Best Work From Home Productivity Tips 

There are many advantages of working from home, and nowadays more and more people are working a few days from home a week or fully remotely. But working from home can also be challenging, especially when it comes to staying productive and juggling the demands of your daily job, next to home and family concerns. Therefor we have put down the best work from home productivity tips, for you to stay on top of your deadlines and daily tasks when working from home. 

Get Up Early To Start Your Day

When working from home it can be tempting to sleep a little longer than usually, since you don’t have to rush to get to the office. But if you are having a difficult time staying productive, waking up early to start your day, is a good strategy. Set an alarm, early in the morning and make yourself your favorite morning beverage and start looking at your first tasks for the day. This is a great way to start your morning in a productive way. 

Time Management and Scheduling 

Time management is the process of planning and organizing how to divide your time between specific activities. The benefits of time management include better productivity, increases your focus, builds confidence, and allows you to plan your time for effectively. One of the best ways to be successful with time management is by scheduling. When creating a schedule, you will put down the tasks you need to complete each day, including breaks. Scheduling is one of the best work from home productivity tips, since it positively impacts your mental health and wellbeing. 

Set Up a Motivating Home Office 

One of the most important best work from home productivity tips, is to set up a home office space. Many remote workers and professionals who work from home, will tell you that it is necessary to have a specific working area. Whether it is a corner of a living room or a guest room, turned into an office. Your home office should be a productive and peaceful area. 

Try to Avoid Distractions 

Many surveys have shown that working from home results in increased productivity levels. Though there are a few home life distractions, that can make working from home more difficult, and you lose focus from your daily tasks. To avoid distractions, make sure to have clear communication between other members in your household, when taking a work call or meeting. 

Build Movement in Your Day 

If you want to be productive when working from home, make sure to take regular breaks and give your mind time to recharge. One of the best ways to ensuring you look after your mind and body, is by allocating time for exercise, stretches or making sure that you are not stuck in one position the whole day. Building movement into your work from home routine, has proven to reduce levels of stress, uplift your mood and stimulate your brain function. 

Conclusion

Working from home come with both advantages and challenges. But creating a schedule, setting clear expectations, and eliminating distractions can all enhance the productivity. Finally, remember to keep in mind, to focus on your mind and body, by building movement in your day, signing of work for the night and taking time to focus on yourself. 

How To Recruit And Retain Hospitality Employees

After the pandemic, there was a rise in candidates in the hospitality industry and many were looking for jobs. Though it didn’t take long before it turned. Suddenly there was a high amount of unfilled job vacancies and a lower unemployment rate.

The hospitality industry is ready to get back on track, but the low number of qualified candidates is slowing down the companies and is becoming an increasing concern. This results in a hiring problem in the industry and makes it difficult for companies to recruit and retain hospitality employees. 

Focus on a faster hiring process 

Before the pandemic, the hospitality industry had the advantage of a higher volume of candidates than they needed. This meant that the hiring process automatically was much more inefficient. Since they were always able to find new talented candidates. 

Now that the tables have turned, companies must focus on a faster hiring process. If they want to catch the talents before their competitors. If a candidate applies for a role and doesn’t hear from the company or if they are forced to wait weeks for an interview, this is driving the talents away. 

Keep in mind it is a candidate’s market 

In a candidate’s market, the talents have more freedom when searching for a job. They can be more critical when it comes to the salary, the working hours, and the working conditions. 

In this new candidate’s market, companies in the industry must invest the same attention, time, and money to recruit and retain hospitality employees, as they invest in their customers. The recruitment experience is a great way to start. 

Talents need to be engaged 

The hospitality industry is fighting to get back on track. Though we cannot deny that the pandemic has affected the industry. There are still some challenges to overcome. 

Therefore, the companies must focus on highlighting the benefits of the industry to recruit and retain hospitality employees. This could be the flexible schedules, good benefits, great work experience, and career opportunities around the world. If you fail to impress your candidates through the recruitment journey, you will not be able to recruit and retain hospitality employees. 

Conclusion 

After the pandemic, the hospitality industry especially has experienced major shifts in the job market. The future is uncertain, and companies need easy and quick recruitment solutions to recruit and retain hospitality employees. 

