Hasta La Gadget!

Recruitment processes can be run more efficiently with dedicated online services and software solutions, saving you both time and money. Here’s what the most common applications have to offer.

E-recruitment is much more than posting job ads online. It covers the entire hiring process, from drafting the job requirements to closing the deal – and often even beyond. There are big HR software solutions with extensive feature sets that cover every single step of the process – and then there are smaller apps and online services that focus on a certain aspect, e.g. application management. If you should go for a full-fledged solution or just a selection of specialised apps really depends on your individual recruitment needs.

Furthermore, you have to keep in mind that recruitment is much more complicated than you may think it is: It is about finding, employing and retaining the right candidate.

But one step after the other. Generally, there are three main areas where software can help you step up your recruitment game.

1. Efficient candidate sourcing
There are several online services that you can use to quickly find candidates who have the skill set you’re looking for:

• Reaching your target group:
Post your job ads on platforms targeted at specific disciplines (such as JustEngineers) or use online services that allow you to define your target group, like professional networks (e.g. LinkedIn) or professional education platforms (e.g. EdX or bookboon.com). That way you make sure the right people see your vacancy.

• Getting the best:
If you’re trying to fill a position that you know will be hard to find the right candidate for, like a specialist in a rare discipline or a c-level position, you may want to use online databases that specialise in high-profile jobs (e.g. experteer.com).

2. Lean administration:
Say goodbye to that huge pile of application folders – and hello to handling applications electronically, and therefore much faster and more comfortably.

• Selecting candidates:
In your job ads, ask candidates to use your online application form to apply: Many software solutions offer forms you can customise to your specific needs. That way, you will receive candidates’ information pre-structured which makes it a lot easier to compare competence profiles and select candidates for the interview phase.

• Compiling a candidate pool:
More often than not you’ll have more than just one promising candidate – or you receive an unsolicited application that looks like a keeper, but don’t have anything to offer at that moment. Many e-recruiting solutions let you save those profiles in a talent database so you can get in touch with those people once a matching vacancy comes up.

• Communicating:
Many HR tools provide messaging features that let you communicate directly with applicants and also internally with line managers. This is much more efficient than the good old e-mail because now you’ll find everything pertaining to a vacancy at a central location: The job description, the applicants, and the entire correspondence.

3. Faster overview and performance control
Online and software tools help you monitor your success rates. You can analyse which areas you need to improve in order to get a more efficient recruitment process. Among other aspects, HR tools let you see…
• the development of your fluctuation rates,
• your average time to hire, generally and for specific positions,
• the costs of your various recruitment projects, and
• an overview of current vacancies as well as forecasts for future vacancies, e.g. because of growing business areas.

With the right HR tools, you can save time and boost your recruitment success at the same time. But which tools are the right ones for you? Which tools offer the best value for their money? We’d recommend you visit popular HR websites for independent tests and comparisons to learn about the specific strengths of each software or service. Then you can pick the one that is strongest in an area that is particularly important for your company’s recruitment process.

Have you used an HR software or online service that has made a big difference for you, that you would strongly recommend? We’d love to hear about it!

If you would like to read more about the topic, then have a look at our website with many valuable eBooks about Human Resource Management at bookboon.com.

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The fate of Harambe, the 17-year-old gorilla who was shot dead in a Cincinnati zoo on May 28, has inspired much debate. Some adamantly defend the zoo workers’ actions, while others point to the hypocrisy of outrage when many sentient animals are killed each day without drawing any attention whatsoever. Seeing Harambe’s face as an innocent animal who was so quickly sacrificed has undeniably struck a chord with many. So, despite some claims that animal rights is the least important issue, the attention that the gorilla’s life received indicates that people are ready to hear the truth: Non-human animals are sentient beings with lives that do, in fact, matter.

All this is another indication of how interest in the issue of animal rights has grown significantly in the past half-century. According to a 2015 Gallup poll, nearly a third of Americans now believe that non-human animals should be given the same rights as people. That’s a considerable increase since 2008, when only a fourth of Americans shared this view.

Taking full consideration of this is pretty awe-inspiring. I chose to be vegetarian as a kid because I felt motivated to protect animals, and so much has changed since I felt like I was the only vegetarian in the world as I grew up in the 1990’s in small town Alabama. We’re quickly making progress, yet animals are literally being tortured to deliver meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, and fish to dinner plates. Even worse is happening to some for fur and other animal byproducts that humans can easily and comfortably live without. It’s clear that people are concerned, and the following reasons show why animal rights should be a central topic of debate.

