6 Best Practices for a Successful HR Tech Implementation

Effective employee management was always one of the most critical ways of ensuring the success of one company, especially if the organization in question needs to work with limited assets and relies more heavily on its human resources.

As you can probably guess the strategies we used to meet these important goals have gone through tectonic changes as time and business trends went by. Now, that we have stepped in firmly into the digital age when companies delegate an increasing number of duties to AI, it is only logical that HR is following in the same footsteps.

But, robust tools rarely make a success if they are not implemented in a sensible and effective manner. Let us take a look then at a couple of practices that will help you leverage these current digital trends to refine your HR department.

Leverage hard metrics and analytic tools

Any HR professional needs to tackle numerous metrics that are used to put employees’ skills and work performance into a more tangible framework that can be used to engage in subsequent analytics draw out various conclusions and take necessary actions. Keeping that in mind, we would like to point out that the latest-gen HR tools are not only more capable of performing this type of analytics faster than human employees but also of getting more accurate and actionable results. All these perks should help you navigate through robust data with far less effort and make other HR tasks simpler as well.

Get your employees on board

Any kind of initiative is much easier to see through if all parties involved in the process are equally as engaged and capable of providing sensible contributions. This means that if you are going to start using some new, advanced HR tools or automate the HR process, your subordinates need to be aware of the changes, know what benefits they bring to the table and how can efficiently fit into this new workflow system. The best thing you can do in this regard is to make employees from all company instances a part of the decision-making process from the get-go. Starting some sort of committee should do the job.

Develop a dedicated APP or website

This simple move will provide you with numerous benefits. But, speaking in the simplest of terms, having a dedicated HR app or website streamlines the HR process, gives everyone a unified platform where they can perform their duties in a standardized and repeatable manner, and makes the review of complex data and analytics a matter of clicks. Of course, in order to be able to meet these expectations, the app needs to be created by professional web development services who not only have experience with building apps and websites but also know how to align these platforms with your business goals.

Outline clear goals and strategies

The change is good but it never should be a goal in itself. The same can be said, about introducing a greater level of digital technologies to your HR activities. Implementing these new initiatives just to keep up pace with the rest of the industries and without any clear goal in mind will inevitably produce compromised results and potentially damage the functional system you already have in place. That is why, before making any sort of long-term changes, you first need to examine what problems you want to sort out and use these end goals to reverse-engineer the specific methods you will use to get there.

Think about integration with other applications

The HR department makes an incredibly important facet of any company. But, the work put out in this sector is hardly isolated from other departments and is nowhere near self-sufficient. That is why you should try to think long-term and draw out the map for the digital transformation of the entire business and integration of all these distinct areas under one unified and fully automated workflow. But, in order for this to be possible all of your digital resources need to be designed with the prospect of the eventual future integration in mind – at least if you want to avoid expensive overhauls down the road.

Make transition evolution rather than revolution

Rolling out all initiatives and performing structural changes in one stroke will probably save you some time and probably even resources. But, at the same time, you would be forced to put your operations on hold until the works are over and you will have very little time to re-evaluate if the moves you are taking bearing desirable results. What you should do instead is to take things one step at a time and make sure new HR tools and methodologies are fully integrated and performing in an intended capacity before moving forward. These small changes are much easier to evaluate and, if necessary, roll back.

We hope these few examples gave you a general idea about the strategies you can use to get your HR department on the digital bandwagon and use all the perks of digital tech implementation. And rest assured, the entire business world is undergoing a thorough digital transformation with good reason – a department as critical as human resources can only benefit by joining this digital wave. But, in order to make your efforts fruitful, you need to have a clear goal in mind. The practices above should definitely put you in the right direction.