One thing is sure, if you are still using the same hiring strategy with a stable job market in mind, you are doing something wrong.

How Recruitment Companies use Social Media

Is it possible to use social media other than LinkedIn to recruit new employees? The answer is yes! We have put down the platforms and tools you can use in your recruitment and information about how recruitment companies use social media. 

Everything you can find is searched for!

The most effective tool for the search and selection process in recruitment is search strings. You can use search tools to find the right candidate for a role, by entering the most important information into a search engine you will find candidates with the desired qualifications. Whether you are on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or similar. Boolean search strings is a great way to find qualified candidates and is the most preferred process when searching for candidates for recruitment.

If you are a recruiter, this method is often your starting point. It is a great way to get an overview of how many people match the job description and where they are located geographically. It is also a great way to create a quick list of relevant candidates you can contact. Who knows, maybe you can close the recruitment process quickly. At the same time, as a candidate, you need to make yourself attractive on LinkedIn for potential employers to recruit you. It is important to update the profile with relevant information and keywords to increase your visibility. You can read more about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile here.  

Recruitment on all digital platforms

LinkedIn is the preferred platform for recruitment. Everyone is using LinkedIn today. This is the platform where all recruiters and HR managers operate when looking for candidates they want to recruit. You may have noticed that people working in HR or recruitment have looked through your profile every now and then, or you may have been contacted by someone with an exciting job offer. But LinkedIn is not the only digital platform recruiters use when looking for the right candidate. 

Some recruiters also use Instagram or Facebook, especially when searching for a candidate within a specific industry. Facebook has countless of groups and pages of which recruiters and HR managers are members. Typically, recruiters place job postings in the group and thereby reach relevant target groups. Instagram is an effective tool for recruitment companies to develop their brand identity, authenticity, and trust. Some recruiters might also use Instagram to search and select candidates for roles within specific industries. 

Take advantage of recruitment on social media

So, if you are a recruiter there is no reason to limit yourself. Instead use all the opportunities on the different social media platforms. Do not expect that the right candidate will come from one single job post, instead search for candidates yourself and post the job in different groups. In this way you can be lucky to close the recruitment process in a short amount of time. 

If you are a job seeker, make sure to optimize the relevant digital platforms and use the right keywords to create more visibility. You may not see the result in one week, but in the long run it will make a difference. There are no restrictions when it comes to recruiting on social media and you can go a long way by recruiting or applying for jobs in a different way than everyone else!

5 Tips For The First Working Day

Starting a new work in a new environment and with new faces, can be nerve wracking. But the changes can also be exciting, especially when you know how to tackle new challenges and learn more skills. 

Plan the day 

The first and most simple tip, is to make sure to plan the day. To avoid a stressful and frustrating morning, you can plan your outfit, the night before the first working day. It is also a good idea to check the route for your workplace and find out how to get there and how long it takes depending on the traffic. Perhaps you can drive earlier from home, which gives you a little extra time if there are traffic jams and you avoid getting stressed. In this way you are sure to arrive to work in time with a peaceful mindset. 

Do not come to work empty-handed 

If you haven’t been giving any instructions for the first working day, it is always a good idea to bring your own computer. Even if the company will give you a work computer, you never know if it has been delivered for the first working day. It is also a good idea to bring a book to write down notes and any documents about the company or employee manuals you have received from the company. 

Practice how to introduce yourself

One of the most important things to practice for the first working day, is how to introduce yourself. On the first working day, you will meet and talk to your new colleagues, and you will probably be asked a lot of questions. A good work environment between colleagues is very important, therefor it is essential to make a good first impression. With a little preparation, you are ready to answer all the questions your new and curious colleagues ask during the day. 

Listen and ask questions

When starting the first working day, it is important to listen and learn from your colleagues. You most likely don’t know everything about the company, the systems, and the processes, which is why you must be humble, instead of having a “I know everything” attitude. Pay extra attention and write important information in your notebook. Ask questions about everything from the system and tools to colleagues’ projects and experiences. 

Be yourself

You made it through the recruitment process by being yourself, so why start being a different person now? It is normal to be nervous the first working day, but do not doubt yourself. Remember that they chose you for a reason and you are the right person for the job. Therefor the last tip for the first working day is to be yourself when you talk and interact with your new colleagues. Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.

