In today’s job market, many employers are struggling to find enough qualified employees. With unemployment at a sixteen-year low and more job seekers than ever, companies must adopt new methods of hiring if they want to attract potential employees. So, if you want to know how, keep reading!

1.  Update Your Job Listings

Modern job listings should be clear about the skills that are required for applicants to have in order to get hired. A company should not leave applicants guessing about what they need to do or say in order to be considered for a position. Today, companies use social media to post information about job opportunities and share the types of skills and characteristics that are usually required for these positions. If you want to “start your engines” on getting more qualified candidates applying for the jobs you have open, update your listings with these details. There are many examples of employer brands, so you should look into that as well. It’s important that you update your job listings with the kinds of qualifications and skills you’re looking for in potential employees, so that you have a clear understanding of what makes your company attractive to new applicants.

2. Implement a Strong Employee Referral Program

Your current employees can be one of your best resources when it comes to finding new hires. 70% of companies who use referrals as part of their hiring strategy are able to find quality candidates, while only 1-in-10 of other applicants make it through the entire hiring process. Your existing employees should be invited to create work referrals once they’ve been with your company for at least three months. This will encourage them to refer friends who may be qualified or interested in working for your company, while also cultivating authentically satisfied employees. Having a strong referral program will help you hire more potential employees effectively by letting current workers take responsibility for finding people they think would be a perfect fit with their company’s culture and values. Also, you can reward the employees who make a referral with benefits, like a bonus or even a paid day off!

3. Adjust Your Interview Process

Interviews are one of the most crucial steps in the hiring process, so you need to get them right! If you want to attract more potential employees, you must adjust your interview process by assessing a candidate’s needs and interests before inviting them to an in-person interview. This will help you find the best match for every position through discovery interviews. The goal of a discovery interview is to get to know a specific candidate better so that you can see if they would be a good fit with your company culture and mission. By adjusting your interview process in this way, employers can attract more qualified job seekers who have an interest in their company. Also, the goal is to find out what the candidate needs before inviting them to an in-person interview, so that you can determine if the company’s mission, values, and goals are a good match for them and you.

4. Revamp Your Career Page

If your career page has not been updated in a while, then you need to revamp it! The career page on your company website is a way for potential employees and jobseekers to find out what your company does and how they can apply. You want them to see that your mission, values, and mission align with their personal goals and interests. If you don’t have a solid career page on your site, potential applicants won’t know if they would be interested in working at your company or not. A good career page will list all available positions, as well as make clear the kind of people who are likely to fit best in every role.  Don’t forget that by updating this part of your website, you’ll attract more potential employees who are interested in applying for the job openings you have. This will make it easier to find strong candidates who are a great fit for each role!

5. Boost Your Social Media Presence

If companies want to attract more quality jobseekers, they need to boost their social media presence. 90% of job seekers use social media sites to find a new job, so your business needs a solid social media presence if you want potential employees to see what you have to offer. By using social media, businesses can attract more qualified people who are genuinely interested in working for them. Also, by boosting your company’s visibility on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, you will generate more traffic to your website and career page. This will make it easier for potential applicants to find out about all the work opportunities at your company, while also seeing the kind of culture you’re trying to build. 

Having a referral program, adjusting your interview process, revamping your career page, and boosting your social media presence are all great ways to attract more potential employees in today’s job market. These five tips will help you hire those who are best suited for each position at your company. By following these strategies, companies can make themselves more visible and hire just the people they need!

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post How Can Companies Effectively Attract More Potential Employees in Today’s Job Market? appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

According to this Flyaeolus flight survey, 30% of European corporate businesses travel once per month; 62% travel once a year, while 5% travel 21 to 40 times per year

These statistics tell us that trips are a recurring activity for many employees and employers. Because they are, your business requires an efficient and systematic process for adequate planning.

If you are looking to give your employees a seamless and efficient traveling process, then you need the expertise of an efficient travel management company. They’ll help streamline the preparation processes and make business trips easier and a lot more rewarding for your company.

What are travel management companies? Why do you need their services?  This article discusses what travel management companies are and the top three reasons to hire their services.

Let’s begin.

What are travel management companies?

A Travel Management Company (TMC), also known as a corporate travel provider or business travel agency, is a travel agent that oversees the business travel arrangements and activities of an individual, company, or organization.

They often offer ongoing business travel management activities using travel management tools to provide improved and enjoyable travel experiences for companies.

