Tag: Human Resources

When hiring for your company, having a recruitment strategy brings in more qualified candidates. It saves you time and money while increasing efficiency among your hiring staff and helping you find the right applicants sooner. You need a recruitment strategy tailored to your company, so knowing how to create one by using the right tools and taking the right steps is vital to how your hiring process will go.

What Are Recruitment Strategies?

A recruitment strategy is a hiring plan that works to target and attract your ideal candidates for the role. It opens more opportunities to hire exceptional talent that fits your business needs and company culture.

The right recruitment strategy varies based on your business and hiring goals. Your strategy should lay out important parts of the hiring process to clearly define the role you’re hiring for, where you want to post the position, when to list the job online, and how you’ll evaluate each candidate. A recruitment strategy works to standardize the hiring process so that all candidates and criteria get evaluated equally.

The same recruitment strategy won’t work for every business, so it’s important to take the elements that benefit yours most and use them to your advantage. For example, you’ll want to consider which platforms and methods work best for finding candidates in your industry.

Many recruitment strategies involve hiring a contract recruiter as an expert who knows where and how to find the right people for your company. You can also use recruiting software, like Zoho Recruit, to make the process even easier.

A good recruitment strategy will connect you with passive candidates and let them know you need their skills and talents. It will also attract high-quality applicants who are actively searching for positions like the one you’re hiring for. Instead of throwing your posting into the void, a recruitment strategy customizes your hiring process.

Benefits of Having a Recruitment Strategy

You’ll see immediate benefits throughout the hiring process with a proactive recruitment strategy. The right one will drastically cut down the time you spend searching for qualified candidates, as well as the time spent on repetitive tasks like sorting resumes.

Because you will have more accurate knowledge of which candidates fit your company, you’ll spend less time conducting interviews. You’ll likely have to interview fewer candidates before you find a good fit. By clarifying the role and your expectations in the job posting early on, your candidates will come in with a better understanding of what you want, leading to better communication during your interviews.

Along with greater efficiency, you’ll have more successful interviews that give you a better idea of which candidates have the most experience and compatibility with the position and company. You can also ask better questions, evaluate candidates more accurately, and set clearer expectations.

A recruitment strategy gives you access to more candidates in niche spaces to create more lasting connections. For example, if you connect with prospects at a job fair and they sign up for your newsletter, they are more likely to remember you when you’re hiring for another position.

Perhaps most importantly, you make better hiring decisions. As a result, your recruitment strategy has the lasting benefit of employee retention. When you hire an employee who is a good fit, they stay with the company longer because they know what to expect when they accept the job.

Recruitment strategies help you hire new talent faster and prevent other employees from burning out. That means those employees are also more likely to stay with your company. You create an environment where employees feel valued by fulfilling their expectations and being consistent with your processes, including hiring.

What You Need to Get Started with Your Recruitment Strategy

Whether you hire a contract recruiter or keep things internal, recruiting software helps you keep track of what you post, where you post it, and when you posted it. Zoho Recruit is a great Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that shows your progress and organizes the hiring process.

Zoho Recruit shows you who’s applied, where they are in the process, their skills, and other relevant information. This becomes an asset when you have a lot of applicants, as it saves time for hiring staff and improves productivity.

When you first create your recruitment strategy, determine your hiring needs before anything else. This gives you insight into what you should put in the job listing, helps you find the best job boards, and leads you to the most qualified candidates. You’ll want to include the hours, salary, benefits, and duties for the position, along with relevant company information and anything else your candidates need to know before they apply. Have this information on hand when you speak to potential contract recruiters, too.

Make sure you choose the right contract recruiting firm if you go this route—and it does benefit you to work with an expert. Each firm has different niches and specialties within those niches. Choosing the best fit not only for your industry but for your company is a game changer.

How to Find the Right Software for Recruitment

A good ATS helps you process applicants more efficiently and shows you the best ones based on the skills you’re hiring for. It keeps your applicants organized in its system, sorts resumes, and tracks the interview process for each person.

Your recruiting software should simplify your hiring process and solve the problems you spend the most time correcting manually, like resume screening. It should also integrate seamlessly with other tools you use in order to streamline the process. 

When searching for the best software for recruiting, consider a solution that helps you source applicants, increases candidate engagement, and keeps candidates informed during the hiring process. You’ll want a system that can screen applicants and resumes to help you choose the most qualified candidates to interview. Some software even manages the actual hiring stages for new employees.

Zoho Recruit is one of the best ATS solutions to support your recruitment strategy. It keeps track of everything for you with features that keep you and your candidates in the loop. With its more advanced packages, you can also send out job offer letters, organize onboarding paperwork, and generate reports for your hiring process.

Zoho Recruit has a Standard package for $25 per user per month, and you can upgrade with a $25 jump in price to its Professional and Enterprise plans. Standard has plenty of hiring resources to make the process more efficient, including candidate sourcing and resume management. It also integrates well with other platforms for a cohesive candidate search.

The more advanced plans add more in-depth capabilities, including portal management, candidate assessments, and custom functions. It’s designed to bring in more qualified candidates, so you hire the cream of the crop.

Best Strategies for Recruitment

Not all recruitment strategies work for every company. For example, a business looking for a manager at an IT company will probably need to use a different approach than a biotech company hiring for an entry-level lab position.

A contract recruiter can help you determine the best places to search for your candidates and the right approach for your specific company. The best recruitment strategies involve combining a few different tactics for a comprehensive approach.

Before you post your job, create a description that stands out among the others in your field. Have a specific job title that interests applicants while immediately offering basic relevant information about the position.

Write an overview of the position that provides information about your company and the role you’re hiring for. Don’t forget to include the core responsibilities and expectations of the role. Many applicants also want to know about the company culture, so be sure to include that, too, as it narrows the playing field and encourages people who want to work in that environment to apply.

Use social media to find applicants on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. Your strategy should also include checking resumes that potential candidates have posted online. Look at people who are already working in similar roles, and circle back to past candidates if you had applicants that weren’t right for other positions.

You should claim your company page on sites like Indeed to demonstrate engagement and a more official presence. Attend industry meetings and events, such as job fairs, where you’ll find more candidates looking for work in your field.

Lastly, your presence as a company matters even while you’re interviewing. It’s not just about having an official stamp online.

When your candidates come in to interview, treat them like you want them there. Be enthusiastic, respectful, and hospitable. Offer your contact information at the end, so they can reach out with questions during the hiring process, especially if you invite them to take further steps. Covering all your bases with a recruitment strategy means you’re more likely to see success faster and spend less time searching for your ideal employee.

Recruitment Strategy Trends

As with the job market itself, recruiting goes through trends over time. What worked for your company a few years ago may not be as effective now, and it’s important to research these trends—or hire someone who knows them—before you start recruiting. Catering to these trends makes the hiring process faster and shows more applicants your posts.

Right now, recruitment marketing matters. We touched upon it in the last section, but this strategy essentially uses broad marketing strategies, like social media and SEO, to attract and find ideal candidates while enticing them to apply to your company or organization. More employers today are targeting younger generations, too, which means meeting those people where they are online and in the world.

Companies are also implementing more practices that will attract employees, including remote work opportunities, flexible schedules, and payroll, and using virtual, AR, and AI technology to onboard, train, and support employees in their work. More employers have shifted their focus to ethical leadership, inclusion, and equity in the workplace. This shows many applicants which companies they may feel safer and more comfortable working for as they devote attention to employee needs. Throughout the pandemic, the gig economy boomed, so more companies are now hiring for project-based work, too.

Paying attention to these recruitment strategy trends and how they evolve will keep you ahead of competitors so that more people see your jobs and apply. Using recruiting software like Zoho Recruit is vital to keeping up with these trends, and it’s part of the supportive technology more companies are adopting.

Zoho Recruit helps you sort applications, automate hiring tasks, and directs you to the best candidates who then become star employees. While some people view technology as detrimental to the workforce, platforms like Zoho Recruit make a difference in hiring the right talent where it’s needed and take the guesswork out of the hiring equation.

How to Know if Your Recruitment Strategies Are Successful

If your recruitment strategies succeed, you’ll see it in your hiring efficiency, candidate quality, and even employee retention. Your hiring team will spend less time screening and filtering resumes, in part thanks to software like Zoho Recruit that does it for you. This software is one of the easiest changes you can make to improve your recruitment strategy, and it will help beyond the hiring process.

With a more tailored recruitment strategy, you’ll see more qualified candidates who suit the role and your company or organization culture come through. The hiring process will feel less like a drag and more like you’re making real progress on your search based on your candidates and interviews.

Hiring candidates best suited to the position increases the likelihood of the employees you hire staying with your company. As a result, you have to hire for fewer positions and less often, as employees feel they fit their roles and your company meets their expectations.

It saves your business money when you spend less of it on recruitment, and you free up more time for your employees to work on more important tasks. You pay less to keep your job on job boards and have fewer expenses related to hiring new employees when the same ones stick around for years.

Final Thoughts about Recruitment Strategies

Recruitment strategies take your hiring process to the next level by showing your job postings to the right candidates and making it easier to seek out high-quality applicants. They bring in more qualified employees, make the hiring process more efficient, and boost employee retention when your strategies target the right people. Plus, with some simple changes, including using recruiting software like Zoho Recruit, you can transform your hiring process immediately.

Implementing a recruiting strategy means researching current recruiting trends, doing recruitment marketing, and sometimes hiring a contract recruiter, especially if you don’t have in-house staff dedicated to these tasks. A recruitment strategy will save your business time and money while allowing your staff to focus on other tasks. It works to make your hiring process and your business more cohesive while putting you ahead of your competition.

Interviewing for a job is almost always stressful for job candidates. Knowing what to expect throughout the job interview process can help you feel more prepared for whatever comes your way. This guide will lead you through the typical job interview process and offer tips for navigating the journey with confidence.

How the Job Interview Process Works

Every company has a unique job interview process, but most interview workflows pull from the same framework. Let’s break down what that framework looks like. 

Step 1: Job Postings

Much of the time, companies post open positions on their website and sites like LinkedIn, Indeed, and CareerBuilder. The job postings link to an application and give a date by which applications are due.

Some companies might send applications straight to people in their talent pool—a database of people who’ve expressed interest in the company before, been referred to the company, or previously applied and nearly got the gig.

Step 2: Applications 

Job applications are an important starting point for a job search. For candidates, they offer a level playing field to kick off the job interview process. For recruiters and hiring managers, applications weed out unqualified candidates and help organize the job search effort.

Hiring managers can use the applications to create candidate profiles using their applicant tracking system (ATS), comparing candidates to see who might best fit the job. 

Depending on the type of position, the company may ask candidates to submit a resume or cover letter to supplement an application. 

Step 3: Phone Screen

After taking the time to study each application, hiring managers can single out the candidates they feel could be a good fit for the company. The hiring team may then reach out to the applicants to set up a phone screen. This type of early interview lasts just 10 to 30 minutes, and as a candidate, the goal is to get asked back for the next round of interviews. 

For hiring managers, the objective of a phone screen is to confirm that the applicant does indeed qualify for the job. Not all employers choose to conduct phone screens, however—some jump right into the first round of interviews.

