For example, 39% of the respondents in a Deloitte survey reported experiencing bias at least once a month, while 68% said witnessing or experiencing bias harmed their productivity.

But what is contrast bias, how can it negatively impact your organization and its employees, and how can you prevent it in your workplace?

Contents
What is contrast bias?
Ingroup versus outgroup bias
The impact of contrast bias
5 areas of workplace contrast bias
7 ways to avoid contrast bias in the workplace

What is contrast bias?

Contrast bias is a form of cognitive bias in which you evaluate someone’s abilities, work performance, or characteristics by comparing them to others you’ve recently evaluated instead of using an objective standard or criteria.

This can happen in various contexts, such as recruitment, performance reviews, promotions, and day-to-day interactions among staff. As a result, there is either a positive contrast effect or negative contrast effect — you may view a candidate’s qualifications or employee’s performance as either better or worse than they really are, based on whom you compare them to.

The psychology behind contrast bias is quite simple: comparing one thing or person against another can make people feel more confident about their decisions. As HR professionals often have to make crucial decisions regarding candidates and employees, they may unconsciously or subconsciously rely on contrast bias to help them reach these decisions more quickly and efficiently.

Ingroup versus outgroup bias

Depending on the workplace situation, you may engage in ingroup or outgroup bias. The table below gives an overview of the main differences between the two and an example of each.

The impact of contrast bias 

Contrast bias typically has several negative implications for an organization. Here’s what these can look like at different stages of the employee life cycle: 

• Skewed hiring decisions: Comparing candidates to one another instead of focusing on how well their skills and qualifications match a role’s requirements can skew hiring decisions. This will, in turn, negatively impact new hire diversity and potentially lead to work compatibility issues.
• Unfair performance management and reviews: Assessing employees by comparing them to one another instead of based on their individual achievements and performance results in unfair reviews and appraisals.
• Demotivated employees: When employees realize their supervisors are comparing them to one another instead of focusing on the quality of their work, they tend to start losing motivation.
• Compromised collaboration and cohesion: Employees who feel undervalued or marginalized are usually less inclined to collaborate effectively with their colleagues. This leads to a breakdown in team cohesion and overall performance.
• Biased promotion decisions: Management may decide which employees to promote based on how their personalities differ from their peers rather than their professional performance or how well they meet the company’s promotion policy requirements.
• Loss of trust in the organization: Employees and candidates aware of contrast bias in the company will likely lose trust in the fairness and integrity of its processes.

5 areas of workplace contrast bias

Contrast bias in recruitment 

Let’s say you are a hiring manager interviewing two candidates for the same role. The first candidate is charismatic and well-spoken but inexperienced in certain aspects of the job. The second candidate comes across as slightly nervous and reserved, but their detailed answers indicate they are highly knowledgeable and qualified for the job. Despite this, you find yourself leaning towards the first candidate.

Let’s look at another example of contrast bias in recruitment: Aaron, Brenda, Chong, and Danusha are all being considered for a senior sales position. On day one, you speak with Aaron and Brenda and, based on their qualifications, decide Brenda is the most suitable candidate for the role.

On day two, you interview Chong and Danusha. Danusha is more qualified than Chong but less qualified than Brenda. However, because you most recently interviewed Danusha, and she outshone Chong, you offered her the job instead of Brenda — who is actually the most qualified of the four candidates.

Contrast bias in performance reviews

Imagine it’s time for your organization’s quarterly company-wide performance reviews. One of the salespeople has done unusually well, exceeding their sales targets and boosting the company’s profits.

Instead of assessing the rest of the team members’ performances based on pre-determined company-wide standards and their individual KPIs, their manager compares them to their top-performing colleagues. This unfairly pushes down their performance ratings and paints them in an unfavorable light.

A manager may also practice contrast bias on a personal level — let’s say they have two people on their team, Ashley and Raoul. Like the manager, Ashley has a horse and loves going on long horse rides on weekends, so they go together regularly. On the other hand, Raoul doesn’t know much about horses and is therefore not invited.

When it’s time to evaluate her team members’ work performance, the manager rates Ashley higher than they do Raoul. The problem is that they’ve based this on their personal relationship with Ashley instead of on each team member’s quality of work and KPI fulfillment. In this case, affinity bias is also a factor in the manager’s decision.

Contrast bias in teams

During team meetings, you will likely notice two main groups of people: those who don’t hesitate to share their opinions or answer questions during meetings and those who prefer to take notes and offer their opinions or suggestions in writing after meetings.

If, for instance, the team’s manager falls into the first group of people, they may feel inclined to pay more attention to that group and neglect the second group.

Contrast bias in leadership

Suppose there are two employees at a large international consulting firm who are up for a promotion. Both of them meet all the company’s requirements to be eligible for the promotion and are highly suitable for the role. 

One of them, however, happened to have attended a more prestigious business school than the other did. The manager fixates on this detail and, after comparing the employees’ educational backgrounds, decides to promote the one who could afford the more prestigious school.

Contrast bias in learning and development

Imagine there are two candidates for additional learning and development (L&D) opportunities on the same team, Sheila and Samira. Sheila is usually attentive yet quiet during meetings, while Samira asks many questions and makes many comments. Both are equally competent, but as their manager unconsciously rates them based on their communication, she offers Samira the L&D opportunity.

Contrast bias can also manifest in the form of age-based discrimination. Picture Suzie, a floor manager at a large retail company who has successfully mentored people of all ages for many years. She recently mentored two assistant floor managers — 26-year-old Ali and 39-year-old Wendy.

Suzie had a positive experience mentoring both of them, but Ali was promoted shortly after finishing the mentorship program. This plays into her contrast bias, so the next time Suzie must choose an assistant floor manager to mentor, she opts for 25-year-old Mo instead of 42-year-old Patricia without first considering which of them is more qualified or competent.

HR tip

Make it easy for employees to flag and report situations where they encounter contrast bias. Clearly communicate their options for doing so (e.g., an anonymized email or a form they can access and submit via the company’s online HR system).

7 ways to avoid contrast bias in the workplace 

1. Start with the HR team

Hire an external expert to train your organization’s HR team on bias awareness. You can also opt for self-paced online learning. As an HR professional, you must understand contrast bias and know how to detect and minimize it.

Once everyone is on the same page and knows how to identify contrast bias at work, you can create a plan to minimize bias, all the way from the hiring process to performance reviews.

2. Conduct awareness training

Minimizing the contrast effect bias starts with awareness and training. This applies not just to HR but also to all the company’s managers. In addition to an extensive initial training program, organize regular refresher training sessions to stamp out any potential bias along the way.

3. Conduct structured interviews

Adhere to a structured interview to avoid interviewer bias during the selection process. This means you must ask candidates a standardized set of questions, which will help remove bias from your company’s shortlisting and hiring decisions by ensuring it assesses job applicants based on the same criteria.

It will also enable you to compare candidates based on qualifications and experience and make the best decision based on this data. 

4. Involve multiple evaluators

In your organization’s hiring and performance review processes, involve more than one person in the decision-making procedure. This will foster a system of checks and balances, thus reducing the likelihood and impact of any possible contrast bias.

5. Establish and adhere to a company standard

Develop objective criteria to evaluate employee performance and potential and ensure these criteria are communicated clearly and used consistently across the entire organization.

6. Foster an inclusive culture

Establish and maintain an inclusive environment at work to ensure your company values diversity, encourages employees to appreciate their colleagues’ unique contributions, and works to minimize bias throughout the organization.

7. Educate the workforce

Offer regular training or workshops on unconscious bias to continuously educate both employees and leadership on recognizing, addressing, and countering their biases.

HR tip

Make bias recognition, reduction, and removal a shared objective that everyone in the organization works toward. Share real-life success stories across the company to educate and encourage employees and management to continue rooting out bias in their day-to-day interactions.

Key takeaway

Contrast bias will occur to some extent in every organization, so don’t be alarmed if you detect it in your company. Detection is the first step in addressing, understanding, and ultimately, preventing or at least minimizing bias in the future.

The HR team should lead the company’s efforts to avoid contrast bias in the workplace as it is largely responsible for handling the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment to resignation. HR professionals are the first organizational representatives candidates and new hires meet, and the last colleagues employees speak with when leaving a company. This makes their role in recognizing, reducing, and removing bias especially vital.

FAQ

The post Contrast Bias: Everything HR Professionals Must Know appeared first on AIHR.

But what is the difference between OKRs and KPIs? This article will explain the key differences, when to use each, and metrics to track when measuring each methodology.  

Contents
What is an OKR?
The benefits of setting OKRs
What is a KPI?
The benefits of setting KPIs
OKRs vs. KPIs: The main differences
Why use HR OKRs
Why use HR KPIs

What is an OKR?

• Objectives serve as ambitious, qualitative descriptions of what the organization aims to achieve
• Key Results are specific, measurable milestones indicating progress towards those objectives. 

This framework fosters alignment, accountability, and innovation within organizations, driving success across industries.

The benefits of setting OKRs

• Alignment: OKRs help align HR goals with the organization’s overall objectives, ensuring that HR initiatives contribute directly to the company’s success.
• Clarity: OKRs provide clarity on HR priorities and expectations, making it easier for you and your HR teams to understand what must be accomplished and how to measure success.
• Focus: By setting clear objectives and key results, OKRs help your HR teams prioritize tasks and initiatives, focusing efforts on the most impactful activities.
• Accountability: OKRs facilitate accountability within HR by establishing measurable outcomes and timelines for achieving them. This encourages you, the HR professional, to take ownership of your work and deliver results.
• Continuous improvement: OKRs promote a culture of constant improvement within HR by encouraging reflection and adjustment based on performance data. Your HR teams can use OKR results to identify areas for growth and refine their strategies over time.
• Employee engagement: When HR goals are aligned with the organization’s objectives, employees are more likely to feel engaged and motivated. OKRs provide a framework for communicating your HR priorities and creating a sense of purpose among employees.
• Transparency: OKRs promote transparency within HR and across the organization by clearly outlining goals and progress. This transparency builds trust and collaboration among team members and stakeholders.
• Adaptability: OKRs allow your HR teams to adapt quickly to changing business needs and market conditions. By regularly reviewing and adjusting objectives and key results, you can remain agile and responsive to new challenges and opportunities. 

