Reward staff.

There’s a reason why rewards are so popular. When you reward staff, you show them they are valued. When you reward them for meeting targets or going above and beyond, it shows that your company values accountability.

When it comes to rewarding staff, the sky is the limit! There’re plenty of options: gift cards, extra vacation days and nights, community service opportunities or even time off work during big events like Christmas. Rewards don’t have to be material—they can be intangible too, like a shoutout to the team via email or a mention in a quarterly meeting.

Give them time off.

Giving your team time off is one of the best ways you can show them that they are valued. While it’s important to have a good work-life balance, you need to be careful in structuring this so that your employees don’t feel like they’re being overworked or undervalued.

In some cases, this may mean giving them additional perks such as flexible working hours or even working from home if that would be more convenient for them. However, it could also mean providing more paid leave—or even simply unpaid leave—to give workers the opportunity to relax at home and recharge their batteries before coming back refreshed and ready for another day at work.

Giving your employees more time off is an excellent way of showing how much value you place on them, but it should also be used as a tool for helping improve morale within the workplace too!

Offer other perks.

After the salary, the next most important factor in attracting and retaining great employees is benefits.

Here are some ideas:

• Flex time
• Free food in the office or a kitchenette with snacks
• Employee discounts on products or services offered by you and your vendors (think cars, home improvement stores, etc.)
• Employee events like happy hours, monthly lunches/dinners at local restaurants, live entertainment events featuring local artists or bands

Treat people like adults.

You can’t expect to attract and retain top talent if you treat people like children. Giving employees responsibility, and the chance to make decisions and develop as individuals is key.

No one likes being told what to do, so give your employees some autonomy over their work. If they are given a task with clear instructions and guidance on how it fits into the wider picture of your business, they will feel valued, trusted and motivated by you as an employer.

This approach also makes it more likely that staff will be willing to go the extra mile for you when required – whether that means staying late or helping out with other projects in a pinch.

Sometimes even the smallest gestures can mean the world to your team and you don’t always have to splash loads of cash to make people feel valued. I hope these ideas have helped shine some light on what you can do to help support your team.

If you require assistance with hiring and recruitment, please reach out to the team at Best Practice Recruitment who can assist with finding your dream role.

The post How To Attract And Retain Top Staff appeared first on Best Practice.

Here’s a tricky topic, so let’s waste no time and dive right in.

The most efficient – and most profitable – businesses out there are the ones that have a highly motivated team of staff. In large, this motivation has been set by the executive level, who push consistently high expectations of their high-performance teams. These expectations shouldn’t be unobtainable pipe-dreams but should remain steeped in a perpetual push for higher standards and performance of the business.

So then, what happens when someone in the team isn’t performing as expected, or falling behind the high expectations the executive team has set?

Fire them?

No. I am a firm believer that motivating and encouraging employees is extremely important for both the team and the business. Not every staff member will naturally have high motivation to execute their job. Therefore it is up to you the employer to boost their morale and motivation throughout the office. It’s also important to give staff members an idea of the business’ culture, and management expectations, as well as to instill a clear picture of how staff members fit into the business. The business has a responsibility to give a clear idea of its strategic direction and big-picture goals to the employees. Once you’ve communicated this to your employees, they will feel more of a responsibility to the business which in return is a psychological strategy to help motivate employees.

Effective ways to motivate your staff

There is a fine line to toe here, but strong leadership and effective management tools will help you find that line between getting the best from your staff, and pushing them over the edge. Leading by example is a crucial part of motivating staff, and is an effective way to instill motivation in your team.

As the employee grows and begins to achieve the motivational standards set by the business, encouragement is crucial. In order for the business to achieve long-term success, they need to reward and acknowledge the hard work being put in by their staff. Working in a highly motivated environment can be a draining lifestyle, therefore providing a team lunch each week is great way to keep the team motivated. This gives the employees a chance to relax whilst being in the work environment, it also helps employees’ job satisfaction as they enjoy their time spent at work. This is a simple way that a business can acknowledge and thank its employees for maintaining high motivation standards.

