Wearing a t-shirt on a conference call or a hoodie at Google’s office is the new normal. The business dress code is becoming more casual and flexible to highlight our skills and performance but is still imbued with a fashion sense. Where are these trends coming from, and how should managers respond?

The Tech Industry Pioneering Casual Attire

Big companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook are famous for their casual office attire. Dressed in hoodies and jeans, the employees behind Sundar Pichai, Evan Williams and Mark Zuckerburg are headlining fashion trends in the tech industry.

While the “dress to impress” mantra is still valid, changes in dress codes prove that it’s not all about the looks. Intellect and performance are more important in business nowadays, especially in the digital-first ambience, as the tech giants demonstrate.

After the casual dress code revolutionized the tech industry, it also caught up with the booming landscape of start-ups. During the rise of start-up culture, many small businesses quickly grew to become corporate giants in an informal atmosphere.

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Other Industries Embracing the Casual Dress Code

Now, other industries are chiming in on the trend too.

“Dress codes in the finance sector have historically had the most conservative, formal standards, and even those are changing,” said New York-based alumna for Goldman Sachs Jessica Cadmus, who works as a stylist in the corporate world.

In 2019, Goldman Sachs published a memo announcing a shift towards “a more casual environment,” and they’re not the only ones. Morgan Stanley and other investment banks are also embracing the change.

Other industries are also driving change. The British airline Virgin Atlantic also relaxed its dress code by allowing flight attendants to wear pants and not forcing them to put make-up on so that they have “an increased level of comfort” and “more choice” to express individuality. The retail world is following suit: Target, for example, now allows employees to wear blue jeans every day at work.

Gen Z Is Shaping the New Business Dress Code

The emerging cohort of workers is the tech-savvy and fashion-forward Gen Z. As such, businesses are adapting their corporate dress codes to attract top talent from the young generation.

The new dress code is dictated by the latest trends in menswear, taking a more flexible approach. That means that knitwear will dominate the office style during sweater weather. Wider cuts, belted overcoats, and men’s loafers are the top fashion and shoe trends for this autumn, so expect to see them around the office.

Changing the Dress Code Reflects Changing Mindsets

While the shift in the business dress code is evident, even in historically rigid industries such as finance, some employers have clung to formalwear in the workplace.

Just like hiring managers would enlist the desired skills and requirements in a job advert and recruiters would prepare their clients, talking about the new dress code can help put everyone on the same page, especially employers.

If you’re a recruiter, you may have clients who insist on finding a candidate that fits their outdated dress code. But they could miss out on innovative talent by judging them based on their outfit. In that case, it’s your job to take them through the new business code and the benefits of adopting it. Bring the stats in: studies show that 61% of employees are more productive when they have a relaxed dress code. Show them some candidates that don’t fit the current dress code but have the perfect skillset. You’re the expert, and they’ve hired you for a reason, so bring that expertise to bear.

As part of adapting to the hybrid working environment, it’s important to start reworking our collective mindset around the new business dress code and other changes that come with that. Mastering this can help position us better in the evolved business landscape.

The shift towards a more casual dress code is accelerating as employees are looking to embrace comfort and individuality. A more flexible work attire means a happier workforce, better productivity, and more gains for the company.

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Technology

The Covid-19 pandemic has sped up digital transformation and technologies by years, leaving businesses in a tight spot with managing their digital infrastructure and adapting to these changes. However, the technology sector has been leading the way in providing remote working opportunities and has been the fastest in adjusting to them. But with many remote tech workers preferring to stay at home, how can the technology industry thrive in the remote era?

Create a productive work environment. With daily commutes being a thing of the past, workers can now focus on core projects, which boosts overall productivity levels. However, it’s important to note that with IT and digital projects catapulting to the top of the meeting agenda and many businesses seeking to adjust their business models to the latest technological developments, including outsourced services, your team is still getting their well-deserved rest. Creating a work environment with a balanced workload and fair deadlines helps them feel at ease and appreciated even when working from home.

Customer Service

When high street chains closed their doors in 2020 and moved to the online sphere, the retail sector received a huge boost. Customers filling their digital carts resulted in rapid growth for e-commerce businesses. But with online stores suddenly having to manage the increased demand of customers, many companies responded to that by expanding their customer service departments. A huge benefit of hiring customer service representatives is that support can easily be provided via phone calls, emails or chats – all from the comfort of their own home. But has that taken a toll on customer service representatives?

