How do you rank above your competition if you have the same education, willingness, and resources provided to you as every other sales representative applicant?

Between customer meetings and industry events, sales pros are often out of the office, but that’s a lot different than knowing you’re rarely going to see them at all. 

If you’re managing a sales team or are the owner of a small to medium-sized business (SMB), you may have gotten used to stockpiling a mental checklist of important issues or questions to ask sales reps once they return to their desks. This could include the status of a particular deal, how close they are to achieving their quota or even just some insight on what customers in the market are saying. 

Today, however, forcing employees of any kind to come into the same physical location every day is being challenged by social norms and the availability of cloud technology.

According to a survey by Global Workplace Analytics and FlexJobs, for example, remote work has grown by 91% over the past 10 years, and 159% over the last 12 years. 

Researchers at Stanford University, meanwhile, conducted a survey of their own which showed there was a 50% decrease in attrition among workers who were allowed to work remotely.

Both those studies represent U.S. rather than Canadian data, and they aren’t specifically focusing on sales reps, but you can easily imagine why the trends might be similar here. 

The impact on attrition in particular could be especially valuable to SMBs or organizations of any kind who fear losing sales reps and having to retrain new ones from scratch. For reps, meanwhile, remote work could mean reduced stress.

Of course, it will take more than a few statistics to convince most SMBs to offer fully remote work options for their sales teams. You need to consider the pros and cons first: 

Pro: It’s more about policy than technology

If you’re already using a customer relationship management (CRM) system via a software-as-a-service model, your reps already have the most important thing they need to do their work remotely. 

Many reps might already be accessing and updating CRM through their smartphone as they move between events and meetings, so in a sense they’re already working remotely anyway. The difference here is that they could potentially get even more done by not having to travel back and forth to the company headquarters. 

Con: The coaching and managing dynamics could change

There’s no reason reps can’t be given a pep talk or guidance on how to improve their performance during a phone call, but many managers or CEOs have preferred to wait until they can have such discussions in a face-to-face setting.

Coaching and managing remotely might feel off-putting because of a perceived lack of intimacy, or because there’s a greater risk of outside distractions. However these are all issues that can be dealt with up front.

If you have a regular check-in or touchpoint with a rep, for example, give them direction on how to choose the right environment to do it remotely. It might be as simple as picking a quiet room, or maybe an area where they could conduct the conversation via video rather than an audio-only interaction. 

Pro: You’re able to hire the best from anywhere

Companies can’t always afford to be set up in a major metropolitan centre with lots of employee-friendly amenities. Or they may be in a situation where they’re trying to recruit sales reps to an urban area, but the best candidates prefer a suburban or rural lifestyle and don’t want to make the commute. 

In those situations, remote work policies give SMBs the potential to attract the reps they want, regardless of their place of residence. 

Today, remote work might seem like a nice-to-have or bonus. As such policies become more common, on the other hand, employers might need to explain why they don’t allow remote work to candidates who have come to expect it, especially if they’ve grown up as digital nomads.

For many of us, the coronavirus has been the most significant, and perhaps the most traumatic, experience of our lives. It will have a huge impact on us as individuals, as a society and as a workforce. Although it’s hard to imagine right now, the coronavirus crisis will end, and things will get back to normal. Well, some things will go back to the way they were. For others, there will be a new normal.

When a major event happens that poses an existential threat, many of the norms of life change, some in the short term and some for the long term. Almost two decades ago, 9/11 made an impact on how we live and behave. In that period of fear and panic in 2001, companies stopped allowing their people to travel, for example. Those policies faded, just as we no longer feel a surge of fear on the jet bridge, glancing at each other while trying determine if our fellow passengers are a threat. But the airport process that gets us into that smaller seat with less legroom has changed forever. Just try bringing a bottle of water through security, and you’ll be reminded of just one of the enduring changes.