Another effective way to motivate staff is through team-building exercises. Harvard studies have shown that highly motivated teams consistently conduct team-building exercises and to help staff build trust with their peers. One specific activity that helps build this trust is a simple morning coffee walk with your team. This allows team members see the bigger picture of their jobs whilst also building deeper connections with each other. The more that employees trust each other, the more willing they are to stay motivated and not let down the team. This is a big motivating factor.

However, If a member still doesn’t help themselves and fails to pick up and use the tools they’ve been given to achieve their best, the responsibility of a failure still remains on the team not just the individual. You can help them as much as you like, but if they don’t want to help themselves, it’s a losing battle, and time to trim the fat. It’s tough, I know, and undoubtedly one of my least favourite aspects of doing business, but if emotions cloud your judgment, you’ll never become the best business

Let’s use the analogy of a top-performing sports team: be it an NFL team, Rugby, or English Premier League football team. Picture just how cut-throat the road to becoming a star player on any of these teams is and the motivation needed to succeed. The road is paved with the remains of players that just haven’t done well enough. To me, this metaphor is perfectly apt, as the business world is often just as competitive – if not more so – than the sporting world.

The executive team in a business acts as the coaching staff on the team, setting a clear set of objectives, outlining the structure of the team, identifying vacancies, strengths, and weaknesses, and in turn pushing employees in areas of need. Coaching staff on sports teams are looking to help motivate the players in order to just ‘want’ to excel in their sport.

There is a reason that some athletes make it and others don’t. It all comes down to motivation. The more motivated athletes go on to become superstars and the less motivated become no names. This is similar when it comes to your business. Without a motivated team, a business will not exceed its competitors and could eventually fail. Every high-level sporting team has an even larger team of coaches, mentors, physios, and analytic staff that have one job: to keep the team motivated and focussed on the next goal, on their journey to continual improvement. Your business needs to do the same, and your management team needs to offer your staff every opportunity to improve themselves both personally and professionally, as both will trickle down into better performance at work.

I’ve kept many of these lessons firmly imprinted in my brain as Best Practice Certification has expanded. I’ve been taking every effort possible to fill up my team with A-players. Admittedly, some of the staff we’ve taken in might not have initially made the A-team, but they showed every intention to improve themselves, and that commitment is equally as impressive as it is admirable. You want to fill up your team with human beings that bring to the table an inherent, intrinsic ambition; exactly what helps to transform a business from mediocre to outstanding.

Thankfully, as it stands, robots aren’t capable of that… yet. So it’s important not to underestimate the capabilities of your team members, and remember that it remains your responsibility to give them every opportunity possible to improve themselves, and the business they’re working in. If they don’t take you up on the opportunities you’ve presented them, or fail to give you that fair exchange, it remains contrary to the interests of your business to keep them on board.

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A team SWOT analysis has a become an essential element of envisioning and creating plans for the future of any business. One concern of mine, however, is that the simple process of a SWOT analysis – and the remarkable impact it can have on an organisation – is often under-utilised, or leveraged in the wrong way.

So, what is team swot analysis?

Firstly, a SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats. A team swot analysis is simply analysing the different teams within your organisation whether it be the marketing team, finance or operations and determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for that team.

Some of the questions we frequently hear from our clients is why do a SWOT analysis of a team? and what benefits can it have to do small businesses?

Conducting a SWOT analysis or a team SWOT analysis can help with identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within your teams and team members, highlighting internal strengths and potentially presenting external factors/opportunities to expand your team into areas that could be improved. It allows organisations to create action plans going into the future as well as highlight some internal strengths that they can celebrate. They can be conducted through running brainstorming sessions and can even be made into a fun activity.

Today we’re going to briefly talk about how an internal team SWOT analysis can transform the way your organisation operates, allowing you to consolidate its strengths and improve upon its weaknesses. We’ll also discuss how to create a team SWOT analysis and the benefits of doing so.

‘Gathering the data is one thing, but using it to improve your organisation can be better facilitated with Best Practice Recruitment and the PXT Select software.‘

By running through your staff member’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, you’re able to gain a detailed picture of your team members, determine whether or not you’re deploying your organisation’s resources effectively, identify shortfalls and risks, and help underpin your organisation’s strategy and vision moving forward. I often talk about this in the context of a sport’s team, where a coach has conducted a SWOT analysis on each of the players, and positions them on the field accordingly. 