Step 4: First Interview 

Applicants who pass the phone screen—or who stand out as ideal candidates in the eyes of hiring managers who don’t conduct phone screens—move on to the first round of interviews. A first interview gives hiring managers and candidates the opportunity to get to know each other better. 

This interview is usually conducted in person or via videoconferencing software. It all depends on the employer’s preference and the company structure. 

A fully remote company may solely conduct video interviews, for example, while a hybrid organization may choose virtual or in-person interviews depending on where a candidate lives. 

First interviews often last between 45 minutes to one hour. 

The hiring manager will ask in-depth questions about the candidate’s work history, job expectations, unique skills, and availability. Candidates who do well may move on to the next step.

Step 5: Competency Interview

While not every employer requires candidates to participate in a competency interview, many do. So what is a competency interview? In simple terms, a competency test measures your skills in real-time. If an employer is hiring a new developer, for example, they can use a Codility competency test to get tangible evidence of a candidate’s coding skills. 

Writers or graphic designers may be asked to complete a test project before being considered for a second interview. Hospitality workers might need to prove their emotional and behavioral aptitude with an HR Avatar test. 

Step 6: Second and Third Interviews

Second interviews often allow candidates to speak with higher-ups and other team members for the first time. It’s common for anyone who takes part in the hiring decision to appear in a second or third interview—managers, staff members, and company executives, for example. 

These interviews help candidates get to know the people they might be working with soon. They also help the team make tough decisions. The reality is that if you’re called back for a second or third interview, the company definitely likes you—but it also really likes at least one other candidate. These late-stage interviews help the company decide who to cut and who to keep. 

Non-remote positions may also invite a top candidate to a social gathering where the candidate can interact with potential future colleagues in a more relaxed setting. This is an opportunity for you, the candidate, to get a feel for the company’s culture. It’s also a way for the company to see how well you fit within its ecosystem. 

Step 7: Final Interview and Background Check 

Once everyone on the employer’s side of things is almost certain they want to hire you, the hiring manager may conduct a final, short interview. Now is the time to take care of any questions you thought of throughout the job interview process but didn’t get a chance to ask. 

It’s also a final chance for the hiring manager to ask you any questions that pop up on their end. Some companies skip this step and go straight to the background check. 

Most employers require at least one type of background check. Depending on the industry you’re entering, the employer may order a criminal check, driving history check, SSN verification, drug screening, or credit check. Sometimes, employers run these checks after a job offer, not before. 

Step 8: Job Offer 

When the hiring team is satisfied that you’re the best person for the job, you’ll get a job offer. You should get a full breakdown of the compensation, benefits, sick leave, and vacation time. If you’ve been interviewing with multiple organizations and received more than one offer, you may want to try negotiating to get the best salary and benefits package possible.

But be careful to consider more than just your potential salary. 

Which company seems like the best fit for you? Which team has the most welcoming and collaborative culture? How do the benefits of one offer compare to those in your other offers? Is the compensation fair according to what other people with similar credentials make for the same position? Are there opportunities for growth within the company? 

If you feel good about joining the team, you’ll accept the offer and sign your contract. Congratulations! After all your hard work, it’s time to celebrate—big time. And the hiring team will be doing a happy dance, too.

Tips for Acing the Job Interview Process 

One of the most important things to remember when you enter a job interview process is that it takes time. Entry-level positions can take around 25 days to fill. Mid- to senior-level roles can take 40 days or longer. 

So get comfortable with the idea that you’ll need a healthy dose of patience to get through the job interview process. There’s a lot that’s out of your control. You can’t know what questions the interviewer will ask you. You can’t know if you’ll advance from one interview to the next. You can’t know if you’ll get the job. 

But what you can do is prepare. 

If a recruiter reaches out to schedule a phone screen or first interview, it’s time to start researching the company if you haven’t already. In the days before your interview, we recommend that you: 

• Reach out to current employees on sites like LinkedIn to ask them what skills and traits a company values the most in its employees
• Explore the company’s About page and social media profiles to get a feel for who the key players are and what they’re interested in
• Find out what the company’s services or products are and what problems they solve for the people who buy them
• Read the organization’s mission statement to understand more about company values and culture
• Learn more about your interviewer—search for their name on LinkedIn and see if you have any common interests
• Write down the reasons why you would love to work at the company based on everything you’ve learned
• Identify what unique skill you’d bring to the team if hired

Next, you’ll want to study the most common interview questions and write down—or at least think carefully about—your answers to these questions. You can expect questions about your education, accomplishments you’re proud of from previous jobs, strengths and weaknesses, and reasons why you want to work at the company.

Most interviewers wrap up an interview by asking if you have any questions for them. This is a chance for you to prove your interest in the organization and learn if it’s a good fit for you. 

You can ask the recruiter questions about what a typical workday looks like, what types of projects you’d be working on, what challenges the position comes with, and what the employer would expect you to accomplish within the first 30 days at the position. 

Jot down some of the questions you want to ask and bring them along with you to the interview. 

The night before the interview—whether it’s your first or fourth—get a full night’s rest. Eat a nutritious breakfast. Grab copies of your resume for reference, along with a notepad and pen to take notes. Get ready for the day 15-20 minutes sooner than you normally would. Leave early for your interview if it’s in person. Give yourself leeway to get there 10-15 minutes before the scheduled time. 

Take a deep breath, remember all the strengths you bring to the table, and smile. You’ve got this. 

Avoid These Common Mistakes

Knowing what not to do in a job interview is almost as important as knowing what you should do. Here we dig into the 10 job interview process mistakes to help you avoid them before they ruin your chances of getting a new gig. 

1. Showing up late: If you’re late to an interview, you’re telling the recruiter or hiring manager that their time isn’t worth much to you. Take every possible precaution—such as leaving early or mapping out the bus route ahead of time—to make sure you arrive on time. 
2. Looking unprofessional: Always show up in your most professional attire, even if you’re on Zoom. Not only does this help you look career-ready, but it also helps you feel poised and confident. 
3. Checking your phone: Under no circumstances should you look at your smartphone during an interview. Make sure it’s set to silent, and put it at the bottom of your bag. Bring a good old-fashioned notepad and a pen if you want to take notes. 
4. Zoning out: Interviewers can tell when you’re not paying attention during the job interview process. Instead of letting your mind wander, focus on actively listening to everything the recruiter is saying to you. Use body language, like eye contact and nodding, to show that you’re engaged. 
5. Forgetting key facts: If you haven’t dusted off your resume for a while, now’s a good time to reacquaint yourself with important roles and dates. Bring a copy along for reference to help you keep your facts straight. 
6. Giving long-winded answers: Keep your answers short and sweet. Avoid going off on tangents. Answer the questions and give the interviewer a chance to respond to what you’ve said. 
7. Bashing former employers: Whatever you do, don’t put other companies down during a job interview. It doesn’t make you look any better. And you never know—the interviewer could be your previous boss’s best friend from college. 
8. Talking only about yourself: Yes, it’s true that the interviewer wants to get to know you. But they also want to find out how hiring you would benefit their company. Instead of focusing solely on your past achievements, show the interviewer how your skills match the company’s needs. 
9. Failing to ask questions: When the interviewer asks if you have questions for them, be prepared to ask. This shows that you’re genuinely interested in the company and want to learn more about what it’s like to work there. 
10. Forgetting to follow up: After the interview, send a short thank-you email or note to the interviewer. Reflect on something that makes you excited about potentially working at the company and thank the interviewer for their time. No matter the outcome of your job interview process, this email strengthens your connections within the industry. 

End Results of a Job Interview Process

Going through a job interview process without landing the job at the end can feel crushing. If you receive the bad news that you’ve been dropped as a candidate, step away from your computer. Take a deep breath. Give yourself time to process the emotions you’re feeling. 

When you feel calm, send an email thanking the company for their time. Let the interviewer know that you’d still like to be considered for any future openings, even if this one wasn’t a good fit. This may encourage the hiring team to add you to their talent pool. 

Ask the recruiter if they have any feedback they’d like to give, but don’t be surprised if they simply don’t have the time or energy. Instead, give yourself some honest feedback. Think about the job interview process you just went through, identifying the things you did well and the things you could improve. 

Then, get back out there because the perfect job is waiting. 

If you do get hired, make sure you give yourself a moment to soak in the good news. Go out with friends or open a bottle of champagne. Think back to the things you appreciated about your interviewing team and write them down. 

Who knows? You might just be part of the interviewing team for your new company in a few years. By looking back at the positive experience you had, you can apply the same techniques to your own interviewing process in the future. 

Final Thoughts About the Job Interview Process

Each company has a unique job interview process, but you can feel prepared for whatever comes your way by knowing the general job interview process framework. Just remember that the process takes patience and that you and the employer are working toward a common goal—finding out whether you and the job are a good match.

Try to keep yourself busy with hobbies or your current job while you’re waiting to hear back between interviews. If you can’t stop thinking about your interview process, focus your energy on preparation. Our five simple steps for preparing for a job interview can help. 

Performance management is a term usually used to refer to the process of making sure that employees, activities, and/or outputs in an organization meet their goals. 

It involves things like evaluating employee performance and targets, as well as supporting employee growth and improving employee experience. Good performance management should focus on both company goals and employee satisfaction and should be managed in a positive way, rather than by overworking teams or setting unreasonable goals. 

When done right, performance management can improve productivity, create a strong culture of happiness and trust in a company, and help businesses understand where they need to improve if they want to meet their goals. 

Why is Performance Management Important? 

Good performance management enables employees to perform better because they are being supported, they have good training and instruction, and they are in an environment that encourages growth and new ideas. 

At the same time, it also makes it easier for a business as a whole to meet its goals. When employee performance is good and individual strengths are obvious, it’s easier for managers to put people into roles and teams where they can thrive, which leads to targets being met faster and better overall productivity. 

Without performance management, companies risk employee dissatisfaction, which in turn leads to losing employees, revenue, and profit. Without documented performance management, analyzing and growing from past mistakes is also difficult.  

Best Strategies for Performance Management 

There are a few tried and tested strategies for effective performance management that are helpful to both employees and management teams. Here are some of the top proven strategies for companies to help support employees and meet their goals: 

Holding Frequent Performance Meetings 

Having frequent meetings between managers and employees is important for setting and meeting goals, but also for catching any problems before they get worse or for giving praise when it’s due. 

Having consistent meetings, especially one-to-one meetings, means that employers can give feedback, share strategies, and learn more about what their employees are hoping for in terms of growth and career trajectory. It’s also a chance for employees to ask questions, share ideas and get help when they need it. 

Encouraging Collaboration

Although, ultimately, company goals need to be set by CEOs and managers, setting goals within a team and asking for input or feedback helps build a culture where employees feel valued. This leads to better engagement and performance because employees understand the strategies for long-term goals and feel more invested in the business and its growth. 

Having regular meetings where employees can share opinions about goals or struggles with completing projects also gives managers a better idea of which employees show leadership potential and how they can better support their team to meet goals and grow. 

Having a Recognition Scheme 

Having an employee recognition scheme is a great way to boost performance and minimize employee dissatisfaction at work. Celebrating employees for good work sets an example to the rest of the team as to what is needed to hit company goals. It also makes employees feel more confident about their ideas and their opportunities for growth within the company. 