Just as with 9/11, many of the major coronavirus changes that we’re experiencing now will evaporate, and things will go back to the way they were without much notice. We’ll adopt the mindsets and postures we had before the crisis. But the coronavirus will permanently alter many elements of how we work. Let’s first talk about how the coronavirus is unique. It’s:

• Global. By definition, a pandemic affects almost everybody, regardless of role, industry or location on the planet. Though infection rates are higher among frontline workers, COVID-19 has affected business owners, rank-and-file staff and the many managers in between. On September 11, if you didn’t live in New York and didn’t fly a lot, your life wasn’t radically altered. With Hurricane Katrina, the nation was saddened by the devastation as they watched the tragic aftermath play out, but most Americans weren’t directly affected.
• Enduring. Unlike a hurricane or earthquake, the pandemic has been more than a fleeting event. It has unfolded over many months, with no firm end date in sight.
• Pervasively disruptive. The coronavirus dramatically changed the way we live and work. It affected virtually every element of life. The grocery suppliers were disrupted, schools became virtual and people who could WFH were required to do so. Things we took for granted, like a trip to the dentist or the hair salon, have become verboten.
• Impossible to ignore. During the 2008 financial crisis or the California wildfires, there were many other news stories being shared on TV and in social media. With COVID-19, it’s been a 24/7 nearly all-consuming news cycle that’s almost exclusively focused on the pandemic.

Why “Zoom fatigue”:

#1. Everyone looks like a stoic from New England on video conference.

Emotionally intelligent leaders use inter-personal cues to monitor and manage relationships. Strong relationships enhance results.

Every group on zoom looks disinterested, depressed, or adversarial. You might look at people’s faces on a video conference and wonder why they’re mad at you.

Looks of frustration or disinterest signal a need to adapt inter-personal strategies. Adding more detail may help ease furrowed brows, for example. But everyone looks like a New England stoic in a group video conference.

Humor is another challenge. People tend not to laugh when they’re alone in the family room.

#2. Looking at yourself complicates communication.

One nice thing about in-person conversation is you aren’t staring back at yourself. I recently had a zoom call where the video of myself was in a separate monitor.

It felt weird that I couldn’t see myself. When I dragged my image to the main monitor, I realized that it felt good to NOT see myself.

#3. Nostrils are distracting and exhausting.

You look at others too closely on video conference. Camera angles make others look scary. I’m tired of looking up your nose.

Why don’t people change the lighting? Did you shower yet? Your hair looks greasy.

Suggestions:

#1. Try using your cell phone as a phone once in awhile.

#2. Set the screen to speaker view so you don’t have to see everyone on the call.

#3. Schedule time between calls so you can do some crunches or get the mail.

The coronavirus crisis continues to impact how we work, making it clear that the situation will not simply return to normal in a few months. Leading companies are looking ahead, anticipating that the recovery will likely be a long journey and planning for a new normal. Organizations are embracing technologies that enable team members to work remotely with customers, partners, and each other.

Hiring teams are quickly following suit and adapting and leveraging new technology-driven methods out of necessity to rapidly find, interview, evaluate, and hire candidates. In the process, they are realizing the benefits of virtual hiring for both their teams and job candidates while safeguarding the health and safety of all concerned.

Pandemic-Hiring Landscape

While many companies have been forced to lay off employees, others are hiring, and they are hiring fast. Amazon recently filled 100,000 positions and almost immediately opened reqs for 75,000 more, according to CNBC. The economic landscape is rapidly transforming and will remain unsettled for some time.

Coronavirus-driven safety concerns and the ongoing needs to hire employees impact how organizations evaluate and hire talent. We’re beginning to see strong evidence of emerging best practices that may well become part of a permanent transformation of talent acquisition as the hiring landscape changes post-pandemic.

Prepare for Technology to Play an Even Bigger Role

First, virtual interviewing will likely become the de facto standard for almost all hiring. Conducting interviews online, whether on demand or live, will address the significant health and safety concerns for job applicants, recruiters, and hiring managers alike.

But those managers will also realize that virtual on-demand interviewing brings other advantages, including access to a potentially broader talent pool, as travel and scheduling issues no longer stand in the way of finding new team members or job candidates accessing new opportunities.

Many industries have had to hire quickly over the past month to aid warehouse operations, stock store shelves, and build out call centers, among other examples. Through on-demand virtual interviewing, the scheduling interview process becomes much more efficient, and both applicants and hiring managers have greater flexibility to record interviews and review applications at times that work best for them and that are not limited to regular business hours or a predefined schedule.

