Articles & Resources on Talent & Hiring | Wrike Blog
Please enter your email
Server error. We're really sorry. Wait a few minutes and try again.

Talent & Hiring

Please enter your email
Server error. We're really sorry. Wait a few minutes and try again.
The 10 Best Job Perks That People Really Want
Leadership 3 min read

The 10 Best Job Perks That People Really Want

The infographic below lists 10 of the best workplace incentives you can offer your employees, and even names which companies are known for offering them. Perhaps it’s time to examine some other benefits that will help attract and retain top talent.

What Is Employee Turnover and Why Does It Matter?
Leadership 7 min read

What Is Employee Turnover and Why Does It Matter?

Learn techniques for how to reduce employee turnover, improve retention rates, and avoid the roadblocks that come with excessive workplace departures.

Age Discrimination is Everybody's Problem
Leadership 7 min read

Age Discrimination is Everybody's Problem

Age discrimination is very real for large numbers of the working population in any country. How do you deal with it as a leader?

Hiring? You Need This Ultimate Employee Onboarding Template
Productivity 5 min read

Hiring? You Need This Ultimate Employee Onboarding Template

Overwhelmed new hires? Strained managers? Inundated HR team members? Bringing in new hires doesn’t have to be a headache. Our ultimate employee onboarding template has everything you need to smoothly transition new hires into your organization.

Balancing Family With Work: How Employers Can Meet the Needs of Working Parents
Leadership 10 min read

Balancing Family With Work: How Employers Can Meet the Needs of Working Parents

A large percentage of workers need to balance the demands of their families with their careers. How do we make it easy for them?

How to Foster a Positive Company Culture in the Age of Social Media Reviews
Leadership 10 min read

How to Foster a Positive Company Culture in the Age of Social Media Reviews

Company culture is a key concern for many applicants. But how do you foster a positive culture in an age of Glassdoor and Facebook reviews?

3 Strategies for Bringing a Distributed Team Member On Board
Leadership 5 min read

3 Strategies for Bringing a Distributed Team Member On Board

On our first day at a new job, we observe everything that is happening in the office and start to understand what is okay and what it is not allowed. We start building a mental map of what things are like in the office so that we can adapt faster. We notice if the receptionist is smiling or appears cranky, we look inside the meeting rooms and see if people are engaged and speaking or if they have their heads down, we look at people working at their desks and observe whether they have their feet propped up on the table or are focused on work, and we start to get to know them by what they have on their walls, desks, etc. But what happens when we join a distributed team? Nothing is visible to us, so we cannot build the mental map that typically helps us adapt to a new place and that gives us confidence to feel strong in a new environment. How can companies with distributed team members help them adapt to the virtual environment? 1. Use video ALWAYS! Start with the obvious: If your company has a physical location, substitute walking through the corridors and peeking through the glass doors of meeting rooms with a virtual tour of the office. If all of your team is remote, do all meetings with video. It is quite common for employees to object to the use of video. But when bringing a new member on board, make sure he/she uses video from the very first day. Video will help both of you in many ways: Better communication: 80% of the messages we receive come from body language. Building trust: We only trust people that we know, so video helps us gain more information about a person. Have a quick introductory meeting with the entire team, and while the new person receives training, have 1:1 meetings with the other team members. Get your message through: Intercall conducted a study showing that 65% of us do other work during conference calls without video, 55% eat or prepare food, and 47% go to the restroom! If you want people to actually pay full attention, use video. Break the geographical distance. If your team is multicultural, you are probably dealing with a variety of accents; body language will help you understand better what the others are saying. 2. Put everything in writing Document everything you say. Our attention spans are short even when we have somebody in front of us, so imagine what it is like when the other person is in a different country, being viewed through a little screen! Do not expect new team members to remember everything you say. Training somebody from a distance is not the same as training somebody in an office; you need to communicate better and more often. Provide common ground rules Your job is to guide the newcomer; the purpose is not to give him/her rules that shouldn’t be broken, but to show the person how you work, what is expected of him/her, what to expect from you and your company, and how you are currently playing. If there are rules are there to be broken in your company, say so, and at least show them how you work at the moment. During the first days, your job is to provide a solid ground where he/she can understand the new environment. Prepare a handbook with graphic documentation Avoid, at all costs, handbooks with a lot of text. Have your design team work on the handbook to make it attractive, easy to remember, and navigate. Keep visual records of meetings During meetings, use online whiteboards, and if trainings are complicated, record the trainings and have them available for people to check at any point in time. 3. Repetition is key You will need to repeat concepts and ideas more than usual because those ideas are not being reinforced in the same way that they would be if he/she was in the same office as the rest of the team. Repeat, but be creative when you do so: Create exercises for the new person to solve so you have a good excuse to repeat some ideas that were not clear. Give him/her small challenges one at a time. During your trainings, always summarize the most important points seen in the previous training. During every meeting, find a different example that explains the purpose of his/her job and why it is important. If those examples have to do with real customers or real team members, that’s even better! Daily mentoring Distance and a lack of bonding make distributed teams rust and break. If you create strong ties between team members from the very beginning, you will have done a lot. If your work methodology doesn’t include daily meetings, make sure that during the first 2 weeks the new team member meets with somebody at least once per day. The meetings should always include the following parts: Fun virtual icebreakers Questions about previous meetings and feedback about past challenges A main topic A new challenge proposal A fun, short activity to end on a high note Using solo mentors can be a good way to organize the transition of a new team member, but it can also create some unhealthy dependencies; remember that you can also have meetings that include different people so that the new team member sees all the colors of your team! Author Bio Anna Danes is the CEO of Managing Virtual Teams, where she consults for companies with global teams. Having worked and studied in different European countries, Asia, and the US, she provides a multicultural take on business. Follow her on Twitter: @virtualteams Download our free eBook If you want more advice on how to efficiently and successfully manage your remote team, download our free eBook: The Art of Staying Productive Across Distance

