As we head into 2021 filled with uncertainty, it is clear that HR strategy planning is more essential than ever before. In this new paper we discuss some of the key challenges facing leaders of people in the year ahead. You can download the paper here:

If you would like to discuss any of these issues further or are interested in working with the Work Horizons team, please contact us on 0121 663 1710.

With unemployment on the rise, the UK job market is more competitive than ever, and this means every invite to interview is a great opportunity that needs to be maximised! However, with the pandemic forcing many to work from home, the chances are most upcoming interviews will be done virtually. Many people will have never done a virtual interview before, so here are some tips and tricks to help you succeed and showcase your abilities on the small screen.

Preparation

You still need to Prepare. Do not neglect to do research about the organisation. Prepare for the questions they may ask you from your CV, or based on the job description and competencies required for the role. Treat it the same as you would for a face-to-face interview.  

You could also prepare ‘prompt notes’ that can be on your notepad near the computer for if you need some inspiration. However, don’t look like you’re reading them!  It is important to come across as having a normal, natural conversation.

Your Environment

As we have all got more used to being on camera for informal calls, it is easy to translate this into more relaxed behaviour on professional calls, but you need to remember that this is an interview situation where you will be judged! What can be “endearing” or “funny” in a work meeting will not come across as professional in an interview.  

So think about things like background noise – will the interviewer be able to hear the rain on your windows? Where do you put the dog so that they can’t hear them barking? How do you ensure you are not interrupted by the children?  We have even heard stories of people eating during a virtual interview or checking their phones!  The basic rule should be, behave as if you were sitting in front of the hiring manager – forget that there is a computer between you.

Enthusiasm

“Zoom fatigue” is not only real, but extremely transparent on-screen. That’s true for both the candidate and the interviewer.  Remember that your interview is probably one of many that the recruiter or hiring manager is conducting that day, and they could very well be listless. Pep them up by bringing energy, enthusiasm, and a positive attitude. Be upbeat and animated when telling your stories. If you can leave the interviewer feeling comfortable, at ease with you, and with more positive feelings than negative, you’ll be more memorable and it could set you apart from other candidates.

Check your Tech

You must practice for the technical aspects of Zoom, Skype or whatever system you will be using. Ensure you can adjust your settings, guaranteeing you can be heard, and check you can use the ‘share documents’ facility in case there is the chance to showcase some previous work.

Lighting

Lighting is also very important. You need to situate yourself in front of a light source or window so that it is enhancing your face, rather than hiding it in the dark. The interviewer needs to be able to see your facial expressions – this is a key part of your on-camera delivery.

Background

Consider what’s appearing in your background. As a minimum, assess your surroundings to be sure there isn’t anything questionable showing.  Minimal is good, or you may consider having something there that resonates with the interviewer – it may create a talking point (similar to how hobbies do). If you’re really struggling, use one of the ‘virtual backgrounds’ provided on the software you’re using.

Outfit

In a virtual interview, you should dress the same as you would in a face-to-face interview. Doing so not only makes you appear professional and excited about the opportunity, but it will also make you feel more prepared and confident. If in doubt, business casual is a good standard to follow. 

Content

As well as questions around the role and your skills, experience and competence to do it well, lots of employers will want to know what you were doing during lockdown, as it gives some insight into how you behaved.  It will show a lot about resilience in dealing with a difficult situation and your self-motivation.

Here are some questions it might be worth considering beforehand:

• What did you learn about yourself during the Covid Pandemic that you didn’t know before?
• What did you choose to do during the lockdown and why?
• What self-development did you undertake during lockdown?
• Do you recognise how are you motivated?

Virtual interviews may seem a new and slightly intimidating experience, but with proper preparation and the correct mindset, we’re sure you can shine and secure that new role in 2021!

