How Hiring the Wrong People Can Impact Your Business
If you’re running a virtual bookkeeping business, knowing how to recruit remote workers and retain an off-site team is essential. Bad hires can negatively impact your business in the following ways:
It can cost you the time you spent on your recruitment process.
The money spent on your hire won’t be worth it.
Your team culture, client relations, and good reputation might suffer.
Sometimes it may seem difficult to find the right talent. Yet just as potential employees work hard to make a remarkably good impression on employers, you should also make an effort in your hiring process.
Start employing the best recruitment strategies to attract and retain talent!
Employee Recruitment Strategies: How to Find Remote Workers
Recruiting remote talent through the right channels for excellent hires
The first step in building your own remote team is to know where to find the talent pool you need. Sorting out qualified candidates can be tedious, but you can make it easier by choosing the right platforms for recruitment.
1. Post Job Opportunities in Social Media and Job Boards
One way to hire remote workers at little to no cost is by posting job opportunities on social media. You can post using your business and personal social media accounts, then ask your colleagues, family, and friends to share them.
Don’t limit yourself to popular social media sites. Explore other platforms that your potential candidates may be frequenting.
Another good option is to utilize job boards. You can get a lot of traffic from popular job boards like Upwork and LinkedIn, but they may also generate unqualified applications.
If you’re looking for a bookkeeper or accountant with a specific skill set, it’s best to post your job opportunities in industry-related websites.
It’s also important to find the specific platforms where your potential candidates are. They may be hanging out in niche groups and professional industry-related pages, or there might even be a specific hashtag you can use.
Remember, you should always properly target your social recruiting if you want to attract qualified candidates to respond to your job posting.
Catch the attention of potential employees by creating visual and descriptive copy. Talk about something that interests them, such as:
The type of person you’re looking for your remote team
A brief job description
Your work culture
Non-monetary benefits you offer (study shows that employees value remote work and flexible working hours the same way as financial benefits)
2. Offer Creative and Tailored Benefits
When you use creative ways to attract employees, you increase your chances of getting a response on your job posting.
More than financial compensation, a lot of job seekers nowadays are also after benefits that let them have a good work-life balance. They’re willing to wait for the right opportunities that offer the best benefits to them.
This is also the main point of owning a virtual bookkeeping business. It’s the kind of work that allows you to earn enough and still have the freedom and time to enjoy your personal life.
Take an inventory of what you can offer. Are they competitive and tailored enough to attract the people you want on your team?
Some perks you can consider for your remote team are:
Healthcare plans
Training opportunities
Free passes to a communal workspace where they can work with the rest of the team
Organized extracurricular activities for the whole remote team
Monetary and gift incentives for top performers
Stipends for home office equipment
3. Set up a Referral System
If you already have current employees who work together as an effective remote team, why not tap them to help you find people like them?
Utilizing your current workforce saves you money and also helps you assess your workplace culture. If referrals from your team members steadily come in, it’s an indication that they like working in your company.
Yet if you find that your employees are reluctant to refer people for hiring, you may need to dig deeper and find out why.
When you set up an employee referral system, make sure to outline the process carefully:
Give out specific remote worker qualifications and a brief job description.
Explain the recruiting process so they know what to expect.
Announce the incentive/s your employees will receive if you hire their referrals.
Remember, you’ll make an impression on your team with your hiring process and how you treat employee referrals. Respond to every referral you receive, regardless of if you’ll hire them or not.
You’ll encourage your team members to stay with you and recommend like-minded people if you have a good hiring process.
4. Utilize Your Own Network
Aside from tapping your own team members, you can also use your own network to generate qualified candidates.
Reach out to the contacts you have so they can lead you to the right people. This is especially helpful if you’re hiring for positions that require specific skills and experience.
5. Hire a Recruitment Firm
If you don’t have the luxury of time to organically source and hire your own remote team, work with a recruitment firm that can help fulfill your needs.
Let them know what kind of people you need and want for your remote team, and they’ll take care of the recruitment process for you. There are also other benefits you can enjoy when you leave the job to talent acquisition firms:
Get professional advice on recruitment strategy
Faster hiring process
Access to a large pool of talents and applicants
Assistance on qualifying candidates properly
Getting temporary workers you can eventually absorb
Decrease the cost of turnovers
How to Recruit and Hire Remote Employees
Performing interviews to find the best candidate for a remote team
There will always be different variables to consider when hiring remote employees, but you can follow a basic recruitment process to help you choose the right people.