How HR Teams Can Improve Workplace Safety to Increase Employee Satisfaction

At the core of every good company are the workers which push the progress of your business forward. As an HR team member, it is vitally important to attract new workers to a workplace that is going to ensure their maximum safety as they try to do their best work. Maximizing their safety is essential because this allows for a way more efficient and worry-free work environment and in turn, it drives employee satisfaction and retention. Not only will your workers be more satisfied but you won’t have to constantly worry about nagging workplace safety regulations. Developed countries such as Australia are actively enforcing this on many worksites with comprehensive workplace health and safety (WHS) laws. This is why it is important to respect these laws in order to prevent any possible penalties which not only create a bad image for your investors and employees but also set you back financially which can significantly disrupt your cash flow. Workplace safety has a myriad of great benefits for you and your company’s employees. Here is how you can contribute to workplace safety as an HR member to help increase employee satisfaction. 

Use good equipment

The best solution to any problem is its prevention. Most of the time, work-related injuries and even fatal cases happen because improper equipment was used, or even worse, there was no protective equipment at all. Personal protective equipment (P.P.E) is by far the best way to prevent the most common types of workplace hazards and protect hardworking employees. For instance, professional men’s workwear in Australia is becoming an industry-standard in many different business domains, because truly successful companies understand the value of providing high-quality protective equipment for their employees. That is why more and more companies in this country are supplying their staff with some of the latest P.P.E. An HR can help develop a better understanding of what kind of equipment the staff needs by developing good and open communication with them. This will provide your workers with a positive sense of belonging in a company and will make them feel like their work is even more appreciated and respected. In the long run, this can only increase employee satisfaction and retention. 

Encourage communication
One of the first things to consider when trying to create safer working conditions for your employees is the identification of potential risk factors and hazards. Workplace hazards can stem from various types of sources; mechanical failure, chemical poisoning, unexpected fires and other extremely dangerous elements. This is because most businesses operate using heavy machinery which is extremely dangerous and comes with many risks on its own, let alone in situations where the machine operators are already fatigued. This is where most mechanical issues stem from, to make the matters worse these issues are more likely to happen when the machinery is old and not carefully maintained. On the other hand, chemical hazards are less subtle but equally dangerous, this is because they can come in a multitude of forms. Everything from poisoning and flammable fluids to extremely dangerous gas leakages and highly corrosive fluids is a major risk factor that many employees have to face on a frequent basis. In addition, a potential injury could happen because of faulty electronic equipment. Identifying and understanding the different types of risk factors is the first step toward making a safer workplace.  

Good reputation for everyone

A reputable company is one that is able to provide the safest possible working conditions for its employees. This is because it takes a long time to build a great reputation in the industry and just a second to completely ruin it.  This means that only one workplace accident can cost you and your employees a lot. Bad word travels quickly and if you want to make sure that your employees are well respected in the industry it is crucial to encourage teams to talk about potential issues, whether they are physical or even psychological because they can all contribute to a potential workplace hazard. 

Better finances

One of the easiest ways to lose money as a company is to go through a tedious legal process in case you get sued by your employees. If a member of your company gets hurt, they can legally claim compensation for such an accident. Not only does this immediately hurt your finances and hinder your reputation, but it also makes your company subject to safety inspection which can cause additional problems. That is why, preventing such accidents in the first place is essential. Research has shown, that for every 1$ invested into workplace safety there is a return of 4$. 

Provide proper training

Once you have provided your staff with adequate support in terms of both good HR management practices, good communication and high-quality safety equipment. It is time to enable your workers to become fully self-reliant and more cautious workers by providing proper training for them. 

Improving workplace safety is a serious thing to consider if you want to improve your employee satisfaction. There are a couple of things to consider here; use good equipment, identify potential issues, maintain a good reputation, get a good return on investment from funding safety equipment, and provide proper training for your employees so that they can respond better in case of emergency. 

How Can HR Managers Benefit From Using Data Archiving?

HR managers deal with a lot of confidential and sensitive information. Maintaining the confidentiality of employee data is crucial. Any breach of confidentiality of employee data can result in monetary and lawsuits. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain the confidentiality of employee data.