How To Find The Best Candidate For Your Company

At Scancruit, we value people and this underpins everything that we do. We believe that the right people make the difference between success and failure. Our decision is based on research and knowledge. We go the extra mile to understand our clients’ values. We focus on how to find the best candidate for your company. 

1. Do your research about the candidate 

When doing a job interview you can get a good impression of the candidate and ask questions about their experience. But the candidate might look perfect for the role on paper and did great to the job interview. But is the candidates really who they pretend to be? To be sure that you find the right candidate to join your team and to grow your company. It is important to secure references from others who have previously worked with the potential new employee. 

2. Ask the candidate to resolve one or more tasks 

When focusing on how to find the best candidate for your company, it is a great idea to create one or more tasks relevant to the job. In this way the candidates get a chance to show their skills and it is a great way for the company and the candidates to see if they are suitable for the role. It takes time to create a good task, but it is a good investment. 

3. Be sure to test the candidates 

Thirdly it is a good idea to do a personality test, to get a better understanding about the candidates’ personality and get a better idea of how they will fit into the company. It reveals the candidate’s general behavior and action patterns. Though it is important to mention that the personality test is an additional tool to use, and your decision should be based on other factors as well. 

4. Let your team meet the candidates

The dynamic in the team is crucial when finding a new candidate. It is a good idea to let the most relevant team members meet the potential candidate, to get an idea how the future candidate will fit into the team and the values of the company. To ensure that you take all the above factors into consideration, you can work with a recruitment company. They will make sure to match your companies’ values with the new candidate.  

Benefits of Working With A Headhunter

If you decide to meet with a headhunter and hear more about the job offer, you can be sure that it will remain between the two of you. The headhunter avoids revealing any confidential information. 

What does it mean?

In headhunting, it is not yourself who actively sends an application related to a job opening. The headhunter will contact you if they find you interesting for a specific position. 

The headhunter is able to contact a candidate even though the candidate is not looking to change job. Perhaps they want to know more about your competencies. A reason for this could be to find out if you are suitable, for a specific role or to know if you want to change job. 

If you have been talking with a headhunter, it is often possible for you to upload your CV to their database. As a result, if they find another position that could be interesting for you, they will contact you again.

How will the headhunter notice me?

Visibility is crucial for whether a headhunter will find you. There are several things you can do to get visible.

LinkedIn is a channel that many use to find qualified candidates for a specific position. If you have a LinkedIn profile, it is important that you have updated your work experience, education and skillset. For example, it is good for visibility if you are making LinkedIn posts and commenting on other people’s activities.

Some recruitment agencies, have the option of putting your resume in their database. But it is far from all headhunters that you can find yourself. Often this is only possible if they have already contacted you themselves.

How To Build Trust In The Workplace?

Trusting your employees can bring a lot of benefits for your company and for the work environment. Therefore, managers and executives invest a lot of effort and time building trust in their teams at work. Both establishing trust in their employees and ensuring that their employees trust them in return. But still many employees say that they do not feel trusted by their managers. When employees do not feel trusted, the productivity at the workplace and the motivation often suffer. It is the managers responsibility to signal trust in their employees in thoughtful and consistent ways. So, how to build trust in the workplace? 

Flexible Working Structure 

One of the best ways to build trust in the workplace, is by trusting your employees. Managers must establish routines with their employees that enable them to keep up with their work without micromanaging. A weekly or monthly routine of check-ins will give the manager the opportunity to stay informed. A flexible working structure improves the employee satisfaction, as well as increasing the organisations productivity. However, without trust from the managers, this type of working structure cannot be successful. 

Improved Communication 

When you learn how to build trust in your employees, it can improve the communication in the company. If you show trust in your employees, they will show their trust back to you, which will result in a flow of honest communication between employees and employer. Trusting and empowering your employees to give honest feedback can also be a great way to increase employee engagement in the company. 

Increased Productivity 

To build trust in the workplace is an important factor if you want to create more productivity in the company. When you build trust in the workplace your employees will get on with their work and be more productive, instead of the manager requiring constantly to check in with the employees. If you have an effective HR department or have worked with a professional recruitment agency, you can be confident that you have hired the right person for the job and you trust them to do well, instead of wasting time micromanaging people. 

