Cultural Awareness: The Key to Dispersed Team Success

By Laura Smith, Vice President of Global HR, Digital Intelligence Systems LLC

A top concern for companies who have extended employment opportunities to global candidates is ensuring that all employees have a basic understanding of some vital cultural differences.

So far, this four-part series on managing geographically dispersed teams has tackled communication guidelines to keep channels open around the globeand the importance of total team inclusion with tips to make it easier. These two important goals—communication and inclusion—are integral parts of successfully executing on the third topic: understanding, respecting, and acting upon the cultural differences that an organization’s dispersed team members represent.

To understand culture, it is important to know exactly what the term means. Culture is a system of values, positions, behaviors, and attitudes that are shared collectively across an organization. In many companies, culture is an unwritten and unspoken “feeling” that fuels how people view coming to work, getting involved in business events, and team interaction. It often does not reflect on a stated set of core company values which define how employees should interact with each other. Ultimately, a company’s culture plays a direct role in new hire recruiting, workplace happiness and productivity, loyalty, and retention.

It is vital that a company’s culture is defined based on company values and that the tone is set from the very top of the leadership team. When done effectively, the desired culture can then permeate the entire organization and positively impact innovation and profitability. Conversely, a culture that doesn’t support transparency, respect, and a fair amount of risk-taking will eventually affect all aspects of work life with an end result of high turnover.

Below are a few points on how to establish a positive, productive culture among team members across all global locations:

Identify Core Company Values

This is where it begins. When a company articulates core values and reinforces them in a variety of ways across all locations, employees are better able to sense a common culture reflecting those values. Leaders must understand what it means to demonstrate behavior consistent with those values. When all employees are held accountable to their company’s values, that’s when magic occurs in the retention, productivity, and profitability arenas.

Practice Empathy

Empathy is the most important skill of an effective leader and is a key factor in how each interaction among team members is shaped. Empathy is a needed skill for global leaders because it plays into helping everyone understand culturally diverse employees. However, a study released in Februarydetailed that only about 40 percent of leaders are “proficient and/or strong” in the area of empathy.

The appropriate use of empathy doesn’t happen overnight. It is molded to the culture of an organization by the pace at which teams need to produce results. When teams are dispersed and in-person communication is rare, empathy can display itself in the simplest of things: understanding the specific workplace needs of employees in another country; checking in with them regularly about their work/life balance; understanding varying country’s holiday calendars and finding a way to share and relate; and being sensitive to time zone differences. All of these help establish and nurture an empathetic environment that touches employees on a personal level and spawns conversations that demonstrate the importance of individual experiences.

Understand Differences in Hierarchy

In the United States and other western countries, it is a predetermined fact that people are generally seen as equals, resulting in a horizontal society. Everyone is in charge of their own career success and also how they are viewed by those in their communities. Many HR experts and executives have dissolved old fashioned management policies and have led the shift into more “agile” workplaces that include open-door methods, constant dialog, and spur-of-the-moment decisions.

But in many other countries, hierarchy is a comfortable and accepted concept to which many are accustomed. Known as a vertical society, decisions come from the top and are more structured than an impromptu meeting held in a hallway outside a manager’s office. Decisions are made in an official capacity and then rolled out to everyone else.  

In this area specifically, it is important for managers to understand how dispersed team members view authority and then cater their style to that view.

Allow Formalities to Set the Stage for Success

How do other cultures greet each other? Are there any western mannerisms that could be seen as offensive or disrespectful in other cultures? What regional differences are there in the concept of “professional dress”?

Business deals have fallen apart because leaders did not study and understand the formalities of a country in which they were doing business. And when it comes to team dynamics, it is always best to understand if any phrases or gestures within American slang are offensive or if there are other aspects of daily culture that could be seen as globally insensitive. 

Paying attention to cultural workplace formalities and how they differ from the accustomed to standard is key to global teams working together efficiently and to their fullest potential.

Foster Collaboration Across the Globe

Collaboration is assumed in a lot of the interactions undertaken by western teams. Innovation, likewise, flows freely, whether it is by the water cooler or sitting in a boardroom. But in other countries, hierarchical norms could make it difficult for a global team member to participate in such discussions. That is why it is important for a leader to understand the norms in another country and to draw out the ideas of dispersed employees in a thoughtful and respectful way. Understanding these potential issues can help managers work with these employees to help them feel comfortable in collaborating with others.

