Tag: Employer

Introduction In today's business world, prioritizing health, safety, environmental compliance, and quality (HSEQ) is not just a legal necessity but also a cornerstone of sustainable business practices. The role of an HSEQ Coordinator is at the forefront of this initiative, especially in dynamic sectors across Australia. This comprehensive guide aims to shed light on the multifaceted role of HSEQ Coordinators, offering insights for aspiring professionals and businesses committed to upholding the highest standards in workplace safety and quality. What is an HSEQ Coordinator? An HSEQ Coordinator is integral to any organization, responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring policies that ensure a safe, healthy, and environmentally responsible workplace. Their role intersects various aspects of business operations, from compliance with legal standards to fostering a culture of safety and quality within the organization. Detailed Responsibilities Policy Development and Implementation: They draft and update safety policies, ensuring these align with current laws and industry standards. This involves collaborating with different departments to create comprehensive and applicable policies. Risk Assessment and Management: Conducting thorough risk assessments to identify potential hazards in the workplace is a crucial responsibility. HSEQ Coordinators analyze these risks and develop strategies to mitigate them. Training and Awareness: A significant part of their role involves educating staff through training programs. These programs cover various topics, including emergency procedures, proper use of safety equipment, and awareness of environmental impacts. Incident Investigation and Reporting: In the event of an incident, HSEQ Coordinators are tasked with leading investigations to determine causes and develop measures to prevent future occurrences. They maintain records of incidents and prepare reports for internal use and compliance purposes. Environmental Management: Beyond safety, they are also responsible for ensuring the organization’s operations comply with environmental regulations. This includes waste management, reducing carbon footprint, and promoting sustainable practices. Required Skills and Qualifications Educational Background: A degree in safety management, environmental science, or a related field is often required. In some cases, significant experience in a similar role may substitute formal education. Professional Certifications: Certifications like the Certificate IV in Work Health and Safety or a Diploma in Quality Auditing add significant value. Experience and Skills: Experience in an HSEQ role is crucial. Skills like attention to detail, analytical thinking, and strong communication are essential. Familiarity with HSEQ management systems and software is also beneficial. Career Path and Salary Expectations The career trajectory for an HSEQ Coordinator can lead to advanced roles such as HSEQ Manager, Compliance Officer, or Environmental Health and Safety Director. In Australia, entry-level HSEQ Coordinators can expect a salary starting from AUD 80,000, with experienced professionals earning upwards of AUD 120,000, depending on the industry and location. The Role in Different Industries The role of an HSEQ Coordinator varies across industries. In construction, they might focus more on on-site safety protocols, while in manufacturing, emphasis might be on quality control and environmental compliance. This diversity allows professionals to specialize in areas aligned with their interests and expertise. Challenges and Rewards Being an HSEQ Coordinator comes with its challenges, such as keeping up with ever-changing regulations and managing diverse stakeholder expectations. However, the role is incredibly rewarding, offering the satisfaction of creating safer, healthier, and more sustainable workplaces. The HSEQ Coordinator role is essential in today's business landscape, demanding a unique blend of skills and knowledge. For those aspiring to this career, it offers a path filled with opportunities for impact and professional growth. Businesses, on the other hand, benefit immensely from the expertise of HSEQ Coordinators, ensuring they operate not only within legal confines but also at the highest standards of safety and quality.