In a recent poll, we at Work Horizons posed the question: “what is the main reason for new hires leaving in the first three months of their employment?”.  The winner of the poll was “Onboarding” with 44% of the vote.  This begs the question: in a remote-working world, how do you do really great onboarding that actually lasts?

Those of us in the LinkedIn community will no doubt have seen recent posts from those sharing photographs of their “Zoom onboarding experiences”, and some lucky souls even received goody bags to mark their first day which contained mugs, chocolate, coffee, tea, t-shirts etc. That’s a lovely welcome!

And yet….

How do you keep the love alive over the coming weeks so that a new colleague feels part of the family in spite of limited (if any) physical contact to the rest of the team, the rest of the organisation, the offices, the canteen etc.?  And how can they navigate the already tight bonds between colleagues that have been forged before lockdown?  Can the length of service of one’s new colleagues actually be perceived to be a real threat to a new hire feeling part of the family?

Current Onboarding Tools

Most employers already use some kind of digital ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to manage their recruitment, and many of these also use the accompanying digital functionality of Taleo, Workday etc. to manage the onboarding process in terms of issuing contracts of employment, background checks, personal data collection, and even in some cases, a little pre-learning about the organisation.  

This provides a seamless administrative approach to bringing a new hire from outside the organisation, through the gate and into the fold.  But what about the “real people” stuff?  How do you make sure the whole process feels human and creates an authentic sense of belonging that goes beyond just the first few days?

Show Your Face

There is no excuse (aside from poor internet connection) for not having face-to-face meetings as part of virtual onboarding; in fact, it should be the norm.  As the manager of a new person, it is your responsibility to set up the right meetings with the right people to get the new team member connected and heading in the right direction.  But responsibility goes much further than just setting up meetings.  On a call recently, I listened to an example of another business where line managers were making sure there was at least one face-to-face per day with their new hire – ostensibly to check that all meetings were running smoothly, but more importantly, to have time for reflection and to dispel any misconceptions.  A good company culture is perpetuated by the way leaders act and therefore this is a must-do.

Agree Expectations

This works both ways; not only should a line manager be clear about what they expect the new hire to cover in their first days, but also the new hire should have the opportunity to articulate what they believe they need as part of their onboarding in order to make it a success.  Important things to cover include culture, targets and objectives, but also behaviours – what does good look like?  A good leader sets the tone here and also creates the opportunity for the new colleague to express themselves – it’s normal for people to feel a high degree of vulnerability in their first few days and weeks with an organisation, and it can lead to a rapid cooling off if it’s not mitigated.  This is where feedback can help someone new feel that they are already noticed and valued.  As before, this works both ways and surely you would want to know if someone was struggling?

Make it Better

Nothing is less productive than doing the same thing over and over again, and even though digital onboarding (in its current form) is a relatively recent innovation that many of us have become accustomed to, it is still something to improve on. So why not ask for feedback from not only the new hires, but also their colleagues and network?  They may notice that something is not as it should be and can feed that back into the mix.  After all, this is your one chance to make a great start, so why not try for the best?

Much has been written about the health impact of remote working.  Many of us still not having to force our tired minds and bodies through over-crowded journeys to work. A commute that lasts as long as it takes to slip into comfortable clothes and move from one room to another without having to get cold outside?  Yes please!

But as time has passed, much is now coming to light about the negative side of this supposed “easy” alternative to the rat race; the social isolation, less exposure to natural light, lower levels of Vitamin D and Serotonin.   And if you don’t have an ergonomically designed desk and chair – good luck with keeping your neck and back healthy!

But what about sleep?

It is no surprise that many of us have experienced broken sleep during the pandemic.  Aside from the reasons cited above, many of us are also worried about our families, our finances, the economy, our jobs, our children and their education, and our own health.  So now more than ever, it is vital to pay attention to how much we are sleeping and the quality of that rest.  

So how do we do that?