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Another analogy is that of a high-paced restaurant pushing out hundreds of meals in a service, you can see the need for different skill sets, temperaments, strengths and weaknesses that combine into one highly-functioning team. Kitchen staff can be short-tempered, and lacking in the interpersonal social skills necessary to deal with customers and difficult situations. This, no doubt, is a weakness. Their strengths – dealing with stressful environments and of course, their cooking skills – far outweigh their weaknesses, purely because of where they sit inside the organisation. The same applies for the back-of-house staff, who might lack the barman’s knowledge of wine and cocktails, and the chef’s experience with food, but have training in the organisational logistics of running a business. 

While this is a pretty obvious example, it can still be recontextualised into your organisation, where you’re positioning certain staff members with their respective skills and weaknesses into certain positions. If you’re not playing these positions to your advantage, you’re missing out on one of the most accessible, yet transformative ways of improving your organisation.

“A PXT Select assessment is one of the most in-depth forms of analysis you can possibly gather on your team.”

Accordingly, if you haven’t taken the time out to conduct a full SWOT analysis on your team, you’re missing out on the opportunity to determine exactly who should sit where, and how your organisation can leverage the strengths of your staff members, while possibly mitigating the risks associated with the weaknesses, through the implementation of new policies or procedures.

A SWOT analysis is a tool that allows you to minimise future risks. Committing to do the Team SWOT is one thing, but how can you gather the Best data for the job and take your team SWOT analysis from a good practice to Best Practice? Ensure that you are able to acquire the best quality swot framework or swot analysis template  

That’s where Best Practice Recruitment steps into the equation. 

A PXT Select assessment is one of the most in-depth forms of analysis you can possibly gather on your team. It’s an efficient, yet detailed picture on your staff’s strengths and weaknesses, and how you can position them within your team for maximum results. It covers key performance and behavioural traits that are essential to understand first, before you make changes in your organisation, and helps you to identify potential issues before they develop into a more severe problem. 

The PXT Select Team Report examines far more than just your staff’s strengths and weaknesses by looking at things like a staff member’s independence, their decisiveness, outlook, sociability and pace of their work. A simple SWOT analysis will rarely discover the same traits to this extent, and leaves the organisation unable to make key changes that are necessary for the organisation to grow, pivot or consolidate its operations.

Thanks for your time, I’ll see you in the next piece. 

Kelly-John Woods – Best Practice Recruitment. 

The post Team SWOT Analysis appeared first on Best Practice.

The key to improving culture in your organisation goes much further than having an air-hockey table in the break room.

Time and time again, I’ve found myself instilling the same basic principles across the board in other organisations- as well as my own when it comes to spurring engagement and motivation in teams. In many circumstances, leaders in an organisation will gravitate toward superficial gifts – bribes, essentially – to get more engagement from staff. While this may well be effective in the short-term, those leaders are lacking in the understanding that human beings are longing for a more engaging and sustainable form of motivation from their leaders; often underpinned by modern psychology. A healthy and flexible work culture can do wonders in increasing employee satisfaction in the work environment, making employees feel excited to come to work everyday instead of dreading it.

It’s well known that a toxic work culture can result in high employee turnover, making it difficult for businesses to retain talented team members. Toxic cultures most often stem from a lack of communication between management and their employees, which results in a constant nightmare for the HR department.

So, in recognition of the sheer amount of times I’ve been asked how to change poor work culture, here’s how to transform poor work culture and how to improve work culture across the board of an organisation.

Inspiring Mission Statement

Arguably the most important way to address a culture – or a lack thereof – in the organisation is to have a mission statement underpinned with a clear set of aspirational goals for everyone to look at in the office. It’s scientifically-proven that an inspirational mission statement is often the catalyst for spurring and maintaining employee motivation, as they’ll frequently be reminded of what their project is contributing toward. If you’re in a leadership position, you want to make sure that when you’re forming this mission statement, you have a set of goals that are both lofty in their aim, but achievable so your team can be frequently ticking off boxes for that motivational boost.

