came across is that as the world moves towards greater equity, the salary gap experienced by women and minority groups remains outstanding, and posting salary might help narrow this gap.
• More broadly-speaking, according to recruitmentmarketing.com, “Salary transparency is likely to be the next seismic shift in the workplace, and companies who choose to adopt it early are positioned to attract and retain top talent.” And, according to canadianbusiness.com, “pay transparency… positions a company as a leader in their industry”.
If you do decide to give a little further thought to the trend and its possible motivations and implications, perhaps run it by your various departments — legal, human resources, as well as operations, finance, etc –for thoughts about how to proceed. For example, if you were considering experimenting with posting ranges externally, one consideration might be how this would impact your current employees: One published view on this is that, “If an employer makes the decision to be transparent with salary externally, such as within their job postings, then they might as well disclose them to their internal organization as well. It would be difficult to manage communications and trust when disclosing compensation externally in job postings, but not make that information available to their own employees.”
If you would like to discuss further, we would be happy to chat with you about this topic. Note, this blog post is just presenting some information, happenings, thoughts, and ideas we have informally noticed out there – it is not advice, including it is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, please consult with a lawyer.
“Ghosting is on the rise… 83% of employers have been ghosted by a candidate – some even after the point of hire!”. Ghosting, in the talent search universe, refers to “candidates who suddenly stop replying to emails, don’t show up for interviews, and even [to] new hires who accept an offer, yet fail to show up to their first day of work.” This phenomenon represents an obvious challenge for employers, because they invest a lot of time and effort into talent acquisition, and time is money.
Earthly reasons?
We have been pale as ghosts thinking about these spooky happenings, and decided to quietly peek into why it might be happening to employers. What we unearthed were several possible reasons:
· Your hiring process takes too long.
· You have poor communications with candidates.
· A candidate might have a better offer than yours.
· Given the current low unemployment rate, candidates might feel they have less to lose than you do, and might feel they can be very choosy about which job/company they want to be associated with. Maybe your company is just not a candidate’s top choice.
· Candidates might wonder if your company is just a shadow of the values it portends to uphold.
· Maybe a candidate doesn’t get a good vibe from your company, or gets a bad feeling (spooked?) about something about your company’s culture.
· The candidate may have been ghosted by other employers in the past: According to Indeed via accurate.com, more than 3 in 4 candidates have been ghosted by hiring companies.
Earthly actions?
We also decided to research what companies can try to do to have a ghost of a chance of finding and keeping talented new employees, in the current ghost town environment. Here are some of the ideas we unearthed:
· Exude a positive culture: Avoid coming across as demanding, negative, or disrespectful; also, review and respond as needed to online reviews / content relating to your company’s reputation.
· Conduct surveys, such as of current employees, to determine if they have a positive impression of working at your company.
· Review your onboarding process, such as: Is it welcoming? Do you acclimate your new employees?
· Keep your candidates engaged and let them know you’re still interested, such as communicate with them regularly to signal that they’re important to you. Also, make sure interacting with you is easy for them.
· Additionally, in your communications, exude your humanness, helping candidates remember that their decision to say attend an interview or not could let a real person or maybe an entire team down. Form professional relationships with your candidates, and demonstrate empathy, because, according to hirehive.com, “Empathy begets empathy. If a candidate needs to remove themselves from the search, or turn down your offer, an empathetic candidate will do so respectfully.”
· Consider if it’s possible to reduce your hiring timeline, as if it’s very lengthy, your candidate might find another offer. Also, provide candidates with a clear timeline from the start, of what to expect.
· Exemplify your company’s core values.
· Generally, think about creating an “unghostable” candidate experience, hiring process and company!
Finally, if you are a little spooked — not sure if you see a ghost or not – maybe send a message to your candidate, requiring a response, and if no reply, consider if this behaviour might reflect a candidate’s true soul. And, then maybe note the ghost’s name, to lessen future scares.
Here’s a toast to making ghosting just a ghost from the past for your company!
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If you would like to discuss further, we would be happy to chat with you about this topic. Note, this blog post is just presenting some strange happenings and some ideas we have informally noticed lurking out there – it is not advice.
Yes, FRAMES, not blue light glasses (lenses), another craze. As people in lockdown spend more time staring at laptops and other digital screens, they’re ordering more blue light glasses, despite a lack of conclusive evidence that the glasses actually reduce eyestrain or protect from the effects of blue light.