It’s not hard to find information on the relationship between good sleep and our health.  A quick glance on the NHS website reveals that not enough sleep can have an impact on not only your mood, but also your likelihood of developing diabetes and heart disease, and can even have an impact on your weight.  Those who sleep less than seven hours per night are 30% more likely to be obese than those who sleep nine hours or more! 

Shelley Ibach (President and CEO of Sleep Number) says that now – more than ever – we need to recommit to getting enough sleep.  She advises us to: 

• Check that what you’re sleeping on is still fit for purpose, as a bad mattress will vandalise any plans you had to rest!
• Develop (and stick to) healthy routines.  Make sure you support your body’s clock by giving it a regular bedtime (of course that means you can party like it’s 1999 at Christmas – just not all the time!).
• Make sure there is a reasonable period between your last meal and bed.  It’s hard to sleep with a belly full of treats, so give yourself a fighting chance to rest by making sure that sugar and caffeine don’t feature after 6pm.
• Ensure these routines work for you and help you to ease into rest.  Have a “screen time cut off” to ensure the dreaded blue light doesn’t keep your brain whirring.  Change into your sleepwear (if you have any!) and remove make-up (if you’re wearing any!) as a calming routine.  Put away the washing up before going to bed and treat it as a symbolic “packing away the day” activity.
• Calm your thoughts when you’re ready to start your sleep.  A good tip is to concentrate on  what you are thankful for and to focus on those positive thoughts.

Sleep is your ally

Sleep is one of the biggest gifts you have to help you to “get through anything”.  Whilst not enough good sleep can hijack your overall health, the reverse is also true – good sleep and enough of it can be one of your biggest health allies.  

A four-day working week is a relatively new notion many companies are considering adopting. This idea has been trialled by a number of companies. For example, Microsoft in Japan conducted a four-day working week trial in the summer of 2019. As a result, they found a 40% rise in sales per employee, which evidently shows a positive outcome. Unilever in New Zealand are currently trialling a four-day working week (from 2020-2021). Uniliever’s New Zealand Managing Director Nick Bangs has stated: “We believe the old ways of working are outdated and no longer fit for purpose”.

The fact that both of these big companies have considered and trialled this notion, means that it is a real possibility that other big companies will take this idea on and could potentially become a norm for a large number of companies in several different countries in the future.

But is the four-day week new? It certainly is not. However, the scale is novel. In a recent Radio 4 broadcast, David Stone of MLR Recruiting talked about the way his company has made the decision to not work on a Friday, whilst not changing the rewards. In his view, it is very successful, and this is demonstrable because the KPIs have remained unchanged; the team needs to achieve the same output within four days, so productivity must be increased. He was also open that in recruitment the hours are ‘flexible’, and talking to clients and candidates can frequently be at 10 pm.

MLR Recruitment is a very specific example, but there are many others around the world, perhaps most noticeably in Scandinavia. For instance, in Denmark the average working week is four hours shorter, but productivity is 23.5% greater.

This also links into another important question – how long do we actually work for in reality? A UK study of office workers established the average time to be three hours and twelve minutes, observed over a seven-hour period.  The US Department of Labor revealed their research to be even lower at two hours and fifty-three minutes. So what takes up the rest of the time? 

• Settling down
• Coffee/smoking
• Social media
• Distractions
• Me time
• Attention residue
• Preparing to leave

In fairness, it does depend on the definition of work. Is it being at the computer, attending meetings or discussing company projects? Does it include collaboration, thinking time or problem solving? Nobody can work with a 100% focus on a computer screen for a whole shift.

The micro-manager would say that this is why his approach is correct; you can’t trust people, it’s the way staff behave when you are not watching. And the employees will say the micro-manager is the reason they leave and try to cheat the system.

For many years, Friday afternoons have been very unproductive anyway, as the weekend beckons. In the car industry, the ‘Friday car’ was one the customer didn’t want to buy. 