Making Sure Goals Are Clear and Achievable

Another proven strategy for performance management is setting clear, achievable goals with employees. These goals can be both individual goals and team goals, and they need to be clearly communicated with everyone, whether at a team meeting or in a one-on-one. They also should be goals that are measurable, so employees can actually know whether they’ve achieved them or not. 

Forming Individual Training Plans 

A good performance management strategy is to have training plans for each individual that are updated with every performance review and in one-to-one meetings. These allow employees to feel supported by the company, but they also reduce how many mistakes employees make when joining the company or learning new skills, which boosts productivity. 

Training plans can also include career development and things like classes, courses, or mentorship programs that help employees develop their skills and improve their status with the company. 

Asking For Employee Feedback 

Another effective strategy for performance management is for managers to ask for evaluations and feedback from employees. 

Without this, managers might be making mistakes or unknowingly making employees feel unsupported or overwhelmed. Having feedback sessions where employees can tell managers where they can improve or give feedback on the company as a whole helps to maintain a healthy culture, which makes employees feel valued, leading to better overall performance. 

The Biggest Mistakes When It Comes To Performance Management 

There are lots of common mistakes that companies make that can cost them time and money and even lead to them losing their team. Here are some of the most common mistakes businesses make when it comes to performance management: 

Not Setting Clear Goals 

Whether that’s not involving teams in decision-making processes or not accurately explaining company goals to employees, not having everyone on the same page will lead to bad performance and a loss of productivity. 

When companies don’t have clearly defined goals and targets that are shared with everyone in a business, it’s impossible to get everyone synchronized or effectively working towards the same goals. It can also lead to lots of unnecessary friction and misunderstandings and to employees struggling to get work done. 

Never Being Critical 

Obviously, positive feedback is important and one of the best ways to improve or motivate a team. However, some managers can fear giving criticism or negative feedback to the point that they let mistakes be made without saying anything. 

There are healthy ways to give criticism, and it’s important for employees and teams to know where their weaknesses are and where they can change. Performance management should always be about finding a balance between celebrating great performance and also helping employees to improve and do better by showing them where there’s room for growth or change. 

Not Being Intentional with Meetings  

Performance Management is there for a reason. It’s there to assess how well employees, teams, and a company as a whole are performing. 

Having tons of feedback sessions or meetings for the sake of looking like you are doing something doesn’t help unless they help you meet goals. Every meeting should have a clear objective, and employees should always leave a review knowing what they need to do next. 

Not Having Enough Documentation 

A big mistake a lot of people make with performance management is not having any sort of clear documentation in place. They have meetings but no notes, or they set goals but don’t track them. 

This makes it hard for both managers and employees to see where improvement is happening and where things need to change. It also makes it harder when it comes to training if there’s no clear documentation as to what strengths each employee has or what goals were missed in the last quarter. 

The Best Tools for Performance Management 

Because performance management is an ongoing process, it makes sense to use tools to help with automation. 

There are plenty of great tools that can help managers manage their teams and company goals, including tools for feedback, team meetings, goal setting, and training. Here are our top picks for the best tools to make performance management easier: 

Inspire is a tool that lets teams give ongoing feedback, do surveys, set goals and track them, and even gives managers performance review templates. It has all of the tools a manager would need for successful performance management, all in one place. 

We also love that it has some pretty sophisticated analytics tools to help teams see actionable data and track goals in a way that can be measured and learned from in the future. Pricing is done on a custom basis, and you can schedule a free demo here. 

Mirro is a tool designed for feedback and team recognition, with a focus on helping people understand strengths and weaknesses and creating an open company culture. Managers and employees can give each other feedback or request it, as well as give recognition to each other when they see something done well. 

One of our favorite things about Mirro is that there are features that let you chart employees and teams based on their strengths and diversity, making it easier for managers to put strong teams together for different projects. Plans start at just $5/ month.

Leapsome is a tool that lets you manage employees and give detailed feedback and evaluations with scores that highlight different strengths. This makes it really easy to visually assess who works best in each role and makes it easy for employees to understand where they have room to improve. 

Leapsome also has training features that let managers create customized learning plans for teams, which give employees something to refer back to as they’re learning and help them feel supported from their very first day. Leapsome plans start at $8, and you can request a custom plan here.

Final Thoughts About Performance Management Best Practices

Performance management is key to having a successful team and a successful business. It isn’t just about making employees feel valued and supporting them. It’s also about making sure the processes and systems are running smoothly and that company-wide goals are being met. 

Good performance management means that the right people are in the right roles and people are clear on the goals they are working toward. Ultimately, good performance management comes down to having good managers and regular feedback, but good software and tools can help improve overall performance.

Things can get messy when a position opens up within your company, and no one is there to fill it quickly. Building and maintaining a talent pool can help you find the right person for the job without spending too much time and money. Instead of starting from scratch each time a job becomes vacant, you’ll have a list of qualified candidates waiting in the wings. 

What is a Talent Pool?

A talent pool is a carefully managed database of people who possess the skills required to fill potential positions at a company. If you’re a hiring manager or recruiter, talent pools are essential to your recruiting strategy toolkit.

The Society for Human Resource Management estimates that each new hire costs around $4,700—sometimes much more. The hiring process can take weeks, especially for smaller businesses with fewer resources. If you don’t move fast enough on the candidates you love, other companies might hire them first. 

A talent pool helps minimize the costs and resources associated with looking for and hiring new talent. 

By taking the time to curate a talent pool, you’ll be able to enjoy a streamlined hiring process whenever a position becomes vacant. While company policy may require you to post every job opening publicly, you can focus your energy on scanning your talent pool for ideal candidates instead of wading through hundreds of applications. 

Of course, the candidates on your list have to want to be considered. That’s why a critical part of creating a talent pool is maintaining relationships with the people on your list. You’ll also need to make sure your talent pool is more than just a list of names. 

It should include contact information, qualifications, skills, and potential roles each person could fill. If it sounds exhausting to keep track of all of this information, don’t worry—talent management software can help. A lot. 

How to Find the Right Software for Your Talent Pool

At the most basic level, talent pool management software should help you keep all the names in your database organized and easy to find. But you can also benefit from features like segmenting and personalized communications with each candidate.

Let’s say you’re the HR manager for a hospital, for example. With segmenting, you could keep potential nurses in one group and physicians in another. To make things even easier for you later on, you could take segmenting a step further and sort the physicians according to their board certification.

Remember when we said that it’s essential to communicate regularly with everyone in your talent pool? The best software services allow you to send personalized communications to each person in your database.

Start your search for the ideal software by finding out if the human resource management service you already use lets you create a separate talent pool database. If it doesn’t—or if you want something more dedicated to managing your talent pipeline—it’s time to take a look at alternate options. 

BambooHR is one of our favorite human resource management software products thanks to its up-to-the-minute applicant tracking system (ATS) tool. With BambooHR’s ATS, you can create easily navigable candidate profiles—and message other team members from right within each profile. 

But what makes BambooHR stand out is its talent pool feature. Using the abovementioned candidate profiles, you can create multiple talent pools to keep track of potentially perfect candidates. 

BambooHR also makes it easy to search for candidates using keywords—such as job titles or skills—along with names, email addresses, phone numbers, and locations. 

JazzHR is another excellent option. With JazzHR’s ATS, you can create user-friendly candidate profiles, organize candidates into groups, and send text messages—including bulk texts—to candidates from within JazzHR’s dashboard. 

Take advantage of free trials and other promotional periods to find the ATS and talent pool management software that fits your needs. 

Talent Pool Planning Tips

After you’ve chosen an ATS software service with talent-pooling capabilities, you’ll be ready for the planning phase. We recommend taking a look at your organization and identifying what needs it may have within the next five years. 

Consider questions like: 

• What skill gaps do I see within the company?
• What positions may need to be filled in the next year?
• What strengths, knowledge, and competencies are needed for the company’s success?
• What is the company culture?

Use employee interviews, surveys, assessments, and performance reviews to figure out the answers to these questions. Once you understand more about your institution’s culture and future needs, list out potential job openings and requirements. 

Next, create candidate personas for each position. What education and experience would an ideal candidate have? How much would they make per month? What would they look for in a potential workplace? 

Tap into your creativity and use a tool like GroveHR’s free, downloadable candidate persona template to help you create personas. 

When you’ve identified future roles and candidate personas, you’re ready to start building your talent pool. 

Best Practices for Building a Talent Pool

The world around you is rich in people who fit your candidate personas. You just need to put in a little bit of work to find them. Many organizations find talent pool candidates in: 

• Past applicants who didn’t make the cut
• Former employees
• People who have expressed interest in the company—at career fairs, for example
• Referrals
• Passive candidates
• Current employees with the potential to fill bigger roles

Let’s explore how you can discover leads for your talent database. 

Past Applicants 

If you’ve been in the HR space for even a small amount of time—or have helped hire a candidate for at least one position—you already have candidates to consider for your talent pool. Take a look at the applicant information you have on file, paying special attention to people who made it to a second interview, were nearly chosen for the position or stood out to you in some way.

Do they fit any of the potential roles or candidate personas you outlined as you prepared to build a talent pool? If so, reach out to these candidates. 

Ask if they would like to be considered for any future openings at the company—and if you can add them to an email list where you’ll share company news and other communications that might interest them. If they agree, add them to your talent pool database. 

Former Employees 

People leave one company for another all the time. Maybe a competitor offers them a higher salary, more vacation time, or work that aligns better with their skills and interests. Whatever the reason, losing a valued team member is a deeply felt loss. 

But just because someone leaves your company doesn’t mean they’ll never come back. Make it a habit to offer exit interviews when employees leave. Give them a chance to explain why they’re leaving, identify what your organization could do better, and what types of changes might encourage them to return one day.

And finally, ask these employees if they’d like to remain in touch with the company and receive newsletters or other communications. Look for ways that they could fill some of the future roles you’ve outlined. Add them to your list and consider them every time a position opens up. 

People Who Have Expressed Interest in Your Company 

It’s time to dig around in your files and locate the piles of resumes and business cards you’ve picked up at recent networking events—think job fairs, career fairs, and conferences. If you haven’t been saving any of it, start now. 

Research relevant conferences, conventions, expos, or fairs happening near you and apply to host a booth. Bring a clipboard with a sign-up sheet for your mailing list. Encourage people who visit your booth to sign up if they’d like to stay in the know about job openings and other company news. Strike up conversations. Collect business cards and resumes if you’re at a job fair. 

When you get back to the office, put your new list of emails to work. Add the contact information to your talent pool database and fill in additional candidate information using business cards and resumes. 

Referrals 

One of the most effective ways to add candidates to your database is with an employee referral program. A referral program taps into your existing employees’ networks—which are often extensive, particularly if the employee has been in the workforce for a while. 

The basics of creating a referral program are as follows: 

• Share job requirements for a variety of positions with employees—and make sure to let them know what you’re not looking for in a referral.
• When an employee refers a candidate, add the candidate to your talent pool and keep your employee updated on whether or not they progress to the interview stage and beyond.
• Offer incentives for the referral of qualified candidates—such as those who make it into your talent pool database—and higher incentives for referrals that turn into new hires.

Use a mixture of monetary and non-monetary rewards for referrals. You might offer sports event tickets for a referral that makes it onto your talent pool database, for example, and a cash bonus for referrals that become hires. 