Staying connected. Customer service jobs can be challenging, despite the perks of working from home. A customer service agent deals with various situations daily; some are more demanding than others, and it can easily take a toll on a person mental health. As such, prioritizing employee well-being has never been more critical. Getting involved in your team’s daily activities, sharing the daily struggles, and finding common ground can help your team face the challenges ahead. As a celebration of all your achievements, a daily virtual huddle, a day out or a networking event once every quarter can go a long way.

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Marketing and Content Creation

Hiring marketing or social media representatives is an investment in future sales, as it contributes to building a company’s brand and selling it to a broad audience. Along the way, the team creates a range of content from blog posts to ads. As a manager, the day is never the same as you jump from project to project, which certainly requires good time management and organizational skills. But how can you ensure your team is driven even when the times are challenging?

Take feedback. As the digital world is changing rapidly, it’s only natural you expect your team to be up to date with the latest releases and ready to implement them in your strategy. But remember that building an empire with a solid base takes time and your employees need to feel supported while taking on more responsibilities. Make sure to implement regular meetings, take their suggestions on board when working out your strategy, and ask what other forms of support they would need to develop in their roles.

Final Thoughts

There are no right or wrong answers regarding best practices for managing your remote team, as each individual requires a different method. Remote working at this scale is a new and fresh method; best practices and technologies will inevitably emerge to help us. As always, it’s essential to be open-minded and focus on how you, as a manager, can empower your team and foster greater collaboration.

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However, some HR departments have been resistant to move with the times. This is due to some fears of the growing pains associated with a liquid talent strategy; procurement, for example, is a common anxiety. How agile can it really be if we have to manage endless procurement processes and contract prep?

Specialized freelancing marketplaces are the solution to these pain points. These online platforms provide a pre-certified, curated selection of professionals at an organization’s fingertips, with a single point of contact for contracts and invoicing. In this post, I’ll outline the key benefits of a high-level freelancing talent strategy.

Plug the tech talent gap. New technologies are ushering in new ways of working. As the demand for digitization intensifies, companies must re-skill employees or search for specialized talent. Unfortunately, this talent is far from abundant. According to a recent study from Korn Ferry, the technology and media sector will have a global shortfall of 4.3 million workers by 2030.

To secure the best talent in a competitive market, you need to move fast. Early starters — which include some of the world’s largest corporations — are able to cover their tech talent gap with remarkable agility with the support of talent platforms.

Speedy onboarding for on-demand talent. In the past, organizations were reluctant to take on freelancers because of the administrative work involved. Then there was onboarding; how could they be confident that the freelancer would fit into the existing company culture?

Proponents of the freelancing revolution know that a freelancer is rarely a one-hit wonder. Instead, leveraging on-demand talent is the start of a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Once they’ve been onboarded, they can slot in quickly and seamlessly on a project-by-project basis.

The result? Talent when and where you need it, already armed with the knowledge of processes and protocols, for the best possible price.

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Top talent at a low price. Gartner reported that post-pandemic, 32% of organizations surveyed said they’re using more freelancers to cut costs. This is because on-demand talent enables companies to get more done with a more flexible budget. This is particularly useful for project-based work where niche expertise can be drafted in as needed, as opposed to offering the highly competitive salary such a profile would demand.

Facilitate skill-sharing. It’s important to emphasize that cost reductions by no means lead to a reduction in quality — specialist platforms ensure that experts have verified experience.

However, this isn’t to say that full-time employees will fall by the wayside in the future. External expertise can share knowledge with internal talent and bring out the best in each team member, enabling the organization to identify hidden skills and help each employee reach their full potential.

Be ready for whatever the future throws at you. It goes without saying that the pandemic was a turning point in working cultures. The abrupt move to remote work demonstrated that resilience and flexibility were the new imperative of an unpredictable business environment. Those that were ready for the shake-up thrived, and those that weren’t fell by the wayside.

Embracing a flexible talent strategy means you’re ready for anything. A good example is managing changing expectations in regard to employee experience. For example, the Harvard Business Review found that 40% of surveyed business leaders said that young people’s desire for more flexibility and autonomy would have a significant impact on the future of work.

The Freelancing Revolution Is the Future

Looking forward, a flexible approach to talent will be what sets organizations apart. Human resources departments will have to develop new skills, but thankfully, the freelancing revolution is already well underway. Online talent platforms are making it easier than ever for companies to access freelance expertise and keep pace with new trends in the labor market.