Build Team Spirit 

Companies who know how to build trust in the workplace and gives their employees the space to work independently will create a healthier atmosphere and more productive team. When there is a high trust level in the workplace the employees feel more confident in themselves and each other. This means that the employee will feel more innovative and takes more risks, because they don’t feel like the manager is looking over their shoulder. This gives the employee a greater opportunity to learn and grow, which will reflect on the company. 

Great Tips on How to Develop Your Business

Focus on marketing 

Some companies are having a good and solid reputation, and they do not think it is necessary to spend money on marketing. While other companies do not understand the importance of marketing and especially not digital marketing. Unfortunately, in the world we live in today, marketing is key if you want to create knowledge about your company and if you want to keep your solid reputation. Therefore, one of the first tips will be to market your business. In this way, you can measure and create more knowledge about your target group as well.

Make it attractive to stay in the company

If the employees are happy it will reflect on the company. Since this means less sick days, less replacement and just in general a better environment in the workplace. Having competent employees who have been in the company for a long time has a strength in any company. The key employees contribute to a better work rhythm, as they know the company well. A high turnover of employees is expensive for the company, and does not look good on the outside.

Use resources and time to create an environment and a work culture that keeps employees in the company. It can, for example be to create a better social environment, or to give the employees more credit for the work they are doing. 

Update company systems

If a company has existed a long time, it could be that some areas needs updating. Many companies are getting use to specific systems, which means that they do not discover new and more effective systems in time. It is always a good idea to think about ways the system could be optimised and updated, to ensure a more effective work environment.

Create more revenue

Creating more revenue is, of course, something that every business dreams about. It is important that you seek stable, reliable, and recurring revenue, from loyal customers. But how do you make customers loyal? Look at your competitors and figure out how you can make a difference for your customers. Figure out what makes you better compared to your competitors and if you lose any customers, figure out why and make sure to learn from your mistakes.  

Create a long-term plan

Make a long-term plan for how your company will function in the future. What goals do you have for your company? Where do the future earnings come from and what direction do you want to go? It is important to keep an eye on the details and have a long-term plan laid out. This will create value for your company in the long run, since the company and the employees have a goal to work for.

How to Get A Better Physical and Mental Work Environment

But what characterizes a good working environment? And what can you do yourself to fix a bad work environment?

You can get answers to this here, where you can find out which signs you need to keep an eye on in your workplace and what you can do yourself to create a better working environment.

5 signs of a poor working environment:

  • There are many sick leaves at your workplace
  • There is no community between colleagues
  • There is a large turnover of employees 
  • You experience that the needs of the employees are not taken into account
  • Management does not listen when problems are pointed out – both mental, physical and social

How to recognize a bad work environment?

A bad working environment can be seen both mentaly, physicaly and socialy. And no matter what creates the bad working environment, being a part of it can be hugely exhausting. It is harmful both for you as an employee and for you as a manager – because it becomes expensive in the long run when absence increases and efficiency decreases.

How do you recognize a bad work environment, and what can you do improve it?

A bad working environment can be anything from bullying to poor physical conditions. Overall, the work environment is conditioned by the relationships and conditions you encounter in your workplace. A badworking environment can therefore arise if the management does not listen to the employees, or if the office chair is outdated, so you get back pain. But a bad work environment is not a motivating work environment, and therefore it will ultimately also affect the management.

What should I do if I have a bad work environment?

If you come home from work every day and feel drained, depressed and completely out of energy, this is some of the many indications that it is time for changes to take place in your workplace. But it can be difficult to know where and how to change the bad work environment. 

If the work environment is bad due to social or psychological reasons, it can be difficult for one person to create a solution. If you experience problems such as stress, bullying or other factors that create an unpleasant atmosphere, it is the responsibility of the management and the workplace to ensure that the problems are rectified.

No two cases are alike, and whether it’s a single person or an entire group experiencing it, it’s important that the issue comes to light. Talk to your occupational health and safety representative if you have one. It is the responsibility of this person to take care of the mental as well as the physical work environment. Also talk to your colleagues about what you all can do to improve the work environment.

Luckily more and more workplaces are succeeding in incorporating movement and exercise in the workplace to create a better environment and happier employees.