HR tip

Sears implemented the OKR framework to boost performance. Initially, the company limited this to salaried employees, overlooking sales agents. After a year, with minimal OKR impact, it realized adjustments were necessary.

Sears achieved notable improvements by refocusing efforts on outbound call centers and emphasizing add-on sales metrics. Sales increased by 8.5% and hourly sales rose from $14.44 to $15.67.

What is a KPI?

A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a measurable value that gauges how effectively an organization is achieving its key objectives. 

• Key indicates the metric’s importance in relation to organizational goals.
• Performance emphasizes its role in assessing the effectiveness and execution of strategies
• Indicators highlight the measurable nature of these metrics, which provide valuable insights into progress.

KPIs are essential tools for decision-making, helping organizations (and HR teams) to track and optimize performance toward desired outcomes.

The benefits of setting KPIs

• Performance measurement: KPIs can provide you with quantifiable metrics to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of your HR initiatives, processes, and programs.
• Goal alignment: KPIs help align your HR activities with the goals and objectives of the organization.
  Data-driven decision-making: KPIs can provide you with actionable insights based on real-time data. This data will help you make informed decisions and prioritize initiatives that impact organizational performance most.
• Accountability: By setting clear KPIs, HR professionals and teams are held accountable for achieving specific outcomes. This builds a culture of responsibility and ownership within the department.
• Continuous improvement: KPIs serve as benchmarks for your performance. These benchmarks help you evaluate and refine your HR strategies and processes to improve your effectiveness over time.
• Resource optimization: KPIs help you to allocate resources more effectively by identifying areas of strength and weakness. This lets you focus resources where they are most needed to drive performance and results.
• Employee development: You can use KPIs to track and evaluate employee performance, identify areas for improvement, and establish individual and team development goals. This contributes to a culture of growth and development within the organization.
• Communication and transparency: Setting KPIs promotes transparency and open communication both within HR and across the organization by clearly defining expectations and goals. This creates collaboration and alignment toward common objectives.

OKRs vs. KPIs: The main differences

Why use HR OKRs

Here’s why implementing HR OKRs within the HR function is beneficial:

1. Aligns with organizational goals

OKRs help you align your HR objectives and initiatives with the company’s broader strategic goals. By setting clear objectives and defining key results contributing to these goals, you can focus your HR team’s efforts on activities that drive organizational success.

2. Provides focus and prioritization

OKRs provide you with a framework for prioritizing activities and allocating resources effectively. You can better direct your efforts toward the most critical initiatives by establishing ambitious yet achievable objectives and defining key results that measure progress.

3. Maintains accountability and measurement

OKRs create accountability within HR by establishing clear expectations and metrics for success. You can achieve your HR goals and optimize your HR team’s performance by regularly tracking progress against key results and holding individuals and teams accountable.

4. Encourages continuous improvement

OKRs promote a culture of continuous improvement within HR by encouraging reflection, learning, and adaptation. Regular reviews help you identify areas for improvement, refine strategies, and iterate approaches to achieve better results over time.

HR tip

Inject creativity into OKRs by encouraging cross-functional collaboration to spark innovation and develop a culture of collective ownership of shared goals.

How HR can use OKRs

There are many objectives that OKRs can help you to achieve. Some of these include: 

Improving recruitment and onboarding 

Setting clear OKRs for recruitment and onboarding helps your recruiters and talent acquisition team improve their work in these key areas. For instance, the goal might be to enhance the quality of new hires with specific targets like “boost candidate survey scores by 20%”, “raise new hire retention by 15% in the first year”, and “cut down the hiring process by 10 days”. 

This method focuses on attracting the best talent and making sure they settle in well, increasing their commitment and participation from the start. With OKRs, HR can use data and feedback to keep improving how they hire and welcome new employees.

Improving employee engagement and satisfaction

For instance, a goal could be “increase employee engagement and satisfaction,” with measurable outcomes like “boost employee engagement score by 25%”, “cut employee turnover by 20%”, and “start at least two workforce development programs.” 

By establishing these objectives, you can work towards fostering a positive culture that appreciates and rewards employees’ efforts. OKRs promote ongoing feedback, making employees feel valued and listened to, which boosts loyalty and productivity.

Developing Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging

Use OKRs to improve Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace. For example, an objective might be to “amplify diversity and inclusion in all departmental teams” with measurable outcomes such as “increase the representation of minority groups in management positions by 15%” and “achieve a 25% increase in employee perceptions of inclusivity”. 

By setting specific, actionable goals, HR can ensure that DEIB initiatives are not just token gestures but are integrated into the organization’s culture. 

6 examples of HR OKRs

Example 1:

• Objective: Improve employee engagement
• Key result 1: Increase employee engagement survey scores by 10%
• Key result 2: Reduce voluntary turnover rate by 5%
• Key result 3: Implement at least three employee recognition programs.

Example 2:

• Objective: Enhance diversity and inclusion
• Key result 1: Increase representation of underrepresented groups in leadership positions by 15%
• Key result 2: Achieve 100% participation in diversity and inclusion training programs
• Key Result 3: Implement unconscious bias training for all hiring managers.
  

Example 3:

• Objective: Strengthen talent acquisition
• Key result 1: Reduce time to fill vacant positions by 20%
• Key result 2: Improve candidate satisfaction scores by 15%
• Key result 3: Increase employee referral hires by 25%.
  

Example 4:

• Objective: Optimize performance management process
• Key result 1: Increase employee and organizational goal alignment by 20%
• Key result 2: Conduct quarterly performance check-ins with all employees
• Key result 3: Raise performance appraisal completion rates to 95%.
  

Example 5:

• Objective: Enhance employee development
• Key result 1: Increase participation in training and development programs by 30%
• Key result 2: Achieve 90% satisfaction rate in post-training surveys
• Key result 3: Implement a mentorship program for high-potential employees
  

Example 6:

• Objective: Improve HR operational efficiency
• Key result 1: Implement HR automation tools to reduce time spent on administrative tasks
• Key result 2: Streamline onboarding process to reduce onboarding time by 25%
• Key result 3: Increase self-service HR portal adoption rate to 80%.

HR tip

Learn to make data-driven decisions by upskilling yourself with an AIHR People Analytics Certificate Program. The self-paced program will teach you how to analyze HR data and build interactive HR dashboards and reports so you can measure and transform data into actionable insights. 

Why use HR KPs

KPIs can serve several purposes within HR:

1. Align with strategic objectives

KPIs help HR departments align initiatives and activities with the organization’s overall strategic objectives. By measuring specific metrics, such as talent acquisition, employee development, and retention, HR can ensure that its efforts contribute directly to achieving broader organizational goals.

2. Monitor key metrics

You can track critical workforce management and performance metrics with KPIs. These metrics may include employee engagement levels, turnover rates, diversity and inclusion metrics, training and development effectiveness, and HR operational efficiency. By measuring these key indicators, you can identify areas of strength and areas needing improvement. This enables you and the company to make informed decisions and take proactive measures to address issues as they arise.

3. Drive performance improvement

KPIs provide HR with insights into the performance and effectiveness of various HR programs, policies, and processes. By setting benchmarks and targets for key metrics, you can establish performance standards and identify opportunities for improvement. This enables HR to implement targeted interventions and strategies to enhance employee performance, engagement, and overall organizational effectiveness.

4. Improve decision-making 

KPIs serve as valuable tools for data-driven decision-making within HR. By analyzing KPI data, you can gain insights into trends, patterns, and areas of concern within the workforce. This enables HR to make informed decisions regarding talent management, resource allocation, strategic planning, and other critical HR initiatives, ultimately leading to better outcomes for the organization.

How HR can use KPIs

Measure performance

Use KPIs to measure the performance and effectiveness of your HR programs, initiatives, and processes. For example, KPIs related to recruitment and selection can help HR assess the efficiency of talent acquisition efforts. KPIs related to training and development can help gauge the impact of employee learning programs on skill development and performance improvement.

Set and monitor goals

Establish specific KPIs aligned with HR goals and objectives and use them to set performance targets and benchmarks. By monitoring KPIs regularly, you can track progress toward achieving these goals, identify areas of success and improvement, and adjust strategies and tactics to stay on track.

Identify trends and patterns

HR can analyze KPI data to identify trends, patterns, and insights related to workforce dynamics, employee behavior, and organizational performance. For example, KPIs related to employee engagement can help you identify drivers of engagement and areas of concern, helping you develop targeted interventions to improve morale and satisfaction.

Benchmarking and comparison

KPIs can be used to benchmark performance against industry standards and best practices or compare performance across different departments, teams, or time periods. This helps you identify areas of strength and areas needing improvement relative to peers or internal benchmarks.

Drive accountability and transparency

Promote accountability and transparency by establishing clear KPIs and communicating them to stakeholders. Employees and managers can then better understand expectations and performance standards, track progress toward goals, and take ownership of their contributions to success.

Assess the effectiveness of strategies and policies

KPIs help you to evaluate the effectiveness of existing HR strategies, programs, and policies. By measuring outcomes against predefined KPIs — such as recruitment effectiveness, training program success rates, and diversity and inclusion metrics — you can determine whether its initiatives are achieving the desired results. You can then identify what’s working and what requires improvement, leading to more targeted and effective interventions.

6 examples of HR KPIs

Example 1:

Employee turnover rate: Percentage of employees who leave the organization within a specific period, typically calculated annually.

Example 2:

Absenteeism rate: Percentage of scheduled work hours that employees are absent from work, often calculated monthly or quarterly.

Example 3:

Time to hire: Average number of days it takes to fill a vacant position from the time you post it until the organization hires a candidate.

Example 4:

Training program success rate: Percentage of employees who successfully complete training programs or courses within a given timeframe.

Example 5:

Employee engagement score: A composite measure of employee satisfaction, motivation, and commitment, often assessed through employee engagement surveys or other feedback mechanisms.

Example 6:

Diversity index: Measure of workforce diversity that considers factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, and other aspects of diversity, often expressed as a percentage or ratio.

To sum up

OKRs and KPIs are invaluable tools for driving organizational success. OKRs provide a structured methodology for defining clear objectives and measurable outcomes, guiding teams toward strategic goals. On the other hand, KPIs offer real-time insights into performance, enabling you to track progress and make data-driven decisions.