HR Tip: How to use Wrike for Applicant Tracking and Recruitment Process
Productivity 3 min read

HR Tip: How to use Wrike for Applicant Tracking and Recruitment Process

The first step to any successful project management is acquiring the right talent. No matter if your organization has one hard-working recruiter or an impressive HR team, the applicant-tracking process can be time-consuming and demanding at times. Among other things, it requires prompt access to recruitment data and the ability to always keep track of the applicants' statuses, engage the team in the process, and more. Fortunately, with Wrike, you can not only overcome the mentioned challenges, but also easily track the applicants and manage your projects within one single app. And, while Wrike helps you to streamline the whole recruitment process, you can focus on your main goal – acquiring the best talent possible!   In a new tutorial video, we featured some simple ways to optimize your applicant-tracking process with Wrike, so you'll be able to: Stay on track with the applicant's status and progress. Manage the applicant flow for the concrete position. Use custom statuses and tags to find a sought-after applicant in a few clicks. Analyze your recruitment channels to spot the most effective ones. Keep all your recruitment data and action items in one system with no need to switch between apps. and more! Don't miss a chance to take a glance at the second part of our new tutorial video with our Top 5 productivity tips, as they will not only save you time, but also make the recruitment process smooth and simple!  

Employee Retention Strategies You Need To Know
Collaboration 7 min read

Employee Retention Strategies You Need To Know

Learn employee retention strategies that save money, improve the bottom line, and boost worker satisfaction. Increase your employee satisfaction rate today.

How to Create a Perfect Employee Offboarding Process With Wrike
Collaboration 7 min read

How to Create a Perfect Employee Offboarding Process With Wrike

Your offboarding process should be painless and efficient. Find out what to put in an offboarding checklist and more offboarding best practices with Wrike.

Best Practices for Interviewing in Virtual Environments
Remote Working 7 min read

Best Practices for Interviewing in Virtual Environments

Virtual interviews are here to stay. Learn best practices for interviewing and general video interview tips to land the job or candidate of your dreams.

What to Put in an Employee Onboarding Checklist
Collaboration 7 min read

What to Put in an Employee Onboarding Checklist

Documents, training, and benefits are all key aspects of your employee onboarding checklist. Try Wrike’s new employee onboarding template today.

