Data suggests that women have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic in terms of redundancy and the amount of time they are committing to domestic and educational responsibilities. But there are also some emerging employment trends that could open up new and exciting opportunities for women.
The pandemic has caused many employers to challenge their assumptions about work and how/where/when it is conducted. This heralds a new era of flexibility which women can benefit from. Women are also well positioned to take advantage of changing consumer habits, and use the crisis as an opportunity for career adaptation or reinvention. To make the most of these opportunities we need to continue to invest in our learning and to upskill.
Now is a good time to #choosetochallenge the next chapter of our career story and to find work we love that enables us to use our skills, resources and experiences in new ways.
For the past 12 months there has been a significant focus on the particular challenges faced by women during the COVID-19 crisis. For example, research indicates a higher unemployment risk for women as a result of the pandemic, plus unequal shares of household and domestic chores, including home schooling. The UN has also indicated that the pandemic could herald a massive step backwards in the quest for gender equality.
However, among these statistics, there are also some new opportunities emerging. They are arising as a result of the accelerated changes we are seeing in the way work is structured and done. If we are willing to think differently, to keep learning and to #choosetochallenge, then we may be able to find a silver lining… a chance to rewrite the next chapter of our career story.
Opportunity one: increased employer flexibility
The pandemic has necessitated a huge social experiment of mass remote working in many occupations – and most organisations now plan to move into a hybrid model where people work some of the time in an office/facility and some working remotely. As well as flexibility of location, the pandemic has prompted many organisations to be flexible about working hours as their employees juggle additional demands such as childcare or home schooling. According to Gartner, this flexibility of working hours is a trend that will grow as employers start to focus on output (delivery of agreed tasks) rather than input (being present for an agreed number of hours).
These changes are hugely significant for the whole working population, and for working women in particular. Many women have felt limited by the demands of traditional working hours and office locations – working patterns that just don’t fit their lives. As a result, lots of women consciously limit their career progression in order to create space for other things. For some women this creates space for caring and domestic responsibilities, meanwhile, for other women the flexibility gives them the time and space to satisfy other interests, or to help them to continue working whilst managing a chronic health issue.
The increased appetite for flexibility from employers means that new working opportunities are emerging, giving more women the chance of enjoying satisfying careers and balancing this with other demands or interests – helping to close the gender pay gap on the way. Such changes do not only benefit workers looking for more flexibility, but they also benefit organisations who can use more flexible contracts as a way of attracting, engaging and retaining a wider group of talented women into their workforce – people who would not be attracted by traditional working patterns.
If you’re interested in finding flexible opportunities, then it’s helpful to think what model of working you would really like. What benefits would it bring to you? What benefits would it bring to your employer? How could you start a conversation about making changes with your current role? How can you talk with prospective employers about more flexible ways of working? Each country is likely to have its own legal requirements and advice centres, so check it out and take steps to get the flexibility that will work for you!
Opportunity two: changing consumer habits
There is no doubt that the pandemic has shifted consumer habits. Many people no longer queue for their daily Americano, but as this has declined, the demand for quality in-home coffee equipment has increased. In many parts of the world, gyms are no longer open, which has opened new markets for online fitness instructors, now able to offer their services globally instead of just locally. We’ve seen lots of other innovations, as top restaurants offer menus and ingredients for people to cook at home, and anyone can join online cookery courses from around the world. With these changing habits come new opportunities.
Women have a strong history of entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly in the service and social space. Women starting their own business often work solo (sometimes called ‘solopreneurs’) and typically avoid taking on debt, so start-up costs are often kept to a minimum. Many women entrepreneurs have found ways to pivot or shift their existing business to make it more relevant. Others have been able to open in new markets as time zones and geography become less relevant to how a service is delivered. There has also been a rise in subscription services, with everything from crafting to beauty packs available, and many of these are new offerings as women identify things they miss, things they’re passionate about, and use these as springboards to shape new business opportunities.
Do you have an idea for a business? Do you want to give something a go? You may want to fully embrace something new or you may want to have it as a ‘side hustle’ to see how it goes. Want some inspiring stories of businesses that have adapted or started? Here are some of my favourites:
Tami Garcia – connecting cultural ambassadors to families worldwide
A crisis has often been used by businesses, government and individuals as a trigger for reinvention or adaptation. As the saying goes, ‘never waste a good crisis’. Psychologically, a crisis is a powerful thing – it is a period of turmoil and upheaval when things we took for granted are challenged, when our assumption about normality is turned on its head. For some, this crisis is immediate.
Many women have been made redundant from the hospitality or leisure sector, as such they have needed to quickly reinvent their careers to keep their financial independence. Other women have experienced loss, illness or grief in new ways and have started asking questions about their purpose in life and what they really want to do. Consequently, there has been a significant increase in people applying for training in roles like nursing. Others have realised that they’re bored or unsatisfied in their job; they’ve got in a rut and no longer find it stimulating, they are desperate for change. I’ve also heard of women who have so enjoyed a new craft or hobby that they want to make a career from it – and also from some who have found home schooling so fulfilling that they have decided they want to change careers and move into education (and I’ve also heard lots of women saying they used to like the idea of being a teacher but now realise it’s not for them!).
Reinvention may be radical in nature – a complete change in career and direction. However, it could also be an ‘adaptation’, taking your existing skills and applying them to a new role, perhaps a sideways move, a change to a different function or secondment to a particular project. These changes can feel a bit scary, but they can also be stimulating and energising, helping us to re-engage with our work.
If you feel at a cross-roads and want (or need) to explore a ‘reinvention’ or an ‘adaptation’, then it’s worth getting some support. You may already know what you want to do differently, but for many people deciding what they want to do is one of the hardest things ever. If you’re looking for a smaller change, then talk to your manager or a recruiter; see what opportunities there might be. It’s also helpful to talk to people in your network – see what help, support and guidance they can offer.
For more radical changes, there is support and advice out there. Governments often have National Careers Services, and there are lots of helpful articles online. If you have the funds, you can talk with a career coach who can help you to navigate the sometimes overwhelming question, “What do I want to do?”
One key piece of advice for potential reinventors is to ‘try before you buy’. You may dream of a different role, but you need to check out that any investment (in training, networking, securing a role, etc.) will pay off – that your reinvention is one that you will be happy with.
To harness these exciting career opportunities, we need to step back and think about ourselves. We need to think about our skills, experiences and motivations. We need to be willing to take some control, to shape our futures and to put ourselves in challenging, new situations. We need to invest in developing ourselves and upskilling. We need to build and use our network to support our career. In a word, we need to invest in our ‘employAgility’.
So, amidst the negativity about the impact of COVID-19 on women’s careers, I hope that I’ve given you some pause for thought. How do you feel about your work? What do you want from the next phase of your working life? If you’re already happy, then that’s fantastic! If things aren’t where you want them to be, then perhaps now is the right time to #choosetochallenge yourself on what you want from the next chapter of your working life.
Perhaps now is the time to reflect on your immense skills, knowledge and experience and to repackage them in a way that enables you to do work that you love. Perhaps now is an opportunity to take control and make the most of increased flexibility, changing consumer habits and the new horizons of reinvention. Perhaps you can create your own silver lining.
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As leaders continue to drive their organisations through a great deal of uncertainty and constant change, many of their team members may be experiencing a dip in self-confidence.
So, today we’re joined by self-confidence coach, Jo Emerson, who’s here to share her expert advice to help leaders build self-confidence in their teams.
1. Please could I ask you to introduce yourself to our listeners?
(00:50) Yes, sure. So, my name’s Jo Emerson. I’ve been working as a coach for the last decade and I specialised in confidence, right from the beginning of this career and about three years into working as a coach, I was asked by a business I was working with – I was doing some confidence training with some of their team members – to do some leadership development work and this other arm to my business grew.
And so, for the last seven years, I’ve worked with leaders for them to lead effective, robust, and agile teams. So, it’s a side of my work that I wasn’t expecting but I absolutely love building teams and leaders, because if your leader and your team’s confident, the business is only really going to grow. It’s exciting work.
2. What are some of the main challenges your clients are facing now?
(01:54) Yes, so this is an incredibly challenging time. Possibly the most challenging time, I think any of us of my generation and younger have experienced. I think the main challenges would be, firstly, double hatting. I think that because there’s had to be a lot of people made redundant or go on furlough, people who are still working in businesses are often doing more work or are expected to take a more global responsibility than maybe they were before. And so, double hatting, the challenges of time management and maybe understanding an arm of the business that you maybe weren’t responsible for before, in detail, is a big challenge for people.
I think also keeping teams engaged. Leaders have got a real challenge on their hands now, of keeping people, who are working from home or under different circumstances, engaged and motivated under those circumstances. Managing uncertainty is a massive challenge for everyone now and often we’ll look to our leaders, for a steer when we’re feeling uncertain and afraid. So, it’s the job of a leader to manage uncertainty.
And I think managing volume of work, similarly to what I was saying at the beginning about double-hatting, a lot of the businesses I’m working with have got very busy in a different way to how they were used to working, or they’ve got less people doing the same volume of work in order for the businesses to stay afloat. And so, managing volume is another big challenge now. So, probably those would be the four things, I’d say that I’m encountering most, now.
3. Of course, leaders need to build self-confidence in their teams, to help them thrive in their roles. Firstly, could I ask you to explain exactly what you mean by self-confidence?
(03:48) So, I thought about this question in terms of being a leader. Self-confidence is, in a nutshell, trusting yourself. It’s the belief that you can cope and thrive with what life brings you. I also think self-confidence is not about thinking you’re better than others; it’s not about thinking you’re worse than others. It’s about being part of a unified whole. So, not playing big, not playing small, being right sized as part of a team.
So, that’s really what I’m talking about when it comes to being a confident leader. It’s belief that you can and will find a way to cope and belief that you are an important part of a whole.
When it comes to leadership, that’s what I’m talking about, when it comes to self-confidence.
4. Thank you for that definition. And why do you think self-confidence is so important to the success of an individual, a team, and ultimately a wider organisation?
(04:44) If self-confidence is about trust – trust that you’ll cope, that you will find a way. And if it’s about being part of a whole – then suddenly, it becomes really clear why it’s so important. You cannot be resilient unless you’ve got a core of trust in yourself, of self-confidence, knowing that something’s changed, but you’ll find a way.
I think as a world, as a country, we showed enormous amounts of resilience back in March 2020, when suddenly everything changed. It was quite beautiful, to watch the rallying and the innovation and the way in which we all were all-hands-on-deck, changed how we were working, to survive.
I think confidence is also important for individuals, teams, and businesses, because otherwise, how can you innovate? If you’re not willing to take a risk, if you don’t trust that if you fail, you’ll find a way to do it better next time, you won’t ever take a risk. You won’t ever innovate. And yet businesses only thrive when they’re innovating.
So, it’s important. That trust in yourself that, you’ll find a way, is so important. It’s that trust that, “Oh, let’s just have a go. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll find another way, we’ll have enough evidence of what doesn’t work to point out what does”. And, I think there’s something about keeping each other going and if we lack self-confidence, we get so lost in our own heads, in our own little stories about things, that we stop thinking about others and looking up and being part of a team.
I think, if you’re self-confident, if you’ve got a level of confidence, you also want everyone else to feel okay about themselves. That’s so important for businesses now, that we are looking out for each other and checking in on our team members. So, self-confidence, trust in self, trust in the ability to fail and pick yourself up and the sub-competencies that sit behind resilience, they’re all vital and vital all the time now.
We’ve already touched on how you think the COVID-19 pandemic has affected self-confidence in employees, but I’d like to dive a little bit deeper.
5. How exactly do you think shifts in employee self-confidence will become more significant in the future world of work?
(07:07) So, I think a lot of what’s happened to people during the pandemic has been taking stock. I’m not talking about people, who’ve lost their jobs and lost their livelihoods; that’s different and I completely understand that. But a lot of my clients and my leaders are taking stock and thinking how I’ve been living, how I want to be living going forwards? Suddenly, pulling back from the crazy commute, meetings, constant in and out of rooms with different people and all of that, has caused people when that stopped to think “Gosh, do I prefer a slower, gentler pace of life?” So, that’s not necessarily a confidence piece, that’s more specifically, to have the confidence to think, is this what I want? Or how do I want to approach my life going forwards? These are questions people are asking themselves.
Probably in the future, what we are going to be facing, there is a fear around a lack of opportunity because, it’s likely we’re going to go into some recession. I graduated in a recession, back in the nineties and it’s a tricky time. There are always opportunities, but we’d have to be innovative and creative in the ways we find them. I think some people will be, because they’ve lost a job recently, they may have got another one and they’re going to be in fear about: Could I lose this job? I don’t want to go through that again. But actually, what I want to say in answer to this question is, I hope in future, we take the lessons from the pandemic and use them to understand how important innovation is and how, when we get set in our ways and we fear change, we lose our confidence.