The post OKRs vs. KPIs: The Key Differences & Use (With Examples)  appeared first on AIHR.

This article takes a deep dive into the key elements of a successful recruitment marketing strategy. Discover the diverse ways recruitment teams can attract top talent and raise employer brand awareness.

Contents
What is recruitment marketing?
Why is recruitment marketing important?
The recruitment marketing funnel
10 key steps to creating a recruitment marketing strategy
Recruitment marketing tools
Inspiring recruitment marketing examples

What is recruitment marketing?

Recruitment marketing involves using a wide range of marketing tactics to attract, engage, and ultimately hire top talent. It’s all about finding effective (and enticing) ways to promote job opportunities while positioning your company as the ultimate employer of choice.

What does it look like in practice? A recruitment marketing strategy can take many forms, such as:

• Using programmatic job advertising to attract candidates to apply to your open roles
• Showcasing your company culture, mission, and values on social media platforms
• Sharing stories about the overall employee experience in company blogs and videos
• Attending and organizing career events at universities to attract early career talent
• Actively monitoring and responding to online company reviews.

Why is recruitment marketing important?

In today’s competitive job market, where 77% of organizations find it difficult to fill roles, recruitment marketing strategies enable organizations to stand out as employers and compete for talent.

Here’s why you should invest in developing a recruitment marketing strategy:

• Over 90% of candidates consider a company’s reputation before accepting a job offer. Recruitment marketing helps you build a positive reputation as an employer.
• When done well, recruitment marketing speeds up your recruitment process, which results in a shorter time to hire and reduced cost per hire.
• By building targeted recruitment marketing campaigns, you can attract candidates who fit your ideal candidate persona, leading to more qualified candidates for your open positions.
• A recruitment marketing strategy highlighting your company’s unique selling points sets it apart from the competition and ensures that your business stays top-of-mind for prospective candidates.
• Through focused recruitment marketing campaigns, companies can reach passive candidates, expanding the pool of potential applicants.
• Implementing recruitment marketing strategies provides valuable insights and data on candidate behavior, allowing for continuous optimization of hiring processes.

The recruitment marketing funnel

Every successful recruitment marketing strategy takes candidates on a journey through your organization’s recruiting process. A recruitment funnel captures the different stages of that journey.

Here’s an overview of the main stages of the recruitment funnel:

1. Awareness
2. Attraction
3. Interest
4. Application
5. Evaluation 
6. Interviewing
7. Hiring

During the recruitment marketing phase, the focus is on the top of the funnel (Awareness, Attraction, Interest). However, the actual recruitment process continues to the second half and the bottom of the funnel (Application, Evaluation, Interviewing, and Hiring).

Let’s take a closer look at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel, from Awareness to Interest. A solid understanding of each stage is crucial for attracting and maintaining candidate interest all the way to the application.

1. Awareness

This stage is all about increasing the visibility of your company’s job opportunities to attract high-quality candidates. High-performing talent acquisition teams go big, using all the marketing channels and tools they know their target audience – potential candidates – would respond to. They spread the word through engaging content on social media, job boards, internal channels (and more).

Moreover, they craft a savvy content marketing strategy – blogs, videos, and live (online) events that showcase your company culture and overall employee experience. Some companies are even partnering with social media influencers on TikTok to generate interest from wider audiences, like Gen Z.

2. Attraction

How do you know the first stage is a success? Many potential candidates are attracted to your organization and your job openings. But to maintain that interest, you need to ensure consistent messaging about the company, employer brand, and the roles.

Recruitment marketing tactics in this stage include engaging job postings that go beyond the standard list of skills and qualifications and advertising them in the right places to get potential candidates to consider applying.

3. Interest

Now comes the make-or-break stage. Interested candidates actively research and evaluate your company to decide whether they will apply. And this is where all the hard work of talent teams pays off. Optimized career pages, having a strong (and positive) presence on social media and job sites like Glassdoor, and answering questions from potential candidates in your online content all help convince candidates to apply.

While the stages from application to hiring are generally considered recruiting rather than recruitment marketing, that doesn’t mean that there’s no space for recruitment marketing in these parts of the funnel. For example, many companies are now optimizing the application experience with the help of AI, like using friendly chatbots or virtual assistants to guide candidates and answer any questions 24/7.

To sum up, a successful recruitment marketing funnel delivers value by attracting and engaging qualified candidates and turning them into applicants. It’s a continuous process of testing, refinement, and enhancement of the strategy across the initial stages of the recruitment process.

10 key steps to creating a recruitment marketing strategy

Now let’s get into the specifics of a recruitment marketing strategy by exploring the key steps and some recruitment ideas.

1. Define your employer brand

You may know it by heart, but can you clearly communicate it to interested candidates? Your employer brand captures your company values, mission, vision, culture – and anything else that makes you an irresistible choice to potential candidates. HR and talent acquisition teams are instrumental in helping their organizations define a strong employer brand and integrate it into a powerful recruitment marketing strategy.

2. Identify and define your recruitment marketing goals

To start off on the right foot, you need to know where you’re going (and why). Every successful recruitment marketing strategy needs clearly defined goals. Follow the golden rule of creating specific and measurable recruitment goals. Clear goals will guide you through each stage of the recruitment marketing process. If, for example, your goal is to “increase data scientist candidates by 10% in Q2”, you can create a more targeted recruitment campaign.

3. Perform a recruitment SWOT Analysis

An HR SWOT analysis will help set your company ahead when competing for top talent. It’s absolutely worth spending the time identifying the strengths and weaknesses (the internal factors within your organization) and the opportunities and threats (the external factors outside your organization) to evaluate the strength of your recruitment marketing strategy. 

Some key elements of a recruitment SWOT analysis include:

• Having a solid understanding of your company’s unique strengths to attract top talent
• Identifying vulnerabilities and weaknesses within your organization that impact recruitment
• Knowing your competitors, those who are after the same candidates 
• Examining your recruitment process from candidates’ perspectives to find opportunities and threats.

4. Create a candidate persona

Here is where you get to dream big. Describe the ideal employee(s) for each position. Yes, it’s rare for a candidate to possess everything on your wish list, but creating a highly detailed candidate persona will keep the team focused on finding the right new hire.

A strong candidate profile includes the most essential skills, capabilities, and traits needed for the role. It should also be backed by research and input from key internal stakeholders versus personal preferences.

5. Craft compelling job postings

Ideally, your job postings should immediately grab potential candidates’ attention and go beyond the standard list of skills and qualifications. A good job ad is more than enticing language; it should be targeted to attract your ideal candidate. Some essential elements to include (and here is where HR expertise will be critical):

• First, answer the question: Why would the candidate want to work here?
• A concise list of skills and qualifications (e.g., think the top 5 absolute musts vs. a whole list of requirements)
• A brief but engaging company description that highlights your unique company culture.

6. Enhance your career channels

When was the last time your careers page, company page, and LinkedIn were optimized with recruitment marketing in mind? Are they user- and SEO-friendly? Can potential candidates easily explore job opportunities? Again, your input is valuable here to ensure your company’s career channels truly capture your unique company culture, policies, benefits, and rewards.

A competitor analysis of other organizations’ career channels would be highly beneficial, particularly when you are both on the hunt for similar talent. Your company’s career channels should stand out from the rest.

7. Nurture talent communities

Just because a top candidate didn’t accept (or get) the job doesn’t mean you can’t keep in contact. TA teams can stay in touch and build a robust talent pipeline by using candidate contact information.

To keep them engaged and interested in your organization, share information via email campaigns, company newsletters, blog articles, or company events. That way, when another suitable role becomes available, previously vetted candidates can quickly express interest.

8. Build an employee referral program

A genuine employee endorsement of your company can maximize your recruitment marketing strategy. You can incorporate employee referrals as part of employee incentives and rewards, encouraging them to refer qualified candidates.

The benefits? A strong employee referral program can reduce time-to-hire, decrease recruiting costs, and improve the quality of new hires. In fact, referrals can generate as much as 70% more good hires than non-referrals.

9. Measure and analyze results

How do you know if your recruitment marketing strategy is working? Throughout key stages, you should regularly track and analyze key recruitment metrics.

Focus on application rates, conversion rates, applicant quality, and time-to-fill for your roles. By keeping on top of this data, you’ll gain insights into what’s working (and what’s not) – enabling you to make data-driven decisions. 

10. Continually adapt and optimize

Remember your recruitment marketing strategy is not set in stone, and you’ll need to continuously adapt it based on the data and insights you gain.

Experiment with different methods, content, and channels, and keep an eye on how your competitors attract talent. For example, explore recruitment ads that companies in your industry put out. How does your recruitment marketing strategy compare with others? If there are areas for improvement, make them immediately.

Recruitment marketing tools

Although recruiters and talent acquisition professionals do a lot of the heavy lifting in the recruitment marketing process, they can get some support. By using various tools and technologies, you can streamline parts of your recruitment marketing strategy.

Although the digital landscape of recruitment marketing tools is constantly changing, here are some to consider:

Inspiring recruitment marketing examples 

1. TikTok for recruitment and employer branding

Senior recruiter for Intuit, Emily Durham, has quite the TikTok following—close to 500K (and counting).

She uses her Emily the Recruiter platform in an unofficial capacity to share career tips (and personal content). TikTok has not only increased her candidate reach but boosted Intuit’s profile among younger candidates.

Then there are companies like Lululemon, Target, and Chipotle that use the platform to quickly get the word out about open positions.

HR tip

If you want to reach a wider candidate pool, including early career talent, then add TikTok into your recruitment marketing strategy. TikTok has 1 billion monthly active users, and close to 50% are Gen Z.

If your company policy allows it, develop a TikTok strategy to build employer branding and spread the word about open positions. And if you’re a talent professional who’s not camera shy, you can follow in Emily’s footsteps.

2. Netflix’s career page: A masterclass in storytelling  

The streaming giant Netflix prides itself on its “people over process” philosophy. Their careers page, WEARENETFLIX, is a masterclass in capturing company culture in a bold and straightforward way.