In addition to this, having a mission statement allows you to create one unified culture, which will encourage employee buy-in. Wittingly or not, this will also improve the culture of your organisation as you’ll have more people operating on the same frequency, contributing to one single purpose. This will also present you with the opportunity to say thanks and tell people in the organisation how grateful you are for their efforts when you do hit a target; we’ll get more into this in the transformative leadership part of the piece.

Open Door Policy

This obviously applies more to management and people sitting in executive seats in your organisation, but depending on the organisation, everyone can be guilty of perpetuating the negative impact of this. In my line of work, I’ve visited thousands of organisations and had the opportunity to compare and contrast leadership styles across countless industries in organisations both big and small. One common thread I’ve picked up on is the fact that managers that keep their doors open have much more communication with employees across the board, which is a much healthier way to work. An organisational culture in the which an open door policy is in place increases employee recognition, making team members feel valued and even increasing employee engagement with matters usually handled by upper management.

‘In essence, you’re aiming to remove the appearance or prevalence of hierarchies in your organisation.’

Whether it’s a physical door to the office, or a more figurative approachability, you want to make it clear to everyone in the business that every problem, no matter how big or small should be addressed right away, so it doesn’t get worse. The world of business often throws curve-balls, so if you’ve made it clear to everyone in the organisation they should present problems as they arise, or to resolve anything they’re struggling with, you’re avoiding a lot of the risks that rigid organisations filled with hierarchies are often guilty of.

The Buck Stops With You

In my decades of working with organisations, I’ve seen countless professional buck-passers in my time- some really skilled ones at that. This, however, isn’t a healthy habit whatsoever- particularly in the workplace as you want to encourage everyone in the organisation to be accountable for their actions. I’ve said previously that this doesn’t necessarily need to have negative ramifications if their department or their project is underperforming, as it may well be that there are external factors at play to consider that may be out of their control. Take into account that organisations rife with buck-passing employees are the ones most likely to be breeding a toxic culture, which often eats an organisation from the inside out.

One of the keys to addressing this is in your management review meetings, having clear expectations and the subsequent accountabilities ahead of the next session. So long as the project and its goals are realistic, the manager and employees under him or her should meet the challenge head-on, and receive that much-needed kick of endorphins when they hit the target. While you’re aiming to shoot for the stars with your goal setting, you don’t want to dangle an unattainable carrot in front of your staff; keep it realistic.

Transformative Leadership

As we discussed earlier, one of the most significant ways you can transform the culture in your organisation is to remove hierarchies, and transformative leadership is one of the key tools to embody the traits of a transformative leader. It’s worth noting that you don’t necessarily need to be in a position of leadership for this to become transformative to your work.

The idea of being a transformative leader or a transformative employee boils down to one simple thing: you’re able to adapt the way you interact with people in your organisation in a way that they’d be more responsive to. It’s a concept that ties in perfectly with Gary Chapman’s work of the ‘Five Love Languages’; the way in which different people give and receive thanks in a multitude of different ways. For the unversed, there’s Regardless of your position in the organisation, this is something to take into account. It’s not about forcing everyone to become best friends, although that is the ideal version of this situation, in practice, it’s unrealistic and comes across as contrived. Anyway, back to Gary Chapman. He talks of people giving and receiving thanks in five different ways: acts of service, touch, words of affirmation, gifts and quality time; keep this in mind as you get to know your colleagues.

Perhaps Mary in accounting is a coffee fanatic, and you bring her that much-loved second coffee at the 11am mark. Maybe Gary in marketing has been working hard on a project and gives you a sneak peek; some words of encouragement could be invaluable in terms of keeping him motivated. How about Hugh in sales- if his kids are sick, maybe he could make those calls from home for the day to help out his wife. It’s a cliche to say, but the small things really do make a difference; keep this in mind and try to become more flexible and responsive to the love languages of your staff and colleagues.

Empowering Staff

Once you’ve done the legwork in understanding the love languages that surround you in the workplace, you can begin to empower each other in a way that will be more responsive than simply contrived gifts. You’ll be in a much better position when it comes to empowering your staff, as you’ll know what they’re responsive to. This point requires some flexibility on the part of the management team, so don’t be afraid to stray away from business as usual in order to empower everyone in your team. It also requires management to trust people in the organisation; don’t worry- this won’t go unnoticed by your staff. The moment you let go of your previously tight grip on the reins of your employees, they’ll acknowledge this, and ideally, use it as an opportunity to prove to you they can work more effectively when empowered in an independent way.

