The situation is even more intense given the hyper-competitive nature of most buying and selling journeys. Often, the difference between winning and losing is razor-thin — and sales talent can be the factor that separates you from the competition. In this context, the quality of your sales team becomes more than a differentiator — it becomes a defining factor of success.

Selection Matters More Than Ever

Hiring sales reps has never been easy. But in a tighter economy, the stakes are higher. Every new hire represents a significant investment — and every mis-hire costs more than just dollars. It costs momentum, morale, and market share. That’s why a rigorous, data-driven approach to sales rep selection and hiring is essential for building a high-performing sales team. It’s about more than resumes and interviews — it’s about identifying the capabilities, skills, tendencies, and motivators that truly drive sales performance.

Traditional and unstructured methods for evaluating what separates top-performing sales reps from average or underperforming reps simply don’t work.

Don’t Just Look Outside — Assess Inside

But the focus shouldn’t stop at new hires. Your current sales team holds untapped potential — if you know where to look. Sales assessment tools can help you gain deeper insight into your team’s skills, preferences, and strengths. Are they wired for complex consultative selling, or better suited to faster-moving, transactional deals? Do their behaviors align with your sales strategy? Are they being deployed in the right roles, with the right types of stakeholders and accounts?

Sales assessments aren’t about judgment — they’re about alignment. When you understand your team at a deeper level, you can deploy them more strategically, coach more effectively, and ultimately win more often.

The Players and the Playbook

Many organizations have invested heavily in sales methodologies, training programs, and playbooks. But even the best methodology or strategy will underperform if it doesn’t align with the people responsible for executing it. That’s why it’s essential to align the players and the playbook — understanding both what your salespeople are naturally good at and how to support them with the right tools, processes, and positioning. The right approach to sales assessment is critical.

A Smarter, More Strategic Approach

Winning in this market isn’t about working harder. It’s about working smarter — selecting the right people, understanding your current team’s strengths, and aligning your talent with your go-to-market strategy. That’s how you turn fewer opportunities into more wins. Because in a world where every at-bat matters, you can’t afford to leave performance to chance.

At Talogy, we have decades of experience helping organizations understand, predict, and enhance sales success — in all types of markets. We bring proven, science-backed solutions that have driven results for high-performing organizations around the world. Let us help you maximize your sales performance by aligning your talent and strategy for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities.

If you’re exploring ways to improve sales effectiveness, reduce mis-hires, or align your sales talent with business goals, we’d love the opportunity to talk with you. Learn more at talogy.com.

The Challenge of Hiring in an Uncertain Market

Talent shortages persist in high-demand fields such as technology, healthcare, and skilled trades, where companies are competing for a limited pool of candidates. At the same time, other sectors have seen workforce reductions, leaving a larger number of job seekers vying for fewer positions. This volatility requires organizations to rethink their approach to talent acquisition and development.

Instead of reacting to short-term fluctuations, companies must focus on hiring smarter—ensuring that each new hire is a high-quality, high-impact decision.

Why Smarter Hiring Matters More Than Ever

Regardless of whether the candidate pool is too small or too large, organizations need consistent, science-based methods to ensure they are selecting the right talent. Making the wrong hire can be costly—not only in terms of financial resources but also in lost productivity, team disruption, and cultural misalignment.

Science-based hiring practices, including validated assessments, structured interviews, and data-driven talent insights, help organizations:

• Identify candidates with the right skills and fit: Beyond just qualifications and experience, assessments can help determine cognitive ability, problem-solving skills, emotional intelligence, leadership potential, and cultural alignment.
• Reduce turnover and increase retention: A poor hiring decision often leads to higher attrition. Assessments help organizations ensure they’re selecting candidates who are likely to succeed and stay within their unique environment and culture.
• Make objective, data-backed decisions: In times of uncertainty, gut instinct isn’t enough. A structured, science-based approach reduces bias and increases the likelihood of hiring success.
• Future-proof the workforce: By evaluating enduring leadership skills and potential, organizations can hire people who can adapt, learn, and grow as business needs evolve.

Hiring Success Isn’t About More Candidates—It’s About the Right Candidates

It’s a common misconception that a larger candidate pool makes hiring easier. In reality, more applicants do not necessarily mean better hires. Without the right tools, sorting through hundreds (or thousands) of resumes can lead to wasted time, inconsistent evaluations, and ultimately increased hiring risks.

On the flip side, when talent is scarce, it’s even more critical to make every hire count. The cost of a bad hire increases when the talent pool is smaller, as finding a replacement is even more challenging.

This is why organizations should shift their focus from “more candidates” to better-fit candidates. By leveraging proven assessments and structured hiring processes, organizations can increase their chances of hiring people who will thrive in their roles and contribute to business success.