Interested candidates can take a deep dive into what it’s really like to work at the company from many diverse perspectives through authentic and conversational employee videos, blogs, and podcasts.

HR tip

Netflix’s open and inclusive approach to describing their company culture directly from employees is a strategy that you can adopt.

Of course, we don’t all have Netflix’s budget and resources. However, featuring authentic employee testimonials, sharing employee stories, and describing what makes your culture unique makes for a winning recruitment marketing strategy. 

3. Land O’Lakes digital recruitment marketing campaign filled jobs fast

During the pandemic, Land O’Lakes used the power of AI for their “Feed the Nation” digital talent marketing campaign. They needed to act quickly to fill crucial manufacturing roles to meet the high demand for certain products.

Through the use of AI technologies, they created the campaign’s landing page in under an hour. Then followed up with a compelling email campaign to everyone in their talent database featuring the company’s CEO. This drove interested candidates to the landing page (16K site visitors in 11 days) to apply for urgent positions. 

The company also designed geo-targeted (by ZIP codes) social media ads to reach potential candidates in key locations, attracting 19,000 job seekers. Their talent teams were able to track leads and applications in real time and make changes quickly to optimize ad performance.

After four weeks of the campaign, not only were 75% of roles filled, but the company also built a strong talent pipeline.

HR tip

The Land O’Lakes example illustrates the powerful combination of paid social ads and using traditional marketing tactics like email campaigns and a custom career landing page. This can pay off, especially when you need to fill critical roles quickly.

Consider also following their example of using text messaging to guide candidates along the application process.

Key takeaways 

The beauty of a recruitment marketing strategy is that you can tailor and target it exactly as your company needs. With the help of the right tools and technologies, you can track, refine, optimize, and make data-driven decisions. Overall, it’s a more proactive approach to finding talent, creating a strong employer brand, and building a robust talent pipeline. 

As employers need to stand out to compete for talent, recruitment marketing enables them to do just that. Plus, when you connect with candidates on a deeper level, you get better results.

The post Mastering Recruitment Marketing: What You Need To Know in 2024 appeared first on AIHR.

Let’s dive into what makes each example interesting and what you can implement in your own company.

Contents
What is human resources (HR)?
Why is HR important?
11 real-life human resources examples
1. Comprehensive benefits and mental health support
2. Paid vacation policies 
3. Innovative reskilling initiatives
4. Targeted learning and development strategy
5. Virtual platforms for early career talent attraction 
6. Effective employee onboarding process
7. AI talent retention solutions
8. Gender diversity initiatives that make an impact
9. The ultimate flexible working policy
10. Prioritizing employee wellbeing 
11. Beyond traditional performance management 

What is human resources (HR)? 

Before we discuss the different company examples, let’s briefly paint a picture of what HR does. 

In a nutshell, human resources is an organization’s critical, strategic function that manages all things employee-related. From finding and hiring new talent, providing training and development opportunities, to ensuring compliance with labor laws and managing compensation and benefits. But this description is just a small sample of human resources examples in business. 

Here are a few more that demonstrate what HR teams do:

• Strategically align workforce planning with organizational objectives
• Manage the onboarding and orientation process of new hires
• Foster a positive company culture and promote employee engagement
• Collaborate with managers to develop a performance management system
• Serve as point of contact for employees for career guidance, concerns, and contact resolution
• Support diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

Why is HR important?

HR is a business-critical function in an organization because it manages a company’s most important assets – its people. HR’s importance is undeniable. It ensures a well-functioning work environment – contributing to employee engagement and wellbeing. 

Here are just a few key roles that HR plays in the organization:

11 real-life human resources examples

The wait is over. Here are the 11 real-world Human Resources examples in business. Many of these examples can be adapted to drive HR initiatives in your organization.

1. Comprehensive benefits and mental health support

EY’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

A comprehensive benefits package that includes an employee assistance program (EAP) stands out from the crowd. Like EY’s (formerly known as Ernst & Young) employee assistance program, with its strong emphasis on mental health. 

Among the highlights, EY’s in-house clinicians raise mental health awareness by extending up to 25 psychotherapy sessions to employees and their immediate family members. Through EY Assist, employees can access a range of other support services, such as:

• 24-hour hotline for emergency counseling services
• Childcare, homecare, and other caregiving services
• Online health and wellbeing resources
• Legal and financial consultation 
• Personal travel assistance
• Reimbursements for physical wellness activities (e.g., gym memberships)

HR departments that offer EAPs in their benefits package can help reduce depression and anxiety, which cost the global economy US$ 1 trillion a year.

2. Paid vacation policies 

Reimaging time off: FullContact’s innovative vacation perks

Some companies, like tech company FullContact go the extra mile to reward employees. On top of its unlimited vacation policy, the company also provides an annual lump sum vacation bonus. Employees receive between $2,000 and $7,000 each work anniversary towards their vacations (depending on tenure and good job performance).

Rewarding employees in this way has a positive impact on engagement. According to the company’s global human resources vice president, the vacation policy is the main reason that FullContact has an 85% retention rate. Of course, not all organizations can afford to do the same for every employee. But this human resource example can be implemented on a smaller scale as part of recognition and rewards programs.

3. Innovative reskilling initiatives

Navigating the talent gap: BT Security’s skillful approach

BT Security tackled its cybersecurity skills gap head-on with an innovative reskilling solution. It took the bold move to offer an intensive 16-week boot camp for employees with transferable skills. 

Close to 90% of companies worldwide report having a skills gap or expect to within a few years. And when it comes to technology, 75% of organizations globally reported talent shortages in 2022.

Such employee reskilling programs acknowledge that it’s necessary for HR to address skills gaps in internal training to mitigate having to compete for scarce talent. Especially where technical skills are concerned. In fact, the OECD estimates that 1.1 billion jobs will likely be transformed by technology in the next decade.

4. Targeted learning and development strategy

Nurturing growth: Panda Restaurant Group’s learning platform

Panda Restaurant Group takes employee learning and development seriously. Its University of Panda Online supports over 40,000 associates globally to develop the skills needed for current and future roles. 

An interactive development planner is a key element of its online platform, which enables associates to identify, enroll, and complete learning experiences aligned with specific job-level competencies. The planner is based on Panda’s competency model and helps supervisors and associates develop targeted development plans.

The result? Around 85% of associates are happy with the training and development available at the company. And 89.5% of restaurants have achieved passing scores in Operations Service Audits. 

A centralized hub for learning experiences linked directly to core competencies can supercharge HR learning and development efforts. By mirroring this practice, HR teams can ensure a seamless alignment between employee capabilities and organizational needs.

5. Virtual platforms for early career talent attraction 

Preparing for the future: Lloyds Banking Group’s Virtual talent magnet

In response to the pandemic’s challenges, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) launched the Virtual HQ to attract university students and recent graduates. This innovative platform was so successful that LBG continues to use it as part of its early careers talent strategy. The platform facilitates immersive experiences, one-to-one chats with LBG colleagues, and engaging videos highlighting LBG’s culture and values. Key areas covered include: 

• The bank’s long-term strategy
• Events with LBG employees
• Sustainability commitments
• Inclusion and diversity
• Technology
• Mental health and wellbeing
• CSR efforts.

6. Effective employee onboarding process

The buddy system that works: Buffer’s approach to onboarding

Buffer, the social media marketing company, believes in the system of 3s for onboarding buddies. Every new hire receives three people to support their onboarding process:

1. A hiring manager: Often the direct supervisor, the hiring manager crafts the new hire’s roadmap of 30-60- and 90-day goals. They foster continuous feedback and ensure the new employee connects with their other buddies.
2. A culture buddy: An employee from a different team guides the new hire through the company culture, particularly the company’s history, values, and cultural norms. 
3. A role buddy: A teammate or a colleague with a similar role in the company supports the new employee with task or role-related questions. 

Nurturing a supportive onboarding experience is critical for HR teams. In fact, 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company (for at least three years) after a great onboarding experience. 

7. AI talent retention solutions

Mastering talent retention: Webhelp 

Webhelp, a global business process outsourcing (BPO) firm, embraces AI in HR to boost talent retention. Its People First platform leverages machine learning to drive employee engagement. Through predictive models, managers gain a holistic view of their team. The platform then skillfully identifies those who need support.

Managers and HR specialists work closely to develop customized action plans based on the platform’s recommendations. As a result, there has been a 40% decrease in employee turnover. The platform has a global reach to support HR operations in 50+ countries.

8. Gender diversity initiatives that make an impact

Pioneering gender diversity: Tata Consultancy Services 

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been advocating for gender diversity in tech for many years. Its internal diversity and inclusion efforts for women are noteworthy and have earned awards. 

TCS has over 35% women in its workforce, making it one of the largest employers of women in the world. Its most notable gender diversity initiatives are leadership development programs for women, coaching women through major life stages, reconnecting them after long leave, and more.

TCS also helps lay IT foundations by empowering girls and young women to enter STEM. Its goIT Girls program connects students and female tech leaders from TCS and other organizations. As of December 2021, the global program has achieved a 90% success rate for girls choosing to enroll in university STEM courses. 

TCS’ efforts towards greater gender diversity show that a company can increase its reach to inspire change in society. HR professionals can also play a critical role in widening their organizations’ reach into the wider community.

9. The ultimate flexible working policy

Results matter: The ROWE revolution at Watt Global Media

ROWE, or Results-Only Work Environment, is an HR strategy that transforms the traditional work model. ROWE ties compensation to tangible work results, not time spent working. Employees have the ultimate autonomy and flexibility; they can work whenever and wherever they like. But they must deliver results.

Companies like WATT Global Media, an agribusiness content marketing company, have been using ROWE since 2012. The policy has boosted its attraction and retention levels as well as productivity. But it only works with well-defined goals, frequent check-ins, and a deep trust in employees to get their jobs done.

While ROWE is not possible for all organizations, HR teams that embrace flexible working solutions set their organizations apart in the race for top talent. Over 50% of employees consider flexible working options a must-have requirement.

10. Prioritizing employee wellbeing 

Enabling resilience: Peer support networks at Atlantic Health System

It makes sense that a non-profit healthcare network prioritizes health and wellbeing. Atlantic Health System offers a Caregiver Peer Support program that other organizations can implement. The program allows team members a confidential space to talk to a trained “peer responder” about a challenging work experience.