Second, technology is providing new methods for recruiters and hiring managers to find talent. During previous recessions, I remember visiting very large job fairs at convention centers with hundreds of people standing in line, résumés in hand, waiting for an opportunity to tell their story.

For obvious reasons, companies can no longer rely on mass in-person gatherings. It’s quite possible they will discover online methods are more effective. Some organizations have already shifted to virtual job fairs. These aren’t merely online versions of what really are offline activities; instead, they’re available 24/7 without requiring the candidate or recruiter to travel, causing one to wonder what they will evolve into as hiring managers investigate what’s possible with virtual technology.

Editor's note: This article is one in a series on how to answer some of the toughest job interview questions. Read about how to answer the prompt, "Tell me about yourself" here.

When you're trying to put your best foot forward in an interview, answering the dreaded question "What is your greatest weakness?" can feel like a step in the wrong direction.

"Candidates mess this question up the most," said Tom Gimbel, founder and CEO of LaSalle Network, a staffing and recruiting firm that specializes in accounting and finance staffing and recruiting services. "They say, 'I'm a perfectionist' or 'I care too much about work.' They try to turn a positive into a weakness to look good, but that's not helpful."

Instead, use this question to deliver information that helps the interviewer get to know you better — warts and all. We asked human resources experts for their insights on handling the weakness question, and they offered advice on how to address the question and come away unscathed.

What the hiring manager wants to learn

By asking this question, "the interviewer is likely interested in hearing about your personality traits," said Sarah McEneaney, U.S. digital talent leader for PwC. "This answer can give potential employers quite a bit of insight into your level of self-awareness and commitment to professional growth."

The question also reveals potential obstacles the candidate might bring to the position, said Sue Arth, a San Diego-based career consultant who coaches people in the accounting field. She said the interviewer is really looking for answers to these questions:

• Are you self-aware?
• Can you accept feedback and do something about it?
• Are you flexible? Can you adapt to new situations and people?
• Do you have good judgment and problem-solving skills?

Good strategies for answering the question

The most important way to answer the question is to be honest, Gimbel said. "Share a mistake you've made," he suggested. "For example, you could say, 'I used to take criticism personally, but I've been working on this with my manager.'"

This type of answer is best because it presents a real weakness as well as a plan on how you're working to overcome it, Gimbel said. "The recruiter really wants to know what you're doing to fix the weakness," he said.

Don't merely mention the weakness but also "add plenty of context and a specific example or story of how this trait impacts your professional life," said McEneaney. "Explain how you have grown and learned from your weaknesses, and emphasize that you are open to new experiences and feedback."

Arth offered this example of a good answer: "I get anxious when I am given a new project to work on, especially if the objective is not clearly defined or it is something I haven't done before. In the past, I found it is better for me to write out my plan of action and any questions I have, and then verify this with the project manager. That way, I have a better understanding of the project, and it eases my anxiety to be prepared before I start something new."

Last week, another 5.2 million Americans filed for unemployment — about 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the previous four weeks given COVID-19. As the coronavirus pandemic stretches from weeks into months, it’s reshaping the U.S.  job market at lightning speed. For perspective, the U.S. is on track to lose as many job openings on a percentage basis in the first four weeks of the crisis as we did in the first nine months of the Great Recession.

On the bright side, data from Glassdoor’s economic team shows an increased availability of remote jobs. While economic headwinds are overwhelming short-term growth, with remote jobs declining 10.8 percent in the last month, they are still up 8.7 percent year over year. Additionally, the share of jobs listed as remote is increasing sharply, up 27.9 percent from last year. This data proves to those who have wondered if the current crisis will bring about a sea change in remote work may be correct, which shows that some companies are still actively hiring.

However, many job seekers, college graduates included are naturally wondering, is it even worth it to apply for a job right now?

Our career expert, Allison Sullivan, recently spoke to Marketplace about the importance of still applying for jobs, how to address COVID-19 in interviews, and how to network while social distancing. See her responses below.

Is anyone hiring? Is it even worth applying for a job right now?

Yes, there are opportunities out there for those on the job hunt, and it is still worthwhile to stick to your search. You may have to adjust aspects of your job search as things change during the coronavirus outbreak. For instance, the types of opportunities and abundance of them will look different, depending on the industry Now is a valuable time to do your research. Identify the sectors and companies currently hiring and what transferable skills you can market to shift into open opportunities. Your application materials should be customized to the opportunity, and proofread to stand out from other applicants. Also, don’t forget to tap into or build your network. Even if you haven’t found the right job, signaling you’re looking can help you find opportunities in the future.