There are so many additional attributes that help foster a positive culture among globally dispersed teams. And, as with most successful global endeavors, communication is key. Those companies that invest time in understanding the importance of corporate culture and, by extension, a culture of inclusion will see these efforts pay off not only with worldwide employees, but also with the bottom line. 

Learn more about dispersed team management in the following upcoming blog post:

• Topic 4: Structure.Showing consistency and structure by holding weekly meetings individual check-ins and conveying clear expectations and objectives 

Laura Smith is the vice president of global human resources for Digital Intelligence Systems, LLC—a global services and staffing firm based in McLean, Va., with more than 33 offices worldwide. Smith has more than 25 years of human resources experience and maintains the HR certifications SPHR and SHRM-SCP. She has also been named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ Global Power Women in StaffingList for the last two years.

Using Gamification to Improve Engagement and Retention Rates

 By Chris Whitlow, CEO of Edukate

High turnover rates are a problem that employers face every day, and finding solutions to keep employees is just as challenging. In 2016, the turnover rate for employees in the hospitality sector was more than 70 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) program. To counter this and improve employee retention rates, employers should consider utilizing gamification to engage and inspire employees.

Gamification refers to the application of game elements into other settings. Many companies are already using gamification to improve their customers' experiences, but it can have big benefits for their employees as well. Successful gamification tactics in the workplace include using job simulation activities for recruiting and employee onboarding, holding engagement contests when implementing a new technology, and awarding points and rewards for typically mundane tasks.

Increasing employee engagement with gamification

Gamification functions well in the workforce because it creates an engaging environment for employees and ultimately improves a company’s culture. Adding playful elements such as rewards to humdrum tasks leads to increased rates of engagement as employees feel incentivized to participate.

Many employees are stuck at a desk, helping to keep customers happy but not staying engaged themselves.  

This same concept applies to employee benefits. Employers should strive to create engagement around their benefit offerings via gamification. Employees who take full advantage of their benefits to address personal stressors reap the rewards of working for that specific company and feel more fulfilled.

An engaged employee is a happy employee, so it's important to care for them in the same way that one would a customer.

Increasing motivation and productivity

Gamification means more than offering an occasional contest. Rather, it’s about energizing employees through engagement. Gamification also shifts an employee’s view of a task without changing the fundamental nature of the task. Employees feel excited about their workplace while completing the same tasks that they were before. Additionally, positive feedback and recognition motivates users to feel more satisfied.

Motivated employees are in turn are more engaged, loyal, and productive—in return, they are more likely to stay with their current company.

Gamification as a part of overall culture

Company culture affects an employee’s opinion of the company and is a strong component in employees’ decisions to leave a company or stay, and gamification promotes a positive and rewarding company culture. Employees are often scattered throughout the workplace and focus on different tasks. Gamification allows employees to work on projects in different departments and spread the culture. It helps create a sense of belonging for workers and reminds them of common goals and values found throughout the organization.

It’s time for the employers to utilize gamification for their employees—not just their customers. Games are fun, but gamification is a robust business-oriented solution that will improve employees’ experiences and increase retention rates.  

Shape Company Core Values With Micro-Recognition

By Rob Seay, Director of Employee Experience, Bonfyre

Do your company core values guide your recognition practices?

Although it may seem like common sense that they would, company core values and recognition programs haven’t always intersected. Historically, most recognition programs prioritize rewarding tenure, retirement, and outcome-oriented performance over behaviors representative of company values. However, a recent trend has emerged. According to the Society for Human Resources Management(SHRM), the number of recognition programs that incorporate value-guided recognition has increased by 10 percent in the last five years.

Company values have a powerful influence over the employee experience. Research shows that employees who know and fully understand organizational values are 51 times more likely to be engaged than those who don’t (Modern Survey).

Tying recognition to core values is a start, but from an operational standpoint, we should think critically about the type of recognition that makes these principles top of mind.

Why do we care about company core values?

Core values are a Rosetta Stone, helping employees decipher the language of their work environment. Company values also serve as reference points for the behaviors that define success at work. As such, it’s critical that they’re defined and thoroughly articulated. When these principles aren’t known, understood, and communicated, it opens the door to dysfunction in the company.

But beyond serving as behavioral guidelines, core values inform the purpose of our work. It’s human nature to look for meaning in our jobs and finding meaning in work might be more important than personal happiness when it comes to factors like retention, job satisfaction, and engagement (Fast Company).

How does micro-recognition shape company core values? 