The Right Hire is Important—No Matter the Economy

Whether companies are growing or downsizing, hiring decisions have a long-term impact. Every employee contributes to company culture, team dynamics, and business performance. Organizations that prioritize data-driven hiring and talent assessment strategies will be better positioned to succeed, no matter the economic landscape.

The bottom line? In an uncertain hiring market, one thing remains certain: making the right hiring decision is always mission-critical. Organizations that invest in smart, science-backed hiring practices will build stronger, more resilient workforces—today and for the future.

Want to learn more about how data-driven assessments can help you hire smarter? Connect with Talogy to explore science-based solutions that improve hiring accuracy and drive long-term success.

That’s why it’s crucial to focus on building resilience within yourself and your teams.

Resilience is what gives us the strength to cope with the stressors and hardships around us and bounce back from them. While resilience will not help to eliminate the stressors in your life, it will help you to develop productive ways to process and recover from traumatic events.

The tricky part about resilience is that it’s not something that comes naturally to everyone. You have to actively work towards it to build the skill within you which is very achievable if you put in the time and effort. One such strategy involves reframing your approach to training and learning. By embracing a Blended learning approach, you can give yourself and your team the resources they need to hone their own skills and resilience.

@CaliperCorp breaks down the topic of #BlendedLearning in their latest blog. See why you should embrace a #flexible approach to #Learning and #Development:
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What is Blended Learning?

Blended learning is the combination of online learning approaches mixed with offline, in-person instruction. This approach offers individuals more control over the time, place, and pace of their experience, granting them the power to dictate their own path. By combining online learning with instructor-led sessions, participants enjoy a blend of e-learning and traditional learning. 

The future of work is gearing up to be flexible, and your approach to learning and development should follow suit. Blended learning opens the door to more growth and training opportunities since it works around the needs and schedules of each individual.

Building Resilience With Blended Learning

When it comes to building resilient employees, the key is to promote a culture of flexibility. Learning how to handle sudden changes and setbacks is crucial to be prepared for when a disruptive event actually comes about. And, as we discussed earlier above, blended learning is a highly flexible and customizable approach to learning and development. Your team will see benefits from following a blended learning approach like:

• Reduced spending — web-based training is more cost-effective and easier to access than traditional learning strategies. Without conventional barriers like location and cost, employees enjoy access to a greater number of opportunities.
• Customized training — your team is in charge of their development path and the time it takes to achieve it. By focusing on the areas of training they need most, they can increase the likelihood of knowledge retention.

If the events of the past year and a half have shown us anything, it’s how quickly our routines can change. After having had to adjust to remote work, virtual learning, online classes, and zoom sessions, we’ve seen that offering a digital platform for training and collaboration works. With easier access to information and communication tools, your employees can navigate their own growth and development path.

With the support of #BlendedLearning, employers can start building and enhancing the #resilience of their employees. See how in @CaliperCorp’s latest blog:
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Implementing Blended Learning In Your Workplace

The nice thing about implementing blended learning into your workplace? It’s simple! All you need to do is follow four simple steps to get started:

1. Survey Your Team

Talk with your managers, SMEs, existing employees, and leaders to gather insight into their professional development goals. What do they hope to learn more about? How best do they retain information? What method of learning do they prefer? Use these answers to identify what needs your team has and what they hope to improve upon.

2. Discuss Your Approach

Now that you know what employees want to improve upon, talk with them about how best to work together to obtain this goal. Are you able to provide them with an e-learning solution so that they can learn on their own time? Or is an instructor-led course more fitting? Collaborate to build out an approach to learning that works for both parties.

3. Combine Strategies

The glory of blended learning is that it combines all of the resources and flexibility of virtual learning with all of the support and insight of instructor-led courses. This means that you can incorporate all your educational resources to help your employees grow within their skills.

4. Gather Feedback

Before, during, and after each stage of the development cycle, you should talk to your teams and gather feedback on the process. Have you been providing everything that they need to further their learning? What parts of the process are working well, and which need to be improved? Are there a sufficient number of both online resources and in-person opportunities? Once you have the answers to questions such as these, you can begin adjusting your strategy for the future.

A highly skilled, highly resilient workforce is possible. If you devote ample time and energy, you can devise a solid development strategy. By embracing a flexible approach to learning and development like blended learning, you can start strengthening the independence and resilience of your employees. The result? A more talented workforce that is better equipped to withstand any disruptions the future may bring.

Your workforce is ready to reach its full potential, and we want to help you. By utilizing a blended learning approach, you can equip your team with the skills they need to succeed at the pace that works for them.

But, the good news is that you don’t need to entirely reinvent the wheel when it comes to modern recruitment strategies. Rather, all it takes is tweaking your existing strategies and investing in a more enjoyable and flexible candidate experience. So, read on for tips to help you create an engaging and successful hiring process that will help you land the best talent available.

