The Covid-19 pandemic has forced companies to close offices and employees to work from home. There hasn’t been a stronger push in propelling such a significant change in the way we work and radically defining the future of work.
History has taught us that human beings are resilient and adaptable. Working from home has become a new norm that many have expressed to continue post-Covid-19, with a growing number of big companies supporting this wave of change.
According to Upwork’s “Future Workforce Report”, 73% of all teams will have remote workers by 2028. Many companies like Automattic have been officeless since their inception, and have proven to work with huge cost savings and more productive workers contributing to the growth of their businesses.
As more businesses embrace remote working, and are no longer bound by geographical constraints, they can hire the best talents from a global pool of candidates.
While it is great that the talent pool has expanded, recruiters do need to face new challenges associated with remote hiring.
Finding the right people who know how to work remotely
A critical aspect is hiring the right talent; not so much in terms of technical skills—as that’s something that can be measured with assessment tools—but the soft skills that are key to a healthy and productive remote hire.
Workers suited to remote work need to exhibit good self-awareness and self-management, and are proactive in initiating discussions when needed; on top of being able to communicate effectively.
A solution to this is two-fold. The first is to screen candidates for these traits using predictive soft skills assessments that use well-validated exercises developed to reveal where their emotional strengths lie. The second is to have video interviews as it is the closest to having a ‘real’ interaction with the candidate.
Scaling up interview coordination for remote hiring
Then, there are the operational challenges with remote hiring. It is no wonder that 54% of recruiters want interview scheduling to be automated when you know that in addition to the tedious workflow of scheduling they already face, recruiters now need to manage time zones and video conferencing tools while coordinating secure online interviews.
Introducing multiple time zones into the mix is not only time consuming but frustrating as well. Even with free websites that help you compare time zones, you still need to gather a lot of cognitive power to cross-reference between EST, PST, CST, CET…...you get the jist.
You’ll need to make sure the interview time is acceptable for all parties while working with a narrower window of time.
Once you do find a time, you’ll need to generate a one-time video conference link with whichever tool your company is using, and include it in the calendar invites. This process seems straightforward enough but magnified in scale, it becomes a huge problem that can consume up to 30% of your time.
And while you do want to maximize efficiency in both areas of this workflow, what’s coming up as an important part of automation is keeping the human element in this process.
Evie, the Pro at Scheduling Video Interviews Across Time Zones
Evie is already delivering scalable consistency with its great candidate experience when scheduling different types of interviews. Now tackling the space of hiring talent across the globe, Evie has learnt to automatically generate secure one-time links for each interview, and is effortlessly adept at managing multiple time zones.
Not only that, it’s just as easy to get Evie started on scheduling these cross time zone interviews. Let Evie know which cities the candidates and interviewers are located in; it’s that simple. With the understanding of how to best optimize time zones, Evie takes this heavy load of information and easily transforms it into a list of available interview time slots.
This is only one example for hiring for one role. Imagine the amount of time and cognitive pressure Evie alleviates recruiters of when you multiply this task by the hundreds.
And once Evie has worked out times for everyone, they’ll each get a separate calendar invite with a secure, one-time video conference link so that it’ll be easy to start the interview at the time itself.
Inevitably part of the future of work
Skepticism around remote work has been largely withdrawn from companies in industries that are able to make these arrangements for their employees. Some not only remain functional, but experience higher levels of productivity through this exercise.
Remote work will not be the only way of working in the future, but will definitely be a large part of it. It will open doors for so much more diversity and flow of talent—and with that, leaps in innovation that only stand to benefit everyone.
Contact us for a demo of Evie’s interview scheduling prowess.