If the members of your staff feel as though they are able to work independently, in many cases they’ll work harder to prove to management that this trust is both acknowledged and valued- and the project will still be delivered on time!

Connect with Best Practice Recruitment on LinkedIn

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What a Multiple Candidates Report does is help to create a framework that stacks up potential candidates for that executive role, and assesses them in-line with the organisation’s requirements specific to that role. 

Few, if any organisations can afford the cost of a bad hire, let alone in the executive team, so gathering any and all relevant data to identify the best candidate for that role is invaluable and often typical for success.

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We’ve talked previously about the importance of conducting a SWOT analysis on your team to obtain data-driven improvements across the board for the benefit of the organisation as a whole. What a Multiple Candidates Report does is take that analytical view one step further, comparing a range of scores from a range of different traits and behaviours in your team, and determines how likely they are to succeed in that potential role. 

Humans have inherent biases, and this can present a challenge when you’re looking to fill an executive position with the perfect candidate- not the most likeable. While someone might seem like the obvious choice, in reality, they might be unfit, unqualified or lacking in the key traits that leadership positions require; this is what the Multiple Candidates Report fixes. 

The report takes into account the candidate’s overall fit for the position, the range of performance model scores that are typically required for that role, as well as a comparison of that candidate’s results in line with the role’s requirements. In essence, a Multiple Candidates Stat Report takes the pain, guess-work and resource wastage out of assessing the perfect candidate for a position in your organisation. 

It’s a data-driven, unbiased and factual presentation of whom in your team is the perfect fit for that role.

While the report doesn’t touch on things like specific experience of skill sets of the individual in question, it’s extremely helpful when it comes to informing management discussions as to who might represent the most appropriate candidate. 

Take the guesswork out of the process so you and your team can focus on improving your organisation on a macro scale, rather than wasting time trying to solve the micro issues in your organisation. 

Get in contact with Best Practice Talent today to see how you can leverage PXT Select software to optimise your organisation’s recruiting and performance management policies. 

Thanks for your time,

Kelly John-Woods.

The post What Is A Multiple Candidates Report? appeared first on Best Practice.

One of the greatest challenges facing organisations in the 21st century is retaining talent. While many of the leaders I’ve come into contact with are quick to dismiss the phenomenon as a millennial ‘thing’, I believe that this misses the heart of the matter… and the research would agree with me, I’m afraid. We, as humans are wired in a fairly similar manner, and while a handsome pay-packet might help spur some motivation within an individual, it’s not feasible when it comes to long-term, sustainable motivation and productivity in the workplace. From personal experience, I’ve had a number of conversations with leaders that are struggling to hold on to their best members of staff, and are plagued by the subsequent time and resources wasted in the re-training of new staff. Retaining, I believe is far more valuable to the future prospects of an organisation that retraining.

“Retaining talent has surpassed attracting talent as the number one priority.”

The latest “Greatest Place To Work” report, co-authored by Zrinka Lovrencic puts the problem into perspective and says that organisations that separate themselves from the pack are the ones where “employees are respected, treated fairly, leaders are credible and trust is nurtured.” Lovrencic says that “to improve both retention and productivity, organisations are investing in their people.” In response to this, HR is now being rebranded across organisations out there as ‘people and culture’, and it’s no longer being viewed as a cost centre, but rather as a source of value creation, considering how much more value a productive and happy employee can add to the organisation.

If you’re in need of any more proof in this context, take the report’s specific mention that “retaining talent has surpassed attracting talent as the number one priority” for organisations in the modern context, as well as the fact that for 80% of organisations, on average, employee retention is the greatest challenge they face moving into the future. Research also shows that in the context of the US, 40% of employees that don’t receive additional training are likely to quit their position within a 12-month period. We can see by these figures, then, that there’s a new hurdle for organisations to overcome in the modern era.