Company values are communicated through your recognition practices. Who you recognize and don’t recognize sends explicit and implicit messages to employees about the behaviors expected of them. For example, when someone gets a certificate for outstanding sales performance, it signals to other employees that the behaviors and accomplishments of the person recognized are noteworthy, valued, and reflective of the culture the company wants.

The inherent power of micro-recognition, then, lies in its flexible nature. Unlike macro-recognition, micro-recognition is owned by everyone. It’s a process driven by leaders and employees in which recognition is exchanged from all directions as frequent, informal instances of sincere social praise, which happens in the moment.

Value-focused micro-recognition creates action-items out of the reference points provided by core values. Micro-recognition’s immediacy targets specific moments and behaviors that hold particular relevance to the individual employee.

This sincere, personalized form of attention makes clear to the individual how company core values manifest within a specific job, and it’s going to be more memorable to John than if we were vaguely talking about how he acts with integrity at the quarterly meeting. And that personal attention is not to be underestimated. The Aberdeen Group reports that 60 percent of best-in-class companies find recognition to be an extremely valuable way to drive individual performance (Globoforce).

If you want recognition to identify how employees can live out core values through their jobs, recognize immediately, often, and with sincerity. Macro-recognition can still be tailored to your value system, but save it for remarkable moments that need the dignity it provides. For everything else, unleash the power of micro-recognition to communicate and shape your company core values.


Rob Seay is the director of employee experience at Bonfyre, the workplace culture platform that helps employees to connect and relate.

Three Hiring Dynamics That Matter Most

 By Dr. David Solot, Vice President of Client Services at Caliper

Here’s a simple fact that can't be argued with: Technological advances have changed the business landscape dramatically and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. With automation replacing so many task-oriented jobs, it’s no longer enough, from a hiring standpoint, to pursue applicants based on their technical qualifications.

Savvy recruiters are already moving away from the old keywords around task-related expertise and are instead seeking ways to identify what were once called “soft skills” or “people skills.” Of course, it's also not enough to write “must have people skills” in a job posting and then wait for a flood of top candidates. You have to know what people skills look like before you can spot them.

“Skills” in this context, refer to how well people react and respond to the stimuli around them. In the new age of task automation, that means we’re looking for employees who interact positively and constructively with their work environment, their responsibilities, and their stakeholders. So instead of using the word "skills" to describe an applicant’s relationship with these stimuli, it might be better to use "dynamics."

With that in mind, here are the three major dynamics to evaluate when hiring a new staff member:

1.     Personality and Company Culture 

By looking at a person’s motivations, interests, and behavioral tendencies relative to the environment, you can get a sense of how well a new hire will fit in with the corporate culture and where there may be friction. Assuming it’s not an altogether bad fit, such awareness can lead to the development of an onboarding plan that helps the employee assimilate to the prevailing environment and become a good citizen of the company as soon as possible.

2.     Personality and Job Match

When you gain a deep understanding of your new hires’ natural tendencies and motivations, you will see which areas of the job may come easily and which might cause difficulty. Armed with this insight, hiring managers can customize a learning plan designed to augment each employee’s strengths and help compensate for limitations.

3.     Personality and Team/Manager Fit

There are two important factors at play here: One, people are not hired in a vacuum (That is, their peers and their manager will have strengths, limitations, and behavioral tendencies as well.). Two, introducing new personalities always changes the team dynamic. By discovering the similarities and differences between the new hires, their managers, and their team members, it becomes possible to not only focus on developing personal success behaviors, but also to define team roles so that everyone is aligned for maximum performance.

To use this hiring approach effectively, it falls upon management and human resources leaders to explore, understand, and define their corporate culture, their existing staff dynamic, and the job itself. With that accomplished, you’ll be able to target your interview questions and even begin to hire more strategically in the automation age.

David Solot, Ph.D., is the vice president of client services at Caliper, a global employee-assessment and talent-development consulting firm based in Princeton, NJ.

Three Steps to Hiring Cultural Fits

Three Steps to Hiring Cultural Fits
By Miranda Nicholson, Director of HR, Formstack

Think of the perfect candidate—one whose skills and experience match perfectly with a job description. It’s hard to imagine this candidate struggling in the workplace, yet it happens all the time. Why?

Too often, companies become blinded by a resume and fail to consider cultural fit.

Whether it’s an enthusiastic extrovert who’s hit hard by feelings of isolation when working remotely, or a deep-thinking introvert who’s quickly overwhelmed by a lively open-office plan, these employees may love the work but clash with the culture.

What happens when someone’s preferences and personality traits conflict with those of their colleagues?