The world is always changing. We must be flexible, agile, and able to change. And if we, as workers, leaders, team members and business owners understand that, that it’s always about change, it’s always about flacks, then actually COVID will have taught us a great lesson and will help us innovate in the future, which I think can only be a good thing.
Yes, I think we’ve all felt the need to be a bit more flexible and agile this year. And hopefully, that will benefit us all in the future, as you say.
6. Shifting gears slightly, what are some of the key signs and behaviours for leaders to look out for, which can signal that a member of their team has high self-confidence?
(09:44) So, if someone’s got high self-confidence, probably the first thing you’ll notice, is they look you in the eye. They can have an eye-to-eye conversation with you. They’re not looking down or away all the time but they are happy because they feel okay about who they are, and they trust themselves, they trust in the process of life and they trust you as a leader; they’ll look you in the eye.
Secondly, someone with high confidence tells the truth; isn’t afraid to tell the truth. In lots of businesses with truths hidden, businesses suffer as a result. Against them for with high self-confidence, will know that it’s okay to admit their mistakes. They’re happy to go, “Gosh, I really screwed up there and I need help to make it better, but I will make it better and I won’t do that again in future”, that’s someone with confidence saying that. As well, someone with confidence wants other people to do well.
We were seeing this, weren’t we, at the inauguration recently? The females who were on that stage are women who wanted to bring others up with them (and the men), they want others to do well, as well as them. They don’t want solitary glory, but they want this to be a unified thing. And I also think someone with high confidence listens. I think is a real sign. If you can listen, properly, without preparing your answer, just listen. That’s a confident person.
7. Is there a fine line between confidence and overconfidence in the workplace?
(11:13) Yes, there is a fine line and I think, it’s all to do with ego. A person who is genuinely confident, has their ego in check. They don’t think they’re better than anyone else, they don’t think they’re worse than anyone else and they understand that they are an important part of a unified whole. That’s a confident person.
Arrogance or overconfidence, as you just called it; those people make everything about them. It’s all about their own glory. And then similarly, people with low confidence, make everything about them, because it’s all about what people think of me. How they’re not enough; are people approving of me?
Real confidence sits in the middle of those two and understands that it plays an important part, but in a whole. And so, the focus is about the whole, not about the little self. So yes, there is a fine line and it’s about ego management.
8. How can a leader identify whether a member of their team is lacking or struggling with their self-confidence?
(12:22) So, we go back to the ‘eye-looking’ thing. If someone can’t look you in the eye, it’s often that they are feeling that they’re not good enough. So, that’s a big thing to look out for. Someone who struggles to speak in meetings. Not someone who sits back and is a reflector and will speak more confidently at the end, I don’t mean them. I mean, someone who you’ve literally got to drag an opinion out of them; that’s going to be someone who is too afraid to have an opinion, in case their opinion isn’t received well and then, they think people aren’t going to like them and then, they go into this catastrophise-thing, headspace of ‘I’m going to lose my job’, et cetera, ‘because I’ve had an opinion’.
So, someone who’s afraid to speak in meetings, someone who checks other opinions before they have their own. I’d be worried there about their confidence. Often, someone who overworks, someone who’s putting stupid amount of hours in, that’s often a sign of a lack of confidence because they think, “Oh, I probably haven’t done it right – I better go and do it again”. And often people who won’t rock the boat; won’t speak up when they think something’s off or not working as well as it could.
And that’s often a lack of confidence. It takes a confident person to say to their leader, “We’re doing this wrong. We could be doing this better”. That takes some confidence to do that, but that person has got the interest of the business at the forefront of their mind. That’s confidence. So, people who are afraid to rock the boat, they probably need some help with their confidence.
9. Do you think that there are any common behaviours, habits, or even language that you see from leaders, which may be negatively impacting the self-confidence of their teams, maybe without them even realising it?
(14:09) Yes, I do. Not being willing to hear the truth is a massive problem. There are leaders who will say yes, my door is always open, come and tell me anything and you go and tell them the truth, but they don’t like it and they’re quite verbal about not liking it.
Unless you’re willing to hear the truth, don’t say you want to hear the truth. And the thing is, if you’re not willing to hear the truth, you’re saying to people that their opinions don’t matter, and that’s not cool for confidence. So, always be willing to hear the truth. It doesn’t mean that you must go and act on that truth as a leader. If you think you know better or different, or there’s information that the person who’s bought you this nugget of truth, isn’t party to, but you must be willing to hear the truth. Not being willing to be vulnerable, not being willing to be real, creates fear in teams.
A leader who is willing to own their mistakes, to be vulnerable, to say, “Gosh, I’m worried about my Mum or my daughter had XYZ that happened in the playground, I found that difficult”. A leader is willing to be a little bit vulnerable about who they are; they build trust within their teams. And so, someone who’s not willing to be vulnerable, is a behaviour that I think can be unhealthy. Ruling through fear is a complete no-no in my book. If you want to build a thriving team, don’t use fear as your stick. Don’t use fear as your shield. It’s not going to work.
Playing people and team members off against each other, creating an environment of one-upmanship, is a bad behaviour and it will come back to bite you. And I think as well, leaders who try and be everyone’s friend, blur the line between friendship and leadership. As a leader, a bit like as a parent, you can be obviously friendly and loving and all the rest of it, but the buck must stop with you, as the leader.
And sometimes, as a leader, if you’ve become best mates with everyone on your team, it’s almost impossible then to have to discipline someone or tell someone that unfortunately, what they’ve done that means they’re going to lose their job or that you’re making a decision that’s unpopular. It becomes almost impossible to do that. So, there must be a boundary and I’m not saying don’t be friendly. I’m saying you can’t be best mates with your team members if you’re a leader. You’ve got to keep a boundary there. So, those are some of the behaviours I’d be watching out for.
That’s interesting. So, creating an environment of honesty, of effective listening, but also, with effective boundaries put in place, can foster that.
10. How important is feeling that you are learning and progressing to self-confidence? What role can leaders play in facilitating that and helping their people develop a growth mindset?
(17:10) So, I think it’s important. Everyone wants to feel that they are moving forward in their lives and that doesn’t necessarily have to be on specific job skills. That could be on softer skills, some first aid training or taking responsibility for the more practical side of the business, being a keyholder at weekends. I know that sounds silly but any additional responsibility or skillset or training.
Everything’s about expansion; the world and the universe are expanding. Quantum physics is telling us that the human experience is to grow, change, and evolve. So, it’s important that it doesn’t necessarily, like I say, must be on, getting better at your specific job. It could be soft skills: training or some leadership or some management, anything. And I think the reason it’s important is because:
It stretches people out of their comfort zones. They get used to change, growth and used to having a go.
It also allows people to fail. And, I talked at the top of the show about how important it is to fail and learn from that and for that to be okay. If you delegate stuff to your teams and let them make a bit of a mistake and learn from it because that stretches people.
I think, as well, ask people how they’d like to grow. We can assume as leaders that we know what people need, or there might be a set career path that we assume that these people might want to be on, but it might be that, actually, they’ve decided they want to do something else within the business. So, ask people.
And I think as well, rewarding people. We learn and progress, but we need to be rewarded for that. And sometimes, people feel rewarded if they are invested in, with a bit of training or an opinion – ask someone’s opinion, for example. Learning and progression don’t just have to be skilling up. It’s a wider piece, it’s more holistic.
11. I also imagine that experiencing a level of autonomy in their roles will help many employees become more self-confident. Do you have any tips or advice for leaders that you can share on this?
(29:35) Yes, I think it’s really hard to delegate work to people and let them crack on with it, if you are someone who’s done that role before, or it’s crucial to the business, that it’s done in a certain way. It can be tough as leaders to let go.
But in the same way, that if I want my three daughters to take an active role in clearing up the kitchen, after we’ve had our evening meal, I need to leave the kitchen, let them do the dishwasher, wipe the surfaces and sweep the floor. And if they’ve done it well, say “well done”. And if there’s bits they’ve missed, say “Next time, can you put the food from the sink in the actual food bin, please?”, for example.
If I am there, breathing down their necks and saying, “Oh, you didn’t do that; you didn’t do that” or I’m doing it for them, they’re never going to learn to do it. It may be that a glass gets smashed or pot doesn’t get perfectly washed up, the first couple of times, but it’s the only way they’re going to learn. So, autonomy gives people a sense of pride and so many leaders breathe down people’s necks while they’re doing something and honestly, that’s the worst thing.
After you’ve shown someone how to do it, leave them, let them have a go. I think as well, if people do fail, explain to them what’s happened, what’s gone wrong and then, let them fix it. Loads of leaders go, “Oh, it went wrong. So, I just grabbed it off so-and-so and did it myself”. I think that’s the worst thing you can do for self-confidence and for the progression of that person and the business.
So, it’s about being there, being supportive, but letting people crack on themselves. And I get that, that can be difficult as a leader, but it is the only way to grow your business and teams. And ultimately, I suppose this is about succession planning because one of those members of your team might be doing your job one day, because you are progressing up. So, you’ve always got to have your eye on, who’s going to be up and coming into your role. So, it really is about letting go, as much as that’s hard.
12. Is there anything else that leaders can be doing differently to further build confidence in their team, particularly as most of us continue to operate in either a remote or hybrid working world?
(22:02) So, if you’ve told someone they’ve done a good job and you have done something to acknowledge that, that will automatically build confidence. Praise is so underestimated and it’s so valuable, but there are ways to praise people and not everyone likes to be praised in the same way.
So, for example, public recognition for an extrovert is a wonderful reward. But if you were to give that to an introvert, they might think you’re attacking them. So, know your audience, know who you are rewarding. Certainly, being in the world of work, one of the best rewards I ever used to get given, was some surprise time off. You know if our boss said, “Look, it’s three o’clock, on Friday, go home early”, that was like a joy that I felt. So, “You all worked really hard this week, take a couple of extra hours off”. That felt like more reward than money.
Some people would disagree with me on that but giving people some extra time off or flexibility. Money is a great reward, obviously, but giving people a promotion, investing in them. We’ve just been talking, haven’t we, about increasing people’s skills? If you show a member of staff that you really value them, by investing in them, going on a course or giving them a piece of coaching or buying them a book, for example, because they’ve mentioned that this particular part of their job, they’d like to get better at; that says to someone, I value you.
And I think as well before COVID, we used to often go off and grab a member of our team and take them off for lunch. And we can’t do that now, but it doesn’t mean you can’t, as a leader say, “I’m having my sandwich at 12:30pm on Friday. Can you have yours then, as well and we’ll have a little Zoom?”, and just chat about that person’s week. Not them at work, but how it’s going with the kids and how their mum and dad are and their COVID-life outside of work. Those things speak value – they speak of how much you value someone; you know?
As a leader in a team, we are there to enhance the sense of self, our team members have. And we can do that in more ways, than just giving people more money or just giving them a promotion. Spending time with people, listening, acknowledging their hard work in other ways, all adds to the self-confidence pod.
Yes. I especially second your point about surprise time off, I always think it’s a really nice way to recognise how hard people have been working.
13. I’d also imagine that regular feedback and check-ins are quite key to this?
(24:54) Definitely, yes. Letting people know what you expect of them and letting them know how well they’re doing and also offering support to enable them to stretch and then getting them to say the same of you; what are your expectations of me, as a leader? How am I meeting them? What do you need from me? Is there anything you did need in that situation, that I wasn’t able to give? That open dialogue is important.
14. Do you think that ‘imposter syndrome’, which, for our listeners here who aren’t familiar with this term, is when an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments, as fear of being seen as a fraud, is playing a part in employees lacking confidence?
(25:44) All the time. In my work with executives, I am dealing with imposter syndrome daily. Everyone has a dose of imposter syndrome. Maybe Richard Branson doesn’t, but most people in this world, have some imposter syndrome. And the biggest fix to imposter syndrome, is talking about it in a group because when one person admits it – I’ve seen this again and again in my team building sessions – when one person admits it and the whole group goes, “Oh yes, me too”. Then the whole group goes, “Oh, well, I think you’re brilliant. Well, if you’re brilliant and you have imposter syndrome, maybe that challenges my imposter syndrome”.
And they may say, “Why would you have imposter syndrome? You’re amazing at your job”. And that’s that identification and that sharing of truth, being vulnerable, smashes through imposter syndrome, better than any coaching session I can give individuals on a one-to-one basis, it’s amazing.