Data archiving is an effective method to maintain the confidentiality of employee data. It not only safeguards confidential employee data but also enhances the efficiency of HR managers. However, most HR managers are not aware of the benefits of using data archiving.

It is a misconception that data archiving will cost a lot of money. However, in reality, it is a very cost-effective method to maintain the confidentiality of employee data. Moreover, it also helps in increasing the efficiency of HR managers.

Here are 6 benefits of data archiving for HR managers.

1. Data archiving can prevent the loss of confidential employee data

Losing confidential employee data can prove very costly for HR managers in several ways. It can result in costly lawsuits. Moreover, it can also result in the loss of the reputation and goodwill of the organization.

Data loss can occur due to natural disasters or system failures. It can also be a result of human errors such as the accidental deletion of files.

Data archiving can prevent the loss of confidential employee data by preventing any corruption or accidental deletion of confidential data. It prevents the loss of confidential employee data by ensuring its regular backup. Moreover, it also shields confidential employee data from unauthorized users.

2. Data archiving can help HR managers in complying with regulations and compliance standards

HR managers need to comply with many laws and regulations. These include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Family, and Medical Leave Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, etc.

Failure to comply with these laws can cost the company a lot of money. Therefore, it is important that HR managers comply with these laws and regulations.

Data archiving helps HR managers in complying with regulations and compliance standards. This is because data archiving helps HR managers in tracking, auditing, and protecting employee data.

3. Data archiving can help HR managers in tracking employee data

HR managers need to maintain all employee records. These records include correspondence, employee files, employee documents, etc. Maintaining such records manually is quite difficult and can result in the loss of employee data.

Data archiving can help HR managers in tracking employee data. It can help in organizing the records of each employee. Moreover, these records are organized in a systematic manner. Implementing cloud archiving software can help HR managers in tracking employee data in an effective manner.

4. Data archiving can safeguard employee data

Maintaining the confidentiality of employee data is very important. If the confidentiality of employee data is lost, it may lead to the misuse of personal information.

This can prove very costly for both the employee and the organization. . Furthermore, it can also affect the reputation of the company and may even result in lawsuits. 

Data archiving can help HR managers in safeguarding confidential employee data. It can help in restricting access to confidential employee data to authorized users. Moreover, data archiving also helps in tracking the source of any unauthorized access.

5. Data archiving can help HR managers in retrieving employee data quickly

If an employee faces a workplace issue, the concerned HR manager needs to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Therefore, it is important for HR managers to respond quickly to employee issues.

Data archiving can help HR managers in retrieving employee data quickly. Archiving solutions index all the data stored in the database, which makes it easy to retrieve all the data. They also allow advanced search options, which make it easy to search for specific employee data.

6. Data archiving can help HR managers in reducing litigation risks

Lawsuits are very expensive. Therefore, it is important that HR managers reduce litigation risks.

Data archiving helps in the preservation of crucial evidence. This can help in resolving legal issues such as sexual harassment, racial discrimination, etc. Data archiving allows HR managers to keep a record of all employee data, which is required for resolving legal issues.

Moreover, data archiving also helps in resolving compliance issues. It can help in resolving compliance issues by providing reports, audit trails, etc. HR professionals can use this data to eliminate any compliance issues and ensure complete compliance.

Over to you

The benefits of data archiving are tremendous. However, most HR managers are not aware of the benefits of using data archiving.

It can help HR managers in increasing the efficiency of their department. It can also protect confidential employee data. Moreover, it also ensures compliance with privacy laws and regulations. Hence, there is no doubt that HR managers should seriously consider data archiving.

Wave Goodbye to the Pitfalls of Presenteeism

The US Department of Labor says that the average American takes eight days off every year, meaning workers gift thousands of dollars of unused vacation time to their employers annually. But why?

Part of the issue is presenteeism – which plagues corporate America and, at the last calculation, costs the country $150 billion a year. This estimate attributed lost productivity due to poor health conditions of employees who still came to work – but did not take into account other effects – such as how presenteeism can also affect company culture, worker retention, and talent attraction.