I am not laid off or furloughed, but I don’t like my job. Should I use this time at home to look for other jobs? 

If you feel ready for a new job, it never hurts to be on the lookout. There are employers still in need of talent, and so this extended time at home can be a way to reflect on career goals, research potential opportunities, and understand who is hiring. Because today’s hiring landscape is shifting, if you do have a job, stay in your current role while you’re job searching for potential other opportunities.

C-level executives are less likely to recognise a shortfall in their own company culture than other employees, according to a recent research report.

It found that boards and CEOs need a reality check around culture change and management, and in particular, there are five “hard truths” for companies around this:

1. Culture problems are pervasive
2. Culture problems are often immense
3. Larger organisations have larger culture problems
4. CEOs have trouble seeing culture problems
5. Organisations need HR as a professional culture partner

“Despite the wake-up call delivered by the Hayne Royal Commission, it is alarming to see a clear disconnect still remains across Australian businesses between the CEO’s impression of company culture and what is being felt at the frontline,” said Lyn Goodear, CEO of the Australian HR Institute (AHRI), which conducted the report.

“They have to take accountability for their company culture, culture change, and to ensure that competent HR backed by industry certification guides cultural change.”

HR team members proved the hardest critics of company culture, according to the research report which was conducted in conjunction with Insync and took in almost 1000 professionals across Australia.

The research found that 90 per cent of respondents agree/strongly agree that their organisation’s culture is critical to the successful execution of strategy, while 95 per cent agree/strongly agree that CEO and executive leadership behaviours have a significant impact on their organisation’s culture.

A further 92 per cent agree/strongly agree that their organisation should make the best use of its human capital, but only 20 per cent agree/strongly agree that their company culture currently reflects this.

Survey responsents were asked to identify where their company culture was and where it should be in relation to many survey items measuring ethics and sustainability, and around 22 per cent thought there needed to be some change and 34 per cent thought that significant change was required.

“It is alarming to see a clear disconnect still remains across Australian businesses between the CEO’s impression of company culture and what is being felt at the frontline” 

4 keys to driving real culture change
The report also provided four guidelines for organisations and HR professionals to improve outcomes around culture and culture change.

1. Ask penetrating questions. It’s crucial to obtain a realistic view of the current culture, have a firm idea of the desired culture and a commitment to achieving it, according to the report, which said the organisation should be asking itself a number of questions, such as:

• How self-aware are your organisation’s CEO and executives? Do they know that most employees see a greater need for cultural change than most CEOs and executives?
• Are your board and executives united in their description of the organisation’s vision, expected values and behaviours, and of the company culture it hopes to have (in say, three years)? Do you have a robust plan to get there?

Indeed, looking for a new job and switching careers seem impossible when most companies are downsizing or laying off employees. But the reality is that a lot of persevering organizations remain on the lookout for talents that will stay with them through the good times and bad. They are looking for excellent employees to help them weather the storm and rise to great heights again.

Therefore, many of them take a more conservative and stringent approach to hiring. It’s no longer enough for candidates to have the educational background that conventionally makes them fit for a position. It’s imperative to probe deeper into other factors that make a job candidate a true match for the company.

Therefore, if your company is presenting some of the most sought-after and latest jobs, here are the right moves and skills to keep an eye out for when hiring new employees.

5 Must-Have Skills

1. Communication skills. Standing out in any job is possible through strong communication skills. These indicate a talent not only has the ability to convey messages clearly and quickly but also processes information accurately so the appropriate actions can be carried out. These people can serve as the company’s movers and shakers.

2. Marketing skills. Marketing skills are important in any type of job. They are necessary for achieving company goals, and this can come into display during the hiring process when candidates present themselves as valuable to the organization.

An applicant with strong marketing skills can emphasize the importance of his or her experience and expertise by helping employers realize the weak points of their operations that he or she can effectively cover. This indicates a level of confidence the company can utilize in either ensuring continuous operation or revolutionizing business dynamics.