But here we are talking about FASHION, and nothing but. Have you noticed lately, and if you are not living under a rock, you must have noticed, or surely will now, that everyone, like – everyone, is sporting blue frames – from TV hosts (like Stephen Colbert and Savannah Guthrie) to White House correspondents (like Jonathan Karl) to medical correspondents/experts (Allison McGreer, Barbara Yaffe ) to politicians (Liz Cheney) to Hollywood (Ben Mankiewicz (TCM). Even I have 2 pairs and will be ordering a third. What about you? Are you in style (not that it matters during a lockdown, unless you are being interviewed on TV, live on Zoom, or are dispensing medical advice)?
How did this happen? Where did our originality go? It seems that the source was one of US’s favourite weathermen (NBC), Al Roker, an aficionado of a wild variety of different styles and colours of frames. Apparently this pair of frames, The Roker, was designed and custom-made for Al in 2019 byAshley Bezamat , founder of Dom Vetro Eyewear, Los Angeles, and images of Roker wearing these frames, went viral. Suddenly these blue frames caught fire and were everywhere – on Instagram, thehuffpost.com, Pinterest, USA Today, Esquire, Oprahmag.com, you name it.
And since then, sporting blue frames has spread across all walks of life, in most countries – just turn on your TV and take a look.
One could say then that @AlRoker is an Influencer, a word that seemed to grow out of nowhere in the social media / marketing realm over the last 10 years – someone with the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others. An Influencer is highly visible and if it looks great on her/him, it will look great on you, and you will follow said influencer and buy the same brand, colour, or style.
In the workplace, being able to influence other people, gain consensus, inspire confidence in others, are all good traits, the mark of a leader, or a leader-to-be. And don’t forget the huge importance in sales – influencing others to buy your products. A whole topic in itself.
How about in a job interview setting? Here it is crucial to be able to influence your interviewer .
You have to recognize your strength(s) and try to aim your answers towards pointing out how these skills will allow you to add value to the company or team. You are influencing others to buy the best product in the world – yourself.
Oh, and make sure you are wearing those blue glasses frames. You must look “with it” in an interview.
It is only natural for us to want to separate our work persona from our social, family, friend, school self. Our kids, pets, vacations, hobbies, relationships should be another world away from our place of employment, or potential place of employment. Perhaps that used to be true.
But we all know that with the advent of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and so on, most of us have posted details and photos and perhaps videos that represent our non-work, human selves. Who looks at this stuff that we have spent all this time posting? Who looks at pictures we have been tagged in, even if we don’t want to be tagged? And the rules on these sites change rather quickly, so that most of us don’t really know everything we can or can’t do on the sites, what other people can say about us without our permission, and so on. Plus it takes time to go back and edit the sites, even if we are aware of the new rules. And what have we said or posted about others? We also know that none of this stuff goes away. Even if you delete it – it lurks somewhere, waiting for the astute to find it.
According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, and about 43% of employers use social media to check on current employees. The three main platforms that most employers check are LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. About half of employers – 47% – said they wouldn’t call a person for an interview if they can’t find them online. (https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/2377-social-media-hiring.html). Numbers are even higher in a recent blog from Skillmeter (https://skillmeter.com/blog/screening-job-candidates-using-social-media).
Sometimes profiles can be misleading, out of date, or reflective of simple activities that would not pertain to their hireability. Best to ensure that you have a positive online presence. You could even consider having public and private profiles. An interesting article about the ethics of all of this can be found at https://www.hrzone.com/talent/acquisition/social-media-screening-is-it-ethical.
Linked In is another issue. It is considered THE professional network. People are careful here to curate and tend to their profiles. Hiring managers will look at this to compare to your resume, to see if your present and previous positions are the same on both LI and your resume, to look at your stated education, your recommendations, to see how connected you are, the groups you belong to, etc. It is a really good idea to keep this profile refreshed, have a photo, include enough relevant information, especially if you are seeking a new position, making a presentation, publishing a paper, seeking tenure, hoping for a promotion. You are not invisible and extreme humility with very abbreviated information may deter potential employers and recruiters alike.
Just remember that whatever you do online is public domain, finders’ keepers.
During this coronavirus pandemic, social distancing has mostly been mandated across the globe. Even before this new era, in order to save on initial interviewing expenses, many hiring managers or HR managers were conducting initial and even follow-up interviews using Facetime- or Skype- like technologies. Some companies are/were making hiring decisions based entirely on video interviews.
5 main related technologies are used:
1. Facetime is excellent but only if each party has a MAC/ Apple product. This can also be video’d for future reference (https://www.imore.com/how-record-facetime-call-your-iphone-or-mac).
2. Skype, which is owned by Microsoft, actually offers free video services for both MAC and PC, Calls of course, if both the interviewer and interviewee have Skype user names, are free anywhere on earth. Some employers will choose to videotape the interview. This can be done with either MAC or PC (https://support.skype.com/en/skype/iphone/), or if PC, downloading supertintin.
3. Google+ technology works on many platforms but one must open a Google account.
4. Video services, managed by proprietary software, not free, including recording of all interviews, if desired – similar to 1, 2, and 3, offer an organized setting and easy recording. These include but are not limited to hireview, montagetalent, or interviewstream, sparkhire.com, or take a look at this 2020 review of other systems (capterra). Some of these will have mobile apps as well as desktop.
5. If the interview is for a very high powered position, it is possible that this will be conducted in a video conference formal setting. For most positions however, webcams associated with PCs or MACs, Tablets, iPads, phones suffice.
A few precautions for the hiring company:
1. Ensure that your device, formal teleconference room set up, or webcam/computer set ups are ready to go – that the internet is working, the sound is right, passwords are set up. This includes video and audio tests that are easy to run.
2. Be aware of where the eye of the camera is, in order to look directly at the candidate – this gesture is very important and just as hard for them as for you.
3 .Have a clean, dedicated, professional appearing work area – part of your job. In addition to determining if this is the best candidate, the other part of your job is to present your company in the best light, so that the candidate will want to join your team.
4. If at home, make sure no people, animals, radios, TVs, outside traffic will interrupt. Most hiring managers will not carry out interviews at home, but with global considerations and time zones, this is a possibility. Especially during the coronavirus pandemic. Make sure the area behind you is clear and clean.
5. Done properly, this form of interview should still give you an idea of the candidate’s personality, body language, ability to look you in the eye. This can be hard though as people want to look at the speaker on the screen and if they do this, they cannot look at the camera – this is probably the biggest pitfall of the process. Conversely, your body language will speak to the candidate as well.
6. As with traditional interviews, have your list of questions ready and organized.
7. Be prepared to describe your company’s physical layout and location, perhaps even size of offices, cubicles, loft or not, elevator or stair access, windows – all things candidates having on site interviews will be exposed to.
Whichever platform is chosen, the interview process using video may not differ substantially from a more traditional process. It is still the candidate on one side, the potential employer on the other, either singly or as a group.
Note that 80% of major US employers (100 – 10,000 employees) take advantage of live video interviews somewhere in the hiring process. One assumes similar statistics for Canadian companies.
Interestingly, some employers will choose to use software whereby they can email the candidate a link to a series of questions they must answer by video. Then the hiring manager or HR specialist can review their answers when convenient – either all candidates at once, of separately. There are a variety of such applications, – Again, see capterra – where candidates can be prescreened via pre-recorded video interviews.
You do often hear the joke “Chief Bottle Washer” as someone’s self-designated job title. Maybe they do do some of that, just pitching in in the coffee room, no doubt. Still, they may in fact be the most helpful team mate there. This self-title is both humble and funny, revealing interesting characteristics about your co-worker, boss, or employee.
Kidding aside, titles have always meant a lot – VP of Sales and Marketing, vs Account Manager – connotes leadership, success, judgment, authority, responsibility. But doesn’t that depend on the size of the company? TD Bank vs a new venture with 6 employees? Sort of tradition vs JLabs, MaRS, Silicon Valley and Waterloo, ON start ups.
Sure, titles are part of the promotion hierarchy, and have a value.
But some companies are now looking at exciting, unusual, descriptive, challenging titles to attract millenials and Gen Z, who seek excitement outside of tradition. For example, “data wrangler” vs “data analyst”, “VP, People” vs “head of human resources”, “shine artists” vs “shoe shine boys”. Some of these suggest that the person is more creative and talented. Some companies even give new employees the ability to choose their own descriptive titles. Whatever they will be proud of when they hand out a business card and will motivate them in their jobs (Wall Street Journal, Thursday Nov 15, 2018).
How will this affect one’s ability to move up in the next company? A professional resume which properly describes his/her job functions and successes will totally illustrate the unusual extra characteristics depicted in the title and serve to clarify. May even show someone who thinks outside the box.
Many people will say they don’t care about titles when they are being interviewed for a position,
and some really mean this, and feel that responsibilities, culture, reputation and prestige of the company, remuneration mean more. At a high level, you can always find people with recent titles such as Director, Manager, even VP, intermixed, probably reflecting the size of the different organizations. But some people want advancement through title.
The point is, these days, that as usual, there is not one answer, but there are refreshing and exciting approaches being taken.
This past holiday season, did you think about what you would rather be?
Santa Claus OR Benefits Manager?
Caroler OR PR Manager?
Choir Master OR Project Manager?
The Grinch OR Chief Compliance Officer?
Rudolph OR Team Leader?
Christmas Elf OR Associate Engineer?
Whichever way you see yourself, be the best you! And great success in 2019 from Hess Associates.
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Paula Strasberg is VP Recruiting, Hess Associates (Search)
And President of Editmyresumenow.com