The basic definition of presenteeism is when an employee spends more time at work than is required – including if they are unwell. A report from NPR, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found over half of Americans go to work when they are sick.

Deadlines are feared, having too many actions to return to, and expectations that employees must put work before their own health. For many workers, presenteeism is engrained in company culture. And it’s a problem many industries are grappling with as they increase flexible working policies that improve work life balances.

Companies must take the necessary actions to combat this issue, with three steps to consider below:

Step one: Addressing the root causes

Organizations should first take steps to address the root causes of poor physical and mental health within their workforce by offering comprehensive benefits packages. To have the greatest impact, these should include wellbeing support through a holistic benefits package such as wellness initiatives/allowances, access to mental health resources, massage or acupuncture sessions, and nutritionist sessions that support employees’ physical and mental health.

Additionally, technology is essential for HR and benefits teams to counter presenteeism. As well as offering sophisticated analysis that enables HR to track the popularity (and, therefore, success) of any company initiatives over a period of time, benefits tech and wellness pots can make a more immediate and tangible impact by allowing employees to self-administer benefits to impact their day-to-day health and happiness. This opens up an endless list of options, for example this could include access to yoga classes, therapy sessions, or financial wellness training. This digital approach to benefits management not only also means employees can access their benefits whenever and wherever they want, but provides data back to employers on what benefits are being used (and therefore valued.)

Step two: Analyze company culture

Presenteeism is often a cultural issue entrenched in an organization by the behavior of the leadership team or company values that haven’t yet evolved. While most within a company will recognize change as necessary, direction and leadership must first come from management.

If workers see management and leadership teams taking time off when they’re sick or are in need of a rest, they’ll be far more likely to do the same. It sends a clear message that when somebody is ill, they too should take the time to recover and when work is done, it’s time to go home.

HR can also facilitate open discussions about the importance of wellbeing to help shift company culture by using listening exercises that demonstrate to the workforce the company cares. Furthermore, organizations can take polls and surveys to help address any gaps in company benefits packages that could enhance their employees’ wellbeing – there is no shortage of ways employers can try to make improvements in this area.

Step three: Tech is key

Technology has effectively allowed more employees to work from home or other remote locations. Remote work brings many benefits such as reduced stress by saving money and time on commuting. But with this comes a need for balance.

Employers must be clear to workers that when they are sick, they should not be sending emails or seen online. When they are ready and well enough to return to work, they will be recovered, rejuvenated, and more productive.

We have a lot of work to do to address and eliminate presenteeism. Companies need to start by looking at their culture and management structures to better understand how to lead by example. People should be made to feel comfortable to take time off when they’re physically or mentally unwell without fearing piles of work or judgement from their manager – or their colleagues. This means actually taking time off when rest is needed so they can recuperate, and not working remotely which should be actively discouraged by managers during sick leave.

ATS vs Recruitment Marketing Software: What is the Difference and Why do You Need Both?

What is the difference between Recruitment Marketing Software and ATS? And why do you need both of these tools to gain advantage in today’s ultra-competitive market?

What is ATS and how does it enhance hiring process?

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software designed to help HR teams track and manage applications, as its name suggests. An ATS appeared in the nineties, when HR teams’ biggest struggle was managing numerous applications and selecting the best among them. 

In other words, an ATS is designed to help HR teams improve their hiring process after they receive applications. As such, it doesn’t help HR teams to tackle the greatest challenge of modern time recruiting – attracting passive candidates. 

An overwhelming majority of today’s candidates are passive candidates, who aren’t looking for a job. According to a recent Glassdoor research, 76% of hiring managers admit attracting top talent is their greatest challenge. This is why a new tool called Recruitment Marketing Software has appeared – to help ambitious HR teams improve their hiring process prior to receiving applications.

What is a Recruitment Marketing Software and how does it enhance hiring process?

