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Remote wellness – How to help employees feel valued

Remote wellness – How to help employees feel valued

By Sinead Connolly|2022-08-31T17:28:14+01:00August 29th, 2022|HR, HR Tips, HR Trends, Leadership, Remote Working, Tips for employers|

In a world where hybrid or 100% remote working is become “The Norm” we all face times where it can affect our personal health and wellbeing. We are aware that social exclusion, loneliness, and poor mental health are strongly correlated. Employees who struggle to communicate effectively at work may feel excluded or alone. According to statistics pulled from numerous mental health surveys, only one in five employees stated that their employer has provided additional mental health services since the start of the pandemic, down from 35 percent 2019 (Pre-Covid). Stigma in the workplace continues to be a significant problem, and employees are having difficulty accessing mental health care. So, how can organisations support mental health? Creating a positive workplace Consider the type of workplace culture you wish to establish. By embracing people from various backgrounds and valuing their differences, you can foster a positive, inclusive workplace atmosphere. Work becomes a positive experience rather than one that is anxious when leaders foster an environment of empathy, optimism, trust, and compassion. Routine check-ins Leads and managers need to increase engagement and build a trusting and open environment where staff feel they can be open and honest about their issues and make them fee “heard”. People have the opportunity to be more open and it lessens stress. This can also give managers the ability to look for stress or deteriorating employee mental health. The manager and other team members' relationship is strengthened by these open chat sessions. Health and wellbeing programmes HR should make sure that mental health therapies [...]

What to do when you’ve been counter offered

What to do when you’ve been counter offered

By Jessica Moran|2022-07-26T17:43:55+01:00July 26th, 2022|HR, HR Tips|

Maybe you’ve been there before.. or maybe you came across this post because you are seeking clarity. You’ve been offered your new dream role, you’ve handed in your notice, and you are so excited for your new chapter. Except your current employer says we will match your new salary, or give you more. You’ve been counter offered! This is not uncommon, as in this market, employers want to keep hold of you as they are finding it hard to find the right skillsets and culture fit. Now you may be thinking ; I don’t enjoy conflict, so HOW do I handle this? Here’s a few things to consider about a counter offer. P & R – Pause and Reflect It is proven that 80% of people leave within 6 months of accepting a counter offer. It is not uncommon for candidates to accept a counter offer and regret the decision. It is important you pause and reflect and think about why you decided to leave in the first place, why you applied for roles and why you went through interview processes. If they think you are worth a bigger pay check now – why weren’t they paying you this earlier? Make sure you think through that a bigger salary won't make anything change internally. There are a few things to consider: If its career progression that didn’t exist, is this going to appear? Will any issues you had in your role be resolved? Will your relationships within the organisation stay the same? New Opportunities You may [...]

Onboarding Diary – Thoughts from a newbie

Onboarding Diary – Thoughts from a newbie

By Jessica Moran|2022-03-08T12:29:57+01:00July 26th, 2021|HR|

Hey there, My name is Jess Moran and I am the newest member to the team here at HR Search. Hooray! This is my first experience of remote on-boarding, which is so exciting and also terrifying! Today in this post I want to share with you all my experience with remote onboarding and also to remind everyone we’re all in the same boat. Let’s get started. General – new starter bits and bobs It’s always a learning curve when you join a new organisation and you feel like you need to ‘know it all’, but it’s important to get comfortable knowing what you don’t know as it is only a temporary feeling. My experience onboarding with HR Search has been amazing, I have been welcomed with so much warmth, happiness and support from the beginning. Your first few weeks on boarding is so important. Use the time to set yourself up for success. Get into a routine. Pick up the phone and chat to new colleagues, brave making the connection, drop them a message on LinkedIn. Remote on-boarding On-boarding has now become digital. This is my first experience with this and it is definitely challenging. Am I moving fast enough? Am I doing enough? Have I proved I was the right hire? These are questions that I was asking myself and imposter syndrome can quickly creep in as you are on your own and not around your colleagues in the office. I soon realised I am exactly where I need to be, [...]

