All posts by Varum Padmanabhan

Employee handbooks and guides are a great resource every company provides or should provide. They offer good insight into the expectations the company has for you as the employee as well as creates an accountability within the workplace. The problem with the guidelines in the handbook is getting your employees to follow them rather than having it used a disciplinary tool if/when someone crossed a line. The key is getting employees to read it, and give them time to look it over.

Sure this sounds simple enough, companies often attach the handbook or send it to newly hired employees while they are being OnBoarded; while this seems to be an efficient way to tackle this, it actually could bring up a couple of problems. First thing is that most employees won’t read the company handbook on their own time, they would much rather spend their time doing other,
maybe more, engaging activities. Handbooks aren’t fun and engaging no matter how much you try to reinvent the wheel. Secondly, if the employee is an hourly hire and you are requesting them to read the handbook on their own time, this starts moving in to overtime territory especially if they are scheduled to work 40 hours a week. Now you can see, hopefully, where the problems can arise when trying to get your employees to familiarize themselves with the company’s handbook on their own time.

So what’s the best way to go about this? One of the most popular suggestions is to incorporate reviewing the company handbook and guidelines during the employees’ orientation. Carve out an hour or so to have a company leader go over the book with them, this way you know it is being read and reviewed and also during their worktime so you avoid any overtime pay. Also, this can be proactive educationally in that if the employee does have any questions, there is someone right there to answer it or help them out with understanding it. Most importantly you can rest assured that the necessary and important company policy and information is being reviewed properly and are being understood by your employees.

It’s about that time of the year, co-workers are starting to sniffle and cough and it seems like more and more people are getting sick. Though it seems admirable and shows an employee’s commitment to their company to still come to work sick, there has been a movement taking off insisting and encouraging employees to stay home! That’s right, stay home, as in don’t come in to work. A recent study has found that employees going to work, while sick, costs the US Economy almost $160 Billion in lost productivity. That is a big number to digest, but think about it, how effective are you when you are sick? Sure there are some people who still perform well while sick, like Michael Jordan during his famous “Flu-Game” for all those basketball fans out there, but the fact is we are not Michael Jordan. When you come to work while sick, you are reallocating time you would’ve spent resting and getting better to trying to stay productive at work. This reallocation of time undoubtedly prolongs the time the employee remains sick thus effecting the employees’ productivity and effectiveness over that time. Wouldn’t it be better to sacrifice a day or two of productivity rather than having a week or two span of inefficiency?

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See How Indeed Works For You!

Indeed’s mission is clear: They help people get jobs. They are driven to maintain the best search experience possible for the millions of job seekers who use their site. Their approach stresses simplicity, relevance and above all, a laser focus on what is best for the job seeker. As a result, millions of job seekers make Indeed their search tool of choice and Indeed is the #1 source of external hire for employers.

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It’s no secret anymore that more and more candidates are applying to jobs on the go. There has been a significant rise in the number of mobile applicants; though the numbers vary based on industry, the general consensus is the same. What does this mean for companies? Well it’s rather simple my dear Watson, it’s time to upgrade your recruiting process! You need to make sure your application and career pages are all mobile and responsive, this means that it can be viewed and easily navigated by applicants on their various mobile devices, whether it be a phone or tablet. A mobile and responsive career page and application process makes it easy to expand your reach to potential candidates.

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If you are looking for a job, or even work in the HR department of a company, there is a good chance you have heard of Indeed. Indeed is a job board that is growing in popularity exponentially! More and more candidates are going on Indeed to find their next job; according to Indeed, 180 million (that’s right MILLION) people use Indeed every month and 72% being their search on Indeed. Those are staggering numbers that should stand out to anyone working in HR and are looking to maximize their exposure for job openings. After all, don’t you want to maximize the exposure of your jobs? It is the best way to attract more (Qualified) candidates for your open position.

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Let’s be honest, the workplace is its own community. Employees are bound to see the same people and interact with their own group of co-workers five to six times a week; so it’s safe to say that your office will operate as a small community. This is something unavoidable and could prove to be a strength or a weakness. How so? Well it’s quite simple, if everyone is working cohesively and have positive interactions with one another, it could promote a healthy environment for new ideas and innovation; it can even boost employee morale and improve productivity! On the reverse side, if there are groups of people who don’t agree with decisions or actions, it could harm productivity and lead to employees questioning leadership. This will effect timetables on projects as employees can be less motivated to get their work done and could stir up some “anarchy” within the workplace as employees tend to act uncooperatively.

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Companies have been trying to diversify their staff for the past decade. Without a diversified staff, sometimes ideas could be stagnant and unoriginal. Intel, Google, Apple and other companies have taken this into effect and are making these changes. For every women, veteran or minority that an employee refers they will receive a bonus $4,000 dollars, which is more compared to if they were to refer a Caucasian male. We have covered all of the benefits and advantages you could have with a diversified workforce in our first two blogs in this series; however, what happens if we do not follow this path of diversity? What if we don’t make a change?

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In our previous blog, we began writing about how companies are beginning to diversify their workforce. We shared stories from big name companies that are taking this change to a whole different level. However, we only talked about how other people are taking on this challenge. The question is, how could you possibly benefit from this change? How is this going to change the environment and attitude of your workforce? There are many advantages to having a diversified workforce and we are going to unveil these secrets.

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In today’s society, diversity is one of the words that is buzzing around the workforce. When you walk into a building and look around at the people you will be working with, what do you see? Almost half the staff is Caucasian males, while the other half is split between females, minorities and veterans. Big name companies such as Apple, Google, and now Intel have realized this problem and are shelling out serious dollars to solve it.

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Have you ever heard of the position Chief Digital Officer (CDO) before? If the answer is no, you are not alone; this position is one that only surfaced just a few years ago. Recently, the demand for this position has seen its biggest spike. The more a company moves into a digitized mindset, the more a CDO is needed.

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