The power of the group, to be honest about it, is key. So, as a leader, if you can encourage people as a group, to talk about imposter syndrome and you’ll often have to go first yourself, and you might say, “Gosh, when I was 25 and I had my first job and I just felt like I shouldn’t be there”. Members of your team are looking at each other, thinking, I feel like that. Our boss used to feel that. That’s amazing. Encourage a conversation about it. You will see massive improvements with it.
And I think as well, providing situations to prove that imposter syndrome wrong, is also great. So, stretching team members in order that they can prove that what the imposter is saying to them, is a lie. So, give them chances to do better at their job, challenge themselves, have a go at something that’s difficult and do maybe 80% of it and learn the 20% they need. All of these proved that imposter wrong, in the same way that if they don’t stretch themselves and they just stick with the status quo, they’re proven the imposter right. So, this is about vulnerability, being honest and providing opportunities for a new narrative to grow because imposters are everywhere, but they’re all liars.
15. How else can leader’s role model self-confidence for their teams?
(28:10) I think the most important thing a leader brings to a team, in terms of soft skills, is authenticity. Being real, honest, open, and a human being, is so important at work. People respond to that. If they feel that they trust that you are real, that you’re open, people will do the same with you. They will trust you. It’s the only way to trust, is to be real.
It’s important that leaders contain the teams with a vision and a well-communicated vision. So, even if the vision must change, often they do, the communication is key. So, a great leader thinks very clearly: Where are we going? Where is North? Tells their team, where North is and what their role is, in getting to North. And that contains people. They feel safe within that, “Right, okay. I know what’s expected of me. I know where we’re going”. And then, if halfway there, the leader goes, “Oh, okay. The business has changed; North has changed”. And you communicate that and go through the same process, people will shift. What they can’t shift with, is sands shifting and no one’s telling them why or no one’s even acknowledging that the sands are shifting. Shifting sands are okay if they’re acknowledged.
I think as well, leaders, you’ve got two ears and one mouth; use them in proportion. Listen – active listening is so important. Not being afraid of change, we’ve touched on this before; it’s key. Change needs to be the suit that you’re swimming in and people just need to get okay with, “Oh right. We’re swimming in a sea of change” – almost to expect change and then it’s not a scary thing.
I’ve made a note about this, when I was thinking about these questions, before we recorded and I think what’s important increasingly, is for leaders to model self-care. So, to actually take time to be with their children or go off at lunchtime and have a run or meditate or buy yourself a decent sandwich and sit quietly by yourself for twenty minutes or to say, “No, I won’t be in work on Friday because it’s my wife’s birthday”, and to take holiday and not be answering emails on holiday.
Modelling the value of self, says to team members, Oh, yes, this is a person and they value themselves. It would be okay for me to take a lunch break. It would be okay for me to say, “Can I have Friday afternoon off please because I want to take my husband out for dinner” or “It’s my Mum’s 60th birthday and we want to travel to her, for the weekend”.
Like modelling self-care, modelling a work-life balance or a ‘life balance’ is very important, because it says very clearly to your team, “We’re human beings, first; we’re human doings, second”. So, those would be the things that I would suggest.
Thank you, that’s a very interesting point about self-care. I think some leaders can think that they must be ‘always on’, but of course it would be detrimental both to their own work and as you say, also to their team in the future.
(31:30) Correct. Huge; it’s a huge point: self-care. Massive.
16. And could it be beneficial in the long-term, for leaders to let their teams experience failure, to enhance self-confidence?
(31:42) How will you ever innovate, if you’ve never failed? Literally, how will anyone ever innovate, without failure? We must, as a culture, maybe as a world, reframe failure. It’s part of how we grow as people, how we change and how we come up with new ideas.
I fear that we are so afraid of change in our culture, so desperate to stick to the status quo and it kills innovation and businesses. And the businesses, that if you just look at the High Street, for example, now, and obviously it’s been awful, but the businesses that have not innovated over the last ten years, are the ones that have now suffered and we’re not seeing them on the High Street anymore. And it’s a real example. But did they get it right perfectly first time then? Of course, they didn’t. They would have gone through loads of failure to get to where they are.
So yes, we must be okay with failure because it’s how we change. It’s how we grow; it’s how we build resilience; it’s how we build self-confidence; it’s how we grow our businesses. It’s not saying, I’m all for failure. I’m saying, I’m all for failure, if we can see it as a stepping stone to success. There are always lessons that we can take from failure. If we’re clever, humble and mindful, they will lead us to something better.
17. If a leader is welcoming a new team member, how do you think that they can ensure the onboarding process helps the employee feel as confident as possible, whether they’re onboarding in person or remotely?
(33:38) Well now it’s mostly remote, isn’t it? Well, I suppose in the office environment, maybe in other environments, it’s more face-to-face. Onboarding someone, essentially, is all about relationships. When someone comes into a company, they need to know that there are a handful of people they have got a level of trust or understanding with, they could go to, with a question or problem or for a piece of advice, or to just sit and have their sandwich with, whether that’s on Zoom or whether it’s in the canteen.
And so, as a leader, I think it’s really important that you spend time with the person who’s just joined your company, you build that relationship and maybe get them a buddy or two, people who are responsible for taking you for lunch, introducing them to other people, et cetera. Culturally onboarding them into the ways and the nooks and crannies of how the business runs.
And obviously, then plugging that person in, on a relationship basis to the people there’ll be most closely working with and encouraging those people to have conversations, that are not just about work, but outside of work as well. We’ve talked a lot in this podcast about what’s their favourite food and how many kids they’ve got and who their granny is. And that stuff’s important; these are people. So, I think when someone’s onboarding, as a leader we have to think of who the key people are they’d need to have relationships with and how can I facilitate time and space for that to happen.
Thanks, Jo. I think you’ve given our listeners a lot of food for thought, both about their own careers, but also for supporting their teams.
18. I’d like to finish with a question that we ask all our guests. What do you think are three qualities that make a good leader and crucially, do you think that these qualities have changed because of the pandemic?
(35:34) Okay, three I can do three and I will tell you now, they’re no different now, to what they were before the pandemic. And they’re no different now to how they’ll be after the pandemic. These are perennial long-term leadership qualities. Okay. So, my three I’ve said:
Knows their own strengths and their own weaknesses and owns them. So, I’m talking really about humility and authenticity here. I’m talking about someone who is, “I know I’m good at that. I know I’m not so good at that. I’m going to recruit someone who’s going to help me with my not so good apps. And I’m going to be really open with my team about where I’m good and where I need help”, because that, again, is such a humble, honest, strong position to take, that you will find your teams honour and respect you for it.
A leader must value team, must value unity. It is not about you and your glory but it’s about the team, the business and it’s about the whole. It’s so important to have a unity mindset, not a self-mindset.
And for the third quality, I’ve said that I think is super important, is to have a vision. Communicate that vision and hold people accountable to it.
So, yes, honesty, unity and vision would be my three boss words, but like I said, that’s not an exhaustive list.
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Whilst we continue to navigate our way through constant change and a great deal of uncertainty, many professionals are experiencing a dip in self-confidence. So today, we’re joined by self-confidence coach Jo Emerson, who is here to share her expert advice to help those looking to increase self-confidence in their professional lives.
1. To begin with, could you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
(00:50) My name is Jo Emerson, I’ve been a confidence coach for the last ten years and I had a major career change 10 years ago. I’ve been working as a coach ever since, and I’ve specialised in confidence the entire way through my career. I also do lots of work with teams and leaders. I’m also a mum, that’s probably my most important job. I’ve got three daughters aged sixteen, thirteen, twelve and two stepsons. So, I’m also quite busy in that part of my life. Yes, so, that’s me!
2. Please could you tell us what self-confidence encompasses and why it’s so important to career success?
(01:34) Self-confidence is about trust. The word confidence, its root word is fidere, which means to trust and have faith in. And really self-confidence is about trusting in ourselves, but also trusting in the process of life. I think a lot of us get very worried that life isn’t going to work out exactly the way we’ve planned it, whereas if we do our best and trust that we will learn along the way, life tends to bring opportunities to us. So, self-confidence for me is that sense that if I do my best, it will be okay, and it will work itself out.
I also think self-confidence is a self-validating state, and by that I mean that when we lack confidence, we tend to put our emotional eggs in the basket of other people, constantly looking to them and to the world for approval, verbal strokes and validation.Whereas if we develop self-confidence, we start to validate ourselves, and use our own internal wisdom as a measure for whether we’re on track or not. And of course, this is so important in our careers because as we start work and rise through the ranks, we’re going to be asked to take risks, be resilient and have challenging conversations.
We’re going to be asked our opinion about stuff, and we’re going to have to get given projects and think about what my best wisdom is telling me to get this over the line quickly. especially at the moment, we have to be flexible, adaptable, we have to learn to deal with conflict and confidence sits underneath all of those. So, that’s probably why I ended up specialising in confidence because I thought it’s so important. And I think we think that confidence is this brash arrogant out-there state when really, that’s probably more unconfident behaviour. Real confidence is a peaceful, self-validating, contented state of wisdom and strength.
Thanks Jo, I think it’s important to be talking about confidence, especially now when everyone is experiencing these challenges for the first time or have been since the pandemic began. So, it’s important that we recognise them and challenge them of course.
3. What would you say are the signs that someone might have low self-confidence at work?
(04:00) I think one of the major signs that someone lacks confidence is that they often won’t look you in the eye. I often will spot low self-esteem in someone or lack of confidence if they can’t meet your eye because they’re driven by a sense of ‘ I’m not good enough.’ And again, you’ll find that in people who are very loud and out there, but also people who are very shy. Often, they can’t just be in front of you and have an eye-to-eye conversation. Also, defensive people who find any critique of their work very difficult to take, often the root of that is a lack of self-confidence.
People who are overworking, often, that’s another sign of a low self-confidence, people believing “I must work all the hours in order to keep my job because I’m not good enough”, that core belief of, ‘I’m not good enough.’ People pleasers, people who will do anything for anyone, often they lack confidence. And I don’t mean the good eggs, the people you can rely upon, I mean people who are always overdoing stuff and who are resistant to change. Often that’s a real sign of lack of confidence because of course, if you’re resistant to change it’s because you believe you won’t cope if something changes, and again that’s a lack of self-confidence.
4. You mentioned one of the main signs being someone not being able to look you in the eye. And in the context of the world that we’re in at the moment where we’ve got frequent Zoom and Microsoft Teams calls, I imagine that it’s even harder to identify?
(05:35) Well, it is. It’s interesting because like everyone else, I’ve had to take a lot of my work online and then in the group work I do, you will find a lot of people switching their cameras off. And this is like a group training session or a team-building session. And I have to call those people out and say “Could you put your cameras on? We all need to see you” and they don’t want to be seen.
And yet, you must be seen if you want to build your confidence, one of the first steps is allowing yourself to be seen and to have some face-to-face contact. And if it’s difficult on a screen, it’s even more difficult for people face-to-face. And I think what the pandemic has done, is that it’s pushed us all to the edges of our lives, the edges of our character assets or our character defects if you like, and the people who were shy before, they can hide even more if we let them.
And, we must gently pull people out and say, “I really would love to see your face. I want to engage with you”. It’s hard for people but agreeing with the voice of fear, agreeing with people and going, “Oh no, of course, you can keep your camera off”, I think is the worst thing we can do for people who lack confidence. I think we must make it easy for people to switch their cameras on, but also challenge their need to stay hidden. People absolutely should not be staying hidden, that’s the worst thing for confidence.
5. And if we look at what the main causes of poor self-confidence are, you mentioned in your answer before that people might think that they’re not good enough. What are the main causes of poor self-confidence?
(07:18) So, firstly would be listening to that negative voice in your head and believing what it says. We all have a negative, critical voice, everybody does. Everyone has a negative, critical voice. However, what I have learned, in fact, I wrote my first book on this is, it lies, it’s lying.
It will say, “You can’t possibly apply for that promotion because you’ve only been in the job a year and they’re saying they need fifteen months experience on the job. They’d think you’re really arrogant if you applied for that job and you’ve not got enough experience”. That’s what negativity and fear says that negative voice. But a kinder, wiser voice would say, “Have a go. Why don’t you email HR and say, “I know I’ve only got a year’s experience, but could I possibly throw my hat in the ring, even just for some more interview experience? Can I have a go? I’m interested in progressing my career”.
We’ve all got that negative voice and I call it first thought, second thought. So, faced with any difficult situation, our first thought is usually a negative one, it’s usually that critical voice and we can think, “Okay, thank you for your opinion” and then ask ourselves to plug into a bit of a wiser part of ourselves and ask its opinion. And usually, our second thought is something a little more empowering, a little wiser. So, listening to the negative voice is a big one.