@CaliperCorp says by focusing on these 3 areas, you can better attract, #recruit, and retain top #talent. Read more on their latest blog:
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Meet Candidates Where They Are

Today’s job seekers use a plethora of career sites, social media platforms, and talent exchange networks to find and apply for jobs. What’s more, many candidates today want a job application process that is quick, simple, and able to be done from anywhere. So what does this mean for you, the recruiter? 

Whenever possible, aim for quick apply functionality or mobile applications. This will help you reach out to a broader pool of talent and help ensure you avoid a lengthy application process that discourages people from applying. Recruiters would also benefit from utilizing numerous social media platforms and career sites to attract and hire top talent. Make sure to post job postings across all sites that you utilize to be sure that potential applicants see and interact with your posts.

Did you know: Roughly 79% of the working population won’t see your job posting? Expand the sites and networks you promote open positions on to better reach this demographic.

Find A Structure That Encourages Top Talent To Stay

There’s no denying that Covid-19 has transformed the way we do business. First, people had to adjust to working from home quickly, and the perks of being in the office were replaced promptly by the benefits of a flexible work environment. While there were undoubtedly some hiccups along the way, most organizations found solid ground to rebuild their frameworks. At the same time, their employees clocked in from their home office, couches, and kitchen tables. 

Now, after having had a taste of the freedom and flexibility that comes with remote or flex work formats, it’s clear that employees want some of these freedoms to stay. 

While a fully remote format might not work for every business, employers can work with their teams to find ways to implement some more ownership of what their work experience is like. Maybe the best option for you and your team is to have a flex work schedule, where part of the week is done in the office, and the other part is done from home. Maybe your employees want a bit more flexibility with what time they get their tasks done in a day. In 2021, a great competitive advantage for recruiting is offering support and tools for employees to create a healthy work-life balance.

When it comes to the war for top #talent, @CaliperCorp says you need to pay attention to these 3 areas to beat out the competition:
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Focus On The Candidate Experience

We’ve said it before, and we will continue to say it again — providing a stellar candidate experience is crucial for you to succeed when it comes to recruiting. 

The candidate experience can make or break your ability to attract and hire top talent. When you fail to provide the resources, tools, and support necessary to have an efficient and enjoyable application process, you risk losing out on highly qualified candidates. Not only can you lose out on a great applicant, but 72% of candidates who have had a poor application experience are likely to share that experience with others. This means that your employer reputation is at risk of taking a hit, and as we all know, bad news can travel quickly.

Did you know: 60% of job seekers would abandon an application if the process is too lengthy or complex. Keep your process simple; it benefits everybody!

To avoid this potential trouble, recruiters need to invest in a positive candidate experience. What does this look like? A positive candidate experience engages with candidates the moment they interact with your job posting and nurtures them throughout every step of the hiring process. Your application process needs to be simple. You need to ensure you maintain consistent communication with applicants to explain what they can expect regarding responsiveness and procedures clearly. Remember — it’s always better to overcommunicate than it is to leave a candidate wondering what comes next.

Looking Towards The Future

After a year of sudden changes and unexpected adjustments, recruiters are ready to ramp up their hiring efforts and stack their teams with the best talent on the market. While the fight for talent will be tough, there are some quick and easy ways you can tighten up your strategy before you dive in. With the right processes in place, you and your hiring team can easily nudge out the competition when it comes to attracting and recruiting top talent. 

Our team of experts is here to help you recruit and build a strong, qualified team. By utilizing our science-backed pre-employment assessments, you can be sure that your new hire is up for the job and a good fit with your organization’s culture. To learn more about our Caliper Profile and other personality assessments, reach out to our team and see how we can help you build a better, more qualified team. 

The #CandidateExperience is crucial for attracting and #hiring top talent. @CaliperCorp breaks down 5 things you can do to create a more enjoyable hiring experience for job seekers:
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1. Make Sure You’re Hiring For A Real Need

When hiring for an open role, a clear purpose and a well-defined goal are the pillars of a great candidate experience. Before the candidate ever interacts with your job posting or applies to a job, you need to make sure that the position you’re hiring for fulfills an actual need for your company. Identifying your specific hiring needs before you begin your recruitment process will help you to streamline your hiring pipeline and lead to a more refined candidate search.

Before posting a job description, you should:

• Evaluate and analyze your skills gap within your organization — what skills, talent, or characteristics is your company lacking in? What does the ideal applicant look like, who fulfills these needs?
• Work with your teams to create a detailed job title and description — what can the applicant expect day-in and day-out? Be honest in your details. Job seekers want to know the realities of a job before they apply or interview for a position.

By preparing yourself ahead of time and understanding why you are hiring for an open position, you can reduce the likelihood of second-guessing your new hires or changing your strategy and direction later. When organizations create a straightforward course of action for applicants, the candidate experience benefits.

Did you know: 75% of professionals currently working in their companies were influenced to accept the job offer because of the positive candidate experience they had.