Are competency-based interviews a thing of the past?

Are competency-based interviews a thing of the past?

By Jessica Finn|2020-10-28T11:24:53+01:00September 17th, 2020|HR, HR Tips, HR Trends|

I recently assisted a client with hiring a HR Business Partner and when chatting through the interview process and format, they mentioned that they prefer to conduct conversational type interviews rather than competency based interviews. This got me thinking, are competency based interviews a thing of the past? And is it better to have a more conversational style interview? This was music to my ears, and the candidates’, as competency questions and answers can come across as rehearsed and unauthentic. Candidates and clients alike, like to get to know each other on a professional and personal level and by having a more conversational style interview can weed out any uncertainties and is a much more honest approach. Having carried out some research on this, I came across two more personal styles of interviews that I think could be more current and suitable for today’s environment. Soft-Skill Assessments - Soft skills are the non-technical skills needed to do a job. Individuals with soft skills can work well with others, come up with new ideas, and thrive in their environment. Examples of soft skills include integrity, adaptability and communication. As recruiters, we have to find candidates who have both hard and soft skills, but soft skills can determine if the candidate will be a good fit for the position. In order to assess a candidates soft-skills, interviewers should ask behavioural interview questions, such as; Was there ever a time when you saw a co-worker do something wrong? What did you do? Hard skills are evident on a candidates CV but [...]

WFH meetings are becoming VIRTUALLY Impossible!

WFH meetings are becoming VIRTUALLY Impossible!

By Niamh Kennelly|2020-08-20T20:06:48+01:00August 20th, 2020|HR Tips, Remote Working|

While a lot of the strangeness of working remotely starts to become more familiar, the shaping of the new normal is a real focus point for us. We are sharing our thoughts now on what is working for us and what is not and what we want to bring forward and what we want to discard forever. Crisis has always been a catalyst for change and the Covid 19 pandemic has accelerated change at a significant level on how we are working together, not least of all in our meetings. The virtual team meeting is up for a lot of discussion and the word on the web is that it has become a forum of frustration for lot of home workers. From my discussions with clients it seems that Video Team Meetings in the shape of Team meets, Zoom or Google Hangouts are set to recur at least weekly in everyone’s calendars and they rarely have an agenda. They might have a title like ‘Team Check In’ or ‘Update’ but other than that there is no real sense of their purpose. Managing meetings is a skill, most of the meeting leaders already have this skill and have proven their prowess in the office meeting room for years. Why then in their transition to the web meeting have they lost their know-how along the way ? Yes there are few additional technical points to consider and you might need to upskill yourself on screen sharing, polling the group, breakouts and the valuable skill of muting participants but [...]

HR Search’s Guide to Remote Recruiting & Onboarding

HR Search’s Guide to Remote Recruiting & Onboarding

By Niamh Kennelly|2020-05-06T17:03:19+01:00May 5th, 2020|HR, Remote Working, Uncategorized|

Everyone in the world is getting a crash course in working from home now but this is underpinned by a greater business challenge, that of Business Continuity. Initially, for most organisations, the Covid 19 pandemic triggered a hiring freeze and even hiring processes which were mid-way or close to closure were put on hold. However, here in HR Search we are working closely with our client partners and candidates to keep the recruitment assignments moving forward and together we are embarking on an interesting collaborative journey indeed. HR Search has gained real insights from our client partners on how they are making this remote interviewing and on-boarding happen and we wanted to share these with you to help show how it can work. If you would like a full copy of the case studies please get in touch with with us here. Hopefully it will help you navigate through the uncertainty of Covid-19. It may also be an opportunity to trial, what might become the new normal. We hope you find it useful! Niamh & Jess | HR Search Case study findings The most surprising thing for me is the speed of the hiring process from shortlisting, interviewing and job offers! Some previous recruitment projects would have taken 6-8 weeks and beyond, but we have in recent hires, reduced that to 3 and 4 weeks. What systems are HR using to recruit & onboard? We also see our successful hires joining organisations remotely, getting an opportunity to understand the policies, structures and culture at the outset and [...]

