StartupTalky

Tag: Hiring Employees

  • How Can Personalized Engagement Strategies Enhance Employee Contribution?

    This article has been contributed by Ms. Swati Soam Rathore, HR Head Springfit Mattress.

    The rise of innovation and the digital revolution have ushered in the era of personalization. Our specific expectations and tastes are considered in every proposal, from the e-commerce sites we shop to the web streaming services we use. Given these facts, it makes sense that personalization will eventually have an impact on employee engagement as well.

    The days of using a conventional approach to raise employee engagement are over. Every employee is unique, and they all have different needs and wants. This has long been the case, but modern technological breakthroughs make it possible to gather and analyze the necessary data that forms the basis for personalization. Companies must personalize the experience for each employee to ensure maximum productivity and great performance.

    Global Employee Engagement from 2019 to 2022 Q1
    Global Employee Engagement from 2019 to 2022 Q1

    In Q1 2022, global employee engagement was about 62%, a 6% decrease compared to 2021.

    To increase employee contribution, organizations must tailor their employee engagement tactics, and they should lead the way toward personalization. Employers who use personalized employee engagement techniques have a better chance of keeping and attracting top talent, maximizing ROI, and increasing employee engagement. It also creates a seamless environment that increases employee loyalty, makes staff members feel valued, and offers them a competitive advantage.

    Some instances of employee engagement
    It all begins with hiring
    Changing the nature of the workplace
    Adapting the learning curve
    Different management tiers and task allocation

    Some instances of employee engagement

    1. High-Quality Personalised Communication: Imagine the reaction of employees when HR sends an email to the entire firm that only affects a small portion of the workforce. Excluded employees are irritated because it wastes their time. And unlike a customer, they are unable to unsubscribe or choose not to receive the communications.

    The best communications are highly personalized and designed to improve employees’ lives, expand their knowledge, boost productivity, and give them the resources they need to make better decisions for themselves and their families.

    Additionally, although email may be the quickest and most efficient means for HR to communicate with staff it might not be the most helpful channel for employees. The choice of the employee can be an SMS, email, push notification, etc.

    2. Personalized benefits schemes: Employers must provide a range of financial, health, and well-being benefits to meet the needs of a workforce.

    Consider employees’ demographics, socioeconomic status, environmental variables, and life events to consider the benefits that you want to offer to your employee.

    Organizations must personalize employee engagement strategies forefront of employee engagement. The following are a few considerations to keep in mind as your organization moves toward personalizing employee engagement:

    It all begins with hiring

    Most companies believe that employee engagement starts after onboarding. It starts when a potential employee reads about an opening and submits an application for it, though. Organizations must take the time and make the effort to identify the abilities required for each function. Adding a few qualities to the function to make it more engaging is the finest personalization tactic for raising employee engagement.

    Changing the nature of the workplace

    Today’s information and creative professionals are no longer inspired or motivated to reach their full potential by shared desks, a 9–5 schedule, or office employment. Organizations must redefine how their teams function to increase employee engagement. Starting points include giving employees the option of working from home and scheduling flexible hours when their creative energy is at its highest. Organizations should also consider employee feedback and opinions when choosing office furnishings, cubicle designs, meeting room styles, etc. Employees will be able to design a workspace that appeals to them, draws them in, and gives them a boost.

    Adapting the learning curve

    The success of learning and training sessions has a significant impact on how effectively employees are engaged. It wouldn’t be wise to believe that all of your employees are at the same starting place for every training session given the variety of knowledge sources available nowadays. They might also have entirely different views about what they want to learn and how they want to learn it at the same time. Organizations must therefore tailor the entire learning experience to ensure the sustainability of employees. This includes the training that is being provided, which needs to align with the employees’ individual needs and gaps in knowledge.