A Recruitment Marketing Software is an innovative software program designed to help HR professionals attract great potential candidates and turn them into applicants.

Using a Recruitment Marketing Software will enable you to build awareness about your employer brand, get potential candidates interested in working at your company and to drive them to apply for the open positions your company has available.

With a Recruitment Marketing Software, you can showcase your employer brand through different channels, such as your company’s career site, social media, job boards, recruiting events, etc.

Want to try out a powerful ATS & Recruitment Marketing Software?

Take TalentLyft for a test ride! 

Try our ATS and Recruitment Marketing Software for free. Yep, completely free for  14 days, no credit card is required to sign up and you can cancel anytime.

Are You Making the Most Out of HR Analytics?

How mature is your HR analytics strategy?

How advanced is your HR analytics strategy?

Today, most companies are collecting vast amounts of detailed data about their people. However, only a small percentage actually conducts a deeper analysis of this data and uses gathered insights to take action. 

Companies that act on the gathered data and analytics to solve critical business issues will surely be able to out-hire, out-manage and out-perform their competitors. Are you among them?

How mature is your company’s HR analytics strategy? Are you just getting started with some basic level of HR analytics? Or you’ve mastered even the advanced HR analytics best practices?

4 levels of HR analytics 

We distinguish four levels of people analytics, from basic to most advanced: 

1. Descriptive analytics
   Descriptive people analytics provides an answer to the following question:
   “What has happened?”
   This type of people analytics is defined by using data to understand and reflect on what has already happened in the past.

2. Strategic analytics
   Strategic people analytics provides an answer to the following question:
   “Why did this happen?”
   This type of data analytics is defined by developing causal models and searching for the reasons behind a certain occurrence.

3. Predictive analytics
   Predictive people analytics provides an answer to the following question:
   “What could happen?”
   This type of data analytics is defined by using statistical models and forecasts techniques that can predict the future based on the past.
4. Prescriptive analytics
   Prescriptive people analytics provides an answer to the following question:
   “What should we do?”
   This type of data analytics is defined by using simulation algorithms to analyze a number of different possible solutions in order to choose the one most likely to provide the desired outcome.

Learn more about the reasons why HR analytics is a new HR imperative!

Top 5 Recruitment Software Statistics

Discover the proven research-based benefits of using a modern recruitment software!

Are you using a recruitment software?

Using a recruitment software has many benefits. Some of the most commonly cited are the following:

• Increased efficiency
• Time saving
• Cost saving
• Improved reporting
• Higher quality of hire
• Reduced IT department’s  involvement
• Reduced marketing department’s involvement.

In short, a recruitment software should help you find the best hires, in the shortest amount of time, for the least amount of money. It will also enable you to own the whole recruiting process, without depending on your marketing and IT department.

It sounds perfect, right? But is it really like that in practice? Let’s take a look at the data and find out!

Recruitment software statistics you need to know

Here is a list of the top 5 proven, research-based recruitment software statistics you need to know:

Statistic #1: A majority of companies use an applicant tracking system (ATS)

A research Capterra conducted has shown that:

• 75% of recruiters use a recruiting or applicant tracking software.

Statistic #2: Almost all best-in class companies use a recruitment software

According to finding from Jobscan’s research:

• Over 98% of fortune 500 companies use a recruitment software

Statistic #3: Using a recruitment software has positive impact on hiring

According to Capterra’s research:

• 94% of recruiters and hiring professionals say their using a recruitment software has positively impacted their hiring process.

Statistic #4: Recruitment software improves time to hire

GettApp’s research has found that:

• 86% of recruiting professionals say that using a recruitment software has helped them hire faster.

Statistic #5: Recruitment software improves the quality of hire

GettApp’s research findings show that:

• 78% of recruiters say that using an ATS has improved the quality of candidates they hire.

Looking for a better recruitment software?

A great recruitment software will help you achieve your recruitment goals and turn your everyday problems into opportunities. If your current recruitment software isn’t doing its job, you should think about finding the one that will.