Enabling employees to seek emotional support from other colleagues can lessen the risks of stress and burnout. According to Gallup’s recent State of the Global Workplace, burnout costs $322 billion in turnover and lost productivity, so initiatives that tackle this problem before it occurs can be highly beneficial for the employee and the organization. 

11. Beyond traditional performance management 

Maximizing performance: Adobe’s check-in 

Forward-thinking organizations are redefining the norms of traditional annual reviews. In its place, performance enablement is emerging as a dynamic HR strategy. It focuses on creating the optimal conditions that drive an employee’s peak performance. Clear and collaborative goal setting, continuous feedback and coaching, and ongoing skills development are among the core elements of a performance enablement framework. 

Adobe’s check-in is probably the most famous example of performance enablement. It recently advanced its check-in process to become digital first, creating a centralized platform where employees can access:

• Check-in dashboard: Employees can manage their performance, development, and growth. They set individual goals, track their progress, and document quarterly check-ins and feedback.
• Real-time feedback: A platform where colleagues can ask for and provide feedback to better understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
• Career planning: A Career Discovery tool that allows employees to explore new roles at Adobe based on those other employees at similar levels have acquired.

Drive HR excellence

These inspiring human resources examples demonstrate HR’s importance – now more than ever. They illustrate that an organization’s success depends on a dynamic HR team that embraces innovative strategies, emerging technologies, and new ways of working.

By applying (or adapting) some of these real-world human resources examples in business, HR professionals can enhance engagement, productivity, and overall performance.

The post 11 Real-Life Human Resources Examples appeared first on AIHR.

Why is employee journey analytics important for successful companies? In this episode of All About HR season 2, we talk with Kevin Campbell — Employee Experience Scientist @ Qualtrics — about how you can create a great employee experience using data. 

Kevin is an experienced people scientist who helps organizations acquire, train, and retain their most valuable asset — their people.

In this episode, we’ll discuss: 

• What Employee Journeys Analytics is 
• How to get started with Employee Journey Analytics in 5 steps 
• HR & Employee Journey Analytics: Key skills every HR professional needs 

Watch the full episode to discover how you can leverage analytics to increase engagement, improve retention, and help your business win in today’s marketplace!

Transcript:

 Kevin Campbell: They revised their onboarding survey to not just ask that question (Have you had a meeting with your manager?) but to ask about specific behaviors: Was that initial conversation with your manager over text? Was it in person? Was it over the phone? Was it over Zoom? And what we found was that when it was in person or over Zoom, those feelings of belonging are so much higher later on in that employee journey. 

Neelie Verlinden:  Hi, everyone, and welcome to a brand new episode of All About HR. My name is Neelie, I’m your host, and on today’s episode, I’m talking with Kevin Campbell. He is an employee experience scientist at Qualtrics. And we are going to talk about a topic I’m very excited about – employee journey analytics. What is it? How can you get started as a company? Perhaps Kevin has a few cool examples to share with us. Let’s see. But before we jump in, as always, if you haven’t done so yet, please subscribe to our channel, like this video, and hit the notification bell.

Neelie Verlinden: Welcome to another episode, All About HR. 

Neelie Verlinden: Okay, Hi, Kevin. Welcome to the show. First of all, how are you?

Kevin Campbell: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.

Neelie Verlinden:  Yeah, I’m very happy to have you. Before we jump into the conversation, would you like to tell us a little bit more about yourself and also about Qualtrics?

Kevin Campbell: Sure, sure. So my background is as an Organisational Psychologist. So I studied the science of people at work and specifically positive organizational psychology. So I had the pleasure of studying under Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He’s the co-founder of Positive Psychology. And I did my master’s degree studies with him. And prior to going into this world of employee experience, I was actually a headhunter and a recruiter. And I finally landed at Google working as a headhunter recruiting the top software engineers from around the globe to work in the corporate office in Mountain View. And there I was working at the best place to work according to all the workplace lists at the time, but I still saw a high degree of variance in terms of how engaged people were in their roles. And that’s what made me even more interested in finding out what makes people truly happy at work. And the rest is history. I’ve worked at the Gallup organization, Deloitte. I was a people scientist at Culture Amp. And now I’m doing similar work as an employee experience scientist with Qualtrics. So to summarise what that means, because I know it’s not a very common job title, I study and help organizations identify and close gaps around the employee experience.

Neelie Verlinden:  Nice one. Very nice introduction as well, Kevin, thank you for that. Okay. So, as I said in my very short introduction, what I would love to talk to you about today is employee journey analytics. I saw you recently posted about that on your LinkedIn. And I thought, okay, that could make for a cool topic to discuss on the podcast. Now I think some of the people in our audience, will know what employee journey analytics is about. But at the same time, I think it is still a relatively new concept, correct me if I’m wrong, so perhaps we can start with you telling us a little bit more about what it entails.

Kevin Campbell: Yeah. So it’s about being able to predict outcomes at one point in an employee’s journey by studying the drivers at another point of the employee’s journey. So if you want to know what it is about your onboarding experience that leads to higher rates of engagement and motivation and commitment, six months, a year, two years into a role, that’s employee journey analytics. If you want to know what training programs and leadership development programs lead to higher performance ratings, six months or a year later in a role, or if you want to be able to predict who’s going to accelerate faster within your organization, what’s gonna happen with regard to customer engagement and customer satisfaction, and Net Promoter Score. When you bring different points of the employee journey together, you get insights that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to have when you think about them as discrete separate pieces.

Neelie Verlinden:  I think that’s actually a very clear explanation. You explain very well how it works, how you are collecting data on one point, and then you’re going to see the results at a later point in the employee journey. So I think that’s a nice way for us to start, Kevin, and why do you believe that this is important in today’s world of work?

Kevin Campbell: Well, you don’t want an employee engagement survey as an example or any kind of an employee survey. It tends to be a point in time survey. You’re measuring how people are feeling, and their appraisal and subjective experience of what it’s like to work at your workplace at that point in time. But things are changing so quickly. Think about the way we work now, just compared to a year ago, compared to two years ago, and all of the different things that happen throughout your day that can either engage you or disrupt you or disengage you or make you consider, is this really the right role for me? Is this really the right place for me? And if you’re not thinking of yourself as an organization, or as a leadership team, the opportunity to see those changes over time, you’re going to be making decisions based upon a slice of data from a point in time that might not necessarily be relevant. And what bringing those different touchpoints together allows you to do is see the whole landscape of that employee journey, and be able to understand what are the moments that really matter? And what’s going to be the best return on the action that you can take? Because there are so many things that you can do to try and improve the employee experience. Is it going to be, you know, giving people swag and perks and different benefits? Or is it going to be some sort of an event or training? The opportunities are endless, but not every single action that you can take is going to get you the best return on your investment. So this allows you to really have the gift of focus. 

Neelie Verlinden: I like that. The gift of focus. Beautifully put. And I think a little bit later on, I would like to come back to how companies can actually do that, how they can get started. But before we get there, Kevin, I wanted to ask you something else. And this is about the actual collection of the data. So how do you collect data on the different experiences within the employee lifecycle without drowning employees in surveys?

Kevin Campbell: I love that question. So, yeah, so one thing I’ll say is that you know, I was working with a really large organization that said: people don’t like taking surveys, and I said: You’re right, people don’t like taking surveys, but they love having their feedback given and taken into account, they love being heard. So, a lot of times, there’s fear of survey fatigue. And it’s a valid fear. But most survey fatigue is actually a lack of relevance fatigue and a lack of action fatigue. People don’t think that the time that they’re taking to take the survey is relevant to what happens to be happening to them at that moment. And they don’t think it’s really going to do much of anything. But if you look at every business trip I’ve ever gone on in the last several years, I’ve probably taken like five or six surveys along the way. But I never thought about it right? Like I take a survey on the Uber ride to the airport. And then at the end of the Uber ride. And then I take another survey as I’m checking into the plane and going through customs. And then I’m listening to an audiobook. And as the audiobook finishes, I give my feedback on the audiobook and then I take a Lyft ride back to the hotel, and then I ordered DoorDash. And at the end of my DoorDash experience, I rate that experience. So a big part of it is embedding the feedback into the experience itself. So as you’re onboarding, as you’re using the employee intranet, and then, also if you think about it, feedback and employee listening should really be more conversational. So if you and I are in a relationship, and I’m the only one that’s ever initiating conversation, and I’m the one that’s only asking questions, that’s not a real conversation. So those listening posts organizations have, where people can have digital suggestion boxes of sorts, where people can at any time, submit questions or suggestions or ideas, like frontline employees being able to see opportunities to improve the customer experience. So to answer your question more succinctly, I think it’s about embedding the feedback into the flow of the experience and making it relevant to what’s happening, and most importantly, actually doing something about the feedback that people give.

Neelie Verlinden:  Yeah, totally. And I love, by the way, how you make that comparison with you know, going to the airports and then being on the plane, reading an e-book on your e-reader, etc. That is almost a seamless experience. As in like you don’t really even realize that you’re giving feedback. I was also thinking actually here in Europe at least what you see a lot is when you go to the airport, when you go to the restroom, they also ask you for feedback afterward about how your experience was, but it is completely integrated into everything that you’re doing. So it’s not something that at least I personally do not experience as something like, Oh, God, I need to give my feedback again. So I love that example that you gave there, Kevin. And I think if we could create a similar experience in the workplace, that will be awesome.

Kevin Campbell: Absolutely. And then, you know, imagine the power that comes from that, the insights that you have, you know, how many horrible experiences there are at work, that if somebody was just able to give their feedback, there’d be some sort of a mechanism to do something about it, you know. I’m working with this woman who is an account manager at a large tech organization, and her company was acquired by another company, and the sales operations team was doing integration of Salesforce. And to make a long story short, they completely screwed up the integration. These frontline employees, these account managers, these customer success employees who are supposed to be spending the majority of their time helping customers be successful, are spending the majority of their day fixing problems in Salesforce. But because that experiential feedback is not making its way back to company leadership, the team that did that merger on Salesforce got a huge recognition right from the very top of the company, and congratulations for how amazing of a job they did. Because from an operational perspective, they brought the databases together, like, check the box, that’s done. But there’s a whole other experiential, subjective component to what they did, where if you’re not actually collecting that data from people, you’re really blind to what’s happening in your organization.