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Develop a clear attendance policy. A formal attendance policy allows you to establish consistent and precise standards throughout your organization while outlining the disciplinary procedure for policy violations. Once you’ve established workplace attendance policies, make sure to share them with all employees.

More importantly, you must be consistent with applying these rules. This is the only way to show employees how serious your attendance policy is.

Use time-tracking software. Another approach to handling employee attendance is using time and attendance management software. It can boost employee responsibility and decrease absenteeism, and it can assist you in monitoring hours, tardiness and absences, managing schedules and tracking vacation and sick time. By using tracking software, you can discover patterns and take measures to enhance attendance.

There are many tracking software programs available, so choose one that enables you to tailor the system to your company’s requirements and receive updates when errors occur, such as an employee working overtime.

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Measure the employees’ performance. Employee performance should be directly related to attendance in your evaluation system. Furthermore, we suggest that you consider rewarding employees who perform exceptionally well. Of course, these do not have to be costly programs! You can create fun ways to entice and attract your team members (e.g., movie tickets or gift cards) or acknowledge them publicly during staff meetings.

For example, if you’re relocating the office and looking for ways to minimize downtime for your employees, you can reward them if they show extra motivation during this time. Staying productive during an office move can be challenging, but with some enhancement, you can turn your workspace into a well-oiled machine.

Address the attendance issues on time. Do not put off discussing performance and attendance until a planned one-on-one meeting or the annual evaluation. Supervisors should take the responsibility to address these issues with staff as soon as possible. Every manager is responsible for their team’s attendance and overall performance, and dealing with concerns immediately will probably lead to a change in behavior.

What can supervisors and team leaders do to address these issues and overcome potential obstacles? Setting aside time for team training or a development workshop containing sections on handling employee attendance and performance will keep supervisors updated.

Offer fair time off. Companies that provide generous paid time off (PTO) benefits may increase employee attendance and efficiency. Employees will establish the routine of scheduling their days off if you provide adequate time away from the workplace. For example, suppose one of your employees is using their PTO for the process of moving houses. Professional moving crews like those from mod-movers.com can help the employee estimate how many days the move will take so they can forward accurate information to you ahead of time, allowing you to find substitute coverage, reschedule project deadlines and balance workloads across teams.

You need to choose the type of PTO you want to provide to your employees. Is there a set amount of time each year? Is their time off granted all at once or accumulated? Do you provide unlimited PTO?

Offering fair time off is one of the most effective ways to handle employee attendance. Not only will the employees avoid absenteeism, but they will also try and be more productive to earn their PTO.

Final thoughts. While absenteeism makes for a challenging workplace, it is avoidable. Your company can save money and decrease absenteeism by handling employee attendance and establishing a fair attendance policy that deals with issues adequately. Furthermore, providing a reliable PTO policy that covers vacation and sick time can reduce the number of times employees fail to show up for work.

We’ve given you the most effective ways to handle employee attendance. All you have to do now is implement them according to your company’s and employees’ needs.

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Regardless of which format you decide to use, I recommend starting the strategic process by conducting a Strategic Discovery Session. It is helpful to first consider the organization’s strategic positioning (how the organization differentiates itself from its competitors) and the market environment surrounding the organization and then conduct a SWOT exercise.  Spending time up front identifying how internal and external factors may impact the organization over the length of the strategic plan cycle is a wise investment of time. It helps ensure that a solid understanding of current risks and opportunities are factored into both the desired outcomes and the final plan.

After completing this preliminary step, you can formulate your desired outcomes. During my time as CEO, my most successful strategic plans included financial, people and process — goals that tied to our overall purpose. The purpose is your WHY. It is not only why the organization exists — it is also what unites the people in the organization. Ensuring the purpose is not only understood by each member of your organization but more importantly how each contributes to that purpose is critical to the whole team buying into the plan. Having your purpose front and center as you craft your plan is critical to your success.

As I mentioned above, plans should also include financial, people and process goals. Give some thought to the desired outcomes as they relate to financial goals along with the human capital and culture, talent attraction, retention, employee happiness and wellness, engagement, and development goals. Is the financial goal achievable? Is it a big enough stretch? Will it motivate people? How does it compare to the market growth and average return? In regards to people, what is most important for your organization in the coming year? What, in this area, do you need to focus on to deliver on your purpose?  What will tie the people to the purpose more completely?

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Some organizations overlook setting PEOPLE goals and focus solely on the financial goal. In my experience, this does not achieve a sustainable framework for the organization.

Lastly, goal setting should also consider process improvements that support the purpose and delivery of the financial goal. Including this in your goal-setting project will ensure that the strategic process is more thorough and robust. The more you can involve operational team members in this strategic activity, the more likely the goals will be achieved. People with hands-on operational experience and insight need to be at the table to ensure the best chance of getting the process development and investment right.

It goes without saying that goals need to be MEASURABLE. One of the reasons I like OGSM is because measurement is a key factor in the framework. Again, I encourage you to discuss the key performance indicators and measurable outcomes with operational leaders and those at the grass root levels. Depending upon how large an organization you lead, you may want to extend the strategic planning process to include work teams and/or strategic planning committees to flush out more detailed action plans.

Once the plan is crafted, the process moves on to communication, implementation and follow up. These steps are where the rubber hits the road and the plan starts to become a reality. Next month’s blog will address these important steps. As a leader, I always looked forward to the strategic planning process. Today I enjoy coaching and sharing my experiences with other leaders.

Overall, the more inclusive you make the process, the greater chance you have of succeeding.

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That means, in short, that you’re tasked with being an analyst, strategist, problem-solver, coach and mentor all at once. That’s a tall mountain to climb for anyone, no matter how well-trained or experienced you may be.

It’s little wonder, then, that so many managers find themselves becoming overworked and overwhelmed. This article describes strategies business leaders can use to protect their mental health by recognizing the signs of overwork and taking proactive steps to prevent it.

Recognizing the Signs of Overwork

When you are in leadership, it can be difficult to ever truly break away from work. After all, the success of your company and your team rests largely on your shoulders. You may realize that even during off hours, you constantly check your work email or text messages or your thoughts drift back to work-related issues.

Even if you are not consciously aware of a preoccupation with work, you may nevertheless experience symptoms that indicate underlying anxiety or sleep deprivation likely caused by overwork. You may also experience physical impacts of work-related exhaustion such as headaches or increased blood pressure.

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Taking Action

Whether you are already experiencing the signs and symptoms of overwork, or you want to take proactive steps to prevent them, there are ways to find a healthier work/life balance as a manager.

Set boundaries. It can be easy for salaried managers to be “always on,” attending to work matters any time of day. That’s why the first and most important step is to set firm boundaries (and adhere to them). Ensure that your work actually ends at the close of each work day. Teach your clients and colleagues to respect your off hours, and make sure you do the same by resisting the temptation to “check in” or “get a few things done” while you’re at home or on vacation.

Delegate tasks. Avoiding burnout and overwork is about more than your life after hours. At work, take a step back from your hands-on approach and analyze which tasks you could delegate to your employees. Not only is task delegation essential for managing your workload, it’s also a managerial skill that empowers employees and helps them learn new things.

Prepare them for your absence. In this vein, set your team up for success by training them to excel while you’re on vacation. Coach them on how to resolve conflicts and solve problems. Doing so won’t render you obsolete as a manager — it will ensure there are no fires to put out when you get back and enable you to focus on new improvements now that your team can handle problem-solving and new tasks.

Consider automation. In some cases, you might not want to delegate tasks to employees. Instead, automating certain tasks will enable everyone to focus on higher-level work. For example, you could use AI software to approve employee workflows, create schedules, update information and more. Automation is a great way to displace some of your workloads and make room for the tasks, such as coaching, that only a human manager can do.

Make the most of your time off. It’s also critical to make time for socializing and recreation. You won’t reap the rewards of your off hours if you’re worrying about work and waiting for the new business day to begin. Instead, use your personal time to gather with family and friends, engage in a physical activity you enjoy or participate in a favorite hobby.

Use evenings and weekends to enjoy mini-staycations and ensure you’re taking at least one or two full vacations a year. These little adventures will help you replenish and rejuvenate not only your body but also your mind and spirit.

The Takeaway

Sometimes it seems as if a manager’s work is never done. However, if you don’t make the commitment to setting boundaries and striking a healthier work/life balance, you may well find yourself paying a physical and emotional price for your overwork.

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Why People Are Resigning

The Great Resignation is the result. Two-fifths of people are unhappy with their current work and are considering leaving their job in the near future, which poses an exciting opportunity for staffing agencies that can fulfill the changing needs of today’s workers.