Learn more in our guide to creating an employee referral program.

Passive Candidates

Not to be confused with passive employees, passive candidates are skilled workers who aren’t looking for a new gig—yet. They’re people whose work you admire. People you wish would come work with your company. 

Some passive candidates can come from your employee referral program. For example, an employee might give you the contact information of a person who loves their current job but just might consider leaving under the right circumstances. 

Other passive candidates can come from networking sites like LinkedIn—or even social media sites. When you encounter a person you’d like to add to your talent pool, reach out to them. Let them know you’re a fan of what they do. Ask if they’d be willing to be considered for future roles at your company.

When you get a yes, add the candidate to your talent pipeline—and your email list if they agree.

Current Employees

When promotion season comes, all sorts of roles may be vacated within your company. Get ready in advance by adding current employees to a talent group created specifically for filling mid-level and senior-level positions that open up during promotion season. 

If you’re both the human resources manager and owner at your company, you can pinpoint who you think could fill the roles best. But if you work in HR and don’t have an official say in who gets promoted to which positions, work with the managers to identify ideal candidates. 

Identifying potential promotion candidates early on can help you work with your organization to nurture the skills you see the company needing soon. 

What to Watch Out for With Talent Pools

You must stay in touch with the people in your talent pool. Send a quarterly newsletter with company updates, for example. As jobs become available, send postings to the people on your list who you believe fit the job requirements. 

You don’t want candidates to forget about your company entirely if you want them to consider joining your team at some point. 

Another pitfall that we see is people who forget to update and add to their talent pool. Every year, re-evaluate your answers to the four questions we mentioned earlier: 

• What skill gaps do I see within the company?
• What positions may need to be filled in the next year?
• What strengths, knowledge, and competencies are needed for the company’s success?
• What is the company culture?

Update your candidate personas according to the results of your reevaluation, then source candidates who might fit these new personas and add them to your list. As your database grows, utilize keywords, tags, and groups to keep things organized and easily searchable. 

Think of your talent pool as a living database that needs routine tending. As long as your talent pool is up to date, you’ll have a trove of candidates at your fingertips every time you need to fill a job posting. 

Final Thoughts About Talent Pools

With the right planning, software, and upkeep, talent pools can help you fill roles at your company without spending excessive resources getting there. All it takes is a little bit of elbow grease to find the right people.  

So build those candidate personas, look for potential talent in a variety of places, organize your groups as much as possible, and keep your pool informed about exciting news and job postings. Along the way, you’ll get the benefit of being connected with an amazing group of people within your company’s industry. 

Who knows? Maybe they’ll also add you to their talent pool, planting the seeds for collaboration down the road. 

Diversity is becoming a central conversation in the workplace, so employee resource groups are increasingly important. These groups create a safe space for employees from different genders, races, ages, and cultures to come together and raise awareness about their experiences. They also give people an opportunity to share any issues they are facing, both in the workplace and in their communities. 

Employee support groups make workplaces more inclusive and show that companies value diversity and want to support employees as best they can. Setting up a successful group does not need to be hard, and following the right steps can help increase employee engagement and make teams feel safer and happier at work. 

Start an Employee Resource Group in 8 Easy Steps

Starting an employee resource group requires strong organizational skills, but it’s easy enough when you follow the right strategies. Here are the steps we’ll be breaking down in this tutorial: 

1. Find Potential Members
2. Talk to Your Workplace Executives
3. Set Up The Foundations
4. Recruit More Members
5. Plan Your First Meeting
6. Run Your First Meeting
7. Improve Your Meetings
8. Revisit Your Goals

Once we’re finished, you should have a good idea of how to start and run a successful employee resource group. Let’s dive into the guide and get started with the first step. 

Step 1: Find Potential Members

The first thing you’ll want to do is find out whether there’s any interest in creating a resource group at your workplace. 

You’ll need enough members to create a diverse group, and you’ll need to find members who see the value and are willing to invest their free time into the group. 

The easiest way to gauge employee interest is to send around a quick email or survey suggesting the idea and asking your team for feedback. You should send the survey or email to as many people and departments as possible to boost your chances of getting a diverse group of people to join. 

This will also help you identify if anyone has ever been in or organized a resource group before. Once you get some answers, you’ll be able to determine whether it makes sense to move forward.  

Step 2: Talk to Your Workplace Executives 

Once you’ve determined whether there is interest in your group, it’s time to bring the idea to your managers or executive leaders. 

You’ll need to get their permission to set up an employee resource group, so you’ll need to communicate why the company needs one and what you hope to achieve by starting one. The more prepared you are for this meeting, the better. 

Try and plan a rough budget before going in, and have a timeline for when you expect to start running meetings. You want to communicate the benefits of having a group and explain how it can actually increase profits by lowering employee turnover and boosting morale and engagement. 

You should also try to get an executive sponsor for your group. This will be an executive that will help you secure buy-in with leadership and give you mentorship and support when it comes to creating and implementing the group. 

As long as you effectively communicate the importance and value of the group, you shouldn’t have an issue with getting it approved. Once you do, you can move on to the next step. 

Step 3: Set Up The Foundations 

The next step involves getting clear on why the group exists and what you hope to achieve. 

This includes things like setting goals and targets and creating mission statements. This helps the group stay on track, share common goals, and stay accountable. Here are some things that you should discuss with the founding members of the group before you have your first meeting: 

Create a Mission Statement

Work together to decide why you want to create the group and what you want to stand for. This will help you communicate the purpose of your group to new members and stay focused on your targets as time goes on. 

Set Targets 

Targets don’t have to be numerical. Your targets could be to get new members or to improve diversity amongst new hires. They could even be to discuss a certain number of topics per meeting or just to improve overall cultural awareness in the company. 

Having targets will help give the group structure and steer meetings in a direction that feels helpful and relevant. Having achievable targets will also give your group a sense of achievement alongside the sense of purpose the mission statement creates. 

Step 4: Recruit More Members 

Once you’ve got the basics for your group organized, you’re ready to invite more members. 

You should send out an email or notification to your whole company notifying them about the group and inviting people to join. You can also host a small event or Q&A at work during lunch, inviting people to ask questions about the group and join if they’re interested. 

The goals for recruiting new people should be both to give people a chance to join and to create a more diverse group. You don’t want to create a group that only has people of the same age, race, gender, or cultural background. This will defeat the purpose of having an employee resource group, so try and invite as many different people as possible. 

You can also add a newsletter to the bulletin board at work to source new members or even hold a “try before you buy” meeting that lets people decide whether the group feels right to them or not before they commit to joining. 

There isn’t anything wrong with a small group, but because employee resource groups highlight diversity and encourage inclusivity, you want to extend the invitation to as many people as possible from the start. 

Once you’ve notified everyone about the group, you’re ready to move on to the next step. 

Step 5: Plan Your First Meeting

Before running your first meeting, you must plan the logistics. 

This includes deciding on a time and venue for your meeting, how much the meeting will cost, and whether you need to bring resources like food, drinks, or stationery. 

You can also set an outline for topics you want to discuss if you are worried about going off track, or you can just let the discussion flow freeform. These are all conversations that should be discussed amongst the founding members, so everyone can share their ideas and the meetings are accommodating to everyone’s schedules and lifestyles. 

This is also a good time to decide who will take notes in the meetings to record discussions and track goals. Even if you don’t write down everything, you should have some way to document important decisions or targets set in meetings, so the group can stay accountable and track their progress over time. 

Once you’ve chosen a time and place, you can officially invite all members and book out any space you need to run your meetings. Then, move on to the next step. 

Step 6: Run Your First Meeting  

Once all the preparation is finished, you’re ready to launch your group and have your first meeting. 

The goal of your first meeting should be to share your mission statement and introduce the group to each other. You also want to share your goals and hopes for the groups and set targets for the meeting moving forward.

This meeting is also an opportunity for you to assess what is working and what can be improved upon. If you have a meeting layout that makes it difficult for everyone to be seen or heard, you might need to change that. 

If you are talking over each other, you might need a system for speaking. If you run out of topics quickly, you might decide that you need a list of topic suggestions as prompts. 

Use this meeting as a beta test to see what you can improve upon and what you hope to achieve. Make notes and share them with the group, asking for feedback. Then implement those changes in the next meetings, and keep working on making the meetings more inclusive and productive. 

Step 7: Improve Your Meetings 

Once you’ve gotten into the swing of having regular successful meetings, you’re ready to start improving your group and trying new ways to diversify and grow. 

This can include things like inviting speakers into the group or hosting events. You can even organize networking to give different members of the group access to new connections with potential mentors that understand their experiences and can give them relevant advice and support. 

Collaborating with other groups is a great way to also network and create relationships and mentorships between different companies and group members. Collaborating with other groups is especially important if your group doesn’t have enough diversity, to avoid group members feeling isolated or unsupported. 

Consider also setting up a social media group to help members stay connected and to also grow and collaborate with other branches of your company or other businesses. This can help bring more diversity into the workplace and help the group expand its reach by connecting with new voices across the country. 

Try to find fun and meaningful ways you can take the group beyond just meeting, whether that’s introducing each other to important aspects of your individual cultures or doing activities together that enrich cultural learning and boost diversity. 

Step 8: Revisit Your Goals 

Every six months or so, you want to check in on your targets and see if you are making progress. 

This can sometimes be difficult to measure, but it’s important for the group to feel like they are making a difference and that the group is serving a purpose. Go back over the goals and targets you set in your first meeting and have a discussion with the members as to whether or not you feel you’re meeting them. 

If not, why? How can you improve over the next six months? And if you have met your goals, who deserves recognition for their hard work? 

Don’t forget to celebrate any wins or recognize any group members who’ve worked hard to meet those targets. And, if you have achieved your targets, set new ones for the next six-month period to make sure that the group remains purposeful. 

Final Thoughts About Starting an Employee Resource Group 

An employee resource group isn’t just a way to make employees feel supported and to boost diversity in the workplace. It’s also an opportunity to learn from different team members and create a better company by celebrating strengths that would otherwise be overlooked. 

Building a strong culture of acceptance leads to better retention, better productivity, and better performance from teams. By starting an employee resource group, you give employees a space to share ideas and break down biases, leading to a better culture and more longevity for the company in the long run. 

Deciding between ASO vs. PEO is one of the many decisions you need to make when you’re looking to outsource your HR functions. Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages, making one more suitable than the other for certain situations.

An administrative services organization (ASO) doesn’t sponsor your benefits plans or remit your taxes under its EIN but helps streamline your daily HR tasks. On the other hand, a professional employer organization (PEO) offers third-party HR services, including payroll administration, workers’ compensation, and benefits.

But which outsourcing arrangement would make the most sense for your company? Let’s find out.

1. Employment and Payroll

A key difference between an ASO and a PEO is who your employees work for. 

The ASO is a third party in the traditional sense and only assists in an advisory capacity, meaning your employees remain yours. Note that they will take care of your payroll functions under your company’s EIN.

Additionally, the ASO takes over the responsibility of administering employee relations compliance, so you don’t have to hire another employee to perform this task and help develop (not enforce) employee handbooks and policies.

A PEO, on the other hand, acts like a co-employer, where all employees belong to them. They take care of all your payroll functions while paying federal payroll taxes under their own federal EIN.