Thankfully, however, it’s a force that you’re more able to control in-house, as it’s an internal problem and not an external force that remains out of your control.

“Companies that engaged their employees with training programs and additional support outperform their competitors by 202% on average.”

As we pivot toward investing in the training of your staff specifically, I’m reminded of a timeless quote from Benjamin Franklin who said that “an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” It’s astounding just how many organisations underestimate the importance of training their staff, especially considering that the Association for Talent Development in the US says that companies that offer comprehensive training programs for their staff have a 24% higher profit margin than their counterparts. There has also been research published stating that companies that engaged their employees with training programs and additional support outperform their competitors by 202% on average. There’s a raft of correlations we could continue to make to drive our point home, here, but I think it’s self-evident by this stage of the piece just how important it is to make your staff feel valued and intellectually stimulated in the workplace.

It’s worth addressing the idea of trust. How can you foster trust if your go-to move involves a revolving door of staff? You’ll find it more difficult to gather momentum in your organisation if you’re bogging down your pace with the constant re-training of new staff.

Perhaps more significantly, the more time one staff member stays with your organisation, they’ll be able to paint a more detailed and accurate picture of your operations, and they’re more likely to propose and execute new strategies to help the organisation, whereas a new staff member won’t have the experience, confidence or knowledge to do the same. This is where we begin to see the divergence between organisations that invest in retaining talent, and those that don’t.

From our point of view, it’s a shame to see otherwise high-level organisations begin to buckle from the inside out when great staff members begin walking for the door. While yes, you can’t expect people to stay in the same role, with the same organisation forever, I don’t believe it’s a bridge too far to accept some responsibility in terms of being proactive about their professional development. Richard Branson once said that you should aim to train staff so they can leave, but treat them so they won’t. Branson’s quote is the quintessence of what we’ve tried to portray in this piece, so once again, maybe it’s time to make an investment in the people inside your organisation that will surely pay massive dividends in the future.

Before you go, take a look at your piece “How much does bad leadership cost an organisation”. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing a high-functioning organisation held captive by its leader. The numbers show that bad leadership causes toxic attitudes in the workplace and isolates even the most tough-headed and resilient staff members to the point that they’re likely to quit your organisation and work for a more inspiring leader.

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Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, states, “the single most important aspect of personality…is where we fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum. Humanity would be unrecognisable, and vastly diminished, without both personality styles”. There is no superior style as each has its strengths and weaknesses. 

What strengths do introverts and extroverts bring to the workplace? 

Introverts can be highly creative and imaginative as they favour solitude to brew ideas. Furthermore, they tend to be more analytical and cautious when making decisions, which can be valuable when making important decisions that don’t need to be made instantly. Introverts are very observant and are great listeners, which can make them highly effective learners. 

In contrast, extroverts seek social stimulation to gain energy and love to engage and jump into things. They’re usually assertive, talkative and excited. They’re great at collaborating, connecting with others and have excellent interpersonal skills.

On a side note, you may also encounter ambiverts. Ambiverts have an equal amount of introvert and extrovert characteristics. Moreover, they feel equally energised from being in their own space and amongst others. Ambiverts are great all-rounders and can adapt and connect with different individuals easier than most. 

Relevant: Am I an introvert, extrovert or ambivert?

What Is The Best Way To Communicate With Your Team?

Morra Aarons Mele, author of Hiding in the Bathroom: How to Get Out There When You’d Rather Stay Home, suggests that managers should communicate with their team and ask their employees how they want to connect. Do the individuals in your team prefer email communications, one-to-one meetings, or a coffee hang out? Do you need to adjust your tone or appear more approachable? Are they okay with you dropping by, or do they prefer a scheduled meeting where they can prepare?

A great way of learning how your team likes to connect and be appreciated is by asking what their love languages are. There are 5 love languages, according to Gary Chapman author of, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People: Acts of Service, Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Tangible Gifts and Appropriate Physical Touch. At Best Practice, we use this technique to learn how to appreciate and communicate with each other better.