2. Make the Application Process Simple

One of the worst things you can do is make the application process complex or long-winded. In fact, a complex application process is so detrimental to your recruitment strategy that 60% of job seekers will abandon an application if the process is too long. The old adage goes: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Your goal as the hiring manager or recruiter should be to create an easy process that attracts and drives candidates down the pipeline. People are busy, and no one wants to spend hours applying for a role. Some things to do:

• Make sure your job posting is easy to find on career sites.
• Identify clear instructions for each step in the application process. 
• If possible, offer easy application or one-step application processes. 
• Parse through the application process to see what parts you can or should remove.
• Embrace mobile-friendly applications.

Did you know: Before the pandemic, 77% of talent leaders claimed that their candidate experience was excellent, but 84% of candidates stated they had negative experiences while looking for a job. Hiring managers need to create a more simplified and enjoyable experience to attract and retain talent.

3. Provide Consistent Communication

Call me, text me, email me, whatever it may be. Job seekers want nothing more than consistent and clear communication about their application process and the next steps. When this communication lacks, the candidate experience takes a hit, risking you losing out on top talent. In fact, 30% of job seekers ranked communication after they apply as most important to them when it comes to candidate experience. 

When a candidate applies to a job, send a message to notify them you received their application. Let them know a timeline for when they can expect to hear back from you. Have any roadblocks or barriers caused delays in your hiring process? Reach out to the candidate and let them know, and give them an adjusted timeline that accounts for these changes. When it comes to the candidate experience, communication is everything. It is always better to overcommunicate the process to an applicant than to leave them waiting in the dust.

The fight for top talent is gearing up, and @CaliperCorp is here to help you beat out the competition for the best #candidates. Focus on refining your #CandidateExperience with these 5 tips:
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4. Record and Store Necessary Candidate Information

When recruiting for an open job, hiring managers will need to quickly organize and sort through a lot of information. With multiple applicants for an available role, it can be challenging to keep all this information straight. To have a strong candidate experience, recruiters need to record and store information about candidates so that it can be easily referenced. 

Everyone on your hiring team needs to be able to access and reflect on this information so that your hiring process is consistent across all levels. Additionally, recruiters want to ensure that they are not asking for the same information multiple times, as this leads to a poorer candidate experience. An ATS can help you to track, store, and access candidate information quickly. By leaning on tools to help with data collection and organization, you can take your candidate experience to the next level.

5. Be Honest In What the Candidate Can Expect

Similar to point 3 around communicating during the process, being honest is always the best policy. When it comes to the candidate experience, this is especially true. 83% of candidates say the candidate experience would be more enjoyable if employers provided a clear timeline of the hiring process. Your candidates want to know what to expect before getting an interview and what they can expect from working at your organization. It might seem like a small or simple step, but providing insight into what candidates can expect at each step in the hiring process will help eliminate miscommunications and keep your hiring process moving smoothly.

A poor candidate experience can cost you a great hire. By taking the necessary steps to create an enjoyable, efficient, and simple hiring process, you can attract more candidates and beat out the competition for the best applicants. 

With science-backed assessments that enable data-driven decision-making, Caliper Corp can help you to refine your hiring goals and identify qualified candidates early on in the process. Our Selection Report Suite allows you to gain insights into an individual’s traits, behaviors, and personality dynamics as they relate to a specific role, letting you hire more strategically. For more information about how our selection solutions can help you to hire better applicants faster, reach out to our team of experts to see Caliper in action.

But, remote work isn’t for everyone and remote employee engagement strategies require a little structure.

While the extra freedom in scheduling is nice, some employees feel isolated or removed from their team. Additionally, without a solid remote work structure in place, employees can feel a lack of oversight and accountability. Below, we discuss three things leaders can do to implement more structure into their work functions to cater to those that prefer the office. 

#RemoteWork isn’t for everyone. @CaliperCorp offers advice for #engaging and #developing your remote employees that crave more structure in their role:
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1. Analyze & Evaluate Your Current Structure

Chances are your organization has been working remotely for a chunk of time over the last 12 months. While remote work can be beneficial for many organizations and often yields higher employee productivity rates, a poorly structured remote work hierarchy can slow down business and cause frustration. Leaders need to consistently evaluate the effectiveness of their workplace structures and identifying areas for improvement. 

Make sure your workplace structure works for the daily functions and operations of your teams. Are you providing the tools and resources needed for your finance and purchasing departments to collaborate on budgets? Does your marketing department feel adequately involved with the sales team? The structure of your organization should be clearly defined and dictated to all involved parties. To be successful in their roles, your remote teams need to understand the hierarchy of your organization. When you clearly express your expectations of your employees, they will feel a greater sense of loyalty and motivation to deliver high-quality work.

Tip: One way to manage the sentiment of your teams is to use organizational surveys. These quick questionnaires will help shed light on whether your structure and policies are working as intended. Check-in frequently with your employees to make sure you are encouraging a supportive and productive workspace.

