Month: January 2020

If you’ve never had a bad teamwork experience, then you’re often considered to be very lucky. Creating a successful team at work can be challenging as it forces people with a range of opinions, values, work styles, work goals and past experience to work together in proximity. To help build a successful team, certain measures can be considered:

Choose the right people:
Taking the time to deliberate and choose a group of people with the right skill set for the project can increase the team’s chances of success. Having the right amount of people doing a particular job in the team can help prevent there from being too many workers in one area with other areas failing to be completed. Choosing a diverse team can also provide a broader perspective on the project and allow for growth.

Encourage team-building exercises:
Allowing the team to spend time together before undertaking a collective project can be a good way for them to get to know each other without the pressures of work. This can strengthen relations and make it easier for team members to ask each other questions, ask for help and offer their opinion when the work begins. Having team-building exercises can also help identify who is suited for what role and who works well together.

Have a clear purpose:
Make sure that your team is all on the same page about their purpose and the short-term and long-term goals they should be working towards. It is helpful when these goals are specific and measurable to avoid arguments of what the team is working towards.

Outline performance expectations:
If the team is unsure of what is expected of them, they may get off track or not meet work standards. Outlining deadlines, work quality and work hours can help the team perform effectively. This can also prevent arguments and criticism about each others work performance.

Reward good teamwork:
If the team excels in an area of work, it can be motivating to show your recognition of their achievements. This can be as simple as verbally congratulating the team on their work, or can be more formal, such as a workplace announcement or a spot in the company’s internal newsletter.

Ongoing checkups:
While teams may feel uncomfortable with being micro-managed and feeling like they are under constant surveillance, having simple evaluations throughout the project can be helpful. The results from evaluations can show you if your team is on track as well as if there are any problems that may be arising. This can help the team be motivated to succeed and help you identify and resolve problems early.

With the overflow of businesses posting high-quality content on social media every day, it can be a challenge to make yourself stand out and keep people’s loyalty. One way to increase consumer appreciation and attract returning customers is to work on developing relationships on social media.

Create good captions:
Having a caption that only consists of hashtags, is hard to understand, is irrelevant, or doesn’t resonate with your target audience can potentially reduce the amount people care and the legitimacy of your business. When writing a caption, make sure that is relevant to the social media platform you are using, your audience and your brand. When using multiple hashtags, putting them below your caption can prevent it from being distracting and messy.

Respond to comments:
Taking the time to read and respond to comments can be a great way to build relationships with your customers. People are more likely to remember your business if you respond to them, as they often don’t expect a response. Replying to comments can show customers that you care and are listening to them. This practice can also help you understand what your customers like and don’t like and improve your business and social media accordingly.

Personalise conversations:
Many businesses use bots to automate conversations, whether it’s on social media, phone answering machines or online messaging services. You can stand out from these businesses by communicating with your audience in a way that seems more personal and human. Some ways you can achieve this is by:

• Addressing customers by their first name if it is supplied on their profile.
• Always responding to comments in a polite and friendly manner, even if they are complaining or being rude.
• Using appropriate language – depending on your business branding, you don’t always have to be formal and robotic. You can show the audience that you relate to them and understand them by using language that they are comfortable with. Think about how your target audience typically communicates.

Use content from your audience:
Hashtags and profile tags are a great way to see how your customers are engaging with your business. If a customer posts something about them enjoying your products/services, consider reposting it. This demonstrates that you value their opinion and appreciate their support. As well as this, potential customers are more likely to try your products/services if they see that another customer is benefitting from it, as this can be seen as more trustworthy than advertisements straight from the business.

With usual recruitment cycles taking up to two months, business owners may panic when faced with the need for a quick replacement.

Fortunately, there are some ways to prepare for a speedy recruitment process:

Look internally
External hiring can be lengthy, between interviews, background checks and competency tests, an external hire can take months. Consider notifying and encouraging suitable internal employees of the available position before posting the job advertisement externally. Internal hiring reduces time spent as the employee’s information is already in the system and they are familiar with the company culture.

Formulate an action plan
An action plan can help ensure a stress-free emergency recruitment. Consider drafting and updating job descriptions all year round so they are immediately ready for use. Training documents, business processes and login details should all be stored in a central document which is easy to access.

It is also a good idea to collect resumes all year-round. Use your business’ website and LinkedIn page to inform potential candidates you are always accepting applications.

Screen candidates before interviewing
Don’t feel obligated to interview everyone – only interview candidates that stand out on paper. Interviewing is the most time-consuming part of recruitment, so be selective when deciding suitable candidates to reduce your recruitment time.