How To Conduct Meetings With Introverts And Extroverts In Mind

Jan Bruce, CEO of resilience training provider meQuilibrium, states, “in any given six-person meeting, two people are going to do more than 60 percent of the talking” and this becomes even more apparent in larger groups. Be aware of the quiet-spoken individuals and ensure that they are still able to express themselves. Susan RoAne, the author of How To Work a Room, suggests speaking with the introverted team members before the meeting or after so they can still feel heard. Furthermore, Susan encourages managers to provide ample time for team members to prepare for formal meetings. Lastly, Susan suggests not to single out introverts to speak in front of the group. Instead, offer an open space for discussions and opinions to be shared or split participants into smaller groups. 

Relevant: How To Have Effective Meetings

Open Office Plans And Introverts

You must create quiet spaces within the office or periods of time where there is limited sound for introverts that like to work in peaceful environments. Alternatively, you can suggest for your employees to work from home if their work can allow it. Conduct a survey or directly ask your team how they feel about the office environment and if they can concentrate and focus well.

In conclusion, keep an open line of communication to understand your team better. Consistently check on your team to ensure that they are happy with the workplace culture and environment. As the leader, your number one job is to motivate and train. 

The post How To Connect & Support Extroverts & Introverts At Work appeared first on Best Practice.

The goal of a well-written resume is to sell yourself to put your application atop the pile and inspire those reading it to call you back for a follow-up interview.

According to stats from the Undercover Recruiter, recruiters and HR managers spend just 3-minutes reading a resume and have reported that they’ll often decide on that candidate in the first minute of reading their resume.

Consequently, if you can communicate not only what you do, but why you’re passionate about doing it, you’re significantly more likely to attract the attention of recruiters that are looking to employ like-minded and passionate people.

Whether you’re looking to improve your resume, or learning how to pick your best candidate. Here’s our Winning Formula for Recruitment.

Start by covering these topics on your resume, and remove the non-relevant details second. 

• Name and contact details
• Career objective
• Qualifications
• Skills summary (soft and technical)
• Professional experience
• Achievements
• Extracurricular activities
• Interests/hobbies
• References

Best Practice Recruitment – Helping to Hire Great Talent

The basic principle of good resume formatting and design is to keep it simple. Use a basic but modern font, like Helvetica, Arial, or Roboto. Make your resume easy on hiring managers’ eyes or a robotic screening software by using a font size between 10-12pt and leaving a healthy amount of white space on the page.

Follow a reverse-chronological order when it comes to your experience. Placing your current or most recent role first, then on to your previous jobs. 

For each resume you send out, you’ll want to highlight only the accomplishments and skills that are most relevant to the job at hand (even if that means you don’t include all of your experience).

Focus on highlighting your responsibilities in a job by detailing your most impressive accomplishments. For example:

• Instead of “expanded operations to international markets,” say “expanded operations to eight new countries in Latin America.”
• Instead of “led marketing and sales team,” say “supervised marketing and sales team and achieved 15% annual growth vs. 0.5% budget.”

Use as many facts, figures, and numbers as you can in your bullet points. By quantifying your accomplishments, you allow the hiring manager to picture the level of work or responsibility you needed to achieve them.

Proofread, Proofread, Proofread. Make sure your resume is grammatically correct and free of any typos. Grammarly is a free service that will help you double-check your resume. (www.grammarly.com/)

Finally, ensure you save your resume as a PDF. This will keep the formatting of the document design in check and allow for a smaller file. Additionally, title the document with your name rather than just ‘resume.’ Eg: John_Smith_Resume. This will assist the recruiter and show your attention to detail and organisation skills.

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Authors of the report say that on average, poor sleep quality comes at a $14.4 billion cost to the economy, while an additional $36.6 billion stems from the costs of problems associated with a lack of sleep, including mental illness. 

What’s more, the report says that the $14.4 billion figure has jumped from $11 billion in 2019-20, suggesting that Australians are steadily losing their quality of sleep, which is causing the economy to lose productivity over time. 

It’s estimated that around one in every ten Australians are impacted by at least one form of sleep disorder. 

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The report comes from a joint collaboration between the Australian Sleep Health Foundation and Deloitte Access Economics, and breaks down how the most common sleep disorders – obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia and restless legs syndrome – as well as a lack of overall sleep time and quality. 