They perform different functions, including enforcing a company travel policy to ensure all employees comply with the company’s business trips policies. They also provide a reliable system to enable companies to enjoy the best rates for all bookings, regardless of when they book.

Top 3 reasons to employ the services of a travel management company

Source

Whether you are a small, medium, or large company, employing the services of a travel management company is critical for a smooth business travel experience.

Below are three critical reasons to hire the services of top travel management companies for all your business trips.

1.    Travel management companies cut down business travel expenses

Companies spend $111.7 billion annually on business travel. This is because business travels frequently happen every year for many businesses, which means they will consume a huge part of a company’s expenses.

A travel management company reduces your business travel expenses in several ways. First, they create or enforce an existing travel policy that enables your staff to stick to a specific budget when they travel.

This ensures your staff book the airline and hotel that works best for the company’s budget. They can also track other additional expenses to ensure they align with the company’s spending expectations.

Second, working with a time management company means you will enjoy the best discounts when you travel. They negotiate the best deals, demand loyalty programs from vendors, and harness the best tools to track promotional offers and best rates.

Sometimes, they cancel tickets to rebook for more affordable options, so you can travel at discount rates and maximize costs as you travel.

Third, many travel management companies implement a pre-trip approval process that approves trips. This ensures that the company duly approves all business trips, and no staff goes on a business trip without the company’s knowledge, mitigating unnecessary business trips and maximizing cost in the process.

Fourth, whenever you have to reschedule or cancel a business trip, many travel management companies ensure you do not pay the penalty or extra charge for your action, saving you from additional expenses and driving down costs.

On the whole, travel management companies manage your overall travel expenses through planning, tracking, and reporting tools. By doing this, you can monitor every travel expense to reduce costs while you and your staff go on business trips.

So, if you want to spend less while getting the most from your business travels, a travel management company can help you beat down expenses so you can save when you travel.

2.    They save time

Business travels often involve many processes. From finding the right vendors to negotiating the best deals and bookings, the processes can be overwhelming. Travel management companies take over the planning, scheduling, and booking of your business trips to facilitate the travel process.

They use their resources and expertise to plan your business travels to make the best choices for you.

So, rather than spend lots of time on planning, travel management companies do all the work for you. This means you can focus on other essential aspects of your trips.

Additionally, they monitor your employees’ activities while on business trips to ensure they adhere strictly to your travel policies. They also provide accurate reporting tools to keep you updated about their traveling expenses.

This way, you won’t spend time tracking your employees’ activities while they travel and can focus on running your business efficiently.

Also, travel management companies provide standardized processes for your business travels, which keeps your processes organized, so your employees can follow the right procedures and save time while they travel.

So, if you are looking for a way to spend less time planning your business travels and spend more time running other important business activities, hiring an efficient travel management company is the way to go.

3.    They provide duty care and travel risk management

If you want to ensure a high-risk management system for your employees when they travel, hiring a travel management company ensures your employees’ safety.

They put appropriate measures to ensure they have a safe and secure trip, including monitoring the weather conditions and providing timely assistance in emergency cases.

Additionally, they offer expert consultation services to help you navigate health and safety conditions for business trips. For example, they advise you on the best travel policy to create for your employees and offer the best recommendations on safety and health practices before, during, and after business travels.

Travel management companies investigate and analyze other companies’ security states to ensure they are safe to travel to, connect travel data and GPS for effective tracking and give 24/7 support to your staff when they travel.

Offering your staff duty of care and putting adequate travel risk management is critical to showing your employees how much you care about their well-being; it is also the way to ensure their safety when they travel.

Therefore, if you want to create safe and successful business travel experiences for your employees, you should consider hiring a reliable travel management company to prevent, monitor, and respond to your employees’ business travel risks.

What to look out for when hiring a business management company

Source

When hiring a travel management company, it’s critical to hire the best one that will meet your company’s needs.

By doing this, you can provide the best business travel experience for your employees and get the most from your investment.

However, to do this, you must be on the lookout for five essential qualities:

1.    Reliable customer support

An excellent travel management system offers 24/7 personalized customer support to meet their clients’ needs.

They also provide different channels for their clients to send their requests and enable communication in multiple languages for better accessibility.

By offering these customer support features, they can meet your company’s travel demands in emergencies and mitigate and control risks.

2.    Seamless booking experience

The best travel management companies provide a straightforward booking experience for their clients. This includes avoiding the time-consuming process of sending and responding to emails back and forth and creating a centralized platform to book and respond to their clients’ inquiries from one place.