Established Sentience in Non-Human Animals

Imagine desperately needing to move, yet you were confined to a cage where you had to live in your own urine and feces, never experiencing simple pleasures beyond fear and pain. Many farm animals experience that and worse tortures. Being sentient beings, they are aware of their needs and wants; they fight for their lives to the end.

This isn’t simply imagining what it would be like. Animal sentience is an established fact. Psychology Today reported in 2013 that we’ve had plenty of data for a while to declare that non-human animals are sentient beings. The prominent scientists at the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness declared that many non-human animals are conscious. It’s been shown that animals can worry and lose sleep. Like people, non-human animals will fight to live, and many species have problem-solving capabilities.

A Staggering Number of Beings Who Suffer

If you’re like me, you get upset and even outraged when you see just one person suffer, and you do what you can to help them. Now imagine that happening a billion times over. Given that the sentience of many non-human animals is widely accepted, people should care deeply about preventing the massive amounts of suffering that are currently being inflicted on animals. In the U.S. alone, each year more than 78 billion sea animals and over eight billion land animals are killed for food. That’s not millions, but billions. That ends up to a tragic, extreme amount of suffering among sentient beings every single day in the country.

Interconnected Issues

No one issue facing the world is entirely independent of the others. The case for animal rights also stands alongside other forms of prejudice as an issue that needs to be addressed. Having prejudice against others for their citizenship, race, sexual orientation, gender, or species can have far-reaching effects on society.

An intersectional approach to animal rights is key. Social justice advocate and writer Christopher-Sebastian McJetters recently stated, “Intersectional justice isn’t some ‘sect’ of veganism. Framing it as such is reductive and overly simplistic. Intersectionality is an analytical approach that challenges the root causes of oppression through the lens of people who live daily with multiple intersecting oppressions…people who often lack the social, sexual, economic, and academic mobility of those who needlessly antagonize and harass them.”

Public Health

It’s not just animals’ lives that are at stake when we disregard animal rights as a core issue. Life on earth as we know it is at stake. Livestock production is posing a rather big risk to human health through the overuse of antibiotics. When bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics because of their overuse, the effectiveness of the medicine is compromised. Also, the high amount of pollution of both water and land caused by livestock production threatens human health.

The Environment

The damage that’s being done to the planet by animal agriculture is extreme. Environmental advocates like Al Gore and James Cameron decided to go vegan because of this staggering harm. Approximately 30 percent of the world’s ice-free land surface is used to farm chickens, pigs, and cows for slaughter and human consumption. Furthermore, this livestock production, which includes eggs and dairy, takes up more than a third of the fresh water in the world. Time reports that livestock production has a bigger impact on Planet Earth than any other activity humans do.

At least 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock, according to a report that was released by the United Nations. That’s more than the combined emissions from all forms of human transportation, including cars, planes, and trains. Since it’s widely believed that we need to act soon before there’s no turning back on global warming, this is a solid reason all need to be concerned about the harm caused by a disregard for animal rights.

Where We’re at Now

Some leading politicians seem to be getting the message about the importance of animal rights, but we have a long way to go. No current Republican Presidential frontrunners seem to have addressed the issue of animal rights in a serious way, although Donald Trump did seem to mock the cause in a Tweet, stating, “Ringling Brothers is phasing out their elephants. I, for one, will never go again. They probably used the animal rights stuff to reduce costs.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign website claims that the way our society treats animals is a reflection of our humanity, even going on to state, “Hillary has a strong record of standing up for animal rights.” Meanwhile, the website of Bernie Sanders doesn’t address the issue, but Zach Groff, a protester who interrupted Berie’s May 2016 rally in California said, “He claims to be a progressive, but you cannot be a progressive if you oppose animal rights.” Sanders did receive a recent 100 percent rating for his voting on animals in a Humane Society report.

It’s clear that animal rights should be a core national moral issue, not a side topic that’s viewed as less important than the current topics of debate. Activists, animal rights organizations, and others will need to continue raising awareness and bringing these facts to the forefront of debates in order to ensure that it becomes a core issue.

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Life can be painful.

Tragedy can strike from nowhere. Friends betray our trust. Illness can take a toll. Markets crash (our wealth wiped out.) Businesses fail. Jobs disappear or be outsourced elsewhere. Loved ones die or move away. Plans go awry. Life can hit us with one cruel blow after another.

This isn’t being negative. It’s being truthful.

However, having experienced my fair share of blows, I’ve learnt from the things that have caused the greatest pain is that much of our suffering comes from trying to avoid it. Something many are masterful at.

There are various means we employ to avoid feeling the pain that makes our heart ache and stomach sink. Shopping, drinking, eating and burying ourselves in our work. Gambling, sex, drugs and anti-depressants. The list goes on.

If any of these measures actually worked, all would be well. But the truth is that if we aren’t willing to sit with the more painful emotions that arise throughout the course of our lives, and take a look at what lies beneath them that may be calling for our attention, they don’t go away. They just bury deeper. Over time they resurface, but by then they have often taken a steeper toll on our psychological and physical wellbeing. Part of this can be seen with the rising rates of depression.

We are living with an epidemic of depression. But anti-depressants are not always the answer.

The World Health Organization considers depression the fourth leading cause of disability worldwide, and expects it to become the second leading cause of disability worldwide by 2020. It’s data like this that inspired author and activist Marianne Williamson to write her latest book From Tears To Triumph – a call to arms for greater courage and compassion during our darker days when the circumstances of our lives give rise to sadness and other emotions we’d prefer to avoid. As Williamson shared with me during our recent interview (below),”We’ve made feeling sad wrong. But just as a broken leg requires resetting the bone; so too emotional pain requires resetting our thinking.” Numbing the pain doesn’t address the problem.

Williamson believes that psychological pain, like physical pain, exists for a reason – to direct us to something that needs our attention. She sees the rising wave of depression as a collective siren call for deep healing, for taking a long hard look at how we are living our lives and treating each other. As Marianne wrote in From Tears To Triumph, “The greatest opportunity for humanity in the twenty-first century is not in widening our external horizons, but in deepening our internal ones.” This applies as much to each of us on a personal level as it does collectively.

“Just as a broken leg requires resetting the bone; so too emotional pain requires resetting our thinking.” – Marianne Williamson

Our happiness obsessed culture has led people to buy into the myth of perpetual happiness; to believe that if they try hard enough, smile big enough, laugh often enough, or numb their pain well enough, they can live in an eternal state of bliss. But that’s simply not reality. We are wired to experience the full spectrum of human emotions for a reason: because as human beings are need all the emotions in order to grow to the fullness of our own humanity. Not just a select smiley-faced few.

Cutting ourselves off from our own pain desensitizes us to that of others. When we sit with our own pain, we grow compassion for the suffering of others.

Sadness, jealousy, hurt, anxiety, grief and melancholy. These are all emotions that can point us to examining our lives more closely, to reconsidering how we might respond better to the environment (and people) around us. To ignore, suppress, deny or numb any of these emotions does us a profound disservice that negates their value. Likewise, cutting ourselves off from our own pain desensitizes us to that of others.

Life’s most raw emotions are no less valuable than it’s most pleasant. The pathway to a happier life doesn’t seek to bypass all pain, but to confront it. By having the courage to sit with the uncomfortable and painful emotions we can navigate a better path forward and discover within ourselves far greater strength, resilience, compassion and courage than we ever would otherwise. As Marianne shared with me, sometimes our sleepless nights, as painful as they are, are necessary for our own healing and growth. “Our demons are defeated in the dark.”

As I wrote in Brave, the walls we build to protect ourselves from pain also shut us out to joy, happiness and meaning. The only way to experience more of the joy, happiness and connection we all yearn for is when we are willing to brave their polar opposites – loss, sadness and grief – however painful or uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean that pharmaceutical medications aren’t helpful when people find themselves in a dark place from which they see no escape (I’ve witnessed their benefit for people suffering severe mental illness), however it does mean not labelling the normal emotions of life as a mental illness nor becoming dependent on a pill to fix problems that we alone must attend to.

I hope my interview with Marianne will inspire you to create time to sit with those uncomfortable emotions, such as sadness from a loss yet fully grieved, and to confront any aspects of your life that are calling for courage. If tears flow, let them. They connect us to what matters most. In doing so they can help us see where we’re out of alignment with our deepest values and emerge from our challenges with a deepened appreciation for the gifts they hold.

Life doesn’t happen to you; it happens for you. Our heartaches and hardships may shape us, but they can also lead us to a far richer experience of life and our own humanity.