2. Lean On Collaborative Performance Management Tools

Without added accountability, your remote teams will suffer. Workplaces thrive when employees clearly understand expectations and can track their task progress in real-time. A collaborative and insightful performance management tool will be your best friend when it comes to remote teams. 

Managers need access to insights to see whether their employees are staying on task and accomplishing goals as needed. Performance management tools allow managers to see their teams’ progress, analyze performance based on historical data, and evaluate the quality and quantity of work their employees can manage. But, just having access to this information isn’t enough. Leaders need to draw on this information to deliver meaningful and timely performance feedback. 

It’s no secret that employees crave consistent feedback from their employers. However, 50% of remote staff agree that they don’t get as much feedback now compared to when they worked onsite. Leaders need to capitalize on opportunities to recognize the excellent work or offer advice on how to improve performance. This not only reaffirms your vested interest in the development of your employees but also helps to break down any silos. By providing feedback and advice, you can grow new personnel to take on additional responsibilities.

Bonus Material: Need some advice for motivating and engaging your remote employees? We’ve got you covered!

3. Encourage Informal Communication and Structure

As you and your teams navigate remote work, creating a formal structure for your days is essential. Your formal structure consists of all activities that are official organizational policies, such as daily meetings, weekly deadlines, and the leadership structure of your business. It’s imperative to create a clear and transparent formal structure, but the job doesn’t stop there. Organizations need to also take an active role in creating a culture and informal structure that encourages conversations and connections between employees.

Your #remote employees want to feel connected to their coworkers and your organizational #goals, and @CaliperCorp says the key lies in instilling some structure to your virtual workspace. Find out more:
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Unlike your formal structure, your informal structure should be less about organizational policies and more about relationship-building. Many employees who have been working remotely have cited feelings of loneliness. The informal structure you create in your organization can help to reduce these feelings of isolation. Having consistently structured conversations with your employees and coworkers will stimulate employee engagement, increasing workplace productivity. 

When you look at your informal workplace structures, ensure you offer ample opportunities to communicate with your employees. While these conversations don’t need to be scheduled consistently on your calendar each week, they do need to be reliably available. Set up a quick check-in with your team, or schedule a Zoom meeting to catch up face-to-face. Ensure that your employees have access to and are using internal communication platforms and instant messaging apps to facilitate quick conversations with their team members. Informal communication reminds employees that they are still an essential part of a larger team with shared goals even though they are working remotely.

Bonus Material: Check out the 7 things leaders need to keep in mind when it comes to managing remote teams.

While employees have expressed their appreciation for flexible work environments, you need to make sure you have a robust and resilient structure to keep those that prefer an in-person experience engaged and connected. Your employees want to feel connected to their team and overarching organizational goals, and they need remote employee engagement strategies to assist. Leaders need to ensure they are providing ample tools and resources to facilitate collaboration and communication. By leaning on digital performance management tools, leaders can easily track their teams’ progress and address any challenges or pitfalls before issues arise.  

Using our Caliper Profile, managers can better understand the motivators and competencies of their remote teams. Our science-backed assessments can be used to provide direct feedback, offer ongoing coaching support and even develop job skills. Are you interested in how Caliper can help you refine your employee development and coaching strategies? Reach out to our team of experts and get started today!

1. Get Face to Face

The first rule of effective remote management: when in doubt, jump on a call.

More than half of human communication is nonverbal. And, we’ve all been guilty of misconstruing someone’s tone or intentions in an email or work chat. When you’re not physically in the office, maintaining visual clues, especially for uncharted projects and new processes, is essential. At the management level, this could mean delineating tasks effectively. But arguably, more importantly, this means your ability to gauge morale, levels of burnout, and your team’s reaction to instruction or company news.

At the first sign of confusion, encourage your team to jump on a call and set the precedent of cameras turned on. Identifying and addressing any concerning nonverbal cues is your opportunity to fix disengagement before it gets worse.

Are you ready for long-term #remotemanagement? Check out @CaliperCorp’s 7 cardinal rules of managing #remoteworkers:
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2. Make Room For Small Talk

Out of respect for everyone’s time and unique workload, it can be easy to make video calls short and sweet. Sometimes it’s best to focus on the task at hand. However, if that’s all every video call is, you’re avoiding a critical part of management. 70% of employees say friends at work are the most crucial element to happy working life. But not only is it beneficial to give your team room to bond —it’s in your best interest to build rapport with each member of your team. Rapport between team members and management will help you work through problems together, learn to identify those nonverbal cues, and build trust.

3. Maintain An Open Door Policy For Check-Ins

The shift from in-office to remote work removed something that can’t be replaced — the ability to notice when a coworker or leader has the downtime and presence to ‘pop in’ and casually bring up thoughts, concerns, and general questions. The virtual workplace is ripe for potential feedback or even innovation to go unnoticed.