The main reasons cited by employees who are leaving their employer in the near future are:

• Lack of career development
• Inadequate pay
• Uncaring bosses and managers
• Their work doesn’t feel meaningful
• Their work isn’t flexible enough
• Support for well-being

Moreover, 75% of employees state that they want to work for organizations that are making positive contributions to society.

Connecting With Candidates

This provides a valuable framework for staffing agencies that are seeking to connect more deeply with candidates during the Great Resignation.

Offer clarity around career development. Firstly, make sure you and your client organizations have clear career pathways for candidates — and communicate this early on, ideally during the interview process. If vertical promotions (to managerial roles, for example) aren’t possible, look at lateral moves into other departments that will continue to stretch and challenge candidates. Nobody wants to feel like their career is going stale, so provide experiences that enable them to continuously learn and develop.

Meet Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a pyramid model that describes the motivation behind our actions. At the bottom are our basic physiological needs like food and water, financial security, wellness and safety. Then we move up the pyramid to social needs and esteem needs. At the peak of the pyramid is self-actualization, where individuals are focused on fulfilling their potential. If you cannot meet the basic needs, people will not reach the upper levels — and that’s why many people are switching jobs to more financially secure ones. In other words, cut corners at the bottom of the pyramid, and your workforce will never reach its full potential.

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Check in with candidates. Setting up regular, informal meetings with candidates will help you build a personal connection with them, getting to know their individual needs and passions. It will result in more successful placements and greater retention of candidates. It will also help to address the third point of why people are leaving their employers — if they feel like nobody really cares about their work, why would they stay? At the very least, if they find their current line manager isn’t meeting this need, they will turn to you, their staffing consultant, to help them navigate their next step.

Build meaningful work together. If you’re connecting with candidates regularly, you’ll begin to understand what drives them and provides meaning in their careers. This will give you a better idea of what placements will suit them, and together you’ll be able to shape a career path that doesn’t just pay the bills but also gives greater satisfaction at the end of the work day.

Focus on autonomy and flexibility. Candidates are now seeking work that can fit around other needs, like family commitments, studying or simply living with greater work/life balance. Staffing consultants need to be aware of this so they can provide opportunities that align with someone’s availability. Providing a range of opportunities for a candidate to look through can also give them the power to choose the employers and roles that best suit them.

Well-being. This ties closely with building a close relationship with your candidates — allowing you to check in on their overall well-being as well as their availability and aspirations. Ideally, your relationship will be trusted enough that if they are in a role that doesn’t suit them and is impacting their well-being, they should be able to communicate this to you for your support.

Delivering a Personal Experience

Enveloping all of this is a deeply personal working relationship with candidates that allow staffing managers to anticipate their needs and goals before sharing opportunities.

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“The return-to-office battle will resume after Labor Day.”

“Workers face pressure as top companies push post–Labor Day return to office.”

“Battle over return to office heats up as bosses lose patience.”

“Return-to-office deadline after Labor Day sets up showdown.”

Whether “battle” or “showdown” prove to be accurate or exaggerated descriptions of how things actually transpire remains to be seen.

Either way, those descriptions — and the stories they’re part of — reflect the reality that return-to-office plans can quickly cause employer-employee relations to become difficult at best and adversarial at worst. While either of these outcomes is problematic, the issue becomes even more toxic if it contributes to an overall deterioration of the relationship between a company and its people.

So, what can a company do? It begins with transparency. Regular communication and meaningful conversations with employees can go a long way in fostering understanding about the decision and alleviating some of the concerns.

Here’s what our firm did. We adopted a trial hybrid work-from-home program in February of this year and closely monitored key data points across the next several months. We determined in recent weeks that modifications were necessary.

While the flexibility and other benefits of the policy remain important, we saw a couple of trends emerge following the program’s implementation. We decided the best course of action was to bring people back to our offices four days a week beginning September 6.

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In communicating the revised policy to employees, we shared data points that led to our decision. Beyond our own results-oriented metrics, we also provided important context about factors beyond our control that impact our business and which employees might not have considered.

For example, we discussed how inflationary pressures caused our costs to rise by approximately 20-25%. This is important background information, as employees often don’t fully understand the external stresses that companies are under. Similarly, employees need to know what companies are doing in response (in our case, implementing price adjustments and updating our hybrid work policy).

We learn the most when we encourage our teams to share their experiences, so our leadership spent a lot of time over the past month listening to employees. We asked questions designed to foster a meaningful conversation: How are you feeling? What’s on your mind? How is your work-life balance? Are you still committed to the company?

