The benefits of new perspective are innumerable. However, to make a real difference in a business, hiring one nontraditional candidate probably won’t suffice. Companies must proactively seek this type of candidate every time.

Unconventional Choices Expand Your Talent Reach

Strict instructions for the type of hire you are looking for can limit your talent pool. Today, many job seekers hire someone to post their resumes for them. Basing the hiring process on how a resume looks and reads could mean you hire someone that isn’t who you thought they were.

Looking for a candidate with a specific degree or years of working experience in a similar field, for example, automatically closes out the opportunity for the unconventional choice. Instead, expand your reach and begin looking at resumes focused on your company’s values rather than only job experience in the field.

Often, you’ll find someone with transferrable skills and a passion for continuous learning that will open your business up to a whole new world of creativity and work ethic.

Bringing New Ideas to the Table

The unconventional choice is someone with a diverse or different background from what your company traditionally seeks in a new hire. Hiring someone based on their potential opens up the business to a fresh and unique perspective. They can more easily think “outside of the box” because they have experience solving problems differently.

Thus, the unconventional choice can potentially:

• Cut down project times
• Create new solutions yet to be thought of by anyone else
• Increase worker efficiency
• Encourage other workers to test the limits of creativity

Unconventional Choices Help to Diversify Your Customer Base

Your employee base should be equally or more diverse than your customer base. A diverse employee roster means the potential to form relationships with every type of customer increases. This is especially true for any business that deals directly with the customer.

Maybe the unconventional choice has experienced highs and lows that your other employees have not. This background gives them a greater opportunity to connect with different customers because they have direct experiences with their issues.

This type of thinking also impacts advertising and sales. For example, an advertising idea could connect with the customers in ways that the traditional employee can’t because they don’t have the same experiences.

According to Harvard Business Review, hiring random people for the job in hopes of diversifying your company won’t produce benefits on its own. You must have a strategy in place. Focus on getting to know a new hire’s potential and deciding how that potential best fits the company.

These changes can all help boost your business in different ways because you took a chance on the unconventional choice.

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After a less than normal 2020 year and many people in America going without work or travel for much of the year, 2021 summer vacations look a bit more promising.

Even before the global pandemic, Americans had 768 million unused vacation days in 2019. It’s time to take those vacation days back! Studies show it’s not only great for employees’ mental and physical health, but it’s essential for productivity as well.

Used Vacation Days Increases Productivity 

According to multiple studies, the work martyr trend continues to gain popularity, and Millennials are some of the main culprits since they now make up much of the workforce. From 1978 to 2000, Americans took an average of 20 vacation days per year, which plummeted to 16 days in 2014. Interestingly, new research points out that taking time off work can improve workforce efficiency.

The Wall Street Journal states that workers that take appropriate time off are healthier than workers that don’t, and healthier workers are more productive. Therefore, companies should urge their employees to use more time off each year.

Companies like Netflix, Glassdoor, and Dropbox first initiated the “Unlimited PTO” trend because they believe that employees that feel cared for work harder and better. They believe that efficient work requires sufficient vacationing to recharge and perform at their best, leaving how long to vacation up to the employee.

Many other companies started softly mandating their employees to take a minimum of two to three weeks off per year. If the employee doesn’t take time off, their boss is supposed to bring it up during their yearly review.

Vacation Days Improves Employee Mental and Physical Health

Not only are vacation days essential for productivity, but they are also essential for worker mental health. The US Travel Association found that taking the proper amount of vacation time improves the worker’s happiness with:

• Their career
• The company where they work
• Personal and coworker relationships
• Physical health and well-being

When employees are happy, their anxiety and depression symptoms subside as well. According to Corporate Wellness, rested employees are productive employees, but they are also physically and mentally healthier employees.

A Psychosomatic Medicine study, conducted over nine years, found that regular vacations reduce the risk of heart disease in men and women.

Why Employees Still Don’t Take a Vacation

By now, it is a well-known fact that employers want their employees to take vacations, and employees themselves want to vacation. So why aren’t employees taking advantage of their PTO?

Aside from the work martyr complex, here are a few reasons employees work through their vacation days:

• Feeling guilty for making their coworkers pick up the slack while they’re gone
• Fearing they won’t receive a promotion if it looks like they are always gone
• They have no one willing or able to take time off with them
• Pressures from bosses to meet deadlines
• Concerned about how much a vacation costs

Most of these fears are anxiety-based. In reality, well-planned vacation time can debunk all of these fears and benefit the employee, coworkers, and business.

The US Travel Association also wants you to save the date for National #PlanForVacation Day on January 25, 2022. Everyone is invited to take time to travel and regroup for the coming year. It’s about time American workers cut into the 768 million unused vacation day tally.

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People hire great candidates, and then won’t get them the required licenses or tools they need to succeed in the industry. It’s up to you to remove these barriers to success by making strategic investments in employee engagement, professional development, advanced technology, and mentoring. Start by recruiting the best candidates, then enhance their opportunities for success using some of these strategies.

Spend Time with Every Employee

Too many organizations put the needs of their customers before their employees. Great leaders understand the importance of investing heavily in their employees, and the best way to find what employees need to succeed is to go directly to the source.

Great leadership styles prioritize spending personal time with employees to build relationships and ensure alignment. Studies even suggest that leaders should spend up to six hours per week interacting with their employees to boost inspiration, engagement, and motivation. Even ten minutes spent with seven people each week can be an effective way to connect with employees. From taking employees out to lunch to inviting them to conferences, personal time investments are the most valuable because they help create a trusting work environment.

Planning

Remote workers also need engagement. How do you do it? A growing number of organizations are appointing Chief Fun Officers to encourage teamwork and enjoyment. Just three or four minutes can change the whole outcome of the day by transforming a hostile work environment into a positive one. Leaders must work through this by setting up zoom meetings, communicating with employees while walking down the hall, and visiting employees where they are. If you ask them to come to you, consider how that impacts them.

Focus on Employee Development 

Training employees and having them leave is better than not developing them and staying with your company. It’s imperative to show new hires that you are dedicated to employee development to keep them from seeking other jobs where their development is central. If you want to be known as an employer who cares, create an environment that promotes continual improvement. These companies win in the end with rosters of loyal, exceptional employees.

If you want to attract and retain better employees, then it’s never too late to start investing in your human resources. Personal time investments are an excellent place to start. Then, focus more on keeping your remote employees engaged. Don’t overlook the power of ongoing employee development, either.

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