Highlights of the report’s key findings include the fact that poor sleep quality has come at a $14.4 billion cost to the Australian economy, which equates to 0.73% of Australia’s overall GDP. Of these costs, the authors say that $2.2 billion is lost to absences from work, with the majority of losses – $7.5 billion – stemming from reduced overall productivity of a sleep-deprived employee. 

There was also $1 billion lost to ‘reduced employment,’ and $600 million stemming from recovering the costs of accidents, and another $200 million attributed to premature mortality costs. 

The authors say that less than 7% of the costs are related to the treatment of sleep disorders, while the non-financial costs of the loss of wellbeing amounted to $36.6 billion. 

The Australian Sleep Health Foundation says that sleep disorders account for around 3.2% of Australia’s disease burden each year. 

Poor Sleep Quality is Costing the Australian Economy $14.4 Billion

“What is striking about the results of this analysis is the relatively small amount spent on identifying and treating sleep disorders compared to the large costs of living with their consequences,” says Natasha Doherty, head of Deloitte’s Health and Social Policy team. 

Professor David Hillman of the Sleep Health Foundation has said that “the sleep health crisis described in the report echoes the findings of the federal Parliament Inquiry into Sleep Health Awareness, tabled in April, 2019.” 

“The inquiry made 11 recommendations. The first of these was that the Australian Government should make sleep health a national priority and recognise its importance to health and wellbeing alongside fitness and nutrition,” Professor Hillman said. 

“Unfortunately the Draft National Preventative Health Strategy recently released for consultation has not responded to this recommendation at all. It means the word ‘sleep’ only twice amongst its 45,000 words while other aspects of a healthy lifestyle – diet and exercise – have a high profile, as you would expect.” 

Professor Hillman concluded that “it’s absolutely critical for Australia’s long-term preventative health strategy to include sleep health as a priority,” he said, concluding that “this report underlines what we all know from our own experience – you feel worse, are less safe, less healthy and less productive if you are sleep deprived.” 

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Bridging jobs are temporary positions that help job seekers move through troubled times. Besides the financial security aspect of getting a bridging job, there are other benefits for your career by doing so.

Job hunting can be draining and long exercise, as weeks, sometimes months drag on, the idea of finding the perfect role withers and many people end up accepting roles different from their dream role further into the process, regardless. Instead, job seekers should try to find bridging jobs.

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By doing so, you are closing an employment gap in your resume, ensuring you can support yourself or loved ones, upkeeping skills and opening yourself up to potential new opportunities.

Instead of looking at brigiding jobs as time fillers, they can be advantageous to your self discovery and alter a preconceived opinion of your career path.

Finding a job initially after being unemployed that matches your skill set, experience and goals is near impossible. Through networking and market research, you should be able to find a bridging job that aligns with your desired career path so you can transcend the skills when a more fitting role pops up.

For example, a person looking to go to the next level in the real estate industry may see a big benefit from taking a job in an agency where they can network with potential peers and colleagues.

Alternatively, a job-seeker could have their heart set on a complete industry change, and after accepting a bridging job, they have been given a taste of the industry without having to take on higher responsibilities and more flexibility to change their mind. 

It is easier to get a job when you have a job.

Unfortunately, this statement is accurate. Being unemployed, especially for prolonged periods of time, sends a negative signal about your work ethic and hireability to a recruiter.

If you do find yourself out of work, minimising the gap in your resume ensures you stay close connected to the professional world and avoids interrogation in a future interview setting. 

As Bronwen Hann, a Toronto-based recruiter stated, “the issue of gaps in employment is a thorny one.”

She goes on to discuss how hiring is highly biased. Even when smart technology is used, it is programmed by humans, who by nature are biased, often unconsciously. 

“They [employment gaps] give the wrong impression about your abilities and ambitions, implying that you’re not capable… or that you were discharged from your previous job and didn’t know how to get back into a position. Worst of all, it can imply that you’re lazy, or that you don’t care about your career.”

To summarise, here are 5 reasons why bridging jobs are beneficial for your career;

1. Regain confidence
2. More time to think about your next move without pressure
3. You will have financial security
4. Minimise an employment gap on your resume
5. Gain new connections in an industry, leading to new opportunities in the future

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