Joshua Siler is CEO of HiringThing, a modern recruiting PaaS that enables seamless hiring with integrated applicant tracking.
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Over the past few years, the term “holistic HR” has gained steam. The standard HR model typically focuses on specific functions and processes—recruiting, training, learning and development, payroll—all done in separate siloes. Holistic HR takes a broader and more integrated approach, considering how each of these functionalities is connected and affects one another.
The benefits of ensuring that all HR strategies—instead of just one—are effective include more coordination, better communication, improved efficiency and higher productivity. Creating a positive work culture through recruiting, training and benefits also enhances employee engagement, satisfaction, productivity and retention. In fact, 46% of job candidates say culture is a top reason for applying, and 47% cite company culture as their driving reason for seeking a new role.
Taking a holistic approach is especially pertinent to recruiting, the first part of the hiring cycle. By embedding your recruiting with a holistic approach, you’re setting future employees and your organization up for better success from the get-go. Below are my tips for beginning to implement a more holistic hiring strategy.
Promote Training And Development
A lack of training, development and growth opportunities is one of the top reasons why today’s employees leave their jobs. It’s vital to let potential hires know professional development is important to your organization. Mention professional development in your job posts, ask about career goals during your interviews and create collateral around how other employees have developed their careers through learning and training.
Data shows that only 29% of new hires feel fully prepared and supported to excel in their role after their recruiting and onboarding experience. So ask candidates what it would take to feel supported. Do they need extra training, more time with their manager or team face time? Implement those supports during onboarding, then check in with new hires during the first week to see how they're holding up.
Center DEI
Diversity, equity and inclusion are essential to your recruitment. Around one-third of job seekers won’t apply to a company if it doesn’t prioritize diversity, and 74% of Millennials (the largest generation currently in the workforce) believe an organization is more innovative with a culture of inclusion. Here are some ways you can introduce a DEI element to recruitment.
• Showcase a commitment to DEI by highlighting its importance in your job posts and career page.
• Standardize your hiring ranking process by using a scoring system to eliminate unconscious bias.
• Include a diverse group of stakeholders when designing and implementing your recruiting strategies.
• Revisit your job qualifications to ensure you're getting a wider array of candidates. For example, at HiringThing, we removed college degree requirements for applicable roles to attract talent with a nontraditional background.
Implement Engagement Initiatives
According to Gallup, 74% of disengaged employees—even new ones—actively search for new roles. But research shows that 92% of job seekers never finish an online application they start. You must keep job seekers and candidates engaged from the very start to ensure top-quality candidates fill out your applications, go through the entire interview process, accept offers and start their roles as engaged employees.
The most significant advice I could give here is to treat the candidate the same way you would treat a customer and create personas. What are your target candidates looking for in a role? What do they want out of a job interview? What gets them engaged in a job? Use these personas to attract, engage and nurture your preferred candidates through your recruiting process.
Remember that it’s about candidates first and you (the employer) second. It may be an unorthodox way of thinking about work, but it will set your organization up for success.
Optimize Onboarding
Great onboarding can improve employee retention, engagement and productivity, while negative onboarding experiences can double the chance of a new hire immediately looking for another job.
Onboarding is acclimating candidates to your company and culture. Savvy organizations start planting the seeds of onboarding before a candidate fills out a job application. How? Imbue your job posts and career pages with company values, your mission statement and day-in-the-life snippets of various roles.
During the interview process, set a precedent by letting candidates know what to expect during the recruiting cycle, as well as what you expect of them during the first day, week, month and year of work. If there are any questions you can ask or support you can provide to help candidates align with how your company works, do so. For instance, my company is fully remote, so we ask candidates how they feel about that and provide remote-work resources for them.
Then, pre-onboard your candidates by letting them know what documents you’ll need from them if they accept an offer letter and what that process will look like so they feel ready and supported.
Holistic Hiring For The Win
By taking a holistic approach to recruiting, you’re acknowledging that the best HR delivery is an ever-evolving cycle, not a stagnant collection of siloes. This sets you and new employees up for success.
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