Tip: Block out a weekly one-hour window on your calendar for casual check-ins with your team. No need to make it a requirement —encourage your team to schedule a check-in, even if just to say ‘Hi.’

4. Increase Recognition

Gartner expert, Brian Kropp, says that employees’ desire for being recognized for their contributions increases by 30% during periods of disruption. Employees need recognition for their efforts in the remote landscape to maintain engagement and alignment with overarching company goals. Maintain consistent recognition for individual efforts both publicly, and during one on one check-ins so they know their work doesn’t go unnoticed.

#RemoteEmployees not only want a flexible schedule, they want flexibility in their learning and development. @CaliperCorp shares their rules for effectively managing remote workers on the blog:
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5. Focus Outputs, Not Processes

76% of workers would be more willing to stay with their current employer if they could work flexible hours. Employees are happy to stay at a company that works around their personal life. That means the ability to pick the kids up from school, make it to appointments, and tweak their schedules to reflect their most productive hours.

Flexible, remote work allows employees to work at their ideal workspace and speed. Some people work slow and steady on their deliverables, and others work in sprints. With remote management, focus on deliverables rather than employees’ journey to get there, as it likely looks different for everyone.

6. Reinforce Culture and Values

Your team should feel the company’s values through their in-home workspace. Your culture should be conveyed through each email, video call, and announcement. Company culture can often be a top priority for job seekers. And when a candidate can choose to work nearly anywhere from the comfort of their home, offering a fun culture is in your best interest if you want to stay competitive in the talent market.

Further, this alignment results in more positive business outcomes. By clearly defining and reinforcing your culture and values through management, remote employees are likely to feel more engaged, motivated, and aligned with organizational stretch goals.

7. Offer Competency-Based Training

When managing remote workers, maintaining employee engagement is key. And, 80% of employees say learning and development opportunities would help them feel more engaged at work. Remote employees not only want a flexible schedule, but they also want flexibility in their learning and development.

With competency-based training, companies can provide a self-paced model where learners aren’t restricted to deadlines or one-size-fits-all content to digest. Instead, they get snackable microlearning that targets specific skills with a self-paced model so that remote teams can improve their unique skills at their own pace.

The Caliper Precision Series is designed to fuel your organization’s skill development with a self-paced and coaching-enabled eLearning experience. It’s dynamically configurable, enabling managers to customize the curriculum to an employee’s needs. To see how Caliper can supercharge your employee development strategies in a remote landscape, schedule a demo today, or reach out to one of our experts to learn more.

Suddenly, the teams that HR leaders were trying to build engagement strategies around started working from home. With this, strategies have to change in order to engage a team no matter their location. The good news — employees are happier at home and may be more likely to stay in their current position simply because they’re remote. In fact, companies allowing remote work have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t. But when so many open job opportunities are remote, you need to stay competitive and pay attention to what employees want in the virtual workplace to really motivate and engage remote workers.

What They Really, Really Want

When social activities and travel came to a standstill, employees craved forward motion. In fact, 70% of US employees are at least somewhat likely to leave their current company and accept an offer with a new company known for investing in employee learning and development.

#EmployeeDevelopment and engagement go hand-in-hand in the virtual workplace. Keep your teams engaged with these tips from @CaliperCorp:
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When teams only see each other over occasional Zoom calls, perks like catered lunches, in-person team-building retreats, and happy hours you depended on for engagement don’t make sense. In a remote work world, employees want their skills developed.

A look at the stats:

• 80% of employees say learning and development opportunities would help them feel more engaged at work
• 61% of employees (including those who already received training) said they need more to do their jobs better.
• Most employees (74%) don’t believe they are reaching their full potential.
• Since the start of COVID-related remote work,  78% of employees pursued training opportunities on their own, regardless of whether their employers have provided them with any.

This article will explain why employee development and engagement go hand-in-hand in the virtual workplace and how you can move your strategies in the right direction.

Retention Security: Achieved

You already know how valuable employee retention is to your company’s budget. Some studies predict that every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs 6 to 9 months’ salary on average. For a manager making $60,000 a year, that’s $30,000 to $45,000 in recruiting and training expenses to fill the position.

When people feel valued and invested in, they are less likely to look at other opportunities. As a company invests in its people’s growth, employees see that they can accomplish their personal growth goals within the organization. They subsequently grow in their commitment to the company and its goals. Some examples of learning and development initiatives that support employee retention include:

• Identify individual’s strengths with suggestions on how to leverage day-to-day tasks
• Professional coaching & goal setting
• Competency-based training & skill development

Leaders Ready at the Helm

When you develop great talent, they’ll see a future for themselves at your organization. If done right, this means effective succession planning and a pipeline of future leaders. The ability to do this lies in your ability to improve organizational readiness and identify successors for critical positions at any given time. Through coaching, goal alignment, and continuous skill development, employees will feel more invested in your company goals and mission regardless of their career stage.

Developed leaders are ready to react to crises and organizational change. Teams look to their leaders in times of crisis and sudden change. With the right training, leaders and future leaders alike can work in real-time with real information and within the context of their day-to-day work to ensure preparedness.

Seeking an engaged team with low #attrition? @CaliperCorp says the secret is #TrainingandDevelopment. See how it’s done:
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Collaboration From Afar

Even from the comfort of their own home, employees want a sense of strong team collaboration to stay engaged. An ADP Research Institute study found that feeling part of a team is a massive factor in employee engagement. It found that employees who felt like they were part of a team were more than twice as likely to be fully engaged. Improving the closeness and collaboration of a team becomes intangible in the virtual workplace, but it’s not impossible.

Individuals on a team can benefit from:

• Increased self-awareness training
• Appreciation of diverse personalities and backgrounds
• Talent audits to identify and leverage strengths
• Tools to improve communication and group work

Through improved collaboration and training, individuals on teams are likely to acquire new skills and learn from each other, continuously improving future collaboration and boosting engagement levels.

Knowing the connection between development and engagement isn’t enough. You need a clear strategy with context — as employee development is an ongoing process. As you work to motivate and engage your remote workers, lean on training and development. Investing in trustworthy collaborations and development tools brings them together when separated geographically.

With Caliper’s Precision Series, you can maximize employee strengths and develop areas of improvement through practical skills development — resulting in engaged, productive employees.

Reach out to see how Caliper can help improve your remote employee engagement through targeted learning and development.

Traditional learning is a large commitment for employees, and online courses can be hit-or-miss — the curriculum may cover inapplicable abstract theory, basic concepts, or irrelevant content. It can be difficult for employers to find impactful learning programs where employees can bring back knowledge and developed skills that result in recognizable, quantifiable results.

Competency-based learning, however, provides a customized opportunity with a reasonable amount of commitment for employees to continue learning, develop their skill sets, and become more effective in their role.

What Is Competency-Based Learning?

Competency-based learning uses a self-paced model, where learners aren’t restricted to the classroom in which they must meet curriculum deadlines or have long pieces of one-size-fits-all content to digest. It provides a more flexible learning schedule for employees and focuses on improving the current role’s skills. It doesn’t look to cover the depth of a subject, but rather the development of an area or skill.

Is your training model outdated, and your employees’ skillsets plateauing? @CaliperCorp explains why competency-based learning makes for stronger #EmployeeDevelopment.
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For employees, they have more control over their learning and can balance their workloads better. Instead of taking university courses (which require an application process and a large sum of tuition) or online classes (which may not be specifically valuable), you can tailor competency-based learning to the employee to develop the skills they need, thereby improving the output of their role.

Employers looking to improve employee skills for a specific role can use competency-based education to save on higher costs that a university would require, implement a specific curriculum for the role that would lead to better outcomes, and allow the employee to better balance learning with work.

Bonus Material: Caliper breaks down the benefits of using a Competency-Based Training Model in your workplace.

How Does It Provide Continual Learning & Professional Development?

Using a competency-based learning model allows employees to continue learning beyond the classroom and improve their skills on their time. Unlike traditional schooling, where employees put a degree on their resume, they instead develop the professional skill sets needed for their specific role.

Competency-based training offers practical soft skills for the workforce in areas such as influence and persuasion, driving results, learning agility, active listening, etc. The employee can enhance their skill in an area and then work on developing it on-the-job. It’s a win-win scenario, with more control over the cost of learning for the company and greater flexibility for the employee.

Bonus Material: Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our Emotional Intelligence series to see how you and your employees can develop your soft skills and foster a culture of success in your organization.

Continual Learning with the Caliper Precision Series

When you implement competency-based training, it’s going to be different than other forms of training. When we look for continual learning, we look for the following criteria:

• Practical, specific skills development with coaching-enabled eLearning.
• Self-paced. Usually, it allows employees greater flexibility without multiple hard deadlines.
• Complementary to current roles. The skill does not replace training but makes the employee more effective in their current role.
• An ongoing process so that the skill acquired has more than a single-use case or isolated value.

Competency-based training is taking over, and it’s the catalyst for more effective #EmployeeDevelopment. Companies save costs, and employees grow professionally. Learn more about competency-based training here with @CaliperCorp
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Companies usually implement their competency-based curriculum in-house, but it can be a substantial amount of work to maintain the curriculum, measure its effectiveness, and add new skills. Furthermore, determining whether it’s effective can be difficult among smaller sample sizes. Many times, companies need to develop the skills of employees that no one in the company has. This is why many companies look for external sources of learning. Nonetheless, finding a credible source of learning can be a hassle.