Putting your emotional eggs in other people’s baskets, I mentioned this at the start of the show. So, making other people’s opinions of you more important than your opinion of yourself is a one-way ticket to low self-esteem. And we live in a culture where there’s a lot of this going on. You’ve only got to go on Instagram and see people posting so that they get approval, so they get more likes and feel better about themselves. Actually, self-approving is the thing we should be aiming for.
Trauma in childhood, that can be a massive cause of low self-esteem and low confidence. That needs a specific piece of trauma work with a trauma specialist. So often I’ve had clients in front of me, who’ve been wanting to do one-to-one work on their confidence and then a big traumatic event from childhood’s come up. I will then pause coaching and recommend they go and do a specific piece of trauma work with a therapist and then come back for their coaching, because trauma in childhood can be fixed, but it needs work.
Treating life like a competition. I notice this a lot in my clients that if we treat life as if it’s a competition, we will automatically often lose our confidence because we then tell ourselves everyone else is doing better than us. If we can treat life a bit more like an experience that we do our best in, we stand a better chance of being more confident.
The last thing I wrote down on my list of five, although this is not a complete list, is a lack of balance. Often a life overdone or underdone will be causing low self-esteem and low confidence. When we can have our life in balance by which I mean:
Enough sleep
Good food
Some exercise
Some love in our lives
Even if it’s on Zoom, reaching out to friends
Something creative, such as learning some art or learning salsa online, we can learn everything online these days.
Or going out for a walk
Filling our lives with a range of things alongside work creates confidence. Overdoing work, or overdoing sleep or any of those things can lead to low self-esteem. So, those would be my top five.
6. I imagine over time that continuous self-doubt could potentially snowball and would be damaging to an individual and their long-term self-confidence. Would you agree?
(11:26) I completely agree and it’s a negative, vicious cycle, a negative downward spiral that we can stop at any point. The thing to know about this though is denial is a big game player in this. So often, you feel some low self-esteem, maybe from childhood and you start believing a tape that’s playing in your head, which is your core belief “I’m not good enough.” And then what happens is you act on that belief and in acting on that belief, you end up creating examples in the present to back up that limiting belief, that core belief “I’m not good enough” from the past. So, then you’ve got more evidence for yourself, and then you start making decisions based on all that evidence. And before you know it, you are looking at the world through the lens of I’m not good enough, and everyone’s better than me when that’s not true. It’s just not true and it’s not true of anybody.
And the job of coaching and you can self-coach, is to challenge that and think “Hold on a minute, where did I even pick up this idea that I’m not good enough? That I can’t and other people can?” and start finding ways to challenge that evidence. So, challenge that negative voice in order to stop the vicious circle and start turning it into a positive cycle, a virtuous cycle, where you start believing something different such as “Maybe I am good enough”. And then you start taking actions based on “Maybe I am good enough”, and then you produce evidence that suggests that actually you are good enough, and then you do some more and do some more.
There’s a brilliant book called ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’, I think it was written in the 1980’s. It’s brilliant for that because it essentially says just challenge the evidence – you’re believing a negative story that says you can’t do something when actually you probably can. And even having a go at something new, will produce some positivity in you and then you just start to reverse that trend gently but slowly.
7. People’s self-confidence has no doubt been negatively impacted by the pandemic. As we said, everybody’s situation is unique to them and everybody’s dealing with various challenges. Could you explain some of the potential reasons behind this and how this lack of self-confidence could manifest itself in people’s careers over time?
(13:53) We’ve all spent a lot of time in our own heads. We’ve got less distractions, less grabbing a quick coffee here or having a quick run or over there or buying something in a shop to distract ourselves or going out for beers after work. All of that’s gone, especially in these lockdowns. So, therefore, people are spending a lot more time in their own heads without those things to jolt them up and out of the negative spirals.
However, I genuinely believe that there are some positives from the pandemic in that it has caused a lot of us to pull back from overly busy lives and actually start to think “What do I really want from my life? Like when this is all over, how do I want to show up in the world?” And yet those people who’ve struggled with their confidence, I think they’ve lost the distractions, they’ve lost their network and they’re at home on Zoom a lot and there’s less structures in place to pull people up and out of their negative self-talk, which is why people need to work even harder on their confidence right now because it’s totally doable to go from being an unconfident person to a confident person.
And there’s so many resources online, but the key is even if you can’t do all your old things, you can still find new things to do to just eek your confidence forward. So, learn yoga online, or if you’re going for a walk around the block, walk a bit further or call a friend and say “You walk on one side of the road and I’ll walk another, let’s at least walk together”, or have a lunch date. Take your lunch break and call someone at work who you don’t know and say, “I don’t really know who you are, but we intend to work together, can we Zoom lunch together? Can I ask you some questions and you ask me?” Like, have a career date. All these things terrify people but the more we do them, especially now, the more we’re likely to come out of this pandemic holding our heads a little higher, and with a little more hope and we may have even used this time to learn and to grow new parts of ourselves. So, there is an opportunity here.
8. I imagine doing something such as a career date as you mentioned, might give you a boost in confidence from being able to do that in your own home behind a camera when you’re in a safe space too?
(16:31) Yes, and you can time bind it right? Rather than thinking “Oh my God, what am I going to say for an hour?” You could just say “Look, I’ve got twenty-five minutes. Do you want to get on Zoom, eat your sandwich and have your coffee with me and we’ll just get to know each other?” And then after 25 minutes- we all know we can chat for twenty-five minutes, keep it doable.
But yes, can you imagine stretching yourself to do something like that, that you would never have dared to do before, and it goes well? What that does is, reset your brain. It starts a new neural pathway and that new neural pathway is saying, “I can do things that I didn’t think I could do. Look at me, I did that and that happened! So, what can I do next?”. It’s literally about stopping the negative spiral and changing course.
I like that. Finding the positives of the pandemic and making positive changes, making the most of the situation.
9. Is there any way of knowing what the long-term impact that it could have on a person’s career?
(17:33) I think that is down to the individual and what they decide this is going to have in terms of the effect on their career. And again, that might sound pithy but everybody’s in the same boat. I think the key skills people need to be thinking about developing right now in order to get them through the pandemic and out the other side and into this new world, with confidence, would be resilience, acceptance, and adaptability.
So, we all are having to show enormous amounts of resilience at the moment. It is not easy being at home on a computer all day, having our conversations on Zoom. I’ve got my three daughters; they’re being schooled online. They’re not particularly enjoying it, but you know, we all must crack on. So, resilience is a big one.
Acceptance. So, what can I accept right now and what can I change? So, where have I got power and where don’t I have power?
And then adaptability is a big one. It may be that the career we thought we were going to have before the pandemic, might not be the career we end up having immediately and maybe long-term after the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a career you’re really going to enjoy and love because we don’t know what the world’s going to look like on the other side. And so, I think it’s about taking the skills we have and being adaptable with them and allowing life to take us in a different direction.
So, there’s been an enormous impact and there are people out there who haven’t got jobs at the moment. And that’s very scary and I’m not denying that at all but I do know that in most situations in life, skills are transferable and the most confident people I know are the ones who have adapted and changed to the current situation they’re in and say to themselves, “This probably won’t be forever”.
I know someone who has had a medical career before the pandemic and just got to the point where they thought, “I just can’t do this anymore, it’s not me” and has always wanted to write. So, they have left their job as a consultant doctor and they’re now writing a book. The pandemic and the pain of the overload of work has pushed them to let go and start something new. So, there are opportunities and that’s such a great example of someone being super adaptable and growing something new. I appreciate though that of course, people have got mortgages and rent to pay, and mouths to feed and I’m not saying it’s easy but I am saying, try not to think in a closed way about your career. Try and get your head up a little bit and see what other opportunities are out there. That’s what a confident person does.
That’s great and I certainly agree with transferable skills and the need to up-skill, especially when there’s a need for new skills in the current world of work. I would say to any of our listeners that there are resources available at Hays to help you with that.
One of the groups of people that have been greatly affected by the pandemic has been young people, whether that’s due to the sectors that they work in or generally the situations that they find themselves in.
10. Many young professionals with limited experience of the workplace may have lacked self-confidence before the pandemic and there’s the potential now that their feeling has only increased over the course of the crisis. What advice would you give to help them boost their self-confidence?
(21:15) The first thing I would say is, this is an incredibly difficult and unprecedented time and I know people who’ve been working for twenty to thirty years who have really struggled through this time. So, in no way should anybody be giving themselves a hard time for finding this difficult because it’s difficult for those of us who have continued working because we’ve had to find new ways, and it’s exhausting, particularly for people who’ve lost their jobs. It’s difficult for people who are completely isolated, for those with lots of children at home like me, this is a tough time, and I’m not surprised your confidence has been knocked.
This is what I would say. Imagine yourself as a confident person in the future. So, maybe set your stall out six months and think, “Okay, in six months’ time, I want to become this type of confident person”. So, maybe not like the most confident version of yourself, but a more improved and more confident person for yourself.
There’s an app on my website that people can use, which is on the homepage of my website. So, please go on there if you want to, and then think, “Okay, what small steps could I take in order to just improve my confidence?”. Now it could be that if I ate some more vegetables, I might feel like I’m being kinder to myself and that might boost my confidence. Brilliant, that’s a small thing, but a big tick in the box.
It might be “Well, I could use this time to rewrite my CV and maybe have five CV’s for five different types of sectors and what skills do I have to transfer?” Brilliant. You could think to yourself, “Actually, I really find interviewing difficult so, I’m going to find a friend who’s in the same position and we’re going to do interview practice on Zoom with each other? Brilliant idea. So, one is the interviewer, one is the interviewee and then swap around. It could be “Okay, actually I hate public speaking. It’s terrifying so maybe I’ll do an online course with that” or “I’m going to learn new ways to do my makeup so that I feel more confident on Zoom. So, I’m going to do an online makeup tutorial” or “I’m going to learn a brand-new skill. I’m going to join a Zoom choir just so I’m part of a group”.
Anything that stretches you forward, and they need to be small little things you can do cheaply, easily on Zoom. It could be growing some basil seeds. Think to yourself what would a confident person do? You can visualise it. They’d have some herbs growing on their kitchen window so go get some seeds and some soil and grow them. Tiny steps forward to get you up and out of your low self-esteem and your negative spiral. Just take small actions. It’s all about the action and it’s all about the thought proceeding the action and every time you do something positive; your confidence will just nudge forward a little bit at a time.
11. Thanks Jo, and you mentioned there about interviews. For those of our listeners who are applying for new roles but feel less confident when it comes to interviewing, whether that’s remotely or face-to-face when we get to that stage again, how can they address their concerns and become more confident during their interview process, from the preparation through to the actual interview itself?
(24:52) My advice would be to treat it as if it’s a live interview. So, do everything you would do before a live face-to-face interview. The only difference is going to be the fact that this one’s on Zoom. So obviously research the company, make sure that you can talk around your CV, that’s always a big one. People are going to be asking you about your CV during an interview, so have a copy of your CV there and write little stories you can tell, examples you can give around the different skills you’ve listed. People might say, “Gosh, you did a skydive in New Zealand (well they would with me in 1997, that’s how old I am!) tell us about that?”. Well, if I’ve already thought, “Oh yeah, I did that. I remember it was a cold day and I went up in an aeroplane and the guy next to me was really scared, but I just went for it”.
If you’ve got little stories to tell, I always think that’s great in an interview because an interview is about building a relationship. So, have your CV there with some notes, do your research on the company, make sure you are up early showered looking your best, make sure the room that you’re in is neat and tidy. And, I think do some affirmation work that morning. So, look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I’m going to do my best. If this isn’t meant for me then I won’t get it. If this is the right job for me, I will get it, and these are my skills”.
But the other most important thing to do would be to practice interviews, which is why actually the thing I was just saying about friends or parents, or get your kids to be the interviewers, it doesn’t matter. Just practice being interviewed on a screen because that takes the sting out of it on the day. If you’re not thinking “Oh God, I look really weird and what’s that light behind me?” You know, if you’ve been online in that environment and put yourself through that process a few times, the panic part of your brain will be disarmed because it’s done it a few times. So, it’s like, “Oh, this isn’t new territory” and you’re far more able to be present.
And the other thing with interviews I always say is we must be prepared, and we must treat it as a process. We’re there to sell ourselves but we’re also there to find out information about the company. It should be a two-way process and it should be a conversation in an interview. So, go with some questions of your own, not in a cocky way but in a genuinely interested way because they may tell you something about their company and you think “Gosh, there’s just no way I could work with these guys”. It would be a good job you had the interview because you found that out. Similarly, you might think, “Oh my gosh, that’s even more exciting. I didn’t know that about them”. I’m sure you guys say the same at Hays, this should be a two-way process an interview, but we go with our best selves. I think we can make too much of it being online and we can think that that makes it scarier. I don’t think it makes it scarier unless we’re believing a tape that tells us it’s scarier. I think it’s the same process, we just don’t go to someone’s office, we sit in front of our computer.