5 Strategies for Keeping Employees Happy
Leadership 10 min read

5 Strategies for Keeping Employees Happy

Recognition is crucial to ensure that your employees are happy and engaged with their work. In fact, according to an OfficeTeam survey, 66% of workers indicated that they’d leave their jobs if they didn’t feel appreciated. Here are 5 strategies for employee recognition.

How to Create an Incredible Onboarding Experience For Your New Hires
Leadership 5 min read

How to Create an Incredible Onboarding Experience For Your New Hires

So you’ve just hired a talented individual to join your team, and you want to make sure that her initial experience with the company is awesome. You hope she brags to all her friends and family about how amazing her new company is. But when was the last time you assessed — let alone improved — your onboarding? Consider this: your onboarding process is your new employee’s first impression of the inner workings of your organization. In other words, you need to make it count! To help you create an unforgettable onboarding experience for your new hires, we put together this helpful guide. It includes a lot of the best practices that we use to onboard new team members at my company, so I hope it can help you. While these processes work best in person, they are also great to implement while onboarding remote employees — get creative with Zoom and virtual team-building exercises, to ensure your remote hires get the best experience possible. Set expectations before they start working Your new hire’s first experience with your company actually comes before their first working day. You have a chance to wow them before they even step foot inside the building. Give them a breakdown of what they can expect when they arrive on their first day. Where can they park? What are some local lunch spot favorites around the office? What is their Day 1 agenda? What time should they arrive to work? These are all common questions that you should answer to help them alleviate some of that first day anxiety. Make a strong impression on day 1  It really helps your new hire feel comfortable when they sit down at their desk for the first time and they already have everything they need to get started. Here are some things you should have ready at your new hire’s desk when they arrive: Tools they need to perform their job — keyboard, wireless mouse, laptop stand, etc. An onboarding folder — this is a personalized A-Z style guide for working at your company. It should also include the roles and responsibilities of their position, as a reminder. A nice welcome package — company branded t-shirt, wristband, pen, hat, and any other company swag. An onboarding checklist — these are the top 10-15 things about your company that every person on your team needs to know. It should include things like the history of your company, profiles of the leadership team, your company’s mission and core values. Push their start date to a day when you have a team-wide meeting At my company, we have a team-wide meeting every Monday from noon to 1pm to go over important company updates and conduct our personal development training called the “Sensei Session”. We always start new employees on Mondays so we can give them a proper introduction during our all-hands meeting. We typically introduce new hires to the entire org and try some virtual icebreakers — we ask them to share their name, their role, where they're from, and one weird or interesting thing about them. We also add a little extra flare to our introductions. Our Director of Talent Acquisition plays the background music from the 1996 Chicago Bulls starting lineup intros and uses a bullhorn to introduce each new hire as if they’re about to run out on the court at the United Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw Give them time to meet with each department head During their first week on the job, it’s important that your new team member has a chance to learn the roles and responsibilities of each department. That way, they’ll get a much better understanding of the different moving parts inside your company. Schedule back-to-back 15-minute meetings with every department head so your new hire can learn who works in which department and what they do on a day-to-day basis. Organize a lunch with an executive during week 1 There have been more and more examples of companies achieving success with a flat organizational structure. A flat structure empowers individuals to become leaders and make decisions. In order to achieve this, employees need to have open and consistent lines of communication with the leadership team. One amazing way you can promote a flat structure at your company is by having the CEO or President take out your new hire for lunch. This will give them a chance to create rapport with someone on the executive team and show that each member of the team is valued. Give them a "Core Values" quiz at the end of week 1 If you put an emphasis on culture, everyone on the team should know your company’s core values inside and out. Write a core value quiz that your new hires must take and pass at the end of their first week. By the way, if you haven’t yet defined your core values, you absolutely must. Here’s a quick, 5-step guide to get you started. Create check-in points along the way There can be unforeseen challenges that arise when someone starts a new job. They might not get along with a coworker, or their direct manager may not giving them enough training. You can get ahead of these problems by holding check-in meetings. Your Hiring Manager or Head of HR should have a check-in meeting at the end of week 1, month 1, and month 3. The purpose of this meeting is to see how things are going, hear about challenges that they might not have discussed with their manager, and provide professional feedback so you can help them succeed. Author Bio: Sean Kelly is the CEO of SnackNation, a healthy snack delivery service for offices across America. Sean is also the Founder of AwesomeOffice.org, an association dedicated to helping companies maximize employee engagement, productivity and wellbeing.