This has two immediate benefits for you:

• Since they deal with millions of employees, a PEO has greater purchasing and negotiation power compared to you as a small business owner. This can be handy when negotiating health insurance and other compensatory elements.
• You don’t have any employees on your books, so the PEO takes care of tricky tasks such as firing employees. (Don’t worry, you still make the decision of who gets fired, but the PEO does the actual firing.) 

2. Choosing Insurance Vendors

In an ASO partnership, you have to select and manage the vendors you want to work with, but a PEO doesn’t require choosing your own partners.

Choosing a PEO would be beneficial for you if you aren’t well acquainted with insurance jargon and lack experience dealing with insurance vendors. But if you’ve dealt with insurance vendors before, an ASO partnership won’t be a frustrating experience for you.

3. Health Insurance

An ASO takes full responsibility for administering health insurance for your employees, including finding the right kind of insurance and negotiating rates and coverage as per your budget.

On the other hand, a PEO can present extremely affordable health and dental insurance plans, along with other benefits like 401(k) and life insurance, but the number of plans to choose from is fairly limited.

4. Workers’ Compensation

An ASO helps you find the right kind of coverage and negotiate a policy, as well as manage the administration of that policy and handle any claims on your behalf, but covering the workers’ compensation is your responsibility. You can also rely on them to suggest effective strategies to mitigate risk should your employees be prone to physical injury.

A PEO is fully responsible for offering workers’ compensation insurance.

As a small-sized or medium-sized business owner, you may end up paying premium rates usually reserved for larger employees. Luckily, a PEO can mitigate this risk by doing assessments on your behalf for employees that may be at risk for injury.

5. Pricing

An ASO views you as a small employer, so you can’t expect it to offer volume pricing for purchasing benefits like life insurance. This is in sharp contrast to being in a PEO agreement, where you’re viewed as part of a larger group, and your insurance partner’s benefits are chosen on your behalf. In other words, a PEO provides you access to its own clients and procures benefits based on the larger group, giving you the advantage of volume pricing.

Note that the total cost of a PEO depends on its pricing model. While some charge a percentage of your payroll each day, plus administrative fees, others will charge you based on how much it’s spending to clear your business’s taxes and insurance premiums. You’ll also find PEOs charging a monthly flat fee per employee.

That said, an ASO is still often less expensive than a PEO. To put things into perspective, an ASO is likely to charge you $50 to $100 per employee per month, whereas a PEO may charge $150 to $200 per employee per month. 

6. State Unemployment Insurance

Under an ASO partnership, the unemployment insurance rate is based on the number of claims generated by your business. If you have few claims, this will be a better deal for you.

But if you’re a larger organization dealing with significantly more claims, a PEO would make a better bet as they take full responsibility for handling unemployment insurance deductions and payments. What’s more, the risk of claims is also lower, thanks to their huge pool of employees.

The other benefit of partnering with a PEO is they provide a number of free job performance, improvement, and training resources to facilitate your employees’ professional development.

7. Claims, Safety, and Loss

You can rely on an ASO to find the right kind of coverage, but don’t expect access to a large pool to help spread the risk. In other words, you’ll bear all the responsibility and liability for any insurance claims, safety, and loss. Of course, the ASO can help from an administrative standpoint, but that’s just about it.

On the other hand, a PEO shields you from the bulk of the responsibility and liability for insurance claims, safety, and loss, depending on your contract. Similar to how it works with workman’s compensation, they can help you identify areas to mitigate associated risks.

8. Compliance and Liability Mitigation

An ASO doesn’t take over your employees. Naturally, they also don’t shoulder any employer risk and only act as consultants.

As a co-employer, a PEO shares some amount of the liability expected from an employer. This also creates vested interest on their part, where it helps your company comply with applicable rules and regulations and mitigate any liability to ensure good outcomes in different employment situations.

The Similarities Between ASO and PEO

In addition to the above differences, an ASO and a PEO also share certain commonalities.

The first similarity is their administrative services. Both outsourcing companies have a similar approach to how they operate and help their clients when it comes to administration assistance. Expect cost-effective and balanced HR services to facilitate the seamless functioning of your business.

If you have limited staff in the HR department or want to free up their time to focus on more important projects, both PEOs and ASOs can help formulate your overall business plan, reducing the burden of administrative duties from your HR staff.

This expands to tax filing, payroll, employee benefits assistance, employee complaints and concerns, and other related compliance and HR management topics.

Both outsourcing companies also offer managerial services, so you can hire them as external regulators, providers, and managers for your company’s affairs. They are also well-versed in planning out the best practices and best strategies and technology depending on your needs.

Final Thoughts About ASO vs. PEO

An ASO and a PEO at two different services that seem similar. While they both cater to small and medium-sized businesses, they serve your company in very different ways.

If flexibility is of utmost importance to you, an ASO partnership that pairs well with internal HR employees and the administration of your own health insurance program would be a better fit. But if you want access to additional options for health insurance programs and voluntary employee benefit programs without breaking the bank, partnering up with a PEO makes more sense.

Each business has different goals and needs. Consider your company’s current state and projected state over the coming years and perform a deep analysis of its current situation to understand how an ASO or a PEO partnership would impact your operations and growth plans.

Here are additional Quicksprout guides to help you narrow down the best outsourcing option for your needs:

• Compare The Best PEO Service Providers
• Compare The Best HR Outsourcing Services

Employee monitoring is a tricky topic. From questions of ethics and legality to whether or not employee monitoring is beneficial, there’s a lot to unpack. If you’re considering implementing tools to track your employees’ productivity and safety at work, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you why you need an employee monitoring policy—and what to keep in mind as you create one.

What is Employee Monitoring?

Employee monitoring can look different from one company to another, and employers keep track of their employees for a variety of reasons. But there are three key goals that employers tend to look at when deciding whether to implement a monitoring plan. When done right, employee monitoring helps companies:

• Prevent unsafe or illegal situations
• Increase productivity
• Boost employee wellbeing

That said, there are downsides to employee monitoring. Employee surveillance and monitoring can cause employees to feel that their employers don’t trust them, create extra costs for employers, and put a company at legal risk. 

The most important action to take if you plan to use workplace monitoring is to create an employee monitoring policy. This document should disclose an employer’s intent to monitor employees, lay out when and where employees can expect privacy and where they cannot, and define how the company is adhering to all local, state, and federal labor laws.

Before you can create an employee monitoring policy, it’s important to understand what employee surveillance looks like.

Types of Employee Monitoring

Back before the digital revolution, employee monitoring was simple. Employers watched their employees in the workplace to assess performance, listened to customer complaints and praises, and kept track of labor using time cards. 

A lot has changed. 

Thanks to the evolution of electronics, monitoring employees is easier than ever before. Some would say it’s too easy and that excessive monitoring can have serious drawbacks for employers and employees alike. 

Let’s take a look at the most common forms of employee monitoring, along with their benefits and pitfalls. 

Video Surveillance

It’s difficult to find a store, restaurant, or even a house without at least a few security cameras installed. While cameras are less common in office spaces, they can help prevent crimes like theft and sexual assault—and provide evidence to help prosecute such crimes when they do occur.

But there are important rules employers must follow when using video cameras to record employee activity. 

First, you must have a legitimate reason why monitoring employees using a video camera matters to your business. Security, investigative processes, and time and motion studies are all legitimate business reasons.

If you’re considering using video cameras to monitor your employees for any work-related reason, there are several key points to consider. 

First, recording audio without employee consent may violate federal wiretapping laws. It’s okay to require that consent as a condition of accepting a job, but you still need to obtain it first. 

Second, cameras should be easily visible to employees. If they are hidden in any way, you must have a really good reason for this—and be prepared to back it up in court. And you should never record audio or video in a space where an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom, changing room, or locker room. 

Third, each state has different laws regarding video recording in the workplace. Make sure you understand and follow your state’s laws.

Monitoring Software for Computers

Whether it’s food service drivers who use GPS to navigate to customers’ homes or office workers creating reports on company-issued laptops, computers fortify today’s workforce. They can easily be surveilled using monitoring software.

Monitoring software provides employers with a way to make sure their employees are staying on the job during their paid work hours. A geofence can keep drivers from making unnecessary pitstops, for example. Social media blockers can help employees avoid the temptation of Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and other time sucks.

The best employee monitoring software encourages employees to work more productively without alienating them. 

Time Doctor is one of our favorite monitoring software services for this very reason. This product operates on the assumption that employees are well aware of the many distractions their laptops offer—and that many employees want help staying focused. 

Whether an employee is working from home or from inside the office, monitoring software like Time Doctor helps them stay on task. For example, if an employee can’t resist the temptation to check Facebook when they’re supposed to be working, Time Doctor will send an alert to help them get back to work.

Time Doctor and other monitoring software services tend to track things like team chats, time, web and app use, breaks, work email, and attendance. They can also enable employers or employees to take screenshots and screen recordings. 

Features like this can get tricky, as some studies show that remote employees resent these monitoring methods—and that they may even refuse job offers from companies that use them. 

Trust is key here. If you decide to use screen recordings or screenshots, express your reasons to employees and take the time to listen to any questions they have. Above all, make sure you’re following the privacy laws that apply to your company.

Sometimes, it’s in your company’s best interest to deploy silent software monitoring measures. Unfortunately, data theft is a real concern. If you regularly handle sensitive data, you don’t want that data getting stolen—whether by someone inside your company or someone on the outside. 

Monitoring software like InterGuard helps secure your data against internal cyber attacks and data theft while remaining compliant with data laws. 

Telephone Monitoring 

When employees work in a call center or regularly interact with clients using employer phones, telephone monitoring can help ensure the quality of a call. Some forms of call monitoring include recording calls, listening in on live calls, and jumping in to help agents when a call is headed south. 

Talkdesk is one of our favorite call monitoring services because it provides call barging and live monitoring, but it also allows supervisors to give feedback on specific points in the call. 

As with every other type of employee monitoring, call surveillance is best done under the direction of a clear and comprehensive employee monitoring policy.

Biometric Monitoring 

Biometric technology is booming in both personal and workplace-related use. We use facial recognition to unlock our iPhones and press our fingerprints into time clocks to track work hours. These biometric advances undoubtedly make life more streamlined, but they can have downsides. 

Employers appreciate that fingerprinted clock-ins help reduce time theft, for example, but employee advocates worry about what else the personal data—a person’s fingerprint—might be used for. 

In recent years, some employers have encouraged the use of biometric screenings and fitness watch-based health initiatives to improve employee health and wellness. But this data, critics argue, can also pave the way for discrimination if employers use the data to inform health insurance coverage decisions. 

If you decide to utilize a biometric tool of any kind—like UKG’s TouchFree ID for punching in or company Fitbits to encourage healthy practices—make sure you: 

• Present this information to your employees in written form
• Disclose what the data will be used for
• Obtain employee consent in writing

While few states currently have laws addressing biometric monitoring, regulations are gaining ground. Illinois, Texas, and Washington all have laws regulating the use of biometric information. Other states are poised to follow suit.

Stay out of any legal issues by following the steps above—and keeping the data private once you have it.

Steps to Creating an Employee Monitoring Policy

The first step toward creating an employee monitoring policy is to enlist the help of your company’s lawyer or an online legal service like LegalZoom. Tell your attorney how and why you plan to monitor your employees. 

