Remote Work Considerations During the Hiring Process

TS:
Been a while, and I'm glad we're back on the wagon, my friend. So the big question of the hour is, what does HR need to consider when hiring remote workers?
MK:Yeah, great question. I think the first and most important is making sure during the interview process that the prospective candidate really gets a realistic job preview of the culture, the mission, the vision, the values of the organization. When you're hiring somebody remote and they're not on site, even during the interview process, they could miss out understanding the culture of the organization. If you don't have a good match and it's not there, that could cause problems. What happens is people who don't see physical locations and meet people and actually get the body language during the interview process or walking around the organization or meeting key players during the interview process, it could be a mismatch.
TS:That makes a lot of sense. A lot of this obviously is driven around the pandemic, right? You said it perfectly when it comes down to trying to convey what your corporate governance might be or kind of exactly what a culture fit is for an organization. So what are things that we have learned from the pandemic in regards to that?
MK:Yeah, it's a great question. So first and foremost, we all heard about the great resignation, right? People deciding that they want to go somewhere and feel valued and have an opportunity to make an impact, or this is a great opportunity to relocate somewhere else, right? During the pandemic, it was easy for people to experience that, right? But it's really critical right now that we take the lessons learned from the pandemic, right? The key thing here is when you're working remote, how do you stay connected with the organization?

How do you communicate with your supervisor? How do you communicate with your peers? Are you utilizing technology such as Jabber or Instant Message or Zoom or Teams to keep the interaction going? Where we used to walk the hallway or going from grabbing a cup of coffee and stopping by Tim's workstation and brainstorming, we lose out on that. So how do we create the environment where we still feel instantly connected in a remote situation where you still feel connected and you can get in touch with people instantaneously like we would in an office space?
TS:Absolutely. That makes complete sense to me. As we're hopefully winding down from the pandemic as of this recording, what are things that some HR folks really should be considering, like pros and cons of hiring the remote workers?
MK:Yeah, great question. First of all, I truly believe we are going to be experiencing people who are coming out of college and taking a job for the first time. They have not experienced anything but what they've experienced through COVID in the pandemic. So they've never truly been to an office location. We have to now think of the next generation and how they're being introduced to the organization, right? Because again, people like us, we are used to beforehand going into the office, meeting people informally, having formal meetings, brainstorming, learning from people, informal mentoring, right? The list can keep on going.

But those who are new out of college and the only thing they've experienced was, first of all, they're a couple years of college in a locked down environment or a remote environment, that's what their expectations are. So coming into the workplace, that's what they're expecting. So now organizations that are going hybrid or wanting people to come back, et cetera, this is going to be foreign to those new recruits right out of college because they don't know anything different, right? So that's the piece that I think HR really, not just HR, leadership needs to wrap their arms around, not just thinking about those who worked in an office then went remote. It's those that never experience what we used to experience.
TS:It's going to be an interesting fine line, man. I don't know necessarily per se that there'll be an answer to this yet and some of this might just be in hindsight, right? But as we kind of wrap up this show, and obviously we can explore this in future episodes as well too, do you have any parting words for our listeners?
MK:Yeah, we'll say on the management side, employer side, be patient, right? Don't expect the old way is the right way or the way, right? We need to take a look at doing things a little bit differently now that we've all experienced it the last, believe it or not when I say this, three years going through this, right? Still crazy and I still think there's a few more chapters that we're going to experience as we're watching it currently what's going on in regards to succession planning, in regards to reduction in force, in regards to trends that happened during COVID, right?

Technology and remote is just one new thing that people need to think about. So I do think that organizations on the employer side, be patient, communicate to those who are currently working for you that have experienced both and create a way that's going to help those who didn't experience anything but remote who are coming out of college working. How do you focus in on culture, mission, vision values, and get them engaged right away?

On the employee side, you need to understand that working remotely, and it's fantastic, don't get me wrong, there is a piece that's missing and that is the collaboration informally that happens throughout the day or connecting with people. That is a piece that is missing as well. So those who are working remote, again, use technology, use information to stay connected, technology to stay connected and create that environment no matter what happens throughout the day, connect with people.
TS:I think that makes the most sense, Matt. I think another good takeaway our audiences should always be aware of is we're all in this together. So we're all on the same ship and we're all going to be working on it and we're writing the book as we're doing it. So that's the beauty of this. Me personally, I find that the most fun. Matt, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show today and sharing this valuable information with us. Thank you for listening to The Bottom Line as part of the EisnerAmper podcast series. Visit eisneramper.com for more information on this and a host of other topics. Join us for our next EisnerAmper podcast when we get down to business.

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