Sponsored by Fama.
In this episode of #WorkTrends join us as we discuss how hiring, screening and monitoring online behavior are changing in today’s world of work. As digital natives make up a growing portion of the workforce, employers must adopt savvy processes to ensure safety, uphold culture and align online activity with organizational standards.
Do you know what you need to know?
Do you have the right tech right now to effectively keep your employees safe?
Meet Our Guest: Ben Mones
We are thrilled to welcome back Ben Mones. He is the CEO and founder of Fama, an award-winning AI-based software company trusted by thousands of talent acquisition teams from around the globe. He’s an expert on how technology is shaping society, particularly in the workplace. In addition to leading Fama, Ben serves on the boards of a handful of high-growth startups and mentors entrepreneurs just starting out on their journey.
Digital Natives: Who Are They?
Let’s begin by talking about the influx of digital natives in the workplace. What does that mean and how is it impacting employers?
So when we talk about digital natives in the workplace, what we’re seeing is that employers have now realized that digital identity, for more than half of their workforce, is offering a relatively significant signal into how people are going to act when the camera isn’t on, when the interview is over, how someone’s going to act around fellow employees, around customers. I think for a long time, when I started Fama years ago, only about 44%, maybe 30% of companies according to Career Builder research. I remember at the time only 44% of companies were doing any form of online or social media screening, looking people up on the internet. That number has now climbed to 85%.
Digital Misconduct Cues
What does misconduct actually mean in this context, and why is it important for employers to monitor this, Ben?
When we think about misconduct, we’re thinking about everything from fraud to harassment, to intolerance in the workplace, the things that we all care about today when it comes to how we manage our workforce. How we manage our teams, but the signals and signs of misconduct, kind of back to the earlier point we’re making on the sort of digital spaces and the way that the vast majority of the workforce now lives, its lives. People aren’t really necessarily telling you in a job interview that they’re the type of guy that makes sexist jokes. They’re not going to tell you that they might be the one who is acting intolerant, threatening, or harassing towards other people.
So there’s this sort of connection now that you bridge quite nicely here, which is that when employers see, okay, more than half my workplace is online, to your point, they’re living in digital spaces. They’re finding opportunity to engage online. Not only is that signal to give me a sense of who’s a qualified candidate and who’s a quality candidate, but I can begin also digging into understanding the normalization of misconduct.
Analog vs Digital Hiring Practices
Give us the reality check of what’s old school, what’s outdated, and what’s the best solution right now when you talk about traditional hiring practices?
So I hate to say it, but the answer to the old school questions is going back to base principles and going back to some of the old school things that we care about. Let’s distill down what does our organization actually need? What are the tasks? What are the activities? What are the outcomes that we are seeking in this role, in this candidate, and how do we get there? Of course, I’m biased in terms of saying that you should use the online record as a proxy to answer some of these sorts of questions. But the reality is that new solutions that are out there are only going to come from a basic understanding of what good looks like to your organization.
A thorough line, I would say between what recruiters are asking, what the hiring managers are expecting and what leadership is expecting from that future employee in that particular outcome that they’re hiring for. A long way of saying, I think the analog is out, A lot of those resumes aren’t getting printed anymore. So employers have to seek and find ways to answer some of those quality questions around quality of hire, about who this person is, how they’re going to act around others, and the basic things we’ve always asked, but trying to use a different primary source of information to do so.
Learn More About Digital Hiring Practices
For more insights into the world of digital hiring practices, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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