9 Things That Makes Your Employees Quit Their Job

You can probably find all sorts of reasons for why an employee chooses to leave a company. But the fact is: Employees typically do not leave their jobs, they leave their managers. Therefor we have put down 9 important reasons why employees choose to quit their job, so that you can prevent it from happening.

You push your employees too hard

Nothing drives good employees down like work pressure. It is tempting to put the best employees on the majority of work tasks, and many managers fall into that trap. But when you pressure the good employees, itcan create confusion, since It makes them feel that they are being punished for doing a good job.

Working overtime and excessive pressure have the opposite effect on productivity. A study from Stanford University shows that employee productivity deteriorates markedly every time a work week exceeds 50 hours. If a working week exceeds 55 hours, the productivity of the employees decreases so much that in reality they no longer produce anything usable.

If you want to increase the workload of a skilled employee, it is also a good idea to give the employee credit for the effort. Talented employees will be happy to take on more and more challenging work tasks if they are rewarded with, for example, more freedom, and salary supplements or a promotion. If you simply change the workload because the employee is talented, the employee will seek another position where the personreceives what they deserves.

You do not recognize and reward the good work of employees

It is easy to underestimate the effect of giving an employee credit for their efforts. Especially when your employees are top performers, who are generally motivated without outside incentives. But everyone likes recognition, especially the employees who shows extra efforts in the workplace.

You need to find out what motivates your employees and gives them the feeling that they are valued. For one employee may be a pay rise, for another may be public recognition. Whatever the employees prefer, a good manager should remember to reward if the employees have done a good job.

You do not show interest in the employees

More than half of those who leave their jobs do so because of the relationship they have with their manager. Skilled organizations make sure to have leaders who can figure out how to balance combinations of being professional and human. It is precisely such leaders who remember to celebrate an employee when he is successful, but also have empathy for the same employee when he is going through a difficult time. This kind of leader can also figure out how to challenge the employee, even when it seems unmanageable.

If you are not interested in your employees, you will always have a higher staff turnover. It is almost impossible to have an eight-hour workday in a workplace where the manager does not get involved in the general well-being of the employees, but instead worries about results.

You do not act in accordance with an agreement

When you make an agreement with an employee, it is crucial that you comply with the agreement. If you keep the agreements made with an employee, you will be valued by the employees because you prove that you are reliable – which is a very important quality of a manager.

But if you ignore your agreements, you are hard to trust. It has the effect in the workplace that others also find it difficult to keep their agreements. Because if the manager can not figure out how to keep his agreements, why should everyone else do it?

You hire and promote the wrong people

Good and hard-working employees want to work with like-minded colleagues. When you can not bother to find and hire good employees, it seems demotivating to colleagues.

Giving a promotion to the wrong employee is even worse. When an employee makes a persistent effort at work, only to see another receive the promotion, it can feel like an insult. It can make good employees leave their position.

You do not let employees pursue what they are passionate about

Talented employees are often passionate, and giving them an opportunity to pursue their passion increases their productivity and job satisfaction. But many managers prefer employees to work in a specific area. These managers fear that productivity will fall if they offer the employee flexibility. Studies show that people who have the opportunity to pursue their passion at work generally are more productive than the norm.

You do not develop employee competencies

When managers don’t give their employees a lot of attention, it often means that the managers have trust in their employees, to work very independently. But this is not always the right solution. Successful managerslead their team, no matter how talented their employees are. They pay attention to the employees, listen and give feedback to them.

When you have a talented employee, it is your responsibility to find new areas where the employee can improve and develop his or her competencies. If not, the employee will start to get bored and start looking for new opportunities.

You do not encourage creativity

The most talented employees strive to improve themselves as much as possible. Taking away the opportunity for change and improvement because you are most comfortable with the state of things can cause your employees to lose motivation. Capturing the natural desire to create not only limits employees, it also limits yourself and your company.

You do not challenge your employees

Good managers challenge their employees to achieve goals that seem unthinkable at first. Instead of setting boring gradual goals, good managers set ambitious goals that push people out of their comfort zone. After that, the manager should do everything they can to help the employee succeed. Because when talented and intelligent employees do something that is too easy or boring, they start looking for other jobs that may challenge them in a more intellectual way.