12. So, if someone’s followed your great advice, they’ve passed the interview stage, they’ve been offered the job and they’re about to begin it and they’re obviously starting their new job remotely. Is there any advice that you could give people to keep that self-confidence going, it must be a strange thing to start a new job remotely?
(28:30) Well, that is difficult and that is different, to starting a new job in an office. So, I would say building relationships. I would make building relationships your priority. In fact, I’m coaching a lot of people at the moment who have started work during the pandemic in new companies and it goes back to that Zoom lunch or that quick cup of coffee and can we have a chat thing. You all know who you need to build the strongest relationships with probably within your first couple of weeks and if you don’t, maybe ask your new boss “Who would it be good for me to get to know?”. And I don’t mean get to know from a work perspective, I mean, get to know as people.
Businesses are built on relationships; business is done on relationships and organisations work on relationships. The most important thing we do when we go to work is build relationships because then when your spreadsheet isn’t aligning with someone else’s, you’ve got a relationship there, which means you can chat about it rather than go on the attack with each other immediately. That’s a silly example but I would make building relationships your priority.
I would also ask questions. So, go to people, email people, or Zoom people and say, “Okay, I’ve just started, what would you like me to know about your job? What would you like me to know about what challenges you’ve got and how can I help with that? So, how would I best fit into this role and this company?”. And similarly, I would also be asking people for help. I’d be saying, “Look, I’m brand new and we are all working online, can I have some help with knowing who’s who and what the company culture is? And do we all break for lunch at one or is that flexible?”. Ask questions because it’s about building those relationships. And also go easy on yourself, it’s going to take you longer to hit the ground running, it’s going to take you longer to get into the groove at work when you’re starting on Zoom than it would have taken you in a live situation, so be kind to yourself and go easy on the expectations.
Some fantastic advice so far. And we wanted to discuss some of the more common areas of our listeners’ day-to-day lives that many may struggle with self-confidence in. So, I thought, firstly, if we focus on communication and those who are perhaps introverted and find it difficult to communicate on frequent video calls and meetings when working remotely.
13. So, we spoke at the very beginning about maintaining eye contact. Is there any way that our listeners can work on that to ensure that they’re communicating in a confident and effective way when they’re on video calls and meetings remotely?
(31:27) I think the first thing to do is to start changing that tape that’s playing. They’re telling themselves that they can’t do it and that they’re not very good at it and nine times out of ten, nobody else is thinking that. So, I come up against this again and again when people are believing a negative narrative about themselves that nobody else can see. So, if people can start challenging that negative voice that’s saying, “You’re no good at this, you’re really boring. No one wants to listen to you. Look so-and-so’s doodling while you’re talking, that always happens”, et cetera, et cetera. If you can start challenging that and thinking “I have a voice. I’m employed in this company for a reason, I’ve got something to say”, all really empowering, opposite statements.
I think what is also handy, is to look at some personality profiling. So, I use DISC in my coaching practice, which is just a very simple personality profiling tool, and I’m sure there are some free resources online, where you will see that you are either an introvert or an extrovert, and you’re either people-focused or task-focused and how that manifests in your work. And the people who tend to find Zoom difficult, tend to be the more introverted, more detail-based people, not everybody, but generally. And there’s a book by Bev James called ‘Do It or Ditch It’. She’s great, in fact, she runs the coaching academy where I train, and in there, they talk about the different skills that different personality types have and whenever I’m doing team building or leadership development, it’s the introverts who I’m most interested in hearing from.
So, you’ll do a bit of team building and the extroverts will be there, loud, chatting and rolling ideas around, there’s this big conversation. And I’m watching the quieter types, they’re more introverted and I can see that they’re doing their thinking while everyone else is doing their talking. So, extroverts talk to think, whereas introverts think to then talk but what introverts don’t do, is elbow their way into the conversation and take the stage. So, I will be saying, “And what do you think Stan? Lee, I haven’t heard from you yet. What do you think?”. And out they come with these amazing nuggets because they’ve been in their heads, sorting things out.
The value of the introvert, the deep thinker to a team and organisation is so high and if you are an introvert and you’re listening to this, I want you to hear this really clearly: the way your brain works, the way you organise information and the way you can succinctly present that with clarity to the group, is so important and you absolutely owe it to the organisation you’re in, to your team and to yourself to speak up. So, I really want people to know that.
What you might want to do if you’re an introvert, is say to your manager or one of the extroverts in the room, “Can you give me a nudge? Can you call me into the conversation because my natural setting is to sit back and not say anything?”. So, ask someone to call you in when you’ve had time to think and that way it will become easier if you’re put on the spot if you don’t want to be. But if you’re put on the spot and you get time to think, this is very important for people who are introverted, you will find in six months’ time you’ll just be speaking when you think it’s time to speak. So, honestly, I think that’s probably the best piece of advice I can give to people who find all of this really difficult is, know your value and ask someone to call you out from the shadows.
14. And for those in a similar situation who are experiencing nerves when preparing for a presentation or speaking in front of other people, do you have any top tips on how they can work on their confidence and what impact will this have on their presentation skills?
(35:38) So, I’m just putting the finishing touches to my public speaking online course, actually because I’ve done a lot of this work one-to-one, and I can’t keep up with the demand, so I’m putting it into an online course. So again, I’ve put this into five key points but there are more.
Number one, I would say expect to be nervous. You will feel nervous when you’re giving a public speech, it’s normal, natural and it shows you care. Here’s the thing, when we experience big feelings, big emotions, we tend to want to back off from them because we think the brain goes into this fight, flight, freeze thing and it thinks “This feeling is going to kill me, I have to get away from this feeling” and in that moment, what we do is run away from the thing we’re scared of.
However, if you’ve seen any emotion through, from beginning to end, you will know that what feelings do, is build and build, and just when you think you can’t cope with them anymore, they then start to pass and die away. So, we must expect nerves. I’ve been doing public speaking for years and I still get nervous, but I just think, “Oh, hello nerves, here you come”. I almost open my body for the nerves to come through and I welcome them in and honestly, within thirty seconds they’ve gone. And I now expect them as the beginning of giving a public speech. So, the first thing to do is expect to be nervous, that’s not a sign that you can’t do it. It’s a sign that, yes, this is the reality, you’re giving a public speech and the feelings will pass.
The second thing is to know that a public speech is not about you. It’s about the information you’re giving. So many people when they’re doing a public speech, get hit up about what will people think of me? Will I do it right? Will this be the making or breaking of my career? And they make it all about themselves, which is a small egoic position to take. If you think “This is about the information, how can I best deliver the information so that people, my audience have the information and can go away and use it to make their work easier or their careers better?” Suddenly the pressure’s off and it’s like, “Oh, I’m just a curator for the information”.
So that’s a great tip. If we can expect the people, we’re giving a public speech to, want us to do well because quite frankly, it’s embarrassing for them if it’s not. So, they want you to do well. They want you to give them the information. They want to go away thinking “I’ve really learnt something today” and that therefore they are bringing their goodwill. They want you to do well. If you can just pick up on that goodwill, smile at a couple of people, they’ll smile back. You’ll think, “That persons got my back, and this is going to be all right”, then again, you’re changing the negative tape into a positive one.
The best way to start a public speech is to engage people from the very beginning. So, if you’ve ever heard me speak, you’ll often see that one of the first things I do is I’ll say to everybody “What did everyone have for breakfast today? Anyone have eggs?”. And there would be a show of hands and I’d be like “I had eggs and salmon. Anyone beat me?” And somebody else would say “I had eggs, salmon and avocado actually, Jo” and there’s just this general identification process where we all just remember where humans and we connect on a human to human level i.e. “What did we all have for breakfast? Or how was your commute? Or who slept well last night? Or who dreamed, who didn’t?” Anything silly to just create that relationship again is important and what it does is give you a chance to let those nerves, as I spoke about before, come up, crest, and fall away.
The other thing with public speaking is, use questions throughout, ask people, questions, ask for feedback because the more engaged people are, the better they will find the experience but also the more confident you will be because you will be having those relationships. You don’t have to know all the answers in a public speech. You’re there to give basics of information and start a discussion or open the forum for questions. So, those would be my top five tips for public speaking.
Thank you very much, I really relate to that. I’ve been told in the past that I’m good at speaking in front of people, but I’m always nervous and I think part of the process is recognising that you are nervous but realising that it is going to pass exactly as you said. You can be as nervous as you want beforehand, but it’s only momentary and it will go.
(40:17) It doesn’t have to be a barrier unless you believe it’s a barrier. Otherwise, it’s just nerves. Like it’s just breathing, it’s just rain, you know, it’s just a thing.
I really liked what you said about everybody wants you to do well. No one wants you to fail, and I think recognising that is also very important as well. People are there to get something out of it and there’s a reason why you’re the one that’s speaking as well.
14. We’re onto our last question and this is a question which we ask all our podcast guests. If you had one piece of advice to give to our listeners to help them navigate their careers throughout this pandemic and beyond what would that be?
(40:59) So, I thought long and hard about this, and this is what I want to say. I think if you do your best but leave the outcome to the universe for want of a better word, to nature, to life with a capital L, we cling really tightly on what we think the outcome has to be. We miss so many opportunities along the way, so, it goes back to what I was saying earlier on.
I think my one piece of advice would be: do your best and allow life to partner with you and bring you its best version of an outcome because I tell you, it will be much better and wider and more exciting than something you could have ever even imagined. When I first started training as a coach, I had no idea I was going to end up in the position I am. I just followed my nose and done the next right thing and made quality the most important thing, made helping people, my North star. Doing my best has absolutely been the thing I’ve focused mostly on and I’ve ended up with just an enormous career that I wouldn’t have even dreamed of this. And I think it’s because I’ve done my best, but I’ve held the outcome lightly. That would be my best advice.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted our personal and professional lives to such an extent that many of our daily routines were transformed overnight (or have been transformed over the past 12 months). Many of our habits, our routines and our rituals have changed for good.
The events of the past year have also placed a far greater importance on some of the things we perhaps took for granted in the past, such as the relationships we have with people in every area of our lives.
The pandemic has brought the importance of customer relationships to the fore
The connections we build at work are no exception; those with our colleagues and stakeholders, and, importantly, those with our customers. It’s the relationships we have with our customers that I’d like to cover in this blog.
The expectations and demands of your customers may well have been changing during the course of the pandemic. They will have likely had to deal with, and are still dealing with, multiple ongoing challenges and potentially drastic impacts to their own professional and personal lives. Therefore, businesses need to rethink how they interact with and support customers during these difficult times and beyond.
Of course, nurturing deep and long-lasting customer relationships has always been important, and always will be. After all, there would be no business without them. But the experience our customers have of our organisations is so important. In fact, 80 per cent of customers say the experience a company provides is just as important as its products and services.
Many would agree that is has become even more important due to the changes and disruption the pandemic has accelerated. But in many ways, ensuring a good customer experience is becoming more difficult in this new world, when expectations and demands are changing so quickly.
Key to ensuring a good customer experience is to nurture good relationships that are built on trust and loyalty. Customers will remember the businesses that stood by them and gave them a helping hand when they needed it the most during these difficult times, there’s no doubt about that.
Four ways to improve the relationships you have with your customers in the new era of work
I’m based in Asia, and as such we experienced the virus and the consequences before anybody else in the world. This put us in the unique position of being able to offer views and advice to our colleagues across the globe as the pandemic was unfolding for them. This gave me the opportunity to think about how as a team we handled the crisis early on, and assess what worked best when nurturing the relationships we have with our customers.
So, here are a few of my thoughts on how we can all go about improving the relationships we have with our customers in the new era of work:
1. Assess what the unique value is that your organisation provides your customers
All industries have been impacted and continue to be impacted by the pandemic in some way or another. It may mean that as a business, you are having to operate differently – from switching to an almost entirely online presence to better serve your customers, to changing or introducing completely new products or services.
No doubt at this point you will already have a very good understanding of what the impact has been on your organisation, and how this might change as the course of the pandemic shifts. However, it’s important to reflect on the last few months and ask yourself what unique value your business has provided to your customers. Did you fulfil an essential purpose or help them with a specific challenge? Was your role different to what it usually is, and did this make a significant difference to the experience your customers had?
The above will be easier questions for some organisations than others. But asking them will help you to establish how important your organisation has been to your customers during what was possibly one of the most difficult times in their lives so far.