Neelie Verlinden: Yeah, totally. You really only see one part of what’s going on, which in this case, gives you not the entire picture. Now, coming back to the employee journey, Kevin, how do you determine which aspects within the employee journey are most crucial to, for instance, employee retention and performance?

Kevin Campbell: Great question. So let’s start with retention. On most surveys, on most employee listening programs, there’s going to be a question and there are a couple of different ways you can do it that measure somebody’s intent to stay. Some questions are: I rarely think about looking for a job at another company. Do you see yourself working at XYZ company two years from now? Or at Qualtrics, we’d like to directly ask people who do tend to be here for six months, a year, five years. And then the best of all, is that the actual operational data looking at whether or not somebody resigned, and essentially what you’re doing, and I’m not going to bore you with the statistics of it, but you’re doing a correlational analysis of that outcome, whether that be people actually resigning, or someone giving their rating on one of those intensive state questions. And you’re looking at all the other questions that you ask. And you’re saying, which question has the strongest relationship with that outcome? So the idea is that if you can improve those other questions, those drivers, those things that are being asked about on those other questions, then you’ll be able to improve whether or not people intend to stay or whether or not people remain with the company and don’t turn over. And a lot of those questions go back to things like my performance evaluation was fair, or my performance is evaluated fairly well. If that’s the strongest driver from that survey, then maybe the other point in the employee journey that you want to measure is that performance cycle. Or let’s say another thing that surfaces as a top driver is, that I have the learning that I need to do my job really well. If that emerges as a driver, then maybe you want to analyze the employee touchpoint related to learning and development and training. Or if there’s something about systems and processes, well, then maybe you want to start to measure your IT experience to make sure that people are using the right tools and equipment and having good interactions with the IT Helpdesk. But back to that idea of being conversational. You want to think of it as a back and forth conversation where you do your baseline survey, you understand what that top signal is, and then you act on that top signal by actually following up and saying: Okay, well, how do we dig even deeper into this part of the journey and be able to make those cross journey analytics to be able to find out where that connection point is and what we can do to improve the experience.

Neelie Verlinden: All right, thanks. Very, very clear. Okay. Now, before we move on to the next spot, I have one last thing that I was wondering about. So, and again, correct me if I’m wrong, but I have the feeling that a lot of the time when we’re talking about employee experience, it is often about knowledge workers. And it’s about, okay, let’s see if our knowledge workers are having a great experience. But there’s a really big part of the workforce that are the deskless workers or our blue-collar workers. And sometimes it feels like they are not necessarily always a part of this because the payoff between employee experience and their productivity is less tangible. What are your thoughts on this?

Kevin Campbell: That’s changing. That was true, just a few years ago. But I think with so many of the changes that are happening from the perspective of employee values, what people value ay work. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that who we used to think were essential, weren’t really the people that are essential. The people that are essential are really at the frontline of everything, making the world work, and we all discovered just how important they are. And I think it’s been a great reckoning for a lot of organizations. And when you think about the connection to real business outcomes, right, like your experience at a retail organization, or a grocer, or a quick-service restaurant, yeah, you know, the software developers that are designing the app have an influence on that employee experience, no doubt about it. But the person delivering your food, the person making your food, the person that you’re interacting with, that human-to-human connection can’t be replaced. And if you want to really delight customers, if you want to create a truly world-class experience, that’s mostly going to be done through these people. And getting that engagement from people at the frontline is absolutely critical. And a lot of organizations are waking up to that fact. And the ones that wake up to that fact the most are going to have a huge competitive advantage when it comes to winning business.

Neelie Verlinden:  Yeah, I believe that’s the case as well. And really great to hear that it’s changing, which is, I think, a good thing. And it probably also was about time, to be honest. Okay, so let’s move on a little bit and take a look at employee journey analytics and practice so to speak. Now, I know that in your LinkedIn posts, you talked about how companies can use employee journey analytics, and I believe that you mentioned five steps. So maybe it could be interesting for our listeners to briefly describe these five steps, and then, maybe each step can be accompanied by an example.

Kevin Campbell: Yeah, that sounds great. So the first step is to actually think about what are all the projects that you have, or you want to have, that are the listening touchpoints that are happening across the employee experience. So many organizations already have an onboarding survey, or they might have post-training feedback. Or you might have an exit survey, you might have your employee engagement surveys. So the first thing is to just get a lay of the land, taking an inventory of all the different projects and listening touchpoints that you have. Once you’ve done that, you really want to identify – and this is all step one, by the way. Once you have that lay of the land, you want to determine what your Northstar is. Or what are those key performance indicators that are important to you? Obviously, employee retention is a big one these days. Yeah, feelings of belonging and inclusion are also important ones. Engagement is a classic. But it’s important to really key in on what are the outcomes that matter to you? Because that is going to be the linchpin upon which every other thing is is evaluated. So what are those key outcomes? What are those key performance metrics? Align on what those are and look into where you have data on that among the employee journey. And also, related to that, what are the key employee segments within that? Is it your knowledge workers? Because they’re so hard to replace? Because there are so few of them? Or are you discovering that it’s actually people that are in more traditionally thought of as blue-collar positions where they’re interacting directly with customers? What’s going to be the key place in that employee journey? The next step is to really think about hypotheses. And as a scientist, this is the part that is near and dear to my heart. Because with all of this data, you can throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. You can run an analysis with every driver against every outcome and eventually we’ll find something. But whether that thing is real, interpretable, or makes sense, is going to be questionable. So it’s important to actually say, and speak with your stakeholders, speak with your employees and say, Okay, well, what do we think is happening here? Right? If we say belonging and inclusion are important outcomes, what other parts of our journey do we suppose relate back to that feeling of belonging? Well, maybe it’s something in the onboarding cycle, maybe it’s whether or not they meet their manager, whether or not they meet their team. Okay, well, let’s test for that. So be really intentional about what are the hypotheses that you’re going to build. And the next step is to really stay focused on that hypothesis or those hypotheses and figure out what are the key drivers? What are the most impactful places where that happens? And keep it radically simple. Start with one key outcome, the two places or three places in the employee journey that you think impact that outcome, stay focused on that outcome and say, Okay, where can we have the biggest impact on what we’re doing? And then the next piece is to communicate the findings. So get that information out to people. And right now, at Qualtrics, we’re actually doing a lot of work around how do you make sure that all of that great analysis that’s done lives on in a dashboard somewhere, so that people can go back and reference it later? Rather than what tends to happen in organizations, there’s some sort of project, there’s a deck that gets presented, and then maybe some action will be taken as a result of that presentation, but oftentimes, it kind of floats off into the ether. But having it live on so that people are constantly reminded about, hey, this is something that needs to be done. And then the last piece of that is to really start that journey all over again, and to say, Okay, what information did we gather? And how do we want to do a deeper dive to revise the way that we’re measuring this information? So I’ll give an example. You will find that feelings of belonging on your engagement survey tend to be driven by something that happened in the onboarding experience. So you discover that within the onboarding experience, the degree to which people agree with the statement that they had a conversation with their manager during their first week, has a relationship with that feeling of belonging. But maybe you go back and do a deeper dive into that. And there was one organization or retail organization or brochure, actually, that found that they revised their onboarding survey to not just ask that question (Have you had a meeting with your manager?) but to ask about specific behaviors: Was that initial conversation with your manager over text? Was it in person? Was it over the phone? Was it over Zoom? And what we found was that when it was in person or over Zoom, those feelings of belonging are so much higher later on in that employee journey, versus just having a conversation over text, which was actually the worst. It was worse than not doing anything at all.

Neelie Verlinden: Oh, wow.

Kevin Campbell: But by being able to drill into specific behaviors, you now have information that every manager knows. By making that small adjustment in that first week, what the impact is going to be on how employees feel, in terms of whether or not they belong at the organization six months, maybe years later?

Neelie Verlinden:  Yeah, I find this super interesting, Kevin. It really is a bit as if you can keep peeling off layers and go deeper into each specific, I’m going to call the touchpoint for now because of lack of a better word in my vocabulary at the moment, but I hope you get what I’m saying. I really like how you can just go at a deeper level every single time and then make improvements that have had a big impact further down the line. So yeah, I think that is super interesting. What else did I want to ask you about? Yeah, of course. I mean, the podcast is called All About HR. So make sense that we also touched on the role of HR in all of this. How do you see the role of HR in this, Kevin, and maybe a little bit more of a specific question, what type of skills do you believe that HR professionals involved in employee journey analytics needs?

Kevin Campbell: I think that’s a great question. And it’s almost this paradox of being much more empathic and having great storytelling skills, interpersonal skills, and persuasion skills. So-called soft skills. But I think data analytics and people analytics not only require that you get even more skilled in those areas and data sapping the ability to interpret statistics. But it’s not just the ability to interpret statistics or understand these analyses. It’s how do you explain that in an empathic way to your internal customers whose job it is to take action based upon this information? And how do you simply and powerfully and emotionally explain the impact of those connections in a way that moves people? So it’s interesting because there is this need for data-savvy, and people-savvy. And it’s not either-or. I think there’s a big misperception out there that it’s either-or. It’s both. Because the power of both is where the magic really happens. And yeah. it’s about storytelling with data in many ways. 

Neelie Verlinden: Yeah, that’s beautifully put again, and this is also actually quite cool to hear this coming from you. Because here at the Academy to Innovate HR, we’ve also identified skills or mindsets that are important for HR professionals, and one of them is indeed data literacy. But that’s not the only one. There’s also the part where people are able to translate that to internal customers. So very, very cool to hear it from somebody else as well, Kevin. Now, when we talk about employee experience, traditionally, creating a great employee experience can be quite operationally heavy or labor-intensive. Now, what is the role that automation plays in EX? Is there a role for automation in your opinion? And if so, have you seen some successful examples of it?

Kevin Campbell: Yes, I think there is a huge role for automation, especially when the point of the employee experience the touchpoint that you’re trying to improve is operational in nature. So the onboarding experience is an example. There’s an emotional, subjective human component to that, which is the conversations that you’re having with people and the enablement that you’re getting. But there’s also a huge operational aspect of it, you know, signing up for benefits and perks, getting your direct deposit information and getting your tools and equipment, and having that deliver on time and working well. And with workflow automation partners, like ServiceNow, or integrations with different HR is systems, you can make it so that when there’s an immediate need and operational need on the part of an employee, that automatically puts a ticket into the HR HelpDesk to be able to make some of those more operational things happen automatically, without necessarily having to get a human involved, or at least not having to get an HR VP or an HR strategist who would probably much rather be working on those strategic things than having to make a phone call or place an email to it. So I think those partnerships with ServiceNow, and others, you know, ServiceNow, is really famous for saying, if you have to send an email or you find yourself repeatedly sending an email to facilitate a process, that’s when there’s time for workflow automation. And when you embed that into the employee journey analytics, you can make it so that those things just happen. And you can close that loop in a really quick way.

Neelie Verlinden: Fantastic. I think that is probably good news. I think for a lot of people who might be listening, and about those people who might be listening or watching Kevin, let’s say they are super enthusiastic about this topic of employee journey analytics, and they’re thinking, okay, we really want to get started with that within our organization, how can they get started? Do you have any advice on that?

Kevin Campbell: Yeah, start somewhere. So I think anything that you do will be important. So you know, if you don’t have any employees listening at all, I always suggest starting with a baseline survey, or an employee engagement survey. For your first one, it’s counterintuitive, but it might actually be longer than what you might do on a more ongoing basis. Because at this point, you’re trying to understand all the things that are important and you don’t want to miss anything. So it’s going to be a bit of a kitchen sink exercise where you’re throwing in all your educated guesses into that survey. And then I think you’re going to inform the rest of your journey based on that. And really listen to what the top signals are, understand what the main thing driving the outcomes that you want are going to be, and then take action on that. And actually, now that we’re talking about it, it’s a great conversation because you know, the canned answer that you normally give, as you’re starting to explain that you’re like, Wait, there’s another step in this that I think is important. And I think that the first thing that you want to align on is what do you want to know? What do you really want to know about your people that you don’t already know? Or what are the things that you think you know, but getting some data around, will help either confirm what you think, you know, or dispel some myths? Because a lot of myths hang around organizations, you know, one big myth is that people are leaving because of pay. Now, there might be truth to that ỏ there might not. Pay might be a factor. Is it the most important factor? To what degree is it a factor? Right? So one example is a hospital system that wants to pay all of its nursing staff double what it’s currently paying them, which you know, as somebody who wants to improve people’s lives at work, I’m like, yes, go for it. And is that going to be enough? If you’ve spent all that money, encouraging people to stay, but they still leave, then you’ve spent a lot of time and resources implementing something that may not have gotten you where you want to go? So what are the questions that you really need to ask and answer, and really tie that back into your business outcomes? And I’m very business oriented with this not because I think business is more important than employees or the employee experience, but, if you want to sustain this over the long haul, if you want leaders and managers to be able to feel like the work that goes into these programs is irrelevant, then you have to tie it back to the things that matter to them and to their work. So I think I scratch my initial answer. I think the first thing that you do is really sit back, take a step back and say, what do we need to know? What do we want to know? What are the hypotheses here? And then once you have that really clearly in mind, then you can start to think about where and when and how do you measure? 

Neelie Verlinden: Again, I think that makes complete sense. Thank you very much for that, Kevin. Now, on to, well, one of my favorite parts of each episode. This is the part where I get to ask my guests of today – that’s you, obviously – about what they believe is the biggest cliche about HR. That’s the first question. So I’ll throw that in there. 

Kevin Campbell: Oh, gosh, the biggest cliche, there are so many cliches about HR. I’m going to answer that question with an answer or with another question first. So what are the most creative answers you’ve heard to that to that question?

Neelie Verlinden:  Oh, I had some good ones to that to be honest. But one that I hadn’t heard before was that HR is not much more than a cost center. And then, of course, the one that I heard a lot, which is a cliche in itself, maybe is that HR people are in HR because they care about people. So that gives you an idea, perhaps?

Kevin Campbell: Yeah, I think the biggest cliche, is that people in HR, this is a fun one. And I think people in HR are guilty of this, for lack of a better term, that HR is separate from the business. And sometimes people in HR even referred to other parts of the business as the business. And it’s just an interesting use of language to think of, there’s HR, and then there’s the business.No, no! In many organizations, your only asset is human capital, right? Like if you think about so many kinds, like a law firm or a recruiting agency or a consulting firm, right? Like, it’s all just people. You don’t have heavy machinery and other assets, except for maybe intellectual property, like it’s all just the people. So to say that human resources is this other entity, and then there’s the business is really a huge cliche and wildly inaccurate and almost laughable to think of it that way.

Neelie Verlinden: I think that’s a great one, Kevin, and is definitely one that I haven’t heard before. So thank you very much for that. And that also brings us to the end of our conversation. So I really want to give you a big, big thanks. I’ve learned a lot. I hope you enjoy the conversation as well. 

Kevin Campbell: I absolutely did. This was great. Anytime you want to come back. I’m really looking forward to it.

Neelie Verlinden: Fantastic. And maybe one last thing before I wrap this conversation up, where can people best reach out to you if they want to connect with you?

Kevin Campbell: Yeah, great question. I think the best way is just through LinkedIn, follow me or connect with me. I haven’t gotten to the point where people are only able to follow so I welcome requests. Also, looking at my personal website, aside from the work that I do at Qualtrics, is Lifted Leadership. I have a very small coaching practice. I can only take on one or two clients at a time. But in terms of the employee journey analytics, all that work would be done through and with Qualtrics. And the best way to connect with that would be through LinkedIn.

Neelie Verlinden: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you everybody for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Again, if you haven’t done so yet, don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, like this video, and hit the notification bell. Thank you so much for watching, and see you soon. Bye!

The post Employee Journey Analytics: Improving Your EX With Data appeared first on AIHR.

The FT 1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies 

Every year, the Financial Times and Statista crunch the numbers to determine which companies achieved the highest compound annual growth rate in revenue between 2017 and 2020. In other words, the fastest-growing companies in Europe. 

And I couldn’t be more thrilled that we made the list this year! 

AIHR is the highest-ranking of the 19 Dutch companies on the list, and the highest-ranking company in the education sector. I couldn’t be prouder — or more thankful for the incredible AIHR team that made this happen.

I’ve said before that growth for growth’s sake isn’t the goal. Our goal is to build an online learning community where we continuously educate 100,000 HR professionals by 2025 — and with growth like this, I’m confident that this ambitious goal is within reach.

You can see our exact ranking — and the excellent company we are in — by viewing the full list here. 

And if you’re interested in joining a team that achieves results like this (while having a pretty great time), check out our vacancies. 

About AIHR

Based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and founded in 2016, the Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR) has become the largest online training provider specializing in certificate programs for HR. It is AIHR’s mission to make HR future-proof by offering world-class, online education programs for HR Professionals across the globe.

The post AIHR Highest-Ranking Dutch Company on FT 1000 2022 appeared first on AIHR.

Our product roadmap showcases all the things that we are currently working on, the projects we’re planning to tackle next, and everything that we have already shipped in the past months.

What matters to us in setting this roadmap?

1. Keeping members up-to-date with the latest trends
2. Creating practical content that makes you successful in your job
3. Making your journey with AIHR fun and engaging

Click here or on the image below to open the interactive product roadmap

The post AIHR Product Roadmap appeared first on AIHR.

Fast track your MSc in HRM

Credits are granted towards a Master of Science in Human Resources Management. This credit transfer is applicable for HR professionals who have obtained a certificate for one of the following online courses:

• Digital HR Certificate Program – download syllabus
• People Analytics Certificate Program – download syllabus
• Talent Acquisition Certificate Program – download syllabus
• HR Business Partner 2.0 Certificate Program – download syllabus

For a complete overview of the eligible transfer credits, visit the Northeastern University website.

“As a program for working professionals in the human resources field, we recognize the powerful combination of skills earned in the workplace and knowledge acquired through professional development programs such as those offered by AIHR,” said Carl Zangerl, Ph.D., faculty director, graduate communication and human resource management programs at Northeastern University.  

“The AIHR certifications involve a rigorous course of study and address the impact of digital transformation on the talent management field. Our shared aim is to equip human resource professionals with leading-edge expertise that crosses industries and borders.”

Students who have earned one or more of the eligible AIHR certifications have the opportunity to accelerate their graduate program – online or in-person at the university’s Boston campus. They are eligible to receive the following benefits: 

• 7% to 27% discount on tuition fees
• Having to complete one to four fewer courses in the degree program
• Ability to choose one or more advanced courses depending on the students’ career objectives

About the Academy to Innovate HR

“At AIHR, we seek to future-proof HR by teaching modern and relevant skills to HR Professionals around the globe through our online training programs. We are pleased that Northeastern University has decided to partner with us in our mission to upskill 100,000 HR professionals. The collaboration is further proof that AIHR is well-equipped to help HR professionals expand their skill set with academically recognized HR skills” says Nando Steenhuis, co-founder of the Academy to Innovate HR. 

About Northeastern University

Northeastern University is a private research university based in Boston, Massachusetts, with over a century of academic excellence. Its College of Professional Studies is set out on a mission to harness the power of experiential education to transform students’ life and career.

The post Northeastern University partners with AIHR appeared first on AIHR.

2020 has been an extraordinary year in the world of work. Amid layoffs, hiring freezes, but also hiring sprees, we’ve had to get used to wearing face masks, working from home, no business or holiday traveling, having fun and drinks digitally, and even hiring and onboarding people entirely online.

I don’t think we got any of that correct in last year’s ‘2020 HR Trends‘ article… 

Little did we know that 2020 would be the quintessential year for HR transformation, the year that would propel us far into the future of work, the year where two of the most essential jobs would be medical and…wait for it…HR.

So let’s take a quick look at how 2020 transformed HR. And what we’ve been up to at the Academy to Innovate HR.

The people crisis

Teaching courses about the Future the Work gave us a little head start in the transition to the new way of working that COVID-19 forced on us.

But our struggles are insignificant compared to the challenges that most larger organizations were facing during the first quarter of the year. How do you facilitate tens of thousands of people to work from home from one day to the other?

What do you do to keep your remote workforce engaged? How do you recruit and onboard new people virtually? How do you get them all the stuff they need to continue doing their jobs remotely? And how do you go about learning and development?

After the 2008 financial crisis, the 2020 pandemic gave rise to the people crisis within organizations.

And who were we all looking at to solve these challenges?

Exactly. HR to the rescue!

The CHRO running the boardroom

And that’s how suddenly the CHRO became the linchpin of the boardroom.

For many years, we have been hearing that “people are your organization’s most important assets.” If that were true, why didn’t the CHRO have a real seat at the table?

But the 2020 people crisis showed how essential HR actually is and that everything grinds to a halt without people.

HR had the most challenging job keeping our organizations running, and they certainly stepped up to the plate.

A long way to go

But despite HR rising up to the occasion, there’s still a long way to go.

The forced digital transformation of HR has painfully uncovered a critical lack of skills. And the accelerated pace of the transformation continues to widen the skills gap.

A majority of HR professionals lack essential capabilities such as business acumen, people advocacy, data literacy, and digital integration. 

These are core HR competencies that any modern HR Professional should master to stay relevant and drive business value.

Without learning new skills and developing modern internal digital capabilities, HR is at risk of losing its newly attained strategic value and relapse into a purely administrative function.

Lifelong learning

So what can we do in 2021 to ensure that HR keeps its seat at the table?

It’s no secret that we, at AIHR, are firm believers in lifelong learning. In this day and age, if you’re not developing, you’re not simply sitting idle. With our peers continually growing and the world around us changing, if we don’t keep brushing up on our skills, we risk falling behind.

Any HR professional can continuously expand their skill set with modern and relevant HR Skills with a commitment to lifelong learning.

And we’re here to support you. It is our mission to help innovate and future-proof HR. So our commitment to you is that we will always provide the latest HR training that enables you to develop in-demand HR skills – essential for your HR future and a flourishing career.

Let’s celebrate committing to lifelong learning in 2021.

As Michelangelo said,

“I am still learning.” 

Upskilling entire HR populations

As it turns out, online education is not a bad industry to be in during a global pandemic and lockdown restrictions. Especially when your goal is to help HR professionals drive even more business value.

In 2020, 3,115,806 HR Professionals visited our blogs digitalhrtech.com and analyticsinhr.com to read about the latest and most relevant HR practices, watch video interviews, or download practical guides and templates. 

A substantial number of them chose to invest more time in their professional development by enrolling in our Academy. The resulting numbers are:

• 94,844 hours studied in the Academy (+128%)
• 3,631 certificates issued (see alumni)
• 7 HR Certificate Programs (+133%) and 28 HR Training Courses (+75%)
• 31 amazing colleagues at the AIHR headquarters (+94%)

We’re very proud of these numbers because they illustrate the impact we’ve had on the global HR space. 

But what’s our biggest achievement in 2020?

This year, our most ambitious project was the upskilling of a global population of 1,500 HR Professionals within one company.

With a highly-skilled People Analytics team in place, data-driven decision making needed to be embedded at all levels of their HR organization.

And that’s where we came in.

Together, we have developed learning journeys to help all 1,500 HR professionals develop basic data literacy skills and train them on using data effectively in their daily work activities.

Why is this so important?

We know that many HR professionals have an intrinsic hunger to grow. But this is not enough. In order to close the skills gap in HR, organizations need to recognize the essential role HR plays for the business. With their support, larger HR populations have access to new and modern HR skills.

A project of this scope during a global pandemic proves that HR’s strategic involvement is growing. Organizations are willing to invest in reskilling and upskilling their HR staff to successfully lead the digital transformation.

On our end, we’ve quadrupled our enterprise team to be able to help organizations develop their HR capabilities framework, design custom (fully online) learning journeys, and ultimately succeed in building essential HR capabilities.

Expect this for 2021

So what’s cooking for 2021?

Many of the transformations that took place in 2020 are irreversible. We expect working from home to become more widespread, even after the pandemic. The digitalization of HR processes will continue. HR’s strategic leadership will cement and expand, data-driven decision-making will become widespread, and upskilling and learning new competencies will become the new norm. More on these trends in our HR Trends 2021 article!

In response, you can expect more of everything from AIHR as well.

In 2021, we’ll provide you with more courses and certificate programs to facilitate your hunger for growth. We’ll be covering diverse HR specializations, such as Organizational Development, Compensation and Benefits, HR Leadership & Strategy, and Strategic Workforce Planning.

We’re preparing more live and interactive HR events so that you can learn from leading experts from around the world.

And we’ll be publishing more free (video) content to keep you up to date on the latest and greatest HR practices. So that even if you don’t have the budget, you can still access practical and high-quality resources to make your job a little bit easier.

We are thankful for…

You! Our loyal audience, our biggest fans, and our biggest critics (to keep us on our toes).

Without you, AIHR would not exist, and it would be impossible for us to innovate HR and drive business value.

The same goes for the fantastic AIHR team that we have gathered here.

It’s inspiring to see that we have found another 15 incredibly talented people who were brave enough to take a gamble on us and join the AIHR team despite all the chaos and uncertainty that COVID-19 brought on!

Happy holidays and stay safe

We’re truly grateful for all the support and trust that you, our colleagues, and our customers, have put in us.

That’s why on behalf of the entire AIHR team, I wish you happy holidays and a fantastic (and hopefully less turbulent) New Year.

Stay safe!

The post What a Year… for HR appeared first on AIHR.

To be honest with you, I could never have imagined that less than 3 years after founding AIHR in June 2016, we would be acquiring other companies. But here we are, announcing that AIHR has acquired DigitalHRTech, the world’s largest online platform in the digital HR and HR Tech space.

I’m sure you must be curious as to why we are doing this. The full press release of the acquisition offers some information. But let me share with you the full story about why we decided to make this move.

What is DigitalHRTech?

DigitalHRTech is the leading online platform on digital HR and HR technology. The platform essentially covers topics related to everything new in HR. When it comes to innovation in HR, DigitalHRTech has published about it.

The platform has a very good reputation in the HR tech space. It is known for being a knowledge hub and for its in-depth and engaging articles and other content.

The founder of DigitalHRTech, Neelie Verlinden, is one of the leading female voices in HR tech. I already knew Neelie by reputation as one of the best content writers in the HR tech space before she founded the company. A few months later, I had the pleasure of joining her as a guest writer on the platform.

DigitalHRTech serves a worldwide audience. The majority of visitors are from the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle-East, and South-East Asia.

Next to its amazing content, the growth of the platform has been remarkable. It grew from 980 monthly visitors in its first month to well over 50,000 unique monthly visitors in April 2019. This means that Neelie and her team have been able to grow DigitalHRTech at an astonishing rate of 25% month-over-month since its founding.

To me, this not only shows her success in writing fantastic and engaging content, but it also shows the astronomical appetite for this kind of quality content and the enormous potential of this platform.

Why are we doing this?

Our name, AIHR, is short for the Academy to Innovate HR. It is our mission to make HR future-proof by offering world-class, online education programs available anywhere, anytime.

The AIHR Academy is the global market leader in the People Analytics e-learning space. However, to really future-proof HR it is only natural for us to move into the broader Digital HR space. We are doing this in two ways.

• First, we have recently expanded our product offering with the launch of our first Digital HR Certification Program. This program includes the courses Future of Work, Building a Digital HR Strategy, and Design Thinking & Employee Experiences.
• Second, we also want to reach a much broader audience with our content. This is where Neelie and her team at DigitalHRTech come in. The Digital HR Certification Program was also launched on the DigitalHRTech platform and proved a tremendous success.

With this acquisition, we are able to combine our expertise in making great e-learning with DigitalHRTech’s expertise in creating great content on Digital HR and reaching a large audience of HR practitioners.

Our next program launch will be the HR Analytics for Business Partners course in June. Follow-up courses and certifications will have a broader HR focus in order to tailor more towards the DigitalHRTech audience. This doesn’t mean we will let go of our roots: AIHR Academy will still be the go-to place for People Analytics education. In addition, the principles of data-driven, or evidence-based working will be included in every follow-up program.

This is also part of a natural evolution. In Deloitte’s 2018 Global Human Capital Trends Report, People Analytics was identified as the biggest trend in HR. In the 2019 report, however, People Analytics wasn’t explicitly mentioned anymore but was instead integrated into the different technology solutions mentioned in the report. This is where we see the market going – and also what we will strive for in our future courses.

Integration of AIHR and DigitalHRTech opens up a whole range of exciting new content opportunities and courses for our customers that combines expertise in Digital HR with the principles of evidence-based (or data-driven) HR.

What will happen to DigitalHRTech?

The focus of DigitalHRTech will remain the same: continuing to keep HR professionals up-to-date with everything digital and innovative in HR.

It’s DigitalHRTech’s mission to create free, high-quality content on innovation in the HR space. AIHR will actively support DigitalHRTech through sharing its own content-creation and distribution resources, including design, video, and web development.

The most visible change will be that DigitalHRTech will be rebranded to AIHR Digital. This means that in the near future, AIHR will consist out of three key building blocks: AIHR Academy, AIHR Analytics (formerly analyticsinhr.com) and AIHR Digital.

Neelie will join the rapidly growing AIHR team as editor-in-chief of AIHR Digital. Neelie, who is based in Paris (France), will head our new office there.

The AIHR and DigitalHRTech team combined

Half of the working population need upskilling

The need for education has never been as urgent as it is now. According to a recent report, half of the working population will have to be upskilled in digital skills. HR will be no exception. We at AIHR are committed to making that happen.

Through our work at AIHR, we have gotten to know some of the brightest minds in the industry. We are working with different thought leaders, ranging from experienced HR professionals who know the ropes and digital natives who see the opportunities that digital is bringing to our industry. I very much look forward to continuing these collaborations and to building even more relationships.

We’re working very hard to make the AIHR Academy your one-stop-shop to keep up-to-date and develop the skills you need to future-proof your career in HR. In the meantime, you can see what this acquisition can bring you by checking out some of DigitalHRTech’s excellent content.

The post Why we Decided to Acquire Digital HR Tech appeared first on AIHR.