An attorney will be able to help you understand the laws you must follow before you can even decide what monitoring methods to use. They can also help you draft an employee monitoring policy or point you in the direction of a suitable template. 

You can find employee monitoring policy templates on sites like Template.net. What we love about this template is that it outlines the reasons for monitoring in detail.

In general, an employee monitoring policy should include the following sections: 

• Introduction: explains why you plan to use monitoring tools, which software services you’ll be using, and what benefits these monitoring practices will bring to both the employer and the employee
• Scope: outlines who the monitoring policy applies to—for example, in-house employees but not independent contractors
• Outline of Monitoring Systems: a brief overview of the types of monitoring you’ll be using, when you will be using it, and whether or not it will be used for remote work
• Data Collection: explain why you will collect data, what type of data you will collect, how long the data will be stored, and what the company will do with the data
• Legality: explain how you are adhering to all the laws that apply to your company
• Signature and Date: a signature represents that an employee is in agreement with the employee monitoring policy as stated in the document

If the policy ever changes at any point in time, alert your employees, create an updated policy, and give employees the updated paperwork to read and sign if they agree.

And remember to show your attorney the employee monitoring policy to ensure you comply with all the laws relevant to your company. 

Is an Employee Monitoring Policy Right For You?

Yes. If you plan to monitor employees in any way, then we absolutely recommend implementing an employee monitoring policy. 

A policy like this helps your company enjoy the benefits of monitoring while reducing the risk of legal or ethical violations that can land you in boiling water. 

But there are additional benefits to employee monitoring policies to think of, too: 

• They help set employee expectations for work quality in a way that is open and honest, empowering employees to meet and exceed company standards.
• They set privacy expectations for employees, so they won’t assume they have privacy on company computers, for example—even if they choose to use the devices for personal reasons.
• Obtaining informed consent for your monitoring practices helps prevent ill feelings toward your company—no one likes to be spied on, and uninformed monitoring can land you on the wrong side of the law.
• They ensure that you’re adhering to the relevant data and privacy laws.
• They help create an ethical, transparent company culture.

It’s true that you’ll need to put in a bit of work to create an employee monitoring policy. But it’s worth doing the work now to avoid problems down the road.

Final Thoughts About Employee Monitoring Policies

Monitoring your employees, whether they’re working remotely or in the office, can bolster productivity, help ensure safety, and promote well-being. But employers must take care not to abuse the monitoring of employees, both for ethical and legal reasons. And if you’re going to monitor your employees, we recommend doing so in a way that fosters trust—not ruins it.

An excellent way to avoid issues related to employee surveillance is to implement an employee monitoring policy. These types of policies keep your company ethical and transparent. They help your employees provide informed consent, leading to a healthier—and more productive!—workplace environment. 

There’s no better time than now to make employee monitoring policies a part of your employee management system and onboarding process.

If you believe your business is only as strong as your employees, acquiring talent should be an ongoing focus. When seeking talent, you want to make sure you are considering as many of the best people as possible. Talent sourcing strategies can help you find great candidates who may not be actively applying at your company.

What Is Talent Sourcing?

Talent sourcing involves taking active steps to identify and recruit the best candidates for your company, even before you have a specific opening. You may conduct extensive research about the identified candidates for high-level jobs before contacting them to gauge interest. 

Through successful talent sourcing, you should have a pool of candidates who would fit well in your company. Once a job vacancy occurs, you already have a line of communication going on with potential high-level candidates.

You don’t have to limit your pool of candidates to those who are actively seeking a job when performing talent sourcing. Perhaps your research shows many of the most talented people already have a good job. You can still reach out to these potential candidates to gauge interest in working for you in the future.

Talent Sourcing Vs. Recruiting

Think of talent sourcing as seeking out people who may be great for a future opening. Recruiting involves actively seeking someone to fill a current job opening. Both talent sourcing and recruiting involve finding highly talented people for your company. 

Talent sourcing involves networking with those talented individuals, determining over time whether this person would be a good fit for your company. Talent sourcing can help you find candidates for highly specialized positions that may not be open for months or years in the future. 

Recruiting is more immediate. You are trying to fill a position that is currently open with a highly talented individual. You simply need to hire the best candidate now.

What Are Talent Sourcing Strategies?

Talent sourcing strategies are the steps the company takes to ensure better results when they are recruiting talented individuals. Such strategies can vary for different companies, but these strategies typically fit into two primary categories.

• Identification: Your strategy for talent sourcing involves identifying people who may be a good fit for your company in the future. It also can involve identifying which high-level jobs may need filling during the next several months or so. You then can begin networking with talented people who may be a good fit down the road.
• Improvement: To encourage the highly talented people you find to leave a good job to work for you, you need to make your company as attractive as possible. Finding ways to improve your brand, your compensation packages, and your ability to communicate with potential candidates is important to attracting talented people.

We’ll dig into more of the strategies in the upcoming sections. You may only want to use a couple of them when you are just starting out with talent-sourcing strategies. As you become proficient with your first few strategies, you can then add more strategies, further improving your results.

Identify the Talent You Need

One of the trickiest aspects of talent sourcing is trying to define the process you will use. It’s far easier to set up a process when you have a specific job opening you are trying to fill. You post the opening, recruit candidates, perform interviews, and hire the best candidate.

When deploying talent sourcing strategies, though, you don’t necessarily have a specific timeline for hiring. The CEO or CFO might hint at being ready to retire in a year or two, but there’s no set time. One of your key department heads may suddenly accept another job without warning.

By employing talent sourcing strategies, you can at least feel like you have a head start on finding a quality candidate when a key job opening at your company inevitably occurs. 

Preparation Is Key

Start with an up-to-date list of requirements for each key job in the company. Review each set of requirements every quarter to guarantee that it accurately reflects the job as it currently stands.

This list should not only list the tangible requirements. It should include intangible qualities that are important to have. You may decide things like uncompromising integrity and having an optimistic attitude are just as important as educational accomplishments and job experiences.

You don’t want to spend a lot of time chasing candidates who have great skills but wouldn’t be a good fit for your company. When you know what intangibles are important to your particular company’s most important jobs, you can focus fully on the best candidates.

Think of this like creating a persona of the perfect candidate for the particular job you have in mind. 

With the requirements in hand, it’s easier to keep an eye on potential candidates via talent-sourcing strategies. Some candidates may possess the skills and intangibles that could apply to more than one position, making them particularly valuable.

Find a List of Candidates

Sourcing talented potential candidates isn’t as easy as going to a website and finding a list of people. Be prepared to tap into quite a few different potential sources to find talented people with whom you can start a dialogue. Some of the talent sourcing strategies you can use to flesh out your potential candidates include the following.

• Recruiters: If you don’t mind the fees, employing recruiters can be a time-saver to begin tracking down good candidates. Give the recruiter a list of your desired skills and intangible factors, and let the recruiter do the legwork. If you have a large enough company, you may want to employ your own recruiter for this task. Recruiting software may be able to help you, too.
• Referrals: Your current employees probably spend quite a bit of time networking and meeting others in the industry. They may have people they believe would be a good fit. Ask them for referrals.
• Search online job boards: Through online job boards, you can often search through resumes for keywords. If you have a niche job for which you are trying to source talent, you may be able to find someone with the right keyword/skill. If you are using general keywords for searches on these boards, you may end up with an overwhelming number of results.
• Ask clients: Your current clients may have some recommendations of talented people they’ve encountered who could be a fit for your company. You may have a few jobs inside your company that don’t necessarily require knowledge of your particular industry. Potential candidates that your clients suggest may fit this need.
• Track past applicants: You may have had great people apply to your company but who lost out to another candidate or weren’t quite the right fit for that specific job. However, you may want to keep in contact with these people for potential future jobs. As those candidates work elsewhere, they may gain skills that create a better fit with your company in the future, or they might be a great fit for a different role, making it worth keeping tabs on them.
• Track past employees: Maybe you had an employee in the past who left to seek a new opportunity or a promotion that wasn’t available at your company. If this person left on good terms, stay in contact. Such people may be open to returning to your company when the right position opens up.
• Use social media: Take the time to learn where high-level executives and other key employees in your industry gather on social media. Keep an eye on these sites for people who show promise or who are generating buzz in the industry with their accomplishments.
• Look at professional organizations: People who are among the best in their industries often belong to professional organizations. If you have people in your business who also can join these professional organizations, have them do it. Then use the gatherings to network and make contact with great potential candidates.
• Visit industry events: When conferences are occurring related to the industry in which you want to seek talent, attend those events. Such events are a great way to network and find out about people who are making waves in the industry. You may even have a chance to see potential candidates in action, leading seminars, or making a sales pitch.

Make Use of Applicant Tracking Software

As you begin to collect names and information about potential candidates, you need to set up a way to keep track of everyone. The best applicant tracking software packages can provide this service for you.

Many of the features of these packages attempt to help HR departments track applicants for actively open jobs. However, you can also use the software to keep track of people you identified through your talent-sourcing strategies.

After you add the information for the candidates you want to track, you can search through the information using keywords. It’s far easier to find certain candidates through searches in the software rather than looking through handwritten notes.

Many applicant trackers allow you to generate emails directly from the software interface, simplifying the tracking process. Applicant tracking software allows you to write notes about the candidates as you speak with them. Set up reminders to check in with candidates every few months through software alerts. 

You even have the option of discussing the various candidates with other members of your team. Team members can rank the candidates if desired. These discussions and rankings will remain hidden from the candidate. Having a record of such discussions can be helpful when you are closer to the time when you need to make the actual hire.

Pay Attention to Feedback

As you are trying to source talent, you may find that potential employees don’t see your company favorably. If so, all the work you are doing to create a list of talented candidates may be a waste of time. Talent sourcing doesn’t work if the best people have no desire to join your company.

You can attempt to counteract this problem by seeking feedback as you perform your talent-sourcing actions. You will be speaking with quite a few people while sourcing talent. Everyone from headhunters to past employees to professionals in your industry likely will converse with you as you try to track down talent. 

As you are talking to these people about potential candidates, ask them how they perceive your company. Receiving honest feedback about how people outside your company feel about it can be invaluable in this process.

The feedback may show you that you have multiple areas in which you need to improve. Or you may find that the perception of the company from the outside does not match up with what’s really going on inside the company. This means you need to adjust your company’s public messaging tactics.

At the same time you are cultivating a set of potential candidates, work on improving the perception of the company. You may need to increase salaries or create a better incentives package to overcome perceptions that you undervalue your employees. Targeted social media engagement is another way to improve the perception of the company.

Measure Your Successes and Failures

As you begin making use of talent-sourcing strategies, it’s important to keep records of the steps you take. You should have a detailed list, so you can go back and review the actions down the road. 

This information makes it easier to determine whether you need to tweak your strategy. If you find that you are not receiving the quality of candidates that you want to see using your current strategies, an adjustment is necessary. On the other hand, if one particular strategy is delivering a high level of results, you may want to devote more resources to it.

Track the expenses involved with each step as well. If you end up with a cost-per-hire that is far too high, you may need to adjust your strategies. 

Remember, though, that you’ll most often use talent-sourcing strategies for the most important positions in your company. The cost of hiring for a position like a department head will be higher than for an entry-level position with or without using talent sourcing strategies.