I also shared in a companywide email my sincere belief in the value of the energy, knowledge and training that come from everyone working together in an office. Being together also provides a number of benefits to our business overall and to the professional growth and development of our employees. Going forward, we’ll focus more than ever on engaging with employees and demonstrating our commitment to their success.

The reality is, no policy about where and when work gets done — in-office, remote or hybrid — is going to make everyone happy. Employers know people have choices about where to work and should be prepared for at least some level of attrition because of their policies.

By regularly providing transparent communications and holding meaningful conversations, your company will be well positioned to garner the type of support and loyalty needed to keep and grow your employees.

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When a leader starts in a coaching program with me, I have them complete a Leadership Questionnaire that asks them to reflect on their personal and professional goals — what is working well and what areas they would like to develop. It helps leaders take stock of their leadership journey and think about where they are right now and where they want to go.

I encourage them to keep this document and refer to it throughout the year to help them stay the course and/or reassess their plan if their priorities have changed.

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If you have committed to a similar process, now is a good time to have another look at your work and refocus on your goals. If you have never taken the time to reflect on your own goals, I encourage you to do so now. While the work will change over time, it serves as a guidepost along the way and helps leaders to stay on track.

Think about what you set out to achieve this year and how you measure up so far.

Are there actions you committed to that you have given up? Why — what got in the way? Is it something worth course correcting for?

If you are on track, you may want to consider setting an additional goal, taking some time for yourself to fill your own cup and/or paying it forward. Reflect on who on your team seems off track with their goals and how you can support them to get back on track.

The change in season brings with it renewed energy towards our goals. Are you ready to get back on track?

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Getting the right people in the right positions has never been more important, and it’s maybe never been more difficult.

I’m not saying I have all the solutions. I am a numbers person, though, and I happen to work in the staffing industry. I’ve looked at the costs from a lot of different angles, and I can confirm what most hiring managers already know: Hiring is expensive. Recruitment is costly with the rising cost of job boards and the time it takes a recruiter to identify a quality candidate. Getting a new employee up and running isn’t cheap, not just because of the time a company devotes to training, but because of the start-up costs associated with bringing a new employee on board with pay, payroll taxes and benefits.

Pre-pandemic, the kind of talent that fills call centers or handles customer service was largely seen as a commodity. Companies might use vendors to source candidates and then identify the cheapest possible candidate with the necessary skills or experience. But we don’t live in a pre-pandemic world, and businesses need to change the way they approach this business-critical need.

Hiring needs to be strategic, thoughtful and interactive. And even though I’m biased because my work is all about numbers, I think there’s no more cost-effective way to do that than to partner — like, really partner — with a trusted company that has the expertise and systems in place to identify the right candidates for the right jobs. Some companies, mine included, assume some or all of the costs in getting a new employee on board, from covering all hiring expenses to managing or providing the benefits and payroll that cover a new hire’s compensation package.

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This approach can be risky for companies such as mine because we invest a lot up front, and if we don’t match the right candidate to the right opening, we lose that investment. We think of it as a funnel. The funnel starts with a job posting, which we pay to amplify and which reaches a wide range of job seekers. We train and employ professional recruiters who evaluate candidates’ skillsets on paper and then narrow that pool to those we want to screen by phone. Our recruiters then complete a behavioral interview with the most promising candidates. The most qualified candidates are passed on to our clients, working in partnership to conduct strong interviews, background checks, reference calls and credit checks before presenting an offer to a candidate. It’s a partnership, and it’s one that we value and spend a lot of time building.

Picking the right staffing partner company can be a challenge, but here are some tips: Find a partner organization that shares your company’s values. Look for a partner company that works to build trust. A good partner will seek to understand your company’s openings, timing of hires, pain points and the behavioral characteristics you want in an associate. A hiring manager and a good vendor won’t look at labor as a commodity, but rather as a chance to give a great candidate a great opportunity with a great enterprise — ideally with the goal of providing that associate a long-term position that brings growth for both the employee and the company.

Hiring has changed, and that could be a good thing. It isn’t a company’s best interest to think of its people as a commodity anymore. Treating employees like the important business-level priority they are will certainly aid in retention. But on a granular, process-based level, thinking intentionally about the mechanisms of how your company identifies and sources talent could not only bring you a better candidate pool, it will save you money.

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