Great companies start with great personnel. While this may seem somewhat obvious, far too many companies are currently employing personnel with little to no motivation to succeed. Although employees are certainly one reason for a company’s success, they have become a main factor for their company’s shortcomings.
With this in mind, recruiters must do all they can to construct the best team possible to resist internal bleeding. This starts with improving the hiring process, and incorporating tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure companies are bringing in the best talent.
Building the Right Team Establishes Strong Company Culture
Business success depends on company culture, and company culture hinges on the people who comprise a company. Prospective candidates especially notice a company’s past and present employees, using this as a basis for the company’s overall culture. One of the best ways to attract great candidates is to have great employees. As such, recruiters would be wise to bolster their hiring strategies with tools like AI to ensure they are securing the best available candidates for open positions. Implementing AI software in the recruiting process can help recruiters identify and land candidates who best fit the company culture.
Jenny Gottstein, a team-building expert, acknowledged, “companies use their strong corporate culture as a bargaining chip to recruit the best and brightest talent. When applying for jobs, employees are assessing whether or not they relate to the working environment, and enjoy rolling up their sleeves next to their peers.”
Ninety-four percent of executives and 88% of employees believe a strong workplace culture is important to business success. The key to establishing a strong workplace culture is bringing in the right employees from day one to build around.
Employees offer insight into a company’s credibility and reputation
The quality of employees reflects the company’s values. While it’s often assumed that products, services, and statistics are representative of a company, one of the most significant indicators of a company’s strengths and weaknesses is the employees. Brand credibility, in large part, is contingent on the quality of the employees. From the public perspective, the most trusted brand ambassadors of a company are the employees that comprise the company. The 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer found that “employees rank higher in public trust than a firm’s PR department, CEO, or Founder. Forty-one percent of [people] believe that employees are the most credible source of information regarding their business.”
One researcher asserts that “building a strong brand requires that all employees feel connected to the corporate brand and understand their role in turning brand aspirations into reality.” It is crucial that recruiters take the necessary steps to bring in the right personnel, who understand their job is not only a means to a paycheck – but an opportunity to represent a brand. Recruiters can lean on tools like AI while hiring to quickly identify, vet, and interact with candidates who understand the significance of their role. Constructing the right team is not merely a matter of finding people to accomplish a particular task, but also finding engaged personnel that understand their larger responsibility as a brand ambassador.
Building the right team drives productivity
At the end of the day, the overarching goals of any company revolve around efficiency, productivity, and profitability. However, none of these goals are possible without the right team at the helm. As a result, it is paramount for current employees and future hires alike to be actively engaged contributors. A recent study found that companies with highly engaged employees earn more than twice the annual income of companies whose employees are undermotivated.
Of course, it is nearly impossible to determine a candidate’s motivation during the hiring process, but there are tools that help recruiters cut through the noise and find the best candidates with the greatest likelihood of success. For example, AI software equipped with machine learning can quickly source candidates, and identify those that are ideal fits based on the overall success of previous hires. Also, AI-supported chatbots can automatically interact with vetted candidates around the clock to establish open lines of communication, determine potential fit, and shortlist the best talent.
Today, a staggering 70% of American employees went to work and felt no commitment to delivering their best performance. Not only does this point to the lack of motivation from most employees in the workforce, but it also highlights the fact that recruiters are not doing their due diligence to find the right personnel to build their teams. With improved recruiting tools like AI, companies will certainly attract more motivated and talented candidates, and company performance will improve as a result.
Companies are suffering at the hands of their employees. While some workers are under-qualified or untalented, most are simply unmotivated to do their best work. Adding insult to injury, these disengaged employees are costing the US economy an estimated 500 billion dollars per year. Whatever the reason for the poor work, the fact remains companies must do a better job of building teams that are committed to success. Locating motivated and talented candidates is no easy feat, but tools like AI make this process easier and faster than ever. Should recruiters unleash AI’s capabilities in their sourcing and hiring process, they will undoubtedly attract the top talent with which to build their ideal teams.