They might struggle to create bonds and reach important milestones, and they could become disengaged. Some may even publish negative company reviews on sites such as Glassdoor or write a book about the experience. A poor cultural fit can cost a company 50 to 60 percent of the employee’s annual salary in turnover expenses alone.

On the other hand, when you hire a candidate who is a great cultural fit, the likelihood of high levels of retention, engagement, performance, and profitability increases exponentially.

Cultural fit is a critical component of the hiring process. It’s also one of the most difficult components to master. If you’re looking to improve your hiring success rates, implement the following guidelines, and you’ll be well on your way to achieving an actively engaged workforce.
Define Your Culture Code
It’s impossible to hire for cultural fit if you can’t articulate your organization’s culture. Establishing an official culture code allows you to weave your core values into the hiring process so you can recognize when a candidate’s beliefs and behaviors align with those of your organization.

What’s unique about your company? What are your values, goals, and practices? What traits are needed to thrive? Identifying and defining these attributes and others like them will allow you to pinpoint job candidates who embrace or are willing to adapt to your environment.

The process of formally defining company culture can be as simple as a series of staff discussions and surveys or as in-depth as hiring an outside consultant. Whatever method you choose, the outcome should be the same: a firm list of cultural attributes that recruiters, supervisors and hiring managers can put to use.
Pre-Screen with Culture Code in Mind
Next, you must incorporate your culture code into the hiring process—and not just during job interviews. Vetting candidates for cultural fit should begin the moment you start reviewing resumes and applications.

You can get started by weaving culture-focused questions into your job postings and application process. Include pre-screening questions such as “What is your perfect work environment?” and “What motivates you to perform your best work?” to help candidates convey what they need to thrive. Evaluating these characteristics during the early stages of hiring allows you to be proactive about determining an applicant’s cultural fit.
Develop a Cultural Interview Process
As you move through the interview process and each job posting pool is narrowed down to a few strong candidates, make sure your interview process is infused with interactions that help ensure each new hire will adapt well to your culture.

Be sure to identify the key values and behaviors needed to be successful within your company, and develop the interview process around those needs. This creates a unique value proposition that ensures you’re hiring people who are attracted to your company and its culture.

A good cultural interview process is one that provides plenty of opportunities for both the candidate and the company’s current employees to get to know one another. Start with a peer interview in which a candidate meets several people on the team. Next, a conversation with employees outside the department can give the candidate a chance to learn more broadly about the company and the working environment. After those first two culture-focused sessions, the hiring manager and HR director should meet with the strongest candidates. At that point, each applicant and the company decision-makers should know whether a cultural fit has been found.

On paper, countless candidates can likely handle a particular job, but only a handful will do so in a way that reflects your company’s vision and values. When employees not only love the work they do but also embrace the way their company operates, great things can happen.


Miranda Nicholson is the director of HR at Formstack, overseeing the acquisition, onboarding, and retention of current and to-be Formstackers.

Top hiring tips: from HR professionals, for HR professionals

By Miranda Nicholson, Director of HR, Formstack

Picture this: you’re looking for a new job. You hear about a new opening at a fantastic company and submit your application. You have a great interview, receive an offer, and accept it in a heartbeat.

This is an ideal scenario for a perfectly qualified candidate, but every HR professional knows there’s a lot more that goes into recruiting behind the scenes. Where do you find the perfect candidate for a role? What criteria does each individual need to meet before they receive the opportunity to interview? What interview questions will show you how they might perform as an employee? And, if they’re hired, how do you know if they’ll get along well with other employees in your organization?

With all these factors—and more—in play, it’s no wonder that hiring is one of the top HR challenges faced by human resources professionals across the globe.

To better understand how organizations overcome the hiring challenge, Formstack asked HR professionals from different backgrounds for some of their best tips on hiring the right employee for a role. They gave us some outstanding insights and advice on different pieces of the recruitment puzzle, which we narrowed down into three main takeaways:

1. Define What “Fit” Means to Your Organization

Hiring for fit is an obvious part of the recruiting process, but few organizations actually take the time to identify what “fit” means for them. To get started, Mike Bensi, advisor at FirstPerson, suggests considering these key questions:

1. What are the core values that make up your company’s culture?
2. What kind of behaviors do employees need to be successful in your organization?
3. What kind of behaviors might signify a red flag?

Don’t hesitate to brainstorm with other employees on your team or in your organization to get a strong sense of culture, success, and overall fit. Answering questions like these will help you build a unique value proposition for your company’s recruiting experience and can become a solid framework for your interview process.