Don’t become discouraged if you don’t seem to be making immediate progress, either. The implementation of these strategies should always have a long-term focus. You may not see results for several months. 

Final Thoughts About Talent Sourcing Strategies

Don’t assume that receiving a lot of resumes for a particular open position at your business ensures that the talent of the applicants is high. Deploying talent-sourcing strategies is the best way to find great candidates.

Think about talent sourcing as a proactive approach to hiring. Rather than posting an open job and sitting back while people apply to it, you seek out the best candidates before a job opening appears. 

Through talent sourcing, you actively research and seek out candidates who you believe would be a good fit for a role in your company. You then will have a headstart on finding great candidates when a key job opens. Talent sourcing requires an investment on your part, but the rewards of having high-quality candidates excited about your company can be tremendous.

Many businesses use biweekly or bimonthly payroll cycles to compensate their employees. For the most part, employees get paid twice a month with both methods, but each has several key differences that determine if it works well in a given company or industry.

Bimonthly and biweekly payments differ mainly in their payroll processing timing. However, finer details, like efficiency and the types of employees you have, will affect which one you choose. Payroll processing software can help you keep track of your pay periods and ensure that your employees get paid correctly and on time.

1. Number of Yearly Paychecks 

Bimonthly or semimonthly pay cycles give employees 24 paychecks per year, two per month. Many companies issue these payments at the beginning and middle or the middle and end of each month. 

A biweekly payment cycle issues a paycheck every two weeks, so employees receive two additional paychecks per year for a total of 26. As a result, employees get three paychecks during two months of the year. If the first paycheck falls on a Friday early in the month, employees will get paid on that day, another Friday in the middle of the month, and a third Friday at the end of the month.

The difference in the number of paychecks doesn’t affect how much your employees get paid—it just distributes that payment differently. For some people, getting paid biweekly makes them feel like they’re making more money, and it can be convenient since they don’t have to wait as long between pay cycles. With bimonthly paychecks, they may have to wait a few extra days.

A payroll processing service like Gusto works for many different kinds of businesses, including remote employees. It makes it easy to pay your employees, as well as onboard them, and it can automatically take out taxes and benefits when necessary. Most employers also find it easy to set up and start using it right away.

2. Payday Schedule

Neither biweekly nor bimonthly pay schedules are necessarily better than the other, but many people prefer the regularity of the biweekly schedule. They know they’ll always get paid on the same day of the week every two weeks. 

With bimonthly pay, the schedule varies and focuses on dates rather than intervals that depend on the number of weeks between. The schedule can become slightly offset depending on how many days there are in the month. For example, with 28 days in February, employees get paid sooner than in months with 31 days. 

Bimonthly pay cycles must also factor in weekends and holidays. If a company pays its employees on the 15th and the 30th of every month, for example, and the 15th falls on a Sunday, or the 30th is a holiday the company has off, the payroll must be adjusted. Employees either get paid early, or they will have their pay delayed.

The offset schedule usually isn’t a problem since employees still get paid the same amount, but it can throw a wrench in employees’ plans and needs. It also complicates the payroll process.

In short, biweekly pay uses a day of the week to mark payday, whereas bimonthly disregards the days of the week—aside from weekends and holidays—and pays according to the date.

Gusto tracks your employees’ lunchtime and breaks, and it works well for any pay schedule, including biweekly and bimonthly. It comes with advanced and flexible payroll features that help you schedule your tasks as needed to keep everything running smoothly. It makes it easy to manage your pay periods from anywhere and gives you insights and reporting to see where you can improve your process.

3. Paycheck Amount

Due to the slight difference in the length of each pay period for biweekly and bimonthly pay, employee paycheck amounts vary slightly. With bimonthly pay, they see more money on payday since fewer paychecks mean a higher amount per pay period.

For example, someone who makes $50,000 per year with biweekly pay and 26 paychecks would see a gross amount of about $1,923 per pay period. On a bimonthly pay schedule, it’s $2,083 per paycheck. Overall, they still make the same amount per year, but the increments look slightly different.

The amount per pay period doesn’t change how much gets taken out in taxes or benefits. Since it’s still the same amount earned, the deductions are also the same. 

With biweekly pay, the amount tends to be consistent per paycheck, though it can have small variations with bimonthly pay, since there may be more or fewer days in one month versus others. Many people prefer biweekly pay for this reason.

Gusto tracks paycheck amounts for you, so you and your employees always know how much they’ll receive each pay period. Its full-service payroll integrates with your other tools and auto-calculates taxes and other more advanced factors to minimize mistakes. 

4. Frequency of Use

Popularity isn’t an inherent difference between the two payroll systems, but one is more widely used than the other. Overall, more companies use biweekly pay for its consistency and ease of use. When payroll gets processed on the same day every week, it gives employees more certainty about when they’ll get paid and reduces the likelihood of those in charge of payroll forgetting to process it mid-week, as they might with bimonthly pay.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a February 2022 survey showed that 45.7% of employees in the United States get paid biweekly. In comparison, only 18% get paid bimonthly. The rest get paid either weekly or monthly.

The survey also showed that larger companies tend to use the biweekly system, while the statistics for most companies with fewer than 50 employees showed about equal use of weekly and biweekly pay. For smaller businesses, bimonthly pay was used much less frequently.

The discrepancy between biweekly and bimonthly pay period popularity only widens as companies grow. The survey showed 64% of companies with 25-499 employees using biweekly pay and only 12% using bimonthly. That 12% is also only half the percentage of those using weekly pay periods.

The survey laid out which industries tend to use different types of pay cycles. While half of them mainly used biweekly pay, only the Information industry favored bimonthly pay among the 10 industries shown.

The difference in popularity comes down to many factors, including the type of work employees do in a given field, schedule type, regulations, and even company preference. Not all companies in the same industry work the same way, so the pay schedule varies based on the work environment and employee needs.

Gusto works across industries, and it organizes all your employee payroll information, including forms and signatures. Most users find Gusto easier than their last provider, and it has several automatization capabilities that work for any payment schedule you choose.

5. Payroll Efficiency

With biweekly pay, payroll processing is more efficient. You can schedule tasks at the same time every week and perform them on the same day, making it easier to build into a schedule. This also reduces the burden on payroll staff, as they can more effectively schedule their time and automate repetitive tasks.

Fewer adjustments also free up more time for important work. It allows payroll to work faster when entering payroll information and processing time off when they don’t have to think about correcting preventable mistakes. Biweekly pay is also more efficient because employees typically require fewer reminders and can build recording their time and making necessary changes to their work week. As a result, it creates a better workflow with scheduled processes.

You can still use Gusto and other payroll services to automate tasks with bimonthly pay, but you’ll also have to adjust based on weekends and holidays, which doesn’t happen as often with biweekly pay. Gusto syncs your other platforms to payroll, too, to make scheduling and processing quicker. 

Customers report that running payroll takes about 13 minutes with Gusto. It allows you to automate repetitive tasks to free up time for running your business and lets your staff focus on work that benefits your business.

6. Payment Processing Confusion

With biweekly pay, employees know exactly when they should submit their payroll information since it’s the same every time. Processing also occurs on the same day for payroll employees. With regular payments on the same days, employees require fewer entry adjustments at the end of the pay period.

For example, with bimonthly payments, employees may not realize that they have to enter their house or time off on a Tuesday during one pay period and a Thursday the next. A changing schedule like this can cause confusion, disrupt standard practices, and upset employee schedules. 

Biweekly pay is more consistent and easier to understand for both employees and the person processing payments. Payroll can also become more confusing depending on the type of employees you have, but I’ll get to that in the next section.

Gusto has built-in financial tools with Gusto Wallet. The platform helps employees manage their time and paychecks, too, so everyone benefits. Gusto also has advanced features that make payroll less confusing by helping you manage deductions, pre-tax benefits, tip credits, payroll reports, and more.

7. Types of Employee

The payroll system you use and whether it works well depends in part on the types of employees you have. Salaried employees earn the same amount of money per pay period, or even per year, no matter how many hours they work, because it’s built into their contract. For hourly employees, it depends on the number of hours they work, which can vary each week. 

Bimonthly pay can become confusing with factors like overtime pay for hourly employees. On the other hand, it makes things more efficient for salaried employees because they don’t have that information to put in. For hourly employees, bimonthly pay can also create an issue with scheduling, especially if your company schedules by the week and payday changes with each cycle.

With so many employees working varied hours, like a night shift as opposed to a 9-to-5 workday, it can complicate the payroll process more with bimonthly pay. A biweekly schedule allows employees to enter their payroll information according to their schedule for the same two weeks every time.

Gusto helps you manage all types of employees, whether you need it for salaried or hourly workers. It even works well for remote freelance teams, and you can organize all your employee information by department. Its paperless onboarding makes welcoming new team members easy, and the platform handles all your direct deposit and digital pay stubs.

8. Payroll Processing Costs

Every business with employees should have a payroll processing service, and each service charges you to use it. Many charge based on the number of transactions per month.

With bimonthly pay, the cost of payroll processing will always be the same since employees will always get paid twice per month. With biweekly pay, you’ll need to budget twice a year for an extra transaction since two months have three paydays. This is one of the few areas where bimonthly payroll has the advantage and more consistency than biweekly pay cycles.

Gusto gives you unlimited payrolls with upfront pricing. The platform starts at $40 per month, plus $6 per person, for its entry-level Simple packages. When you upgrade to Plus, the cost doubles to $80 per month, plus $12 per person. For the most advanced features in the Premium plan, you’ll need to contact sales for custom pricing.

The Similarities Between Bimonthly and Biweekly Pay

With biweekly and bimonthly pay, your employees receive the same total amount per year. Both typically pay twice a month.

Salaried employees are less affected by both payment methods since their contracts state they receive the same payment amounts regardless. It’s up to the business owner to decide how they want to pay employees, which makes bimonthly and biweekly pay viable options for most businesses. Some labor laws dictate industry pay schedules, but that varies and usually applies more to weekly payroll cycles rather than bimonthly or biweekly ones. 

For both bimonthly and biweekly pay, taxes are always the same. Employees will have the same amount taken out of their paychecks for insurance and other benefits, too, no matter how you choose to pay them. In terms of the frequency of payment, biweekly and bimonthly differ, but overall, they’re similar in most ways aside from timing and convenience.

Final Thoughts About Bimonthly and Biweekly Pay

Biweekly and bimonthly pay both have their advantages, though the benefits vary between industries, employee type, and ease of use. More than anything, the difference lies in the schedule. Both systems typically pay twice a month, except for the two months per year with a third biweekly payday. The bimonthly schedule can also shift due to holidays and weekends.

Payroll services like Gusto can help you keep track of your payment schedule and automate repetitive payroll tasks for both biweekly and bimonthly schedules. Bimonthly pay works better for salaried employees, whereas biweekly often benefits hourly workers. Overall, for many industries, biweekly pay is more popular and reduces confusion when processing payroll.

Above all, it’s important to choose the payroll process that works best for your employees and business. Consider the costs of each type of pay cycle, too. There’s no one correct way to process payroll for every company, so it comes down to assessing your individual company needs.

Setting actionable professional development goals is invaluable for career progression. However, these goals impact many more areas of your professional life, including increasing productivity, clarifying your career path, improving job satisfaction, and becoming a better employee. Of course, the professional development goals you choose depend on your career aspirations.