In our guide “How to Evaluate and Choose the Best Recruiting Tool” you’ll learn exactly how to compare, evaluate and choose the best recruiting tool that will perfectly fit your hiring needs and your budget.

The Top Must-Have 10 Recruiting Software in 2019 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Check out the infographic with the top 10 must-have recruiting software in 2019!

List of the top must-have recruiting software in 2019

Which different types of HR tools do successful HR professionals and recruiters use to up their recruiting game?

Here is the list of the top 10 must have recruiting software that can completely change the way you attract, find, choose and hire top talent.

Infographic: Top 10 must-have recruiting software in 2019

Here are the top 10 must have recruiting software nicely put in one handy infographic:

Recruiting software #1: Applicant Tracking System

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) serves as a database with all of the applicants’ profiles, it helps interview scheduling, candidate screening and evaluation and enables easy team collaboration and communication.

Recruiting software #2: Recruitment Marketing Software

Recruitment Marketing Software offers features for implementing the most important recruitment marketing important strategies, such as employer branding and social media recruiting. With this software, you can also create your perfect career site based on your needs and your brand identity.

Recruiting software #3: Candidate Relationship Management Software

Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Software Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) Software helps recruiters to achieve timely, relevant and personalized communication with their current and potential future job candidates.

Recruiting software #4: Candidate Sourcing Software

Candidate Sourcing Software is a recruitment software specialized in finding qualified candidates. With Candidate Sourcing Software, recruiters can scan millions of online profiles to retrieve passive and active candidates’ details including email addresses, resumes and more.

Recruiting software #5: Video Interviewing Software

Video Interviewing Software enables recruiters to conduct distance live video interviews with candidates from anywhere around the world, quickly and easily.

Recruiting software #6: Candidate Assessment and Testing Software

With Candidate Assessment and Testing Software, employers can quickly and easily test their candidates’ knowledge, technical and soft skills and traits needed for success in a certain job position.

Recruiting software #7: Employee Referral Software

With Employee Referral Software, you can create and send engaging employee referral campaigns and ask your employees to recommend suitable candidates for job positions you are looking to fill.

Recruiting software #8: Background Check Software

A Background Check Software is a specialized software created to automate an employment background check and perform a reliable search of a criminal background and do a thorough vetting of new staff before hiring.

Recruiting software #9: Employee Advocacy Software

An Employee Advocacy Software is a specialized recruitment tool created to help companies turn their employees into their employer brand ambassadors and share curated, pre-approved content across their social network in a fast and simple way.

Recruiting software #10: Job Boards and Aggregators

Job Boards are websites where employers directly post their open job positions.

Job Aggregators are websites that search the web and collect job ads from multiple sources and display them on their site, linking them to the original job ad.

 

How Can Technology Impact HR Practices?

The advent of digitalization and smartphone usage has impacted every department in every company. This also includes human resources. Outsourcing work is becoming the norm instead of just being innovation and the role of an HR department changed accordingly. The 2019 HCM Trend report, developed by leading HR market analysts, states that global HR technology venture capital was increased to $3.1 billion this year, tripling the cash invested in 2017.

As new HR technology solutions emerge, there is a certain tech boom on the rise that is transforming the way we do the job and our opinions about HR. This impact is twofold. Firstly, it’s shifting the attention of HR managers from managing the workforce to driving profits for the business. And secondly, it offers various tools for better management and engagement of talents in the company.

Mobile Apps are coming

The real Internet revolution came with smartphones, not with desktop computers. And mobiles will probably dominate the HR landscape this year. As more workers across different departments seek access to applications via smartphones, businesses are reshaping their HR system to better accommodate this. For this type of functionally to work, companies must consider HR applications with the mobilization process and the interface the workers are searching for.

Additionally, we can see new trends appearing such as applications that streamline the basic work of HR departments. Nowadays smartphone apps are a must for every application a business develops.