2. Create an Experience that Defines Your Recruiting Brand

As a representative of your organization, Michelle Rodriguez, HR Manager for the Indianapolis Colts, says you should strive to provide the best possible experience for all job candidates in your talent pool—not just for the candidates who receive an offer. Communication and trust both play a vital role throughout the recruiting process, so it’s important to establish trust with candidates early on. If you tell a candidate you’ll follow up with them on Friday, you need to get back to them on Friday, even if you still haven’t made a decision.

Trisha Borme, talent acquisition manager at Interactive Intelligence, has found recruiting success by building a team of passionate talent professionals who designed the right process for her organization. Two major components of their process were assessing candidates’ soft skills and conducting a cultural assessment. Trisha notes that the candidate experience is very important and can make a major impact on your talent brand. Stringing candidates along without consistent communication is frustrating and unfair to them. Your recruiting brand will suffer if they share their negative impressions of your company with others. On the other hand, candidates who receive a great experience with timely and intentional communication can become advocates for your organization even if they aren’t hired.

3. Build Relationships to Expand Your Talent Pool

Even if your company has low employee turnover, it’s important to maintain a deep talent pool so that you’re prepared whenever the need for talent arises. Karin Gorman, president of the consulting division at Staff America Inc., encourages companies that struggle to find high quality candidates to reconsider their candidate sources. Building relationships with candidate sourcing organizations will help you fill your hiring funnel with candidates that have the skills and experience necessary for the job. For example, if you’re looking for a skilled graphic designer, connect with a local art college or institute. Once you establish a connection with those organizations, continue to foster the relationship through consistent communication, even when you don’t have job openings. This takes time but is absolutely worthwhile in the long run. If all else fails, consider partnering with a staffing agency that can help you fill those skilled roles.

If you continue to struggle with recruiting, take the time to identify your own personal hiring roadblocks and implement some of the above HR tips. While there’s no simple solution, putting more effort into these parts of your recruiting process is a great way to get started.


Miranda Nicholson is the Director of HR at Formstack, overseeing the acquisition, onboarding, and retention of current and to-be Formstackers.

Four Quick Fixes to Prevent Culture From Sabotaging Your Strategy

By Caleb Powers, Vice President of Sales at Palladium Group, Inc.

Over the years, Palladium has helped many organizations better align their culture and strategy to achieve the financial and social results they’re striving for. Used wisely, intangible assets such as culture provide a powerful competitive advantage, particularly in the new world of the impact economy. Increasingly, organizations must formulate strategies and implement solutions that deliver enduring social and economic benefit. In this blog post, we share the four most common culture-bound mistakes made by organiaations when it comes to strategy execution and how to fix them.

Pushing a strategy that conflicts with your culture

One of the most common mistakes that organizations make is trying to launch strategic projects that don’t align with their culture. First, be honest about what constitutes your true company culture—not what’s slapped on the wall in a poster, but how people behave every day. If your culture must change in order to implement strategy successfully, gather the leadership team to share a united message to your organization.
For example, your organization may have always focused on financial goals, but for the first time you’re looking at how you can deliver positive impact: the intentional creation and measurement of enduring social and economic value. In today’s impact economy, consumers are increasingly demanding this change, and encouraging your employees to consciously think about the company’s strategy and culture is a powerful way to inspire change.

Treating culture as an HR problem

The most fundamental resource for an impact-focused organization is its people. While culture can be managed and even transformed, it shouldn’t be treated as a “check-the-box” exercise. Often leadership will inform HR of a new change management framework and walk away. While it’s important to pursue culture in partnership with HR, all other areas in the organization should be on board to guarantee that new business principles are absorbed into the operational and social personality of an organization—ensuring culture is managed alongside strategy.
Culture is more than the culmination of your organization’s values—it’s the way individuals behave and interact, and it deserves just as much attention as your strategy.

Building a risky strategy for a risk-averse organization

How willing is your company to take risks? Understanding tolerance for risk is critical to executing your strategy effectively. When leadership teams in risk-averse organizations roll-out a drastically different vision for the future, it can be demotivating—and terrifying—for employees.

Assess your organization’s appetite for risk. Are the risks worth taking? If so, create a communications plan that presents an urgent reason why the organization should change. For people to take up a new challenge, they need to understand the potential impacts and upsides involved.