3. Research skills. Research skills are integral to the progress of business organizations. Fact-finding initiatives are the core for successful improvements. Therefore, job applicants who possess these skills are certainly worth considering, especially if your operations are trying to outwork the strain of an economic recession or bounce back from it.

You’ll get a sense of someone’s research skills through his or her understanding of what the company is all about, as well as his or her extensive knowledge of the job position.

4. Problem-solving skills. Problem-solving skills go hand in hand with research skills, and these are crucial in overcoming one of the most common faults of a lot of businesses, which is having a myopic view of their processes.

You can always trust those with excellent problem-solving skills to take a step back and evaluate the big picture so they can come up with effective solutions to the company’s setbacks. These skills usually come in full display in written tests and interviews.

5. Culture of learning. A candidate’s personal culture of learning shows that he or she has a continuous desire to improve. This is a vital quality to look for when hiring new employees. You know a person possesses a culture of learning if he or she has a diverse skill set and has taken part in a variety of training programs.

Dedicated learners are valuable assets because their skills go beyond what their job description demands. They can be flexible members of the organization, decreasing the need for additional employees or for outsourcing certain tasks. Sharing economy becomes possible, which secures productivity, builds stronger ties within the company, and keeps operational costs low.

There has been much speculation about who Carly Simon was referring to in her song “You’re So Vain,” with Warren Beatty vainly telling everyone the song was about him when, in all actuality, he was only partly right.

In 2015, Simon was reported as saying, “I have confirmed that the second verse is Warren,” adding, “Warren thinks the whole thing is about him,” but he’s really only the subject of that one verse. The true identity of Simon’s song has yet to be revealed, and if you think you have an idea, share it in our comments section.

If you’ve made it this far in the article, you may be questioning what all this has to do with recruiting and HR. The short answer: social media. According to researchers at Penn State, job recruiters are less likely to select candidates who appear too self-involved or opinionated in their social media posts.

About the Research

Michael Tews, associate professor of hospitality management at Penn State, and a team of colleagues investigated the effects of three “potentially negative topics” on hiring managers’ decisions. These topics include self-absorption, opinionatedness, and alcohol and drug use.

The team recruited 436 hiring managers from a variety of organizations to uncover how social media impacts their decision-making process. Hiring managers were randomly assigned to view 1 of 16 different Facebook profiles “showing either a male or female exhibiting self‐absorption or not, opinionatedness or not, and alcohol and drug use or not.”

The hiring managers then had to evaluate the candidates’ employability by providing an assessment on them and how they would fit in with the company culture.

The Results Are in

Based on the research, social media posts that show a candidate is self‐absorbed negatively impacted his or her employment eligibility. It was revealed that self-absorption was more important than opinionatedness or drug and alcohol use in driving these negative perceptions.

“Social networking sites are often lamented as incubators of self‐absorption, motivating people to tell others about their every deed and thought,” says Tews. “It could be that hiring managers view individuals who are more self‐absorbed and focused on their own interests to be less likely to sacrifice for the benefit of other employees and the organization.”

If self-absorption negatively impacts recruiters’ perceptions, it should come as no surprise that opinionatedness also negatively impacted candidates’ employment eligibility.

There’s a saying in certain circles that Java is to JavaScript as car is to carpet. It’s a phrase developers often use to explain their frustration with talent professionals who don’t know as much and, as a result, make some embarrassing missteps in their outreach and interviews — like mixing up the similar-sounding programming languages. There are even entire Reddit threads dedicated to detailing and chuckling at these recruiter faux pas. 

It’s unfortunate that mistakes like this happen. But unless you hire a specialist recruiter, they do happen occasionally. After all, no one can know everything about every role they have to hire for, especially if those roles span multiple departments and areas of expertise. 

At the same time, though, there are plenty of good reasons to hire a generalist recruiter — like their ability to be agile when the business needs it. 

There’s no clear-cut solution for which you should hire, so we turned to three recruiting experts to get their thoughts: Anastacia Flores, senior director of talent acquisition at CBS Interactive, Dr. Martin Beischl, global director of talent and culture at riskmethods, and Ross Baron, head of recruiting for Western Europe at TikTok. 