These questions will also help you to evaluate your strategy up until this point. Do the answers tell you that you should be focusing your efforts elsewhere in future? Is your value as a partner to your customers different now in the new era of work? And if so, does that mean that as an organisation you need to re-evaluate and reshape your customer offering? How can you personalise your offering to the unique challenges of each customer, rather than relying on a one-size-fits all approach?
At Hays, we recognised that the change in how people were working and the shift to online meant that employees in organisations were missing valuable skills, so we created a free online portal, called Hays Thrive (or Hays Learning dependent on where you are in the world) that allows them to upskill and be better prepared for the new world of work. This very much fits with the ethos of what we’re trying to do at Hays by being relevant and valuable to our customers at all stages of the recruitment life cycle, which includes when people aren’t recruiting or aren’t moving jobs.
2. Stay true to your organisational values and purpose
Staying true to your company’s purpose during a time of crisis is essential. Doing so helps to ensure you don’t lose sight of why your business exists and why you do what you do.
In order to support your customers and nurture those relationships, your own people need to be inspired and reminded of the value they bring to society in the work they do, especially during turbulent times. That is exactly what your organisational purpose should bring to life for them.
A company’s values are also becoming increasingly important to customers. According to Forrester, 70 per cent of Millennials and 52 per cent of Baby Boomers will factor in a company’s values when making a purchasing decision. That means your values as a company have the potential to impact the perception your customers have of your organisation as well as their overall experience of your brand.
At Hays, we have spent a considerable amount of time over the past few years refreshing our own company values. One of which has been incredibly useful during the pandemic – ‘Do the right thing’, which underpins all of our values. It acts as a North Star of sorts and helps us in making decisions, allowing us to take a moment to ask ourselves what our moral compass is guiding us to do.
Our purpose as an organisation is ‘By helping people succeed, we enable organisations to thrive – creating opportunities and improving lives’. During the early stages of the pandemic, companies weren’t necessarily hiring, and people weren’t looking for work. So, we made sure we were still helping our customers and their people in every way we could. This meant providing them with help and expertise to allow them to navigate the new era of work. This took the form of blogs, podcasts, reports and videos focusing on the key challenges our customers might be grappling with, including how to manage teams remotely, how to achieve a work-life balance when the home and the office had become one, and how to make sure they were looking after their own and their employees’ wellbeing while working from home.
So, ask yourself: has your organisational purpose and have your values been able to guide you during the pandemic? Have they helped you make decisions? Have they inspired your workforce and reminded them what you bring to the world and to the lives of your customers as an organisation?
3. Reach out and listen to your customers
Customer interactions shouldn’t be limited to be simply transactional, they need to go far deeper than that. On a simple level, just picking up the phone and checking in to see what the landscape is like for them personally and what their current challenges are will make a big difference to how your organisation is perceived. WeChat or WhatsApp to make contact with them, or even email if they prefer. Actively listening to your customers and understanding their unique experiences can be so powerful; it helps to strengthen pre-existing relationships and opens doors to new ones. So, make sure you have been providing your customers with the necessary support and customer care.
Speaking form my own experience, we were keen to find out about our clients’ own experiences of the pandemic and understand what help and advice we could share with them that would be beneficial to them. Not only did we ask them about their own situations, but we were ready to give them an update of what was going on in the market, what other customers were seeing, how other businesses were responding to challenges, their approach to hybrid working, etc. By being transparent with our customers and sharing helpful insight, we continue to build trust, which, as we all know, is so important to building strong relationships.
Also, as we were speaking to so many different businesses, it gave us great insights that we are then able to share more widely. As a result, our customers can come to one organisation, Hays, and find out about what’s happening in countless other organisations. This hasn’t stopped either, reaching out and listening to customers will continue to be important as we progress through the pandemic.
Ask yourself: have you had regular conversations with your customers even when you have nothing to sell? Have you been sharing relevant insights and advice with them? Have you made an effort to actively listen to their challenges, proactively trying to understand how you can help?
4. Show empathy
Your customers will likely have had to deal with challenges they may never have expected. They will also have had to make difficult decisions. Like most, they will have been on an emotional rollercoaster. You must always remember this and speak to them on a human and authentic level. Even at the best of times, your customers don’t want to be spoken to in a way that is clear that you’re just following a script and have no real interest in what they have to say. This is even truer when working through big challenges and uncertainty, as we all are now.
Displaying empathy and compassion will help to strengthen your customer relationships. This ties into my previous point around the importance of listening to them to get a real understanding of the challenges they are currently dealing with. Your customer is a human like you and talking to them in such a way shows you genuinely care about their unique situation. Our CEO, Alistair Cox, wrote a blog on the subject of being more human in your interactions if you’re looking for more advice here.
So, ask yourself: are you conveying genuine interest when speaking with customers? Are you taking the time to understand their situation? Above all else, are you speaking to the them on a human level, without judgement and with compassion and empathy?
These four points should help you take a step back, re-evaluate your organisation’s response to the pandemic so far, how you have managed those important customer relationships and how you might go about strengthening them in the new era of work.
Now is not the time to sit back and wait for the world to get back to where it once was. Nor is it the time to sit back and wait for your customers to revert to how they once were. The world will never be the same, neither will your customers, and as a result, your organisation must also change. So, use this time wisely to help you build back your organisation better, with the customer at the heart of every decision you make. Trust me, your customers will thank you for it.
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I recently ran a LinkedIn Live event to share my top tips on successfully creating or updating your CV or resume. We received many great questions from our followers during the event, so I wanted to share a blog with answers to some of the most commonly asked questions.
1. What’s the difference between my CV and my LinkedIn profile?
First off, ask yourself which one your recruiter will assess first – your CV or LinkedIn profile? The answer to this question all depends on how you apply for a role. For instance, if the initial job application didn’t require you to submit a CV, (e.g. if using LinkedIn Easy Apply) then your recruiter may search for you on LinkedIn first after receiving your application. Alternatively, your recruiter may find you on LinkedIn because, even though you haven’t actively applied for a job with them, you match their criteria for a role that they are hiring for.
On the other hand, if you register with a recruiter or apply for a job using your CV, whether this is through a job board, recruitment website, LinkedIn, or directly with the organisation then your recruiter will view your CV first, and is then likely to search for you next on LinkedIn.
Your CV is still the main means of applying for roles and should serve the purpose of giving the recruiter a factual and chronological snapshot of your skills and experience to date. What’s more, the recruiter will need to know why you are both interested in and suitable for this job specifically and will need something a little more tailored than your generic LinkedIn profile. Therefore, it is important that you adapt your CV to fit the types of roles you are applying for. You can do this by following some of the points we covered in the live session:
Tweaking your personal statement to outline why you want to work for this particular industry and organisation
Streamlining your skills, education and experience to highlight only the most relevant information
Identifying the keywords used to describe the desired skills on the job description, such as “strong analytical skills”, and ensuring these are incorporated on your CV where possible
When it comes to LinkedIn, thanks to the visual, flexible and interactive nature of LinkedIn you have the opportunity to bring all of your skills and experience to life and tell the recruiter more of a story about who you are and what you are looking for. You can add videos, blogs and also different projects you are working on, which you can’t easily do on your CV.
In addition, a strong LinkedIn profile can increase your chances of being approached by a recruiter first. Recruiters are using advanced data analytics tools to both find and engage with suitable passive and active jobseekers – so an up-to-date profile and frequent online activity can certainly get you noticed by the right people. That is, if you make the best use of this platform. Here are some tips for having a strong and engaging LinkedIn profile:
Upload an up-to-date and professional photo
Add a compelling headline which more accurately reflects your specialism and interests, e.g. “Ambitious IT sales professional with a passion for cloud computing, and three years’ experience in this sector”
Make sure your skills and experience sections are up-to-date and supported by visual examples, such as videos, pictures, PDFs and other rich media
Include endorsements and recommendations from other professionals in your network
Optimise your profile using relevant keywords
Share content relevant to your expertise and industry via blogs or updates
Like/share/comment on your connection’s updates
Get involved in forum discussions in LinkedIn Groups
Connect with people in your network and ask for endorsements and recommendations
Where appropriate, adjust your LinkedIn profile settings to show recruiters and hiring managers that you’re ‘open to hearing about new opportunities’
Ensure the chronological order of your employment history plotted out on your LinkedIn profile exactly matches that of your CV
To sum up, CVs are still your most important personal sales tool when it comes to getting a job, but it should be complemented by a strong, professional and active LinkedIn profile – one which brings all the claims you have on your CV to life and showcases everything you have to offer as a person and as a professional.
For more LinkedIn tips and advice, you may find the below blogs helpful:
To listen back to my answer to this question during the Live event, skip to 30:35 of the video.
2. How should I tackle any gaps I have in the employment history part of my CV?
Most people have some sort of gap on their CV, whether that’s due to redundancy, caring, travelling or education.
It’s just important you acknowledge and account for any gaps on your CV – there’s no need to conceal the reality of the situation. So, add the dates and a short explanation to the Employment History section of your CV.
You don’t need to go into specifics or reasons for the gap. What’s important is that you explain how you’ve been using your time proactively and productively. In the case of redundancy, that might be via upskilling, volunteering, or working on your personal development, for example. This could also be an area you cover briefly in the personal statement section of your CV.
For more help and advice, read this blog which outlines seven common CV gaps and how to explain them during a job interview.
To listen back to my answer to this question during the Live event, skip to 34:13 of the video.
3. How do I write a strong CV if I don’t have much experience?
This a topic I have written about previously. It’s an extremely common challenge, particularly when it comes to plotting out the employment history section of your CV. In this case, I would advise that you include all your experience, even if it’s not relevant to the role you are applying for, for instance volunteer work, or a part time job you had whilst studying. Including these roles will demonstrate your work ethic, transferable skills and employability.
List your experience in chronological order always starting with your most recent role, and include the company name, your job title, and your employment dates. Underneath, write a couple of lines detailing your role, and beneath that, a bulleted list of your responsibilities and which key skills you developed as a result, plus any career highlights and achievements. If you can link to online examples of your work – even better.
Your personal statement is also a great place to explain why you’ve applied for the role. As you might not have as much professional experience to touch on, you can use this to introduce yourself, and explain how your interests, academic achievements and employment background or your key skills, relate to the role you are applying for. For example: “I am a History graduate with a keen interest in pursuing a sales career. During my degree, I was largely graded on my presentation skills, and this was an area in which I scored highly. I also held a part time role as a retail assistant, and during this time, I enjoyed developing my interpersonal and customer service skills. I would like to apply my communicative and interpersonal skills to a more challenging sales role where I would have room to grow and develop as a professional.”
Don’t forget about your skills summary. You may not think you have many relevant skills to include, but you’ll have learnt many transferrable skills that are worth highlighting.
Self-taught skills: Have you taken it upon yourself to upskill in any way whilst you have been unemployed? If not, it’s never too late to start
Transferable skills: So, you may not have had a professional job before, but what about any transferable skills learnt during work experience, part time jobs or education? For instance, using the same example as above, a History degree may require you to write a lot of essays and present to your lecturer. During this time, you will have developed some strong writing and presentation skills
Soft skills: Discover your soft skills i.e. the skills which reflect your personality traits and can’t really be taught, such as being naturally well organised and a problem solver. Reflect upon which traits people have always praised you for, whether it’s your teachers, friends or family, and take some free of charge online aptitude tests to discover more about your core strengths
When writing the education section of your CV, add your recent education starting with the last place you studied. List the educational institution, the dates you studied there, your course title and qualification type, and which grade you received. You can also use this space to include which different projects you worked on at university, linking to any online examples, and mentioning the skills you developed as a result. There are occasions when if your career history is very limited or you have no work experience at all, you should put the Education section above the career history.
If you are lacking experience, it might also be a good idea to optimise the hobbies and interests section of your CV. This section is not to be underestimated and can give your hiring manager an insight into your personality. When listing your hobbies and interests remember to include any extra-curricular activities you were involved with during your time in education. Don’t be afraid to go into more detail in this section, talking about any individual team achievements or personal awards, plus the core strengths and skills you developed during this time. For instance, you might mention how you played for your university women’s football team, and how this team reached the semi-finals of the national university championships.
Finally, you could add a sub header titled “Additional information” to the end of your CV. This should include any other qualifications, licenses or certificates which don’t clearly belong in any other sections of your CV. Or those that don’t particularly add much value to the role you are applying for but are still worth mentioning (for instance being First Aid trained or having a clean driving licence).
To listen back to my answer to this question during the Live event, skip to 35:17 of the video.