A lack of employee empowerment

When you execute your strategy, it’s important to consider your teams’ ability to make decisions and drive change. In many cases, executives may find it hard to let go, even if they’ve assigned a project manager for strategic initiatives. Individuals and project teams need to be clear about their responsibilities and decision-making abilities.

Final thoughts

Taking the first step to intentionally manage your culture alongside your strategy can be difficult, but it will lead to better results and happier employees. If you want a strategy that improves your economic and social performance, you have to be serious about changing behaviors—often those embedded deep in your culture. Getting people to change is hard, but not impossible. As the world moves rapidly into the impact economy, it will be those companies driving innovative change with their culture and strategy who will be most successful.

For more information about our strategy execution services please email Caleb Powers (Caleb.Powers@thepalladiumgroup.com) or visit our strategy capabilities page.

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How To Show Candidates What You Really Have To Offer

The perks your company offers are plastered all over your career site. Your job postings go on and on about how your office is a great place to work. You might even give candidates a lengthy overview of all the benefits that will be available to them.

But those are just words.

Job seekers don’t experience your generous vacation time during the interview process, so how can they really judge if it’ll make them happy?

Of course, it’s impossible to give candidates a true look at all you have to offer. After all, no one’s expecting you to make a 401k contribution to someone who may not end up working for you. But there are some perks that can easily become part of the interview process and candidate experience.

Here are three benefits job seekers can get a real taste for before you even hire them:

1. The company culture

When it comes to company culture, job seekers are looking for signs that they’ll fit in and be satisfied working there. A 2015 Staples Advantage survey took a look at differences in company culture when it came to employee happiness. The characteristic that showed the biggest difference was having a culture built on shared vision, goals, and values. For happy employees, 31 percent described a “good” company culture this way, while only 17 percent of unhappy employees did.

That means satisfied employees feel like they have a lot in common with their coworkers. They see what aspects of the workplace unite the team and see those qualities in themselves.

In order to get employees who feel like they fit in with your organization, an honest representation of the culture needs to be part of the candidate experience. They need to get an idea for the personality of the office and decide if that’s an environment in which they’ll be happy.

But how do you do that in the interview process? One big way is by not asking generic questions. If you’re asking candidates the same things as every other organization, there’s nothing different for them to identify with. Think about what defines your workplace and have interview questions reflect those characteristics.

Is your office known for its creativity and shared love of comic books? Ask candidates what superpower they’d choose if they could. Are you focused on charity and giving back to the community? Inquire about what types of organizations they volunteer for. That way you not only get to know the candidate, but they get to know the company.

2. Work/life balance

Freedom and flexibility are side effects of the technological advances that have benefited workers immensely. It’s now not only easy for employees to work when they want and from where they want, but also an expected perk for many of them.

A 2015 survey from Indeed found that 51 percent of job seekers want flexible hours that allow them to achieve better work/life balance. But as anyone who has been through a job application process knows, the timeline is out of job seekers’ hands. They have no control over how long the process takes and few options when it comes to scheduling traditional interviews. Basically, there is no respect for their time.

Give candidates a sneak peak at the work/life balance they’ll be able to enjoy after being hired by making the process more flexible for them. For example, by incorporating video interviews into your process, talent can choose when and where they want to answer your questions, creating a better candidate experience.

If their schedule doesn’t give them a free moment until after 8 p.m., no problem. If they’re currently chaperoning their child’s school trip, there’s no need to choose between that responsibility and the job opportunity.

3. Career development

If you want employees to stick around for the long-haul, you need to show them you care about their professional future. And if you want a job seeker to become an employee, you need to show your dedication to career development during the interview process. The best way to do that is to offer feedback about their performance before they are even hired.

A 2015 LinkedIn report found that a staggering 94 percent of job seekers want feedback after they interview with a company, yet just 41 percent have ever received it. You have the opportunity to not only meet candidates’ expectations, but also show them how you’d offer guidance once they are hired.

Make time after the interview to discuss how each person did. Talk with them about what strengths impressed you, as well as areas for improvement. Then give some suggestions on ways they can improve.

For example, if a candidate gives a particularly good example of their customer service experience, let them know. That way, even if they don’t end up working for you, they can highlight those skills more and be more successful as their job search continues.

If you want talent to know how great it is to work for your company, you need to allow them to experience all the perks during the interview process. That will improve your candidate experience by taking all you have to offer from a list on your career site to part of their reality.

Josh Tolan is the CEO of Spark Hire, a video interview solution used by more than 2,000 companies across the globe. Connect with Spark Hire on Facebook and Twitter.