Tip: When employees have the flexibility and freedom to take ownership of their career development, it creates a culture of self-management. In today’s workforce, 72% of employees say they desire a role that allows for professional development. Utilize this desire to grow to transform your managers into great leaders.

The Caliper Precision Series helps develop employees by providing snackable, microlearning content broken up into modules for skill development. Each module allows managers to coach employees with focus areas. The Precision Series is dynamically configurable, enabling managers to customize the curriculum to the employee’s needs. The series scales learning among employees with nearly unlimited opportunities.

Competency-based learning is a practical option for companies to develop employees’ skills to save costs, provide flexibility, and enable employee growth. Choosing a competency-based training option, such as the Precision Series, is vital to the objective’s success.

Do you want to learn more about competency-based training and how it can transform the productivity of your workforce? Check out our Caliper Precision Series and see how it can move your team’s learning objectives forward. Or, for more information about how Caliper helps develop strong leaders, reach out to one of our experts or sign up for your free demo today.

How is Remote Management Different?

Remote management poses unique challenges for managers. Whereas in a traditional office setting, managers can easily track progress on any given project, they are not granted this luxury in a virtual environment. With this, communication barriers can prove difficult to surmount. When organizations fail to consistently communicate about goals, projects, and processes, silos can occur. 

85% of businesses cite #remote policies as having improved overall #productivity. What does #RemoteManagement look like in 2020? @CaliperCorp says your current talent management processes might need some adaptation:
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The lack of connection that comes from working in silos can be detrimental to your organizations’ culture. 26% of surveyed employees cite feelings of loneliness while working remotely. When employees begin to feel lonely at work, their engagement levels and loyalty to the company plummet. Remote management needs to identify and address these issues so that employees stay engaged with their work. 

Tip: Keep an eye out for indications that silos are forming in your workplace so that you can solve the problem before it begins. Some key signs to watch for include:

• Misalignment of goals between teams and individual members
• Lack of collaboration on projects
• Decline in communication levels

Additionally, remote management can be tricky for leaders looking to track performance. When working in an office, it is easy to keep tabs on tasks’ progress and measure employee performance. As managers steer more toward remote management, this ease of information quickly changes. 

Daily successes that were once visible to the company leadership are no longer consistently accessible. Areas in which employees are struggling are no longer clear unless they take the time to communicate these challenges to others. Managers need to find ways to weave transparency into their team’s culture to help mitigate these obstacles. 

Tip: One surefire way to increase your team’s transparency? Make everything public! By working in public documents, chats, and folders, you can keep one another accountable and up-to-date on tasks. A quick motto to live by — if your whole team can’t see a document, it doesn’t exist! 

Tips to Adapt Your Strategies

Set clear expectations and set them often. It is more critical in a remote setting than ever to set clear expectations for communication and productivity. One way to combat disengagement is by providing frequent check-ins. Whether this is a daily check-in with your team to give quick updates on the progress of tasks, or a more thorough weekly meeting, use these opportunities to get insight into your team’s productivity and provide oversight on deadlines. 

#Communication in #RemoteManagement is essential for organizational success. See what @CaliperCorp says you should be focusing on with virtual talent management:
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Overcommunicate with your team. Communicating with your team not only helps to hold one another accountable, but it also helps to build trust in your department. It is important to make sure that you provide your team with the tools they need to communicate. Apart from assisting with tracking performance, communication helps to align the goals of your organization. Share the quick wins of your day, or reach out to others for advice on the challenges you face. Put simply, when it comes to working remotely, you cannot communicate too much. 

Provide outlets for collaboration and team-building. Studies have shown that the social connections in a workplace directly tie to feelings of purpose and well-being. Employees who feel actively engaged with their team are 87% less likely to leave their current position. Apart from collaboration on work-related tasks, it is also essential to find creative ways to connect with your coworkers outside the realm of work. Some fun ideas include playing icebreaker games on Zoom calls, scheduling virtual coffee breaks, or even a Zoom lunch. Brainstorm with your team to see what ideas they have for decompressing after a stressful work week. 

Stay away from micromanagement. 85% of businesses cite remote policies as having improved overall productivity. Remote workers feel they can accomplish more in a day, so make sure you don’t hinder this productivity by micromanaging their work. 55% of employees cite micromanagement as the reason for a decline in productivity. Trust that your employees are accomplishing what needs to be done, and take the time to listen to their feedback.  

Remote management presents unique challenges to leaders, but these barriers are easy to overcome with the right preparation and mindset. The first step to effectively managing your remote team comes from ensuring that you equip yourself and your employees with the tools and support you need to successfully perform your job. Through collaboration, transparency, and a relationship founded on trust, you and your employees can navigate the changes that come with remote work. 

Caliper assists in your talent management process by screening top talent and supporting your teams’ development. To see how Caliper can supercharge your talent management strategies, schedule a demo today, or reach out to one of our experts to learn more.