The Future of Recruiting report predicts that over the next five years, more recruiting teams will create dedicated roles in areas like talent analytics — but will this trend toward specialization also affect the recruiters themselves? Here’s what the experts had to say, along with their tips for choosing the right kind of recruiter for both your company and your team. 

The argument for specialization: Specialist recruiters know where to look for niche talent and can talk to them on their level

One of the most compelling reasons to hire a specialist recruiter is that they’re more likely to know where to find niche communities of talent. If they’re immersed in a specific community, they’ll have a good idea of where those candidates hang out — and how to approach them. 

“Two lifetimes ago, I was sourcing for front-end engineers before there were even front-end engineers,” Anastacia recalls. “I remember I would go to meetups and sit in with engineers on conferences, because I wanted to learn what was happening so that I could then better find and hire the [right] people.”

This networking can also help specialist recruiters create a network of trusted contacts that they can tap into for referrals. 

“Sometimes it's an email to four people,” Anastacia says. “And they send it on to four of their friends and four of their friends, and you get back 57 emails of resumes.”

Once they’ve identified some prospects, specialized recruiters understand how to speak to them in a confident, knowledgeable way. This can not only help the recruiter avoid awkward Java/JavaScript-style mix-ups — which can be highly off-putting for candidates — but can give them a better sense of what those candidates really care about. If you know sales in and out, for example, then you’ll know exactly which aspects of the job to emphasize to catch a salesperson’s attention. 

It’s widely accepted that if you are in sales, you will have a quota. Achieve your quota, good job. Miss your quota, bad job. Miss your quota by a lot or miss it multiple times: no job. This creates stress for individual sellers and the sales organization as a whole.

Plenty of jobs are stressful and have objective measures of achievement. But there is a special kind of stress reserved for the sales function. When the numbers are down, the reaction from management is to turn up the heat on the sales organization. At a global technology conference last year, I asked an audience of CEOs what they do when they are behind on their numbers. “We beat on the sales team to bring in more,” one CEO immediately said. Everyone laughed. The follow-up comments and questions revealed that this approach was common across the group of 70 CEOs.

While it is the sales team’s job to bring in business, simply cranking up the heat to get the numbers you want can produce an environment where stress backfires. Too much stress in any professional situation will mask talent and lead to poor decision-making. Our ability to focus, solve problems, and accurately remember details declines dramatically in the face of excess stress. We’ve all seen it happen when someone “chokes” under pressure.

When sellers are under inordinately high pressure to close deals, they may become overly aggressive and damage (or end) promising sales cycles. Pushiness and other desperate behaviors reduce sales effectiveness and cause margins to shrink. If your team is selling any kind of complex solution, most customers will become non-responsive when pressured.

Stress can cause entire sales teams to behave as if any business is good business. Need a discount to make the deal easier? Sure! Wrong kind of prospect or problematic deal? Who cares, we have a number to make this month. The attitude is “any revenue, at any cost.” Sellers become myopically short-term focused, just as they’ve been directed. This approach has long-term consequences for the business: mounting losses and failure to create a compelling sales experience.

In an effort to produce maximum effort and create urgency in a sales organization, leadership will apply mounting pressure, drilling down on the importance of making the monthly or quarterly number. In most cases, leaders believe they are pushing hard in the spirit of driving for results. While it’s important to a point, leaders risk pushing to a point of diminishing returns.

You can clearly see how stress affects performance in the below graph, originally created by psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson. Their research illuminates how performance on tasks improves with increased physiological or mental arousal. Stress does help us get the job done — but only to a point. Too little stress, and you’re in the weak performance zone; too much anxiety, and performance is impaired. In the middle, an optimal level of stress produces what we’d call peak performance. The technical term for that zone is eustress, which is exactly where leaders should set the pressure to create optimal results.

Since WHO (The World Health Organizations) declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic, the world as we know it has experienced a drastic change.

For weeks now, the business community has been ramping up efforts to help contain the virus. Large corporations like Airbnb, Google, and Twitter all asked their teams to work from home to reduce the spread. Annual events have been canceled, business strategies have shifted, and companies everywhere have been forced to rethink the way they approach their sales activity.

As travel restrictions, hiring freezes, and evolutions in market demand all create new challenges for brands, one thing hasn’t changed: Our need to access regular sales.