A simple booking experience also enables the managers and employees to book their trips themselves without third-party interference. By creating a collaborative booking system, your managers and other staff members can book, reschedule, cancel and track their travel expenses easily.

3.    Accurate reporting and analytics

A functioning travel management company provides accurate insights on travel expenses and financial activities.

They provide detailed reports and analytics of how much your employees spend to ensure they do not exceed the company’s budget. They also provide updates on activities that are out of the company’s policy to take timely actions.

By opting for a travel management company with accurate reporting and analytics you will have access to real-time data and reports to track your employees’ expenses when they travel.

4.    Advanced technology

Travel management companies need the best tools and resources to function efficiently. With the right technology, they can automate different activities and provide a faster travel experience for you.

They also provide reliable and real-time insights to keep you in the loop about how much your employees are spending, with proper measures to ensure a hundred percent compliance with your companies’ travel regulations.

5.    Data security

It’s crucial for you to work with a travel management company that ensures the proper security of your company and employees’ information.

For example, your employees’ emails, addresses, and other contact information need to be secured to ensure their data is not breached.

Check out their data security policy to ensure they can safeguard your company’s sensitive information efficiently before you hire.

Conclusion

Hiring a travel management company offers immense advantages for your company. In this article, we explained the three most prominent reasons to hire a travel management company to manage your corporate travels.

Author Bio:
Lydia Iseh is a writer with years of experience in writing SEO content that provides value to the reader. As someone who believes in the power of SEO to transform businesses, she enjoys being part of the process that helps websites rank high on search engines.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post 3 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Travel Management Companies appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Mobile phones have become a part of us in recent years, being glued to our hands most of the time. Indeed, when it comes to e-commerce, data from Internet Retailer shows that 66% of it takes place on smartphones. Furthermore, Quicksprout discovered that 51% of mobile users looking to do a mobile purchase are more likely to actually buy something if the website is optimized for mobile use.

With that in mind, British online marketplace OnBuy decided to analyse a list of 60 major highstreet brands to see what percentage of them have their websites optimised for mobile usage and how many are missing out on potential sales due to a lack of mobile optimisation.

A study has shown that the average attention spam for humans has decreased from 12 seconds to only 8 in the recent years, and with that in mind OnBuy.com has looked at the percentage of the companies who take more than 8 seconds when it comes to the First Contentful Paint (FCP). The FCP measures the time from navigation to the time when the browser renders the first bit of content on the page. Therefore, companies who take longer than 8 seconds to load the FCP are more likely to lose the interest of their customers.

Simultaneously, the tool used by OnBuy.com to gather the data (PageSpeed Insights) shows a performance score that can go from 1 (bad score) to 100 (good score). OnBuy.com looked at each website to see how many of them rank under 10 for the performance score when it comes to mobile site optimisation.

The English marketplace also took into account a survey of 250 respondents, answering questions on how they felt about their mobile e-commerce experiences.

The Results:

The results gathered by OnBuy.com show that out of the 60 companies analysed, 13% take more than 8 seconds for the FCP to load, which means they are not properly optimised for mobile e-commerce.

According to web.dev, the FCP metric should be between 0-2 seconds ideally. OnBuy.com has noticed that a whopping 85% of companies do not have the ideal loading time.

Some of the companies with the FCP metric under 2 seconds are Gap (1.6s), Dominos (1.6s), Sainsbury’s (1.6s), Huawei (1.6s) and Deichmann (1.7s).

When it comes to the ones with the slowest FCP metric these are: Oysho (19.7s), Stradivarius (13.8s), Massimo Dutti (8.9s), Bershka (8.7s) and Lush (8.7s).

Simultaneously, OnBuy.com also had a look at their Time to Interact (TTI) which measures how long it takes a page to become fully interactive. Ideally this should be between 0 and 5.2 seconds. Shockingly only 3% of the companies have a TTI under 5.2 seconds, while 97% of them go over the ideal time. In fact, 37% of them have a TTI of over 20 seconds.

When it comes to the overall performance score, 20% of the companies analysed by OnBuy.com have a score under 10.