Prime candidates are often difficult to find, and you have to best other firms for them to choose you. Effective recruitment strategies and practices involve more than just putting out a job posting.
You need to clearly understand your hiring objectives, prepare for the hiring process, and thoroughly execute it. Follow these recruitment best practices that’ll help you add the right people to your remote team:
1. Consider Your Business’ Needs
When creating your hiring strategy, think carefully about what kind of team can keep your business running. What specific skill sets do you need so you can offer quality full-service bookkeeping to your clients?
2. Promote Your Job Openings
Post your job openings on social media, employment websites, or your own website’s career page. You can also advertise your job openings internally to give your team a chance to step up or experience another role.
Hiring internally has a positive impact on your team, as it cultivates employee loyalty.
RELATED: How To Start A Bookkeeping Business (Read This First!)
3. Use the Same Standard for All Candidates
Having the same set of standards for all candidates for a specific position is necessary. This eliminates bias and ensures a fair recruitment process.
4. Conduct a Purposeful Interview Process
The job interview reveals a lot about the candidate, but it’s also tricky. Make every interview count by asking standardized but purposeful questions that‘ll allow you to evaluate each candidate and compare them properly.
5. Strike a Good Balance on Your Hire Time
If your response and hiring process takes too long, job seekers (especially the top talents) may lose interest and move on to another offer. You need to strike a good balance on your hire time so you won’t make a bad hire or miss out on good talent.
6. Make the Offer
After interviewing your candidates, make sure to check their references. Before you make the job offer, set the salary range you can work with in preparation for the negotiation.
Tips on How to Retain a Remote Team
Increasing employee retention by working with your remote team
Knowing how to recruit and hire will certainly help you build your team. However, another aspect you should never neglect is finding new ways to engage and retain your remote team.
Remember, it costs more to hire new team members than to retain existing ones. Follow these practical tips to help you retain your remote team:
1. Set Clear Goals and Expectations
When your remote team knows what their objectives and what your expectations are, you motivate and give them a clear direction.
One of the reasons why business owners hire remote workers is so they can build an autonomous team. You’ll equip them to be more effective by letting them in on your business goals.
Virtual bookkeeping jobs are ideal because often, you can work at your own pace. This allows you to leave your remote team to work during their most productive time.
Set deadlines when needed, but avoid restricting your team unnecessarily.
2. Provide Effective Communication Platforms
As with any business relationship, good and open communication is key. Your remote workers should always be in the loop on business matters, especially the ones that affect them.
Regularly touch base with your remote team using the most convenient communication platforms. This reminds them that they belong to a larger organization that’s also invested in their welfare.
Help them understand how they’re contributing to the success of the business by constantly updating them on team news. Engage them further by asking them to provide feedback, as well as suggestions on how to improve your way of working.
When scheduling a touch base meeting, make sure that what you have to discuss is relevant and necessary. Otherwise, simply let your remote employees get the job done.
3. Emphasize Your Team Culture
Having shared experiences brings people closer together.
Let your remote employees experience your team culture by gathering them on a regular basis, both for work and extracurricular activities. This way, they’ll also get to know who they’re working with.
When you foster engagement within your team, you’ll:
Build your remote employees’ trust
Cultivate employee loyalty
Sustain good performance
4. Teach Remote Employees How to Manage Their Time
Remote work comes with its own set of challenges, and one of those is time management. Some remote employees find it hard to concentrate on their work because they’re also juggling other responsibilities during the day.
Take this opportunity to provide valuable time management training for your remote workers. Show your care by training them to exercise discipline in using their time so they can maximize it.
5. Keep Your Remote Employees Happy
When your remote employees are happy, they’re more engaged in their work. Find out what they appreciate and provide them with it to motivate them to perform well.
This is where tailored and creative benefits become useful.
Take the time to get to know your remote employees by meeting them one-by-one, in-person or via call. Be an attentive and empathic listener, so you can call back to what you’ve talked about on your next conversation.
6. Recognize Their Contributions to the Team
Empower your remote team by recognizing their contributions and successes. Use all your available channels to call out the recognition.
Not only can you boost your team’s morale, but you’ll also encourage everyone to do their work well.
Building and managing your own remote team doesn’t stop at knowing how to recruit. You also need to employ effective recruitment strategies to attract and retain talent.
Invest in your people just as much as you do in other aspects of your business. They’re valuable assets who have the power to help you succeed.
What challenges do you face in hiring and retaining a remote team? Share them with us in the comments section below.Up Next:
