Depending on the nature of your business’ approach to how and where your employees work, many businesses have had to pivot to virtual interviewing and remote onboarding over the past 2 years.  Additionally, many businesses have been exposed to the benefits of having virtual staff (decreased overheads, unexpected pleasing outputs) and are re-thinking their business models, resulting in an increase in virtual staff.

1.  Job Description

The first step to approach remote hiring is to write a job description.  The skills you are looking for in virtual employees may be slightly different to traditional office workers.  An ability to manage their time and navigate complex businesses while working virtually will be of increasing significance.  Depending on the nature of the business, it’s important to know whether the hours can be worked flexibly to accommodate factors such as home duties or parenting.  This might mean starting earlier, finishing later or making up the hours on the weekend.

2.  Plan for the interview

Aside from the standard questions you might ask in an interview, you will need to find ways to make candidates feel comfortable in a virtual interview setting.  Help them understand the culture and core functions of the business by running through that at the beginning to make them feel at ease.  Ensure you communicate the criteria that might be unique to this role  and ask questions about how the candidate manages their time and prioritises a busy workload if they are working in non-standard environments.

3.  Assess key skills

There are a range of assessment tools that can assess language, maths, reasoning and psychometric skills to help you gauge which candidates might be the best fit for your role.  Research shows that about 76% of businesses with more than 100 employees use assessment tools such as aptitude and personality tests for hiring purposes. That figure is expected to climb to 88% over the next few years.

4.  Reference Checking

Online reference checking software such as XRef and Referoo are becoming increasingly popular, offering cost effective, accurate and streamlined pre-employment checks to ensure that a candidate’s Resume and Referees are an accurate representation of their work history.  One of the biggest benefits is for businesses with large employment intakes, such as those required during the pandemic (supermarkets, contact tracing, Covid testers).

5.  Onboarding

There are a range of fantastic virtual onboarding businesses that help support new employees navigate and get up to speed in new work environments quickly.  Capterra and  HR OnBoard are examples of software businesses that help employees adapt to company culture and become comfortable with the concept of remote working.

If you would like more support with recruiting virtual employees for your business, speak to the HR Consulting team at Flexi Personnel.