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post 13% Of Companies Could Lose Potential Customers Due To A Slow Mobile Loading Speed appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

Hire Well

In some circumstances, every employee will need training. For example, if you’re introducing new software that people need to use, they need to be taught how to use it properly. But you can save yourself money on training if you can avoid having to do refresher courses on the basics all of the time and cut the amount of training people need when you bring them on board. The best way to do that is to hire well. If you can hire somebody that has good experience in a similar role, they’ll pick it up a lot quicker and you won’t need to spend so much on training. If you use professional services like the Pure Staff recruitment agency to source your new hires, you’ll be able to find people that are better suited to the job and will slip into the role easily with very little training.

Let Staff Train Each Other

Sometimes, you don’t need to hold a full training session to teach employees how to do certain things. Everybody has different skill sets and staff members can learn from one another and pool their abilities to become better at their jobs. All you need to do is facilitate this by improving communication around the company. Installing a live chat system on the computers is an easy way to get people to fire off questions to one another. Beyond that, you should just try to encourage people to make use of other people’s knowledge.

Share Resources With Other Companies

This is a great way to save money as long as you get it right because it will benefit both of you. As long as you’re not sharing anything that has to do with the internal strategy of your business, you can swap training resources like video lectures and tests etc. with another company, even if you’re a rival. You should be able to find other companies that are willing to do this because you’ll both be saving a lot of money.

Never think that staff training isn’t essential. If you’re struggling to afford it, you can use these simple tips to cut the cost.

This is an article provided by our partners network. It might not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of our editorial team and management.
Contributed content

Hernaldo Turrillo

Hernaldo Turrillo is a writer and author specialised in innovation, AI, DLT, SMEs, trading, investing and new trends in technology and business. He has been working for ztudium group since 2017. He is the editor of openbusinesscouncil.org, tradersdna.com, hedgethink.com, and writes regularly for intelligenthq.com, socialmediacouncil.eu. Hernaldo was born in Spain and finally settled in London, United Kingdom, after a few years of personal growth. Hernaldo finished his Journalism bachelor degree in the University of Seville, Spain, and began working as reporter in the newspaper, Europa Sur, writing about Politics and Society. He also worked as community manager and marketing advisor in Los Barrios, Spain. Innovation, technology, politics and economy are his main interests, with special focus on new trends and ethical projects. He enjoys finding himself getting lost in words, explaining what he understands from the world and helping others. Besides a journalist, he is also a thinker and proactive in digital transformation strategies. Knowledge and ideas have no limits.

The post 3 Simple Ways To Slash The Cost Of Staff Training appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.

What is summarised in this presentation are the following ideas related with the concept of open innovation, open communication and open government as the new key drivers for businesses and society:

Ubiquitous Comms (communication) Platform + New Culture of Open x People = Open Government
Ubiquitous Comms Platform + New Culture of Open x People = Open Business

The conclusion isn’t simply that better reputation management is needed. Rather that the age of spin is finally over. White-washing, green-washing, washing does not work full-stop. Being as clean and open as one can be in the grubby real world of business is the only answer as popular judgement is passed daily with real and lasting impact to share prices. The most recent example is a boycott ofPayPal @: via hashtag  #OpPaypal wiping $900m off the share-price of parent company eBay in just 15 min of trading on the NASDAQ.

This doesn’t mean not making mistakes. It means being open what and when you do in order to improve, adpating towards the needs of your customers, clients, audience. Domino’s Pizza are another great recent example of using social media to demonstrate being an open business as a matter of pride. They can do this because they know they will excel and they understood they have to be open. Without being a business as open as possible all the old methods of communication will not work. The flip is it’s no longer what you say but what you do.

One must appreciate this is going to be the most significant shift modern business has ever had to make and a long, difficult and continous process of change. Following the initial insights and disruption started by social media, businesses are now obliged to shift for open business models. And this is actually a great oportunity for them. It’s why Open business Council appears as a platform and champions the model of Open Business as its raison d’etre (manifesto). It’s why we co-founded The Open Business Council to work with companies, organisations, governments trail-blazing Openness in their business and management processes to understand the value, impact and consequences of their work.

To conclude it is inevitable that brands, companies and organisations must restructure to meet the expressed needs and/or opinions of the public and the disruptive new trends of technologies, economy within the scope of social media. It’s not a question of if, but when they must move to meet their customers collective practical and moral needs. Those companies and organisations that make that move first will be first to convert apathetic consumers into engaged partners  – scaling what they can achieve together rather than spending millions second guessing their needs from a distance.

Maria Fonseca

Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.

The post Why Social Media Means Open Business appeared first on OpenBusinessCouncil Directory.