Francesca Ellul

Your outsourced HR partner should be an extended arm to your business, therefore ensure you communicate your expectations clearly and then move forward through a trusted relationship. To support this transition, it's very important that you dedicate the necessary resources (especially time) to truly allow your HR partner to succeed and advise.

You should be assessing and revisiting your job descriptions every year. JDs are an internal benchmarking tool to monitor your employee's development in their respective roles. This should coincide with their career development vis-a-vis the overall Company's direction. Utilise the performance management process as an opportunity to monitor and adjust job descriptions across the entire organisation.

Don't take it personally. It likely has nothing to do with you or your business. Candidates can be unresponsive for a number of reasons, and sometimes it just boils down to not feeling comfortable to turn you down. We do this naturally in our daily lives sometimes, so don't hold candidates to unrealistic expectations and just move on.

'Partners' is the key word here. If you're viewing recruiters as a last resort solution and not taking the time to cultivate a successful relationship, then you're heading in the wrong direction. Take the time to allow recruiters to truly understand your business, its values, the environment and much more. Allow them time to catch-up, touch base and develop a deeper relationship than one that's just transactional. Once you step into that direction, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the increase in their value. I

Cultivate a referral environment within the team. Building your employer brand is great, but remember it shouldn't only be for external purposes. Ensure you're cultivating a truly positive environment internally, and use that positivity to incentivise referrals. Happy employees are your best brand ambassadors & are more likely to recommend the right people for your business!

Invest in the right tools to measure output! The most common issue I hear from clients on implementing remote policies always stems from an underlining fear of the possibility of 'less performance' Explore and invest in the proper monitoring tools to not only give you peace of mind but to measure changes in performance through remote working. Although the foundation of remote policies is always trust, utilising tools just gives you that added comfort.