The question is, how do you guide a sales team towards measurable results in a sales environment unlike anything we’ve ever seen before? We’re going to guide you through how to approach team management during a crisis so you can keep your company growing and your team positive and productive.

It All Starts with a Plan: Strategic Selling in a Crisis

All successful sales strategies start with proper planning.

Now that the world as we know it is evolving at an incredible pace, business leaders need to think carefully about the kind of challenges they’re going to face. For instance, will a remote sales team be harder to manage than in-office employees?

If so, then you need a campaign in place that allows you to keep your team members motivated and productive during this crisis. Accessing new tools for workforce optimization, time tracking, and team management is crucial to keeping everyone on the same page.

According to Richard Harris, the Founder of Harris Consulting Group, early adopters will thrive by researching new opportunities and looking for new ways to keep teams motivated through training.

To figure out how you’re going to progress through the crisis, think about:

• How big your sales team needs to be to continue delivering the same quality of service to clients. As tempting as it may be to reduce your personnel during this difficult time, a reduction in team members could threaten your reputation.
• What kind of communication strategies you’ll be using. Face-to-face conversations might be out, but you can keep team members engaged and informed through video conferencing and real-time chat instead.
• What resources do you need to deliver to your sales teams? Beyond CRM systems for customer management, what other tools are necessary? Do you need a way for your clients to track their individual performance for gamification purposes? Would a service that helps your clients track sales sequences online keep them on the ball?
• How will you support your teams? Offering the right training and technology is a good start. However, you also need to provide support in the form of reassurance and regular updates, so your people feel educated and informed.

As more companies ask their employees to work from home, it’s important to remember that there’s more to building a digital sales team than giving them a laptop and sending them on their way. You need a clear picture of how work can be done in their new environment to ensure your team members have the right technology and support to thrive.

Companies—and individuals—are in survival mode right now, facing difficult decisions amid COVID-19 restrictions. Companies are making moves to insulate their businesses from the pandemic’s effects. However, layoffs have already become unavoidable for some industries, while others are in full hiring mode.

When Glassdoor released its 2020 Best Places to Work list in December of last year, the world was a much different place. The unemployment rate was historically low, there were more job openings in the market than qualified candidates, and the war for talent was at an all-time high—in other words, COVID-19 had yet to hit the United States.

Now, companies are met with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to demonstrate what their company values are really made of and that they stand by their words—through the good times and the bad.

What Current Jobseekers Are Experiencing

With the current pandemic, it’s important to look at the job market from all perspectives, which includes candidates in the midst of job searching. What are they seeing as they search? What unique challenges take place when interviewing remotely?

We asked some of the candidates we work with to share their unique view on jobseekers during the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s their take on what candidates are currently experiencing.

Have you had to change the answers and advice you give to candidates because of the change in the economy and public health measures (social distancing, stay at home, etc.)?

“The hiring process can take longer at some companies at this time, but it’s important for job candidates to stay positive and patient, continuing to show their interest in the company and in the position that they seek,” said coach Lisa. “Right now, I’m coaching a job candidate who’s in the second round of interviews with three different companies. The processes are moving more slowly but are clearly progressing.”

What are your tips for helping a candidate stand out in today’s job search reality? 

“Things are more challenging right now, but there are many companies that are still hiring,” said coach Natalie. “In fact, one of our job candidates just took a position as VP of HR. He began work on April 6 via a telecommute arrangement through the end of the month. Then, he’ll live in an apartment in Los Angeles during the week, returning home on weekends. It’s a win-win situation for both sides.”

Now more than ever, people are looking toward leaders for guidance on how to navigate times of uncertainty. More than ever, the need for reliable, steady and trustworthy leadership is crucial. In efforts to demonstrate effective and transparent leadership, managers should lean into their soft skills to maximize trust throughout their teams while working to minimize stress and anxiety. 

So what are soft skills? Soft skills are character traits, personal attributes, and other non-technical abilities that help you work and communicate with other people. Some soft skills you might have to study and learn, and others might come to you naturally.  Listening, communication and delegation are all examples of soft skills. Here are our tips on how to develop several in-demand soft skills during times of uncertainty. 