You can identify reasonable individual goals by deciding where you want to be in five to ten years. Alternatively, you can use the results of your performance review to identify areas for improvement. Finally, ensure your goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This post covers examples of the most common professional development goals. 

1. Do Your Job Better 

Setting professional development goals can be intimidating, requiring both time and money. However, you don’t need to have your entire career path mapped to identify relevant goals. Instead, you can start where you are with what you have—that is, learn to do your current job better. 

Workplace skills, also known as employability skills, refer to the basic proficiency or know-how required to perform your daily tasks at the workplace. These skills are often transferable, meaning they are still valuable even when you leave for a different company or start your own business. 

Focusing on the skills related to your current job or position is essential. For example, learning a new language might help you communicate better with a particular client demographic. Similarly, improving your public speaking skill can help you make more impactful and exciting presentations. 

Don’t worry if you don’t know where to start. Your most recent job evaluation can help you identify specific areas to improve. Some valuable workplace skills worth improving include:

• Communication 
• Management 
• Problem-solving 
• Organization 
• Self-regulation 
• Time management 
• Teamwork

Developing your workplace skills offers some of the best returns on investment. For example, you’ll be competent and more productive in your current position. Furthermore, these employability skills are also attractive if you hope to be promoted or when applying for work at a different organization.

One pitfall to note is that workplace skills can sound vague and general. So choose a skill that aligns with your current workflow and set quantifiable goals. For example, improving your management skills might mean implementing a project management process that increases productivity by 30% and saves 20 hours a month.  

You can use your organization’s reporting system to identify relevant goals. For example, your company may measure employee performance based on attendance, helpfulness, efficiency, and initiative. Therefore, it makes sense to use these metrics to identify the workplace skills you should improve. 

Following the same example, attendance goes hand in hand with self-regulation and time management. These are ideal professional development goals since they feature in your employee assessment. Similarly, you should focus on organization, time management, teamwork, and communication skills if your organization measures performance based on efficiency and initiative. 

2. Develop New Skills 

Outside of improving your current job performance, developing new skills is part and parcel of professional development. So make time to expand the number of things you can do well. But, again, you don’t need a detailed career plan to identify the new skills you should acquire. 

You can start by thinking of your dream job or a position you hope to occupy after your current one. Then, search for job descriptions for the position and note the skills listed to get a sense of where you need to focus your attention. Finally, prioritize the skills, starting with the most common requirement across job descriptions. 

For example, if you’re eyeing an IT Manager position, some skills are bound to appear in virtually every job description you find. You’ll need to have strong technical skills, particularly with using IT management software. Furthermore, you’ll need a firm grasp of computer hardware, software, and networking. 

Other standard skill requirements for an IT Manager position may include the following:

• Team management
• Strategic thinking 
• Negotiation 
• Financial management
• Conflict management
• Project management 
• Planning
• Delegation 

You’ll need self-awareness to identify your skills gap and prioritize which skills to acquire first. You can also consult with your boss, an esteemed colleague, or team members to provide feedback on prioritizing the skills you’ve discovered. Then, learn one skill at a time for the best effect. 

Unlike improving workplace skills, developing new skills requires a more long-term approach. Generally, this means setting a goal that takes one or more years to accomplish. For example, you can take a four-year Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Information Technology to improve your technical skills. Similarly, you can opt for new certifications such as Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) or Certified Information Technology Manager (CITM), which typically take months to complete. 

Also, be sure to apply your new skills to your current position. While bosses and employers appreciate the knowledge, they also look for experience. For example, you may offer to join the risk analysis team to hone the skills you learned in the Project Management course. 

Finally, keep a detailed record of what you learned. Be sure to update your resume as you develop, master, and practice your new skills. This record can also help you track progress and identify areas for evaluation or self-assessment. 

3. Grow Your Professional Network 

Networking is underrated, but it is a critical professional development goal. You can trace the most successful people’s “lucky break” to their professional networks and associations. A professional network also provides an opportunity to exchange ideas with industry experts, opens doors for new opportunities, and improves your creative intellect.   

The internet has made networking more accessible than ever. Professional social channels like LinkedIn make it easy to connect and share ideas with like-minded professionals without the pressure of face-to-face discussion. However, you shouldn’t limit your networking opportunities to behind the screen. 

It certainly makes sense to attend industry-related networking events. These events are professionally organized and provide terrific value for your time and money. For example, you might discover industry trends or insights you wouldn’t get anywhere else. 

Furthermore, don’t leave out former colleagues or bosses from your professional network. You can still leverage their connections, knowledge, and expertise. Word of mouth is also a big part of recruiting, so you may land a new job just because someone can vouch for you. 

The main thing to remember is that a healthy professional relationship is a two-way street. You should also provide value to the people in your professional network. For example, you can share your industry knowledge if the chance presents itself. 

Also, remember to keep in touch and follow up with the people you connect with to help strengthen these relationships. Exchanging contact information is only the first step to building a professional network. 

It’s also not just about having an extensive or professional network. The network should also serve your career development. So, again, you can set SMART goals for growing your professional network. This way, you won’t waste time with events and people that don’t align with your goals and will be more productive at relevant events. 

First, you need an overarching goal or purpose for building your professional network. A clear vision will help you set more specific goals for networking. 

Some examples of why you need to expand your professional network may include:  

• Grow your employer’s client database 
• Improve your public speaking or other specific networking skills
• Build a referral network to grow your business-related resources
• Heighten your company’s brand awareness within your industry
• Learn to make more engaging and meaningful conversations 
• Build your profile in your field
• Create a support network 
• Increase your knowledge and expertise in your industry

Then, you can set more refined networking goals, such as:

• Attending X number of networking events per year
• Talking to at least five different people at corporate events 
• Collecting at least ten business cards per month
• Making plans for coffee with at least one contact per month 

Setting specific goals for growing your professional network will let you immediately identify suitable opportunities for connecting with others. You’ll also be more productive during conversations and motivated to follow up with potential contacts. 

4. Obtain a New Certification or Degree 

Like learning new skills, obtaining a new certification or degree is a terrific professional development goal. It will increase your chances for promotion, increase your salary, help you negotiate a higher starting salary at a new company, or make it easier to transition to a new career or position. Continuing education is challenging amidst a demanding work schedule and personal responsibilities, but it’s one of the best investments in your career development. 

The first step in setting your education goals is determining whether it is mandatory. For example, some professions like healthcare, construction, manufacturing, and finance require a set number of continuing education units (CEUs) for license renewal. Therefore, you can prioritize these classes when choosing your course. 

Alternatively, you may choose a certification or degree based on your dream job. Again, you can look at job descriptions for your ideal position to find the most common education requirements. You might not even need to enroll for a university degree. 

Many organizations offer continuing education opportunities. You can speak to HR to learn about ongoing or upcoming training opportunities. Prioritize courses that provide certification at the end of the training and add these to your resume. 

Other opportunities for continuing your education include: 

• Independent studies
• Professional events 
• On-the-job training
• Volunteering 
• Research 
• Online courses 
• Extension courses 

Earning a new certification or degree might take time. So it’s essential to stay focused by transforming your vague goal into an actionable plan. You can break down your continuing education goal into smaller, actionable, and trackable goals. For example:

• Apply to X number of institutions/training programs in the next three months
• Curve out X number of hours per week to work on assignments or further reading 
• Contribute to class discussions at least five times a week 
• Improve your grade in a specific subject 
• Improve research skills 
• Complete the course in X months 

Remember to update your resume for each new certification or degree. Many online courses let you learn at your own pace. You can look into online education programs like Udemy and Coursera, which let you set your pace and offer recognized certification when you complete the course. 

5. Take Up More Responsibilities At Work 

After improving your workplace skills, the next best goal is to take on more work responsibilities. But, of course, you should take on more responsibilities only when it is practical. So how do you know if taking on more responsibilities is appropriate?

First, ensure that your current tasks won’t suffer because of taking more work. Second, ensure that the new responsibilities ties into your overarching career goals. Finally, take projects that you understand and when you trust your capacity to complete the job correctly. 

There are many benefits to taking more responsibility at work. If nothing else, the new responsibilities might show your boss that you’ve outgrown your position and put you on the fast track to a promotion. The extra work might also allow you to work alongside people you admire, enabling you to learn new skills and draw from their experience and expertise. 

Some of the goals you might set to help you take more responsibility include:

• Complete your tasks within the deadline 
• Spend two hours a week assisting a colleague with their work 
• Meet with your boss to discuss opportunities for taking more work 
• Excel in your current role by exceeding your performance metrics  
• Offer to lead a project 
• Be the first to volunteer when the chance comes 

You can also show initiative outside of the office. For example, consider joining your company’s bowling team or other extracurricular activity. It’s even better if you’re proficient and passionate about the activity, allowing you to practice your leadership skills. 

6. Learn How to Manage Stress

You won’t get far in your career if you’re stressed and overwhelmed. Career progression often means more responsibilities and higher stakes. So learning to manage stress is a critical but often overlooked professional development goal. 

Stress management also has additional benefits. You’ll be more productive in your current role, feel more engaged with your work, and make better decisions. Stress management will also improve your overall health, job satisfaction, and morale. 

Again, you can set specific stress management goals such as:

• Enroll in stress management training
• Learn at least one stress management technique per month
• Take a few quiet minutes per day to recharge 
• Talk to a supervisor about stressors at work 
• Learn to identify your stress triggers 
• Find an outlet, such as sport, journal, or friend

Many organizations offer a stress training program or a similar program that you can look into. It’s also important to set realistic goals at work to avoid burnout. For example, professional development goals are terrific for advancing your career but aren’t very useful if you’re burned out. So take your time and consider carefully how much you can handle. 

7. Join a Professional Organization

Joining a professional community is a good goal for advancing your career. There are professional communities or associations for just about any field. So you’re sure to find one that suits your career projection. 

Most of these organizations also provide exclusive career resources that you can leverage. For example, the Project Management Institute (PMI) offers members discounts on certification exam costs, free material such as the PMBOK Guide, access to exclusive project management journals and newsletters, and the opportunity to join a local PMI chapter. 

Joining a professional community can also help you kill two birds with one stone. For example, you may not need to set a different goal to grow your professional network. You can easily do this by joining a professional association’s national, state, or local chapter. Some associations also provide designations like ‘chartered’ or ‘fellowship’ to help you boost your professional image. 

Again, you can set specific goals for joining a professional community, such as: 

• Expanding your professional network
• Accessing exclusive industry materials such as research, case studies, or journals
• Finding a mentor 
• Giving back to the community 
• Enhancing your resume 

You can start by checking if the organization’s goals match yours. For example, some organizations are dedicated to community outreach, while others focus on members’ professional development. Also, ensure that the organization is registered, recognized, and well-established in your industry. 

Final Thoughts About Professional Development Goals

Setting professional development goals doesn’t have to be complicated. You only need to start with the end in mind and find a good reason for pursuing the dream. You can also break up long-term goals into smaller ones and set clear deadlines for accomplishing your goals. 

Finally, start with one goal and track your progress along the way. It’s vital for staying on track with your goals. You’ll also be motivated to pursue your goals if you can see tangible progress on your journey to professional development.