4. How can I streamline my CV if I have a lot of experience?
This is a nice problem to have but it can make the prospect of updating your CV all the more daunting. It’s a topic Susie Timlin, COO of UK Government Investments has explored in the past for us. If you are in this position, perhaps you are unsure of how to optimise the most relevant information so that it stands out to the recruiter or hiring manager, as opposed to getting lost in a sea of job titles, skills, qualifications and experience. So, here’s our advice for writing a concise, yet impactful CV if you have a lot of experience.
Be ruthless: Start by eliminating any information that just isn’t relevant to the role or industry. Start this process by highlighting the key skills and attributes required for the job in question. Now look through your career history. Have you used up valuable space describing skills, attributes and responsibilities from years ago, which don’t match up to the role in question? If so, take them out. There’s also no need to include your early education, or first jobs on your CV. Always bear in mind that you need to ensure your CV is as current as possible.
Write your CV with your target in mind Now that you have only the most relevant information on your CV, it’s time to make sure it stands out as much as possible to the recruiter. As an experienced, senior-level job seeker, it is vital that you write your CV with your target in mind, and not bombard the reader with everything you have ever done. You run the risk of potentially burying the most pertinent information, which will lead the reader to lose interest quickly.
1. Contact details:
Along with your name and contact details, I recommend you provide a link to your online portfolio or LinkedIn profile (if you choose to do this, you must ensure your LinkedIn profile and CV match up in terms of dates and job titles). This way, the recruiter can find out more information if necessary and access examples of your work.
2. Personal statement:
What really needs to stand out here is your USP – what is your value proposition? Why should the recruiter or hiring manager read on? What can you bring the company that no other candidate can? Talk directly to the reader here.
You could also use this section to summarise relevant and notable achievements you’ve had throughout your career. For instance, if applying for a Marketing Director position, you would mention the time you increased revenue at a specific company by X value, by implementing a campaign which involved Y and Z. Give the reader numbers and hard facts. This is great way to highlight any achievements which didn’t necessarily take place within your most recent role, in a more prominent position on your CV.
3. Skills:
List your principal areas of expertise in the form of bullet points. Use the opportunity to condense any information that is most relevant to the role, but not deserving of a whole paragraph. Perhaps try formatting these to the side of your CV, so as not to take up too much valuable room in the body of the CV.
4. Career history:
List your career history in reverse chronological order, with your most current role at the top. Provide the most information about your current or most current role and give less information the further you go back in your career history. If a previous job was completely irrelevant to the role you are applying for, but you want to avoid any gaps on your CV, simply list your job title, dates and the company you worked for. This will save you space on your CV, whilst providing top-line information.
5. Simplify your language and format:
Don’t use ten words to say something you could say in five. Get to the point in a way that is easy for the reader to understand and quickly makes an impact. Use action verbs as much as possible. Avoid blocks of text – this will deter the reader. Your CV needs to be easy to read and easy to follow, no matter how much experience you have. Also avoid company-specific terminology that won’t translate to the reader. Lastly, proof-read, proof-read, proof-read – you will instantly lose credibility if your CV is littered with spelling and grammatical errors.
Ultimately, your CV is your personal sales document. As an experienced professional, you must ensure it is pitched at the right level and showcases your offering, as it stands today, not ten years ago.
To listen back to my answer to this question during the Live event, skip to 38.24 of the video.
5. How often should I update my CV?
As explained by Nick Deligiannis in this blog, even if you aren’t actively looking for a new job, it’s important to get into the habit of regularly updating your CV. So, for example, if you’ve learnt a new skill or successfully completed a big project in your current role, update your CV to reflect that. When doing so, it’s important to quantify your achievements, as we explored in the live session – including measurable results will help bring your potential to life for the reader. It’s also a good idea to update your LinkedIn profile at the same time.
If you keep your CV up-to-date, when you do come to the point when you want to find a new job, there’s no risk that you’ll forget key points when updating your CV.
Regularly updating your CV can also make you more aware of any skills or experience gaps that you currently have, that you’ll need to fill to take the next step in your career.
To listen back to my answer to this question during the Live event, skip to 43.17 of the video.
6. Do you need a cover letter these days?
A cover letter is important and required if: the job advertisement states that a cover letter is required, the employer, hiring manager, or recruiter requests one, you’re applying directly to a person and know their name, or someone has referred you for the position. I would say it is best practice to include a cover letter even if it isn’t required.
Why? Well, the purpose of a cover letter is to allow you to introduce yourself better. Mention the job (or kind of job) you’re applying for (or looking for) and show that your skills and experience match those needed to do the job. This will encourage the reader to take the time to read your CV.
Think about it: if you were approaching someone on LinkedIn to promote yourself as a potential employee, you would write a personal message online effectively covering the above, which is actually a “covering letter”!
Some top tips for writing a cover letter that will help you stand out:
Don’t just copy and paste your CV – add something different, this is your opportunity to stand out
Tailor your cover letter to a specific job, and convey your enthusiasm for the organisation throughout
Be proud of your past accomplishments and achievements – draw the reader in with an achievement that stands out and enables you to express passion for what you do
Keep it succinct
Address the hiring manager personally
Use keywords from the job description
Address any concerns they may have about you – such as lacking skills or experience listed on the job description
Proof-read your cover letter!
You can find more tips, and an example of a best practice cover letter here.
7. How long should my CV be?
It depends on your experience and where you are in the world. The main thing to keep in mind when you’re writing or updating your CV is that you must be able to demonstrate and articulate your skills, your experience, and your future potential to the reader. If you can do that well in one page, then one page is great.
However, the average length of a CV is usually around two to three pages. Employers do not have strict requirements for a CV’s length but ensuring it is two to three pages helps the hiring manager digest your experience in relation to the position they’re hiring for.
As I mentioned during the session, there are a few things to bear in mind when your CV is being read. The first page should have the most important information about you and make a real impact. The second is also key, and if you are on a third page then use this for the less important information for example the hobbies and interests and reference sections.
To listen back to my answer to this question during the Live event, skip to 41.40 of the video.
8. Why is the skills summary an important part of a CV?
The skills section of your CV shows employers you have the abilities required to succeed in the role. Often, employers pay special attention to the skills section to determine who should move on to the next step of the hiring process.
This is because they let an employer see that you are qualified to do the job, and they are also essential to help ensure your CV and skillset gets picked up by tech when an organisation or recruiter uses an applicant tracking system for example.
As I explained during the Live event (skip to 23:10) your skills summary is a bulleted list of your skills which relate to the role you are applying for. These skills and relevant professional qualifications can also be referenced in your personal statement and employment history sections of your CV and should include the keywords that you have picked out from the job description.
Remember to include both technical, or hard skills, and soft skills.
Technical skills are the skills which you have gained throughout your professional career, which are either required or desirable for this role, for instance:
Coding, proficiency in a foreign language, data analysis, budget work, HTML, CAD drawing, employment law, project management with accreditations like Six Sigma or Prince 2 and can include technical systems skills too like proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook) for example.
Soft skills are your personal attributes that allow you to work well with others and achieve your goals. For example:
Communication
Decision making
Time management
Conflict resolution
Problem-solving
Stakeholder engagement
Business acumen
As the world of work is changing, some of the soft skills employers are looking for are adapting. And skills like creativity, social dynamics, cognitive and critical thinking and the ability to work independently are on the rise – many were anyway but the global pandemic has accelerated the need to hire more people with these abilities.
If you are getting stuck at this stage, think about the transferable skills you may have learnt in previous roles or whilst you were studying; for instance, you may have honed your listening skills at university. Also, think about when you have taken it upon yourself to upskill in any way – for example, you might have taught yourself how to use WordPress when writing a personal blog.
If you have any other questions about creating or updating your CV, then please email us at [email protected].
If you’re currently preparing for a remote job interview, you may be feeling concerned that it could be more difficult for you to assess whether the opportunity is the right one for you.
After all, when interviewing remotely, you won’t have the opportunity to meet the people you’ll be working with face-to-face, visit the organisation’s offices and generally get a feel for the place.
But it is possible to judge whether an opportunity is right for you when interviewing remotely, as I will explain in this blog. Useful techniques include: reviewing the organisation’s online presence prior to the interview, asking the interviewer the right questions and reading their body language.
Is this job a good fit for me?
Regardless of whether your job interview is remotely or face-to-face, there’s always a lot to think about when judging whether an opportunity really is the right one for you, such as:
Is the role aligned to your skillset and future career goals and aspirations?
Do the salary and benefits on offer make this a financially viable choice for you?
Where will the role be based, and will there be opportunities for you to work flexibly should you need to?
Are there learning and development opportunities available which will allow you to further develop your career?
Are you genuinely interested in the organisation’s products and services, and does their purpose compel you?
Is the organisation’s culture appealing to you? Will you feel included, valued and engaged?
Do you think you’ll have a good, supportive relationship with your new team and boss?
Of course, all of these things are incredibly important. But, when it comes down to it, you’ll often get a gut feeling. Your intuition will help you decide whether the opportunity is the right one for you. And it’s much easier for that instinct to kick in when you’re interviewing face-to-face.
Got a remote job interview? Six ways to determine whether the opportunity is right for you
So, how can you decide if an opportunity really is the right one for you when interviewing remotely? Here are a few of my thoughts:
1. Before your remote job interview, do your research
Analyse the language used in the organisation’s job adverts. What can it tell you about what it might be like to work there? Is the language they use inclusive, accessible and relaxed? Do they write in the first or second person? Do they use diverse imagery and language? Are the role responsibilities clear, focused and succinct? Reading between the lines of job descriptions can really help you build a clearer picture of the opportunity than what you might realise.
It’s also essential that you review the organisation’s website, finding out more about their vision and purpose to see how well they align with your values – just as you would do before a face-to-face interview. Visit their YouTube channel too; many organisations will create videos that will give prospective employees an idea of what it might be like to work there.
Other techniques you can use to help you build a picture of the organisation as an employer is to read their Glassdoor reviews, as well as search Google News for any recent news coverage. Aside from scrolling through their social media channels, it’s also a great idea to research current employees on LinkedIn – their activity may give you clues into their company culture.
If your recruiter or the hiring manager sends you any company material – whether that’s blogs, reports, or any key documents – ahead of your remote interview, be sure to read them. This will help to give you an insight into what the organisation’s priorities and key focuses are. For example, perhaps they’ve recently published a new commitment to diversity and inclusion? Or published a new report on the state of the industry? These pieces of information can also often be found on their website, so make sure you check there for any significant company updates whilst you’re exploring their vision and purpose.
2. Assess the organisation’s culture during your remote interview
The employer might offer you a virtual office tour, for instance, or provide you with short videos that employees have recorded about their role, expertise or experience of working at the organisation. You may even have the opportunity during your interview to have virtual introductory meetings with team members. If these aren’t immediately available or apparent to you during the interview process, ask your recruiter if they are. All of this will help you to get a glimpse into the organisation’s culture, and to better understand what it would be like to work in that office, with that team, on those projects – and assess whether all of that would suit you.
Also keep a lookout during your remote job interview for any other clues as to the company culture. As communication and behaviour expert Mark Bowden explains: “How we live and the objects we keep around us are a big unconscious indicator to others of what you value and therefore the values you hold.” Is there anything about the interviewer’s background or environment on the video call that indicates what it would be like to work there? Or anything that gives you a feel for what it would be like to have that person as your manager? If they’re in the office, what is the design and branding like? Or perhaps they’re at home where you can see and hear their children – demonstrating their flexible and relaxed approach.
3. Ask the interviewer the right questions
Remember that all interviews, regardless of whether they are conducted face-to-face, or remotely, are a two-way process. They don’t just give the interviewer the chance to find out more about your suitability for the role, but they also give you the chance to assess the role’s suitability for you. Therefore, the questions you ask the interviewer and the answers they give, especially during a remote interview, can be extremely valuable in helping you to decide whether this is the right opportunity for you or not.
There are certain questions about the role, team, interviewer, company and learning and development opportunities that will give you a better idea of what it would be like to work there. Chris Dottie, Hays Spain Managing Director, has outlined some great examples of questions to ask your interviewer in this blog, some of which include:
“What does a typical day in this role look like?”
“What constitutes success?”
“From your perspective, what’s it like to work here?”
It’s also worth thinking about whether you’d like to ask the interviewer questions surrounding COVID-19, such as “What have been your key learns from the COVID-19 crisis so far, both from a business and a leadership point of view?”, and “What support could I expect to receive when working remotely or from home or as part of a hybrid team?” These questions can help you to understand how the organisation is operating during the crisis; what their reaction has been, and if you would’ve been proud to work for them throughout any changes and shifts due to the pandemic.