Our adversities don’t necessarily make us stronger. Too often they leave us angry, bitter and feeling like a victim to the ravages of life. But life doesn’t happen to us, it happens for us. And so while life can sometimes be painful, within every adversity lies the opportunity to live more deeply; to nurture compassion and to discover that no matter how bad something may seem at the time, there is always reason for hope.

To order a copy of Marianne’s latest book From Tears to Triumph, do so here.

Margie Warrell is a bestselling author and international speaker who is passionate about helping people to be overcome the fears that keep them from thriving in work, love and life. Learn more and sign up for her newsletter at www.margiewarrell.com

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Companies with healthier leadership and employees tend to work more cohesively together. The office is lively and co-workers mingle well together. Employees with healthy lifestyles are typically more upbeat and focused on their work, which increases efficiency and productivity. Supporting healthy living can help drive staff with unhealthy practices to make some changes to improve their health and job performance.

Fewer Missed Days of Work

Healthy employees have fewer sick days, in most cases. This means that your company will experience fewer days of being short-staffed each year. The ability to schedule coverage for requested time off keeps the business running smoothly. It also helps reduce stress which may require an occasional personal day just to decompress and refocus. An intact and healthy workforce is more reliable and better for client communications as well.

Less Office Drama

A company with healthier staff is stronger because supervisory staff and ownership displays care and compassion for its workforce. This improves overall staff morale and leaves a business owner with much less office-related drama. Less arguing leads to more productivity and decreases workplace stress. As morale improves, so do the working relationships between multiple departments. The cohesiveness can lead to compelling marketing campaign ideas or innovative ways to improve quality to existing products with little cost.

Implement Technology

Corporate health programs are becoming more popular. As society becomes more reliant on technology and mobile technology, corporations are incorporating smart technology into those programs to promote healthy workforces. Much of society is using a fitness application or device to improve their health. Companies cannot contract with each maker of these devices/apps or force employees to use one specific application. A program like Jiff allows employers to gain access to employee devices, with consent, simply to collect fitness and health data.

The company can use this information to implement changes such as 10-minute workout breaks, standing desks and encouraging face-to-face contact rather than calling from one station to the next. The short breaks should be scheduled for mid-morning and mid-afternoon to help boost energy, regain focus, and deplete stress all at the same time. The data from the workout breaks could be used against analytical statistics regarding increased productivity following the breaks.

Promote Tension Breaks

Everyone gets stressed at work from time-to-time. Rather than allowing the stress to build, instill a method within your staff to stretch the pain away. Give each employee a list of stress management tips and include the completion of calf raises and desk push-ups as two of them. Promoting exercise as a means of stress relief is also promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Workforces with in-house methods and means of stress-relief often have lower employee turnover rates. The ability to relieve stress at the onset keeps employees happy with their employment situations. As a workforce is together for a longer period of time, it works like a dynamic well-oiled machine.

Consider Promoting Health and Fitness

Offering ways for your employees to maintain a healthy lifestyle while at work is more likely to be effective than simply making suggestions to them individually. Consider installing a gym or workout space within the building. If employees feel a little bit stressed or want to work out before/after work, it is available right there.

Also consider an office café with Mediterranean options. A Mediterranean diet is full of brain foods that help employees focus on work, have energy, and creativity. Offering healthy eating options right at the office is convenient and reduces lunchtime stress with having to rush through traffic and find a meal in a short amount of time.

Customized Motivation

There is a way to customize motivating employees, and it is through wearable technology. Wearable technology is items like fitness monitors and smartwatches. Companies can develop apps that employees can download to personal devices to release specified bits of data regarding the fitness and health practices of its employees. Roughly 13-million wearable devices are already planned for corporate wellness plans throughout the course of five years. Employees could have fun with the wearables making a department competition for the most progress in fitness each week.

Final Word

Healthier companies are stronger in creativity, longevity and employee morale, just to name a few key points. Creativity increases when employees are happy with their jobs and live a healthy lifestyle. As an entire workforce steers toward company-inspired healthy living practices, it becomes part of the company’s culture. If you make healthy lifestyle options, stress-relief options and exercise space available, your employees are likely to follow suit on their own without a gentle reminder that healthy is happy.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Watching this footage of talented RC pilots making their planes perform amazing stunts is made all the more impressive when you stop to think about the skills needed to capture these impossible mid-air closeups.

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