Thanks to You: A Thanksgiving Message on Building Meaningful Career Matches
With Thanksgiving coming up fast, I’d like to say thanks to everyone I work with — not just my colleagues here at The Swan Group, but the people who trust their hiring goals to me and everyone in my wider network who inspires me every day.
When I think of professional gratitude, a lot of things come to mind: the gift of making a great match that will make a difference, the sense of accomplishment that comes from solving a problem for a hiring manager, and the knowledge that a hire is a moment in time — but that moment can lead to great things for both the person and the company that hires them.
In this month’s newsletter: measuring for holistic health, why Home Depot may be onto something with its managers, and what you lose when you use an AI avatar instead of a human to conduct initial interviews.
Measuring for Holistic Health as a Marker of Employee Wellness
“Holistic health” is a metric I had never heard of until I caught wind of this global McKinsey survey. McKinsey defines holistic health as the combination of physical, mental, social, and spiritual wellness. They found, not shockingly, that workers with higher holistic health do better work.
Of note, the countries with the highest holistic health… drumroll please… Turkey and China! (Who knew?) The lowest? Japan, where the “culture of overwork” is, in some ways, a point of pride.
As for the U.S., we scored a little higher (62) on holistic health than the global average (57). Our highest score fell in the area of physical health (76), while our lowest fell in the domain of “spiritual” (63).
Beyond making for more creative and productive workers, holistic health is important because it’s virtually the opposite force of burnout — a phenomenon which often leads to loss of productivity and employee attrition, costing companies millions every year. How is the holistic health at your workplace?
Is Home Depot onto Something?
Want to understand the way your business works? Get on the ground floor.
This is the attitude of Home Depot, which last month announcedthat all corporate employees must work a full 8-hour shift at a retail store once a quarter. This includes remote workers and senior management.
As a recruiter, I interface mainly with people who work in offices. But as a consumer, I interact with customer service folks and retail associates all the time. It’s obvious when a company’s decision-makers are out of touch with the front line of work and the actual customer experience.
Realistically, a higher-up in the corporate structure is not going to be of much help on the floor at a Home Depot retail store. They aren’t likely to be able to answer questions like:
“Where are the flat bastard files kept?”
“What aisle are the pigtail hooks in?”
“Do you guys have any bull-nose rabbet planes in stock?”
Putting upper management on the floor isn’t directly for the sake of customers — but ultimately, it is. And, more importantly, to make sure the entire workforce is supported, from the ground up.
Not Everyone Cares About Your Great Benefits
Nearly half of full-time workers in the US don’t take advantage of their employer-sponsored retirement plan, according to this analysis of several studies.
I believe that benefits are an important part of a package, but do they actually move the needle on a job decision? That’s up for debate.
When you’re trying to hire the best talent, the key is to tap into what the specific person wants, and there is no better way to get to know their needs and meet their expectations than to work with a recruiter. Recruiters get to know each candidate so we can level-set expectations around the role itself, the salary range — and the benefits package. We also handle the actual negotiations to ensure that each candidate gets heard and answered. This way, you, as the hiring organization, get the best talent in the door with the optimal packages to meet their expectations and keep them happy.
Gratitude is not just a greeting card category. It’s a core value that I believe serves everyone in every line of work. Personally, I wish you a joyful Thanksgiving filled with warmth, laughter, and gratitude.
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Our goal is to ensure that each professional we place and each client we work with achieves a competitive advantage based upon our services. Our specialty is high-level INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY placement within the Pharmaceutical, Bio-Pharmaceutical, and Consumer Products industries. Thoughts, comments, or would like to discuss further, please contact us.