    Different management tiers and task allocation

    Redefining the organizational structure and the type of work that people do is just as important as personalizing how they work and what they learn. First, different levels of management are required for personalization. While some workers prefer frequent micromanagement and active reporting from their superiors because it makes them feel more engaged at work, others loathe it and want more independence and autonomy. Every employee’s pulse must be monitored by organizations, and they must be managed accordingly. Second, task distribution also calls for personalization. To divide labor effectively, firms must have a thorough understanding of each employee’s skills and interests. This will not only keep the worker more engaged and motivated, but it will also enhance productivity.

    Conclusion

    Personalization is key to maximizing employee engagement for enhancing contribution. Personalized employee engagement strategies inbuilt the feeling that the company is “listening to employees” and considering their requests as distinct individuals and not just “work machines.” To make employees feel valued and empowered and to get a competitive edge from a highly engaged workforce, personalization is best for employee engagement. Although your employee is a human and wants to get attention and offering something that is personalized to his or her need is the best that an employer can offer to them and it can develop a fruitful relationship.

    FAQs

    What is a personalization strategy?

    Personalization strategy is an approach used by employers to personalize the experience for each employee to ensure maximum productivity and great performance. It helps to increase employee contribution, has a better chance of keeping and attracting top talent, maximizes ROI, increases employee loyalty, and so on.

    How does personalization increase engagement?

    Personalization helps to address the different needs and wants of the employees. It improves employees’ lives, expands their knowledge, boosts productivity, and gives them the resources they need to make better decisions for themselves and their families. It creates a seamless environment that increases employee loyalty, makes staff members feel valued, and offers them a competitive advantage. Hence, these increase employee engagement.

    What are the advantages of personalized employee engagement?

    Some of the advantages of personalized employee engagement are:

    • Increases the chance of keeping and attracting top talents
    • Maximizes ROI
    • Increases employee engagement
    • Increases employee loyalty
    • Makes staff members feel valued
    • Offers employees a competitive advantage

    What are the considerations for an organization to move towards personalizing employee engagement?

    The following are a few considerations to keep in mind as your organization moves toward personalizing employee engagement:

    • Start employee engagement with hiring
    • Change the nature of the workplace
    • Adapt the learning curve to ensure the employees’ sustainability
    • Adopt different management tiers and task allocation

  • Building the Initial Team for Seed Stage Startups

    An opinion shared by Mr. Arjun Nijhawan, Director, Nijhawan Group.

    Finding seed capital, which converts a “two dudes in a living room idea” into something with considerably more promise, is one of the most thrilling occasions for a startup. Here are some of the areas where we should concentrate our efforts:

    Hiring T-shaped people versus specialists

    One of the axioms of the startup world is that everyone must wear several hats. Backend programmers might have to pitch in and do some feature development, designers could have to write some marketing copy, and the CEO might have to vacuum the office, to name a few truisms in startup land. Also, if you feel that startups are essentially learning about their customers and the market, you’ll need people who are adaptable and can identify links between disparate topics. So, you’re looking for generalists, but a certain type of generalists.

    The first group of people you want on your team will be T-shaped, indicating they are wide in a variety of areas but specialize in one. The range of their skills provides them enough in common that they can talk about anything with anyone in the team, but the depth of their knowledge makes them indispensable to the team.

    Make an effort to recruit doers

    Early on, it’s critical to hire folks that are execution-oriented. Senior folks or “philosophers” who don’t immediately bring value to the product development process just don’t fit in. When it comes to seniority, prefer to hire people who have recently held positions such as team lead or director, but no higher. That way, you get folks who are used to being in charge of a team but are yet close enough to have an immediate influence. This is why people with expertise in consulting or finance are impractical partners — they are overly focused on strategy and financials while you should be 100% focused on specific products and customers.

    More candidate flow addresses several issues

    Getting the first 2-3 people for most seed-stage startups is usually not an issue — you’ll have folks in mind or someone in your close circle of acquaintances who are easily available. What’s more difficult is moving beyond your immediate network, where you might come across:

    • People you desire are employed and uninterested.
    • As an entrepreneur, you know a lot of entrepreneurs who want to start something, not join something
    • There are a lot of “OK” people who are interested, but who are difficult to get excited about.