The answers that the interviewer gives to your questions will help you understand your likely level of cultural fit at this organisation. If you’re told, for example, that they are a ‘results-driven’ organisation, does that mean you could be punished if you miss a deadline or target, or even make a mistake?
4. If you are being interviewed by the hiring manager, use the remote interview to understand whether they would be the right boss for you
You need to have confidence in your new boss – your relationship with them will be as important a factor as the job itself, if not more so. It’s fortunate, then, that even a remote job interview still presents plenty of opportunity to suss them out.
During the interview, analyse your potential manager’s communication skills. As your interview progresses, assess their clarity of thought, how they communicate their expectations for the role and for the successful candidate, and whether they seem to be listening to you. This will give you an idea of what it would be like to work with them. Do you think this communication style would suit you and help you to form a strong relationship? Be mindful, too, of the language used when your questions are answered, and throughout the interview. If they use ‘I’ rather than ‘we’ when speaking, that could suggest a non-collaborative approach.
Also assess whether the interview feels more like a conversation than an interrogation. If it feels natural and almost effortless, and the two of you seem to share many of the same motivations and values when it comes to your career and the workplace, then these are signs that you would get on well.
5. Read the interviewer’s body language
While this is not as easy to do remotely as it would be in a face-to-face interview, it is still possible. After all, you can see whether or not the interviewer is smiling while you’re speaking, as well as what their posture is like, and whether their arms are crossed or open. The interviewer’s gestures and vocal pitch can also tell you a lot about how invested they are in you as a candidate.
In fact, communication expert Mark Bowden shared some really valuable advice with me on reading your interviewer’s body language: “Watch for big CHANGES in body language when you are speaking to the interviewer, rather than individual gestures. If you see anything that stands out as very different in the interviewer’s posture, face, movement, or behaviour, then ask them what their thoughts are on what you have been saying. This helps you check in on the significance from their perspective of what you are saying. It may give you a good opportunity to better understand how well your ideas, views, or even personality fit with theirs as well as that of the organisation.”
I recommend having a look at Mark’s YouTube channel. His videos will allow you to learn more about not only how to interpret your interviewer’s body language, but also how to improve the effectiveness of your own use of your body in a video interview. For example, this video on how to present yourself effectively via video from home, covering tips such as ensuring the space is well-lit and placing a post-it note of a smiley face above the camera, which will encourage you to smile during your video job interview.
6. Reflect on the experience you’ve had throughout the interview process
Assess how your interview process, from start to finish, has been handled. Does the company appear to be well-organised? Are you, as a candidate, at the centre of the process? Has communication and feedback been prompt and detailed? All of these things, paired with your knowledge and experience of the company to date, are signals as to the company culture, and whether it’s the right opportunity for you.
Just because your interview is taking place remotely, that doesn’t mean you can’t find all the information you need to decide whether or not this is the right opportunity for you. By following the six steps above, I hope you’ve realised that.
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The pandemic is continuing to put tremendous pressure on HR functions around the world as they work to prioritise the wellbeing, productivity and engagement of their people, all whilst operating in a very different world.
Both how and where we work is changing at lightning speed, potentially for good, so it’s even more important that HR professionals choose the right HR tech solutions to help them help their organisations thrive in the new era of work.
Multiple HR tech solutions are likely to be needed to build and nurture an engaged, personalised, interconnected and happy workplace both now, and in the future.
Back in January 2019, I wrote about the rising popularity of human resource technology (HR tech). A lot has happened in the last 12 months. Fast forward to now, and COVID-19 has made the collaboration between HR and technology even more significant, helping us tackle a range of issues associated with remote and hybrid working, mental health emergencies, and changing employee expectations and requirements.
Whether they’re in the office or working from home, employees now expect a high-speed, personalised and interconnected workplace. This has put additional pressure on HR teams, who are responsible for keeping people well, located and productive – even in the new world of remote work. This is where HR tech can help businesses meet employee expectations – and overcome a range of pandemic-induced challenges.
What is HR tech?
HR tech is an umbrella term. It covers innovations such as the cloud, automation and self-service systems, all of which can help you improve performance, provide cost savings and boost the overall competitiveness of your HR functions. These solutions – covering both software and hardware – are called HR tech.
A huge range of HR tech is now available. Chatbots, for example, can answer employee questions on a 24/7 basis. Automation can massively streamline your onboarding processes, automatically sending new staff the relevant paperwork and next steps to settle into their new role. Online learning initiatives can help your staff reskill and hone their existing skills. Data analytics and visualisation can provide you with easy-to-understand insights into staff performance and retention. The list is endless.
HR tech developments you should know about
HR tech is diverse, and the recent pandemic has unleashed a new wave of innovations into this space. As more staff want to work from home, HR professionals are under pressure to monitor their performance and wellbeing. The recruitment process has also been turned on its head, as we increasingly rely on video calls for interviews and other remote recruitment solutions.
With that in mind, here are some of the main developments in HR tech that you should be aware of:
Cloud and self-service: HR leaders report strong business benefits of using an HR system that’s based in the cloud, as opposed to those deployed on on-premise servers, according to the PwC HR Technology Survey 2020. These benefits include gains in productivity, improved employee experience and better workforce insights. Newer cloud-based systems can also provide employee self-service tools, decreasing the burden on HR staff from processing simple requests like a change of address, for example. Of course, this technology has also been instrumental in allowing entire workforces all over the world to switch to working from home due to the pandemic, pretty much overnight. The benefits of cloud and self-service technology are many, however, they don’t come without their risks, particularly when it comes to security. For example, our increasingly hybrid, blended working world, opens up many more opportunities for cybercrime breaches, so resilient security measures are a must if we are to really reap the benefits of this HR tech.
Talent acquisition: the same PwC survey also reveals an emphasis on talent acquisition tools to help attract and retain top workers. Pre-hire evaluation tools, for example, interview debriefing technology and automated reference checking systems are all helping streamline the hiring process.
Data-driven HR: as an HR professional, data can guide many of the choices you make. Instead of basing decisions on your gut instincts, you can use tools to receive clear and comprehensive reports on each staff member’s employment or each candidate’s performance in the recruitment process. Such tools can optimise your talent attraction, hiring and retention strategies. For example, with the right set of data, you can optimise your best hiring channels to match those used by your best candidates. You can also anticipate and address your employee needs by mining data from employee and candidate surveys. Workforce analytics also enable HR professionals to gauge employee experience, engagement, and satisfaction. Dynamics 365 Human Resources, for example, is Microsoft’s move into the HR tech space and promises to enable workforce insights by centralising your HR data.
Employee monitoring and analytics systems: these systems can help your people understand their working patterns and habits to boost their productivity. This data can then be used to revise your performance metrics and KPIs, and workforce scheduling tools/digital rotas, helping you proactively react to your workforce’s requirements and changing work patterns.
Automation and AI: there’s a great deal of caution these days around the use of AI in the sourcing and shortlisting process, particularly in relation to bias. However, by combining your data with automation, you can use AI and automation to boost the efficiency of your HR department by freeing employees from tedious, manual tasks and allowing them to focus on complex value-added tasks. If you decide to integrate machine learning capabilities with your invoicing system, for example, you can auto-generate invoices from timesheets.
Upskilling and reskilling: this is the area we are really seeing take off. HR tools can help employees identify their skills, weaknesses and future learning direction. Such tools, including remote education initiatives, can help build and enable a culture of lifelong learning. However, it’s important to make sure you make the right tools available to your staff to encourage adoption and engagement with online learning initiatives. Micro-learning initiatives – which deliver short bursts of content for learners to study at their convenience – are particularly useful to help workers with little time (or short attention spans) access educational resources in a quick and easy manner, for example. VR is another growing tool to deliver corporate training and development.
Messaging, communication and collaboration: virtual assistants andchatbots are two key communication tools, which are helping organisations engage with their internal and external audiences across an increasingly diverse digital landscape.
These technologies are continuing to impact the HR landscape – but adoption rates are not as strong as they could be. The PwC report reveals only 27 per cent of respondents rated HR tech as very effective for changing behaviours at work. Eight out of ten (82 per cent) struggle with adoption challenges, where remote working makes it difficult to engage workers with such initiatives. The recent pandemic has exacerbated issues, as staff motivation and productivity levels plummet. But there are a number of measures you can put in place to buck this trend.
How the right HR tech can help you overcome common COVID challenges
The right HR tech can help you keep your staff well, engaged and productive, which is a difficult undertaking in the current COVID climate.
#1 Zoom (insert your VC tool of choice here!) fatigue is real, and can be addressed with a range of tech tools
Tech has risen to the challenge of enabling entire workforces to work from home, pretty much overnight, thanks to tools such as Slack, Trello, Teams and Zoom. But screen-based meetings can be extremely hard on the brain, increasing fatigue and decreasing your productivity – a phenomenon many refer to as ‘Zoom fatigue’.
With remote and hybrid working here to stay, it’s important to ensure you keep your people engaged in the long-term by exploring a broader range of communication tools. This means moving away from your reliance on video calls. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here – different people work in different ways.
You may want to investigate tools like Facebook Workplace, FocusMate and PukkaTeam, for example, which are essentially virtual coworking spaces helping increase collaboration and enable brainstorming sessions. VR conferencing is another possibility – which replaces video conferencing, helping to substitute in-person meetings and provide another online learning and development environment.
#2 Tech can help address the growing emphasis on mental health and staff wellbeing
Over the course of this pandemic, employee wellbeing has developed a whole new meaning – from both a physical and mental health perspective. The health implications of the virus on workforces is multifaceted.
Employees are experiencing unprecedented levels of sustained stress with three-quarters of the workforce experiencing burnout, and 40 per cent claiming this was a direct result of COVID-19.
HR tech can help reduce the strain. With 83 per cent of employees wanting employers to provide mental health supporting tech – there are plenty of options available.
AI therapists are one possibility – 34 per cent of employees believe access to an AI-therapist provides a judgement free zone, 30 per cent believe this would provide an unbiased outlet to share problems and 29 per cent think it would provide quick answers to health-related problems. Chatbots are another option, which can help guide employees to mental health resources and advice.
When it comes to physical health, there are also plenty of HR tech options out there. Virtual GPs are a growing trend, which could save UK businesses up to £1.5 billion. Such tools provide staff with access to medical advice and clinics to not just monitor, but also help employees proactively manage their health.
In addition to implementing social distancing measures, installing sensor-based technologies throughout the workplace can help minimise physical contact and reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
Fitness trackers are another option to boost wellness and staff engagement. Construction firm Fluor Canada, for example, recently provided staff with trackers, which allow them to take part in fitness challenges and monitor their health during the pandemic.
However, these programmes and devices can raise privacy concerns, which HR professionals must address. Wellness programmes offered by independent vendors, as opposed to health insurance companies and self-administered health plans, aren’t subject to privacy rules under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, for example, according to ConsumerReports.
#3 Remote learning must include a social aspect
The 70-20-10 model of learning at work is widely recognised, whereby 70 per cent of workers learn from experience gained on the job, 20 per cent learn from work relationships (such as coaching and mentoring), and 10 per cent learn from formal courses and learning interventions.
The Future of Jobs 2020 report from the World Economic Forum also states that 94 per cent of business leaders now expect employees to learn on the job, as opposed to formal training. In other words, it’s not enough to provide a few online courses – you must encourage social learning, which encompasses the first two points above.
However, social distancing and remote working have effectively cut out a major chunk of social learning, where staff may struggle to ‘learn by osmosis’ – represented by the informal, social learning covered in the first two areas.
To address this challenge, there are plenty of quick-win HR tech options. You could set up online discussion boards, team areas, wikis, image sharing systems and other collaboration tools on your intranet, for example. Tools like Google Classroom, Facebook Workplace, FocusMate and PukkaTeam are also providing virtual coworking spaces to facilitate effective collaboration and brainstorming sessions.
VR is another growing tool to deliver corporate training and development programmes, helping people feel like they are in a classroom environment and, therefore, can learn from their interactions with their classmates. At Hays, we are also developing our My Learning platform, which builds on the principles of social learning and offers all jobseekers access to insights around the skills in demand and how they can acquire them.
Adaptability and resiliency are required in the years ahead
Companies have experienced a year unlike any other. The pandemic has massively accelerated digital adoption rates and the HR tech market has grown explosively, as a result.
As we move forward, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. HR professionals must continue to adapt and adopt the latest tools to further enable online learning and career development, hiring and onboarding, staff engagement and feedback and many other key HR functions. Asking the customer – the employee – is a great place to start, to keep track of how people are feeling, how they are working, and what the potential problems are that a collaboration with technology could potentially help solve. I can’t predict where we’ll be in another 12 months – but I guarantee HR tech will play a key role in maintaining the world of work now, and in the years ahead.
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