January 2023 Newsletter
Welcome to 2023!
Welcome to 2023, with its own unique mix of opportunity and challenge.
But because you’ve probably been doing this for a while – ‘this’ being your working life, your career – you’re likely to be pretty confident that you can deal with the ups and downs. That’s what experience does for us; we’ve developed skills, gained knowledge, built resilience, and this gets us through.
But what if you’ve not been doing this a while? Remember when you were just starting out, full of wide-eyed wonder at what your career choice would bring? You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you, and probably thinking,
“If only I knew then what I know now…”
We’re doing a series where we’re posting short video clips of useful advice for people who are entering tech! What advice would you give yourself, if you could go back? Because whatever it is, I guarantee that somebody else, who’s just starting out, will benefit from it.
There’s great need to get people into tech and cyber security and the advice you give could make someone’s journey that bit better.
Drop me a note and let’s talk.
David Gadd,
Talent Attraction Director.
Visit me on Linkedin (26K+ Connections, 26k+ Followers, which benefits you!)
3 Ways to Keep Your Team Motivated in Times of Uncertainty
1. Engage in scenario planning
When you’re constantly reacting to the whims of the job market, it can be difficult to pause, take a breath, and plan for a variety of possibilities. But Jennifer’s leadership team recently did just that. “There’s a lot of obsession about being able to predict what’s going to happen next and then plan for that,” Jennifer says. “We decided to focus on the two or three things that could happen at a high level, and sketch out our plan for each of those.”
The team focused on two scenarios: how they would proceed if LinkedIn returned to rapid hiring at scale and what they would do if there was a significant slowdown.
The leadership team then broke into separate groups, each focusing on one of the two scenarios. They created a framework of questions they wanted to ask about each possible future, and took notes on what they were seeing in the present and what they had seen in hiring cycles before.They used what they learned to create scenario plans.
The goal? “What we really want is to have scenario playbooks,” Jennifer says, “so that as hiring cycles change, we have playbooks to fall back on.”
While scenario planning is good for business, it can also have a big effect on team morale. Everyone tends to feel better when there is a plan in place.
2. Communicate early and often
At the same time they were working on scenario planning, LinkedIn’s recruiting leadership team communicated early and often with their team about what was happening. As soon as they saw the slowdown coming, Jennifer says, “we leaned into our director-plus and manager-plus population and were open with them about everything we knew and didn’t know, and we didn’t shy away from the tough questions.”
They were aware from past experience that people feel more included and respected when they know what’s coming ahead of time so they leaned into over communicating.
A recent study from the Stanford business school validates this approach, showing that employees prefer managers who communicate often, even if it can be frustrating to be overloaded with information. When a boss communicates less frequently, employees tend to think their managers don’t have much empathy. But when managers communicate more, employees feel like they care.
3. Set areas of focus for the team
The other thing Jennifer and her leadership team did was set areas they wanted to focus on. They did this at a recent offsite, where they spent time on strategic planning. Jennifer explains, “We focused on the future and what we were going to prioritize in fiscal year 2023, and how folks could be engaged.”
Specifically, they chose to focus on diversity, operational excellence, and hiring experiences — areas LinkedIn had already been working on but wanted to drill down on even more.
Jennifer and her leads communicated with employees about these areas of focus and the response was enthusiastic. So far, more than 300 people have expressed interest in getting involved in projects, and the talent acquisition team has been able to move more quickly on some than they expected. They even created what they call “Project Boost” to accelerate this work.
By providing clarity on priorities, the leadership team gave their team focus on where to put their energy.
Final thoughts
While these three strategies are helping the recruiting team stay focused and engaged, they’re also laying the groundwork for future hiring cycles. “It’s not throwaway work,” Jennifer says. “It’s helping build the foundation for us to be more strategic and efficient in the future.”
Full article from LinkedIn here.
How Video will improve your Recruitment Efforts
Are you looking for a way to amp up your recruiting brand and improve candidate quality, it may be time to consider incorporating video into the hiring processes.
To get you started, click the image above to explore eight ways your organisation can leverage video for attracting top talent.
All the best, and if you want more info or want the Proxime Media team to lend a hand, drop me a message here.