    It’s all too easy to get into a trap where limits are reduced, things you don’t want are accommodated, and all sorts of other issues arise. Alternatively, you may have had interviews where the person was adequate but not exceptional, and you desperately need the skillset.

    How to Raise Seed Funding for your Startup? (8 Ways)
    If you are a startup planning to expand and looking out to raise funding for your startup. Here are 8 ways how you can raise seed funding for your startup
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    Interview for the actual work you’ll be doing, not skillset trivia

    Most interview techniques are ineffective because they do not simulate what it would be like to work together. The ideal interview would consist of merely an interview, followed by two months of collaboration and a checkpoint to assess if everything is going well. However, because the majority of job seekers are unwilling to do so, a three-day “working interview” is a viable alternative.

    Don’t place too much emphasis on intelligence alone

    All of the young, brash entrepreneurs I know want to hire more people like them — hardworking, high-powered individuals. As a result, you can design an entire hiring process around intelligence, complete with puzzles and brainteasers, and reward everyone who can think swiftly. I’ve discovered that using this as a minimal threshold for recruiting individuals is a bad idea — it’s equally as crucial to consider factors like love for the field you’re working in, their motivations and goals for working at your firm, and so on. The reason you need to analyze this is that startups are extremely difficult and can take longer than expected; as a result, it’s critical to understand people’s motivations from the outset to ensure a good fit.

    Conclusion

    Rather than taking people who love numbers/data/algos and trying to train them to love a specific product area, the ideal scenario is to locate people who have a passion for the product you’re bringing to market and then train them to be metrics-oriented.

  • Opinion Shared by Wiztales: Hiring Employees & Getting Clients for Business

    Wiztales is a SaaS startup that helps businesses connect with their teams and audiences to build relationships via virtual events services. The Bengaluru-based SaaS startup is founded by Sumanyu Soniwal. Startuptalky took an initiative to know about their strategy in hiring employees to build a great startup team and how they got clients for business initially. Here is an opinion shared by Wiztales.

    Insights shared by Mr. Utpal Khadagi, the Director of Customer Success, Wiztales.

    How did you get your first client/first 10  for your service-based company?

    Wiztales was founded with the goal of providing tech-driven solutions to the event industry. We began with the idea of bringing experiential tech-based solutions to physical events. But with physical meetings gradually shifting to video calls during the pandemic situation and the growth of the IT sector, businesses realized that virtual events are easier to manage and can give larger coverages. The exposure to the virtual world quickly evolved at this point.

    At Wiztales, we leveraged our technical strength to create a virtual event platform that catered to each individual client’s needs. We soon launched our beta version to event partners and agencies who were searching for a ‘Made in India’ solution. These agencies/partners were our first customers, and we worked closely with them to make this platform as strong and user-friendly as it is today!

    How to Get Global Clients for Your Business?
    Getting global clients is a key business objective. Here are opinions shared by entrepreneurs on how to get global clients for your business.
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    Hiring initial employees for your company, what to look for in them?

    As a new-age company, we choose people based on their skill set and potential of growing at work, not just their basic track record and past experiences. We look for bright individuals who are self-motivated, disciplined, technologically savvy, and believe in and understand the capabilities of our product. We provide equal opportunities for everyone in the firm to develop and grow with us and believe that talent cannot be judged by work experience. Every individual should be given the time and space to learn at their own pace.

    What are the things a founder must focus on and how to maintain that among so much noise?

    It takes time to produce the ideal product for the market, but I believe that nothing is impossible if we have the desire to achieve it. Working as a team, selecting like-minded teammates, and doing your homework on what needs to be done, who will do it, and how goals can be achieved are the keys to success. A company’s founder must wear blinders and stay focused on the company’s vision.

    As members of the industry, we have to keep tabs on the latest developments. Furthermore, maintaining a calendar and keeping it up-to-date, as well as compartmentalizing duties, can be beneficial to a founder and the company’s growth. We also believe that learning must continue as it helps us to grow as a company. The more we learn, the more we grow in terms of business and experience.