Analytics are making performance management better

Performance management – one of the crucial HR functions. HR professionals have been for long driven this process by monitoring performance, regularly reviewing employees and collecting supervisory feedback. Now, technology enables a streamlined process that eliminates unwanted steps. But the next big boom is coming with a data-driven performance management process.

We will see a fast and widespread adoption of people analytics that will help the HR department with making decisions about the workforce. This raw data from analytics can be utilized to build actionable insights and to support the decision making about compensations, promotions, developments, success plans and to create agile cross-functional team staffs.

HR will able to apply analytics to sentiment data gathered from thousands of interactions between workers and managers as a part of the performance management process. By analyzing such sentiment data HR will be able to create ample opportunities for coaching and enable managers and workers to increase their performance.

Helps with organizing business events

Gone are the days of manually organizing business parties and events. Nowadays technology is starting to help with even mundane tasks such as organizing a business event. Numerous event ticketing platforms offer tools that simplify the running of events and community building.

These platforms make from your event a singular experience, guide you throughout the whole process, from checking in, to on-event activities, to post-event analysis. They ease the process of event organizing allowing you to do it faster and better so you can focus on the other aspects of your business.

Social media is changing the game

Social media is playing a more active role in HR nowadays, particularly when it comes to recruitment. A quarter of companies are utilizing social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn for recruitment. These platforms can not only be used for recruitment, but also for worker engagement. They’re also being assessed as a fundamental source for businesses to reach their HR goals.

Companies can use social media platforms to reach a target audience for job postings or other company related information. Some enterprises are even known to share their company’s success story through posts, photos, and blog posts. Vice versa, job seekers actively research companies on these platforms while searching for work.

Social media enables numerous benefits for an HR department and lets them be in touch with emerging trends, news, and technologies. They can be used as a medium for relationship nurturing when you share industry knowledge on them. Aforementioned reasons have made from these channels an ideal place to engage employees, nurture relationships and increase communication in the workplace. Many businesses are thinking about the integration of these platforms with their applications, instead of developing their own enterprise apps.

New trends and technologies will play a vital role in reshaping human resources management software and operations from managing personnel to business execution, but they won’t start it. HR managers must be the ones to leverage and scale this technology in order to drive real values for the company.

Digital technologies will facilitate greater degree of flexibility and integration, hence allowing workers a bigger voice to share their work experience. They may also disrupt human resources and redefine their future development. The HR who accommodate to these changes more quickly will enable their companies to become smarter and bigger. Culture management and employee engagement will be the factors that will drive HR in this ever-changing landscape.

The Importance of Targeted SEO to Your Company’s Visibility (& Linkability)

SEO has often been viewed by businesses as an ethereal, mysterious thing that a company does for you, and with a sprinkle of magic marketing dust, you are ranking number one on Google for the right keywords and your niche. However, good SEO has been made up of a number of the same things for several years:

• Good Web Design: While this goalpost has moved over the years, from optimized for desktop to optimized for mobile, from high-resolution video and photos to speed of loading, a modern web design that is responsive and provides a good user experience is essential.
• Good Content: A website must have good content, from product pages and descriptions to landing pages and blogs, content needs to be informative, well written, and user-friendly.
• Backlinks: These can be paid, earned, and social. Google expects businesses to pay for ads, earn links from reputable sites, and appear on social media. Link exchanges and guest posting is one of the best ways to earn backlinks. While the search engine still claims social links and shares do not affect ranking, they certainly can have an effect on organic traffic, and there is some debate about when they might become a legitimate factor.  

There is a bit more to it than that. The smarter Google becomes, the more it looks at websites like a human user does. Artificial intelligence and machine learning mean that user experience and relevance will continue to mean more than they ever have. This means SEO work needs to be targeted, implemented with a deliberate strategy, and treated as a continuous process.