There have been moves to create more personal space for people. A common change has been to move to 4.5 days, albeit with the same aggregate hours. Having Friday afternoons ‘off’ was very well received; it feels like a long weekend. Having moved to this approach and enjoyed it for some years, one company employed a new CEO who didn’t like it and felt it would be more productive to reverse the decision. What a mistake! Productivity plummeted, and everybody left on time every day. A Trade Union convenor explained the psychology of work; the employees can only win time, pay is defined, the boss sets the agenda, or the production schedule does. This means shift patterns, holidays and the contracted hours are key.

Of course, the four-day week cannot be implemented everywhere, but there are many possibilities. To move to a four-day week with no reduction of hours is a leap of faith, but the research is growing.

What would it look like? The simplest model is Monday to Thursday with a long weekend. The staff can spread their third non-workday to ensure the customer can be serviced for a full week. Of course, the terms of employment need to be reviewed.

Do we want it? 68% of the UK public support it, 60% of employees work longer hours than they want, and of the people enjoying some flexibility in working hours, 78% say it has a positive effect on their lives. This discussion may be further influenced by people’s experience of work life during the Covid-19 lockdown; working from home, avoiding a daily commute and the lack of human contact. For staff who can, there may be a hybrid work pattern. All of this would require thoughtful and proactive leadership.

So, why should we consider adopting the four-day working week?

Pros:

• Mental health improves. Stress is a major problem and leading cause of absenteeism. We also know there is a direct link between mental and physical wellbeing.
• Retention of staff will increase, as people will want to work for the ‘best’ companies. Top talent can walk away even when there is large scale unemployment.
• Attraction of the skilled will be paramount. We have large scale unemployment, but volume doesn’t equal excellence. The marketplace will be difficult if other companies adopt the new pattern and you don’t.
• Overall absence levels will drop.
• Staff will be more motivated, as they work for a thoughtful management team, in a progressive company.

It is through a combination of all of these factors that the productivity hike is achieved. There is a need to trust your people and the vast majority will respond. The few that do not react positively will be obvious. In the first month of its implementation at Microsoft in Japan productivity was up 40%, but would that be maintained?

Cons:

• Fridays may not be covered. If that is a problem, the day-to-day manning patterns can be revised, but it may still be tough to organise.
• There is no guarantee it works, and that does put more pressure on the leadership to oversee its introduction and provide support
• Less interaction between staff. Again by 20%, and this could affect collaboration, innovation, and the social benefits of the workplace

For some people there will be a Hybrid approach post-Covid, with some home-based working and some in the formal workplace. To be successful in this regard, many of the cons of the four-day week will have to be overcome anyway.

The early reactions to these experiments do seem to be taking a politically Left v Right view:

• Marx and Keynes were strong advocates of more leisure time. This could be especially valuable for women, who currently are estimated to have 5 leisure hours fewer than men and this, according to the Resolution Foundation, is at a time we have less leisure time than 40 years ago.
• The CBI and Scottish Conservatives are against it. A CBI spokesperson called it a step in the wrong direction”. The Conservative leader in the Scottish Parliament, MSP Maurice Golden reacting to an SNP decision to research the value of the four-day week said, “I’m speechless that this dangerous and ludicrous policy has a £2.5 billion price tag every year has now been given the seal of approval”.

Consequently, the Unilever initiative will be watched very closely. If productivity is the issue, the hours are a by-product. We are very focussed on supporting leaders who, irrespective of specific themes like these, want to be highly successful by motivating their staff and behaving positively. This begins with a culture which inspires people and has leaders rather than micro-managers.

Finally, some much bigger questions would include:

• Will it affect consumerism?
• Will there be effects on the climate?
• Can the increased leisure time mean more micro-businesses and a boost to the economy?
• Will there need to be changes to government policies?
• Could we be working more family-friendly hours, such as 9am to 3pm?
• Is there a way to fund any short-term investment, if the case for long-term benefits is demonstrated?
• Do we all need work which has purpose and meaning?