The Coach Recruiter

The Coach Recruiter

By Niamh Kennelly|2020-11-05T21:42:01+01:00May 23rd, 2019|HR|

Last year I contributed to a feature in the Irish Times Saturday magazine titled ‘How to Change your Life’. My piece (linked here) was on coaching, how I help clients create awareness around what needs to change for them, to understand what’s getting in their way and to help them take meaningful steps to get to where to where they want to go. At the core of all our decision-making is choice. During the piece Una Mullally, the feature writer, asked ‘so! are you more of a Life Coach or a Career Coach?’ A fair question, as I work for HR Search, a specialised Human Resources recruitment company, but I am also a qualified and practising personal coach. For anyone who has trained to be a Coach and passionately embraces coaching, they will recognise the truth in my answer, I said that “recruiting is what I do, being a Coach is who I am”. Coaching is integrated into how I do everything. “Recruiting is what I do, being a Coach is who I am” As a supportive mechanism, to help people forward in their lives, personal coaching is now widely accessed. Executive and job performance coaching has been a norm in the corporate world for some time and in-house coaching practice is growing in the SME and public sectors. One place that you don’t see a lot of coaching practice, is in the recruitment area. It tends to weigh more on the transactional side by its nature and model. However, to my coaching mindset, it is where [...]

What is HR Analytics?

What is HR Analytics?

By Jessica Finn|2019-05-09T11:51:21+01:00April 12th, 2019|HR, HR Analytics|

Today I attended a very insightful seminar which focused on HR Analytics, the new buzz word or phrase, that is being bounced around the HR market. The aim of the event, held by CIPD and UCD Smurfit Business School, was to enlighten the audience and offer an understanding as to what HR Analytics is, the benefits of implementing this in to your organisation and how to implement. For me, I was keen to attend as more and more of our clients seem to be investing in to this area and it’s important that I’m up to scratch with the lingo and requirements when asked to help them hire HR Analysts in the future! If, like I was, you are unsure about what HR Analytics actually means then hopefully this blog will provide a brief overview for you. According to CIPD; HR Analytics is the use of people-data in analytical processes to solve business problems. In essence, HR Analytics helps HR and their stakeholders to measure and report on key workforce concepts such as; performance, well-being and productivity and thus enables more evidence-based decision making. Why implement HR Analytics? There are numerous reasons why companies should follow suit and consider implementing HR Analytics. Overall the main aim of it would be to improve a company’s performance and analytics can help by; Improving staff retention; as analytics can uncover patterns and predict employees who are likely to resign Improving hiring; algorithms allow companies to identify which traits lead to success and therefore companies can shape who they should [...]

What does the role of HR look like in 2019?

What does the role of HR look like in 2019?

By Niamh Kennelly|2019-04-17T15:06:29+01:00April 11th, 2019|HR, HR Trends|

What does the role of HR look like in 2019 – Have you positioned HR to allow strategic contribution to the future success of your organisation? On a daily basis, the most common conversation I have with prospective senior candidates is about the content of a role profile and how Operational vs Strategic the role is (in reality). From a recruitment perspective, I decided jot down some of my observations about the direction HR is taking, and what I am seeing on the marketplace currently when sourcing for Senior HR Manager/ BP/ Director roles. It has really changed drastically during my time in recruitment. What is a strategic HR role? This is where HR has moved away from the tactical, hands on work and no longer working in the day to day. It is a true focus on aligning business objectives to the people strategy, an identification of long-term or overall business aims and interests and the means of achieving them through people. It takes shape in an environment where leadership feel passionately about having people number 1 on the agenda to drive the company to success. Strategic HR work involves expertise in talent management, brand values, attraction and retention capabilities, workforce planning, organisational design and effectiveness. There is a huge movement away from a tactical and reactive HR towards being strategic, deliberate people teams who take a fully rounded, holistic view of HR that add value at a C-Suite level. “It is almost impossible to achieve sustainable success without an outstanding CHRO who should be a key sparring [...]