1. Exercise emotional intelligence.

Lead with empathy and compassion. When communicating with your team and others, leaders should recognize the uncertainty and anxiety employees are experiencing and provide insight and compassion to them. Employees are now relying on leaders to give a sense of hope and stability, and managers should make it clear that there will be better days ahead, ultimately providing optimism remotely. Teams should get in the habit of prompting others to share where they’re coming from and carefully listening to their responses to foster and build trust. 

2. Be transparent to build credibility.

To further increase and strengthen connections amongst teams, leaders should be transparent and honest with their communication. Effective communication is critical as leaders shouldn’t try to hide unfortunate news or a shift in direction. Managers who don’t share all of the facts become less credible and trusted, which could have worse consequences down the road. 

3. Collaborate. 

We’re all experiencing COVID-19 together. True collaboration happens when team members have empathy for and understanding of each other. Encouraging your team to work cross-functionally will foster collaboration and develop new spurts of creativity within different projects. 

4. Be Adaptable. 

Expand your mindset. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances starts with an open mindset that’s willing to embrace changes across the board. Challenge yourself to become a problem solver when faced with adversity. It’s easier to be adaptable when you have several other ideas and solutions in your toolkit. For every project, think of a few alternative ways it could be accomplished, and get in the habit of testing ideas to ensure you’re always learning and refining your approach to your work. 

In many sectors, a combination of technology and changing social expectations has now enabled agile working practices to become standard. It seems that the financial services sector has been somewhat slow on the uptake, however, with just a third (36%) of businesses in the industry offering flexible working. At the same time, competition for skills is heating-up, from both other sectors and from fintech start-ups that have been founded with flexibility in their DNA.

In recent years there has been a cultural shift away from pay being the main driver of job choice to a more holistic view; the full package, including working environment and work life balance now drives applicants’ career decisions. So much so that that one in four UK professionals have quit roles to find greater flexibility. We have increasingly found that candidates are not interested in even tentatively applying for roles with companies that are not offering an agile approach – it is now a ‘must have’, rather than a ‘nice to have’.

For those financial services businesses that have successfully developed a flexible working culture, the issue they often face is actively communicating their values and working practices in such a way that engages prospective candidates. In a candidate-short market, businesses that can showcase modern ways of working through their recruitment process are most likely to attract and retain the best talent.

Candidate comms

Finding the right balance might not be as distant a reality as perceived though. This is where recruiters can add real value – acting as an advocate for companies by articulating their values and demonstrating flexible working propositions through the recruitment process itself. There are several ways to do this effectively, from using websites and social media as a shop window into life at the firm, to more elaborate events targeting prospective candidates.

For example, if a financial services company is struggling to attract millennial professionals due to an inaccurate or outdated perception of ‘corporate’ culture, hosting events which give people a chance to see their office space and culture could be the perfect remedy. This is a tactic that has worked well for technology firms and fintechs – there’s no reason such networking events wouldn’t have a similar impact in other areas of the financial services sector without appearing to be pushing for a hard sell.

Distraction:

Hurry makes distracted leaders feel important.

#1. Every shiny object that drags you from the present dilutes your impact.

You’re never your best self when you’re distracted.

You bring your best self when you bring your whole self.

#2. Every urgent buzz or ding devalues the people around you.

You tell people they’re insignificant when you habitually check messages in their presence.

Rush and anxiety are permission to neglect people.

#3. Every distraction slows progress.

Distraction requires you to begin again. It’s more efficient to complete a task than to begin it several times.

Pollution:

Anxiety pollutes the present with imagined problems and future responsibilities.

A constant rush to the NEXT thing ruins THIS thing.

Don’t squander the present on the future.

Distracted leaders perpetually rush toward the future while neglecting the present. The pattern repeats tomorrow. Wouldn’t you like to live your life instead of waiting for it to get here?

Being present is:

#1. Giving undivided attention.

You can’t bring your best self when you’re rushing to the next thing. Enjoy what you’re doing now.

#2. Noticing yourself and others.

#3. Perceiving the process as well as the product.

#4. Doing one thing at a time.

Meditation:

Talk to yourself while slowly breathing in and slowly breathing out. (Close your eyes if it helps.)

Breathe in and say:

This work matters.
This moment matters.
People depend on me.
Breathe out and say:

Bring your best self.
Give your best.
Turn from distraction.
(A slow rhythm helps me.)

You have to be present to bring your best self.