How Do You Hire the Best People? (Work Management Roundup)
Leadership 3 min read

How Do You Hire the Best People? (Work Management Roundup)

Welcome back to the weekly Work Management Roundup where we bring you the week's best reads in business, work, productivity, and management. This week, we take a look at startup hiring and how the search for the best is fraught with the best intentions but because we use the same old playbook, we often overlook more obvious ways to find the best, most creative talents. Plus we have tips on pitching to investors, and strategies for being more creative. Read on! We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else (Coding Horror): Interesting opinion piece by Jeff Atwood on how all startups say they're hiring the best and yet, statistically speaking, 80% of those startups will likely fail... so how do you measure "the best?" And how do you ensure you don't turn away people just because of hidden biases? Perhaps the objective should be: hire the nuttiest risk junkie adrenaline addicted has-ideas-so-crazy-they-will-never-work people no matter where they are in the world? You Must Chill! 4 Ways to Keep 'Social Road Rage' Out of the Workplace (Entrepreneur): If you've ever argued about politics on Facebook, then you know what "social road rage" is. But how do you keep this type of incendiary misunderstandings from happening at work? Here are 4 tips for communicating and especially delivering feedback online. Creative People Say No (Medium): A Hungarian psychology professor once invited 275 creative people to be interviewed for a book he was writing. And a full third of them said "No" -- often with the best responses possible. The truth is, we have to say No to some things in order to stay creative for our real priorities. Tips for Producing the Best Investor Pitch (Tech.co): Here are three major tips for when you're ready to pitch your company to investors — based on what top VCs and successful entrepreneurs advise other young companies. If you want your team to work at velocity, then Andrew Schrage, CEO & Co-owner of Money Crashers suggests: “Clearly designate who is responsible for each segment of your project. Your staff needs to know exactly who is in charge of what, regarding the project in question. That way, they’ll know who to go to for help and who to follow up with as they move towards project completion.” #wrike Copy and paste the URL into your browser to read more tips for teamwork in the full blog post:------->>>>>>> http://bit.ly/18TeamTips A photo posted by Wrike (@wriketeam) on Feb 25, 2016 at 6:47am PST More Work Management Reads Think About This: Top Agile Marketing Resources: 50 Examples, Training Resources, and More (Docurated) Google Ventures On How Sketching Can Unlock Big Ideas (FastCo Design) The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Bitly: How a Free Link Shortener Became a Real Business (Medium) Go Try This: Become a Super Connector: How to Work With 1,000+ Influencers (Sumo Me) 3 Super Simple Gmail Hacks to Boost Productivity Now (The Next Web) 10-3-2-1-0 Formula to Get More Done (Early to Rise) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can check out these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.

Learn How to Use Wrike Effectively With Wrike Discover
Collaboration 3 min read

Learn How to Use Wrike Effectively With Wrike Discover

Learn how to use Wrike with our new learning platform, Wrike Discover. This online training tool offers courses on how to use Wrike in teams and for project management.

3 Ways Startups Can Speed Up the Hiring Process and Lose the Personal Bias
Leadership 5 min read

3 Ways Startups Can Speed Up the Hiring Process and Lose the Personal Bias

Hiring the right people is one of the secrets to building a killer company, but most companies have broken and biased process. Here's how to optimize your process and find the best candidates.

How to Optimize Your Onboarding Process With Wrike's Onboarding Template
Productivity 5 min read

How to Optimize Your Onboarding Process With Wrike's Onboarding Template

A solid onboarding process can help you save both time and money. Find out how to optimize your employee onboarding process with Wrike’s onboarding template.