Here are some reasons targeted SEO is important to your company’s visibility and linkability:

The Need for Linkable Content

As mentioned above, there are multiple kinds of backlinks. They are paid, earned, and social. The number of paid links your site has can be absolutely controlled by your ad spend. However, earned links can be partially controlled and deliberately built, and social links can be encouraged but only minimally controlled by you.

What is the key to earned and social links? Your content. It also determines how effective any paid links you have to your site are. Simply put, you need linkable content. Category or service pages, product descriptions, and thin blog posts are not link-worthy pages. Years of experience have taught link building companies what linkable content really is.

Fortunately, in November of 2015, everyone got a look at the Google Search Evaluator guidelines at the time. They confirmed much of what we had already learned. Google and users look for a few key things in your content, and Google uses those things to help determine your page rank. It is known as the E.A.T. principle:

• Expertise: Not only does Google look at your company, but at the author of the content to determine expertise.
• Authority: This is in the part where links come in. Outbound links to authoritative content establish you as an authoritative source, as do inbound links to the content itself.
• Trustworthiness: This is also determined by organic, authoritative links to your content and the accuracy of what you have written.

Not only does content need to meet the E.A.T. principle, but it should also be informative and well written. Remember: Content is also a part of user experience, and thin content produces high bounce rates, sending users looking for the information they need elsewhere. It certainly means they will not link to it on their own website or share it on their social media profiles.

What makes content linkable is how informative it is, the clarity of the writing, and how well it is optimized for both search engines and real people. Without content that is worth linking to, it is difficult to either build or earn links.

Researching Relevancy

How do you know if your content is reaching the right searchers at the right time? Fortunately, this is easier to figure out than it ever has been — and yet more challenging as well. There is more data out there about users and their behavior on the internet than at any other time in history, and nearly any business can access this data through some simple analytics tools.

This means not only do we know what our potential customers are interested in, we know how they interact with the internet. Beyond just demographic analytics, we have access to behavioral analytics which are much more powerful.

All this data not only tells us what our ideal customers are searching for but how they are doing it. This can be taken from the general fact that over 60 percent of Google searches are done on mobile devices, and more people than ever are completing purchases on portable devices as well. You can also determine what devices your customers search on most frequently, whether they are iOS users or Android fans, and how much time they spend reading a blog post, and even how many searches they perform for a product or service before they make a purchase.

What this allows you to do is to target your content more specifically, and even create different content that will appeal to different sets of buyers. Relevant content is much more linkable, whether you are earning those links organically, want your users to share it on social media, or are engaged in a link building campaign targeting specific keywords.

Creating a Strategy

Now that you know why linkable content is necessary and you have established what is relevant to your potential customers, you need to create a targeted content strategy. Why? It’s simple: Without targets and specific goals, how will you know if your linkable content is working?

So what is a content strategy? It is deliberately creating content to support your efforts to rank for a specific keyword or set of keywords, and building and working to earn links to that content. This usually involves several pieces of content of varying lengths and types, internal linking, good onsite technical SEO, and content that is well written and informative.

A good SEO company will not only help you with your onsite technical SEO and link building but can also help you with your content strategy and creating linkable content. This entire process, which you should thoroughly understand, takes a lot of time, and unless you have a capable team in your marketing department, the time and money an outsourced expert will save you is more than worthwhile.

Filling in the Content Gaps

So now you understand the need for linkable content, you have done your research and know what is relevant, and you have a content strategy. Now it is time to fill in the content gaps on your website. Whether you have a robust blog filled with content or are just starting out, once you establish your content strategy, you’re going to find that you have content gaps.

What is a content gap? They are areas where you are missing content that is essential to your content strategy. It is essential that you fill these gaps in order to satisfy not only Google but your potential customers. You need the linkable content in order for targeted SEO to be effective.

Want to rank higher in Google for critical searches in your niche? Want your business to be more visible to searchers? It’s all about relevant content that is part of a content strategy, linkable content, and then building links to that content. Those are all a part of targeted SEO, the key to your company’s visibility and linkability.