Employers want talent with the right combination of hard and soft skills to add value to their business. While hard skills detail what you can do, soft skills highlight how you do it. In many cases, soft skills are the great differentiators between top talent. In this blog, we share 10 soft skills that impress employers looking for technology talent. 1. Communication Effective verbal and written communication enables information flow across a business and its diverse stakeholders. Solution architects translate complex ideas. Data scientists communicate key data insights. Software developers explain how their products and services work. Across all jobs in technology, communication is a vital soft skill you need to master. 2. Problem solving IT Jobs exist to solve one or multiple problems faced by a business. Testers fix software. Cyber security specialists fix system vulnerabilities. Project managers address critical business problems. As such, no matter your technology specialisation, your ability to identify, approach and solve problems are key soft skills that employers are looking for. 3. Creativity Creative thinkers produce the ideas and solutions that drive business innovation. They think outside the box, approach problems differently, and yield ingenious solutions. This approach enables a business to keep pace with technological change, which is key to survival in the modern working world. It’s why major technology companies spend millions to foster a creative work environment for their teams. 4. Time Management Time management is an important soft skill to have in technology. IT Jobs are typically complex and require high cognitive ability to manage multiple moving parts. Consequently, such roles can quickly become overwhelming and damaging to both the individual and the business when not managed effectively. Employers want talent who they can trust with their digital assets. This means people who are methodical, organised and effective with their time. 5. Willingness to learn Technology talent must continually upskill themselves to remain relevant in such a fast paced sector. This means learning new skills that the business needs most. Your willingness to learn will signal what type of professional you are. A DevOps consultant with data analytics skills is impressive. As is a web designer with digital marketing expertise. Or a program manager with a finance background. Talent who is passionate and willing to improve themselves, is far more attractive to a prospective employer than someone who is simply in it for the pay cheque. 6. Leadership All businesses crave leadership skills in their teams. Good leaders motivate others through their actions boosting engagement, productivity, retention, and performance of all employees. These benefits make talent with leadership capabilities a valuable commodity for any business. If you can highlight times your leadership led to business success, this will make you look highly impressive in the eyes of employers. 7. Teamwork Teamwork is the ability to work cohesively with others towards a common goal. Employers must determine if your addition will enhance or disrupt their team dynamics. It will be a key question that determines your employability. In response, it is important to demonstrate how you operate in a team during a hiring process. Employers are impressed by people who are capable, dependable, trustworthy, honest, committed and loyal to their team. These soft skills will inform employers that your integration into their business is more likely to be seamless. 8. Adaptability The future world of work will face considerable disruption and change. The impact of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, internet of things and robotics on jobs will be profound. Consequently, adaptability is an important skill. It makes talent more resilient to change and increases the likelihood that they'll remain valuable to your business now and into the future. 9. Attention to detail Talent with attention to detail are less likely to make small mistakes. In technology small mistakes can be costly. A coding error can break key systems, incorrect data analysis can affect key business decisions, inefficient cyber-attack incident response can be crippling. In a world of increased reliance on technology and rising cyber threats, attention to detail is a soft skill that employers desperately want from the technology talent they hire. 10. Work Ethic Work ethic refers to the dedication, dependability, productivity, and discipline of talent in a job. Someone who is willing to go over and above in their position to get more done. Talent with a strong work ethic tend to be highly efficient and effective in their job, which adds to their overall value proposition. Employers want dedicated and committed talent who will deliver the best job possible. Soft skills are important in the modern workplace. They are the traits that differentiate top talent. In technology, these soft skills will give you advantage while navigating the competitive IT jobs market. At Ignite, we specialise in IT & Digital recruitment, and are always on the lookout for technology talent with strong combinations of hard and soft skills that will impress our diverse range of private and public clients.

Diversity and inclusion in the workplace helps drive innovation, decision making, engagement, performance, retention and so much more. It's good for your business. It's good for your employees and it's good for the broader community. It is something that all businesses should be striving for in the pursuit of success. In this blog, we share five ways you can level up your diversity and inclusion strategy to reap the full value of these benefits. 1. Make diversity & inclusion a strategic priority Levelling up in any aspect of business requires a coordinated focus and strategic approach. To become champions in Diversity and inclusion, you need to make it a strategic priority in your business. Firstly, you need to define what diversity and inclusion means to you. What are you passionate about? What are you trying to achieve? What does diversity and inclusion look like for you? What goals do you have? Every business will answer these questions differently, but 76% employees agree that workplace diversity is important, and so must you. Whether it's increasing female participation in technology, or creating more opportunities for indigenous talent, the path you choose to take is up to you. Secondly, you need to formulate a strategic plan to hit these targets, underwritten by strong tactics and activities business-wide to help you get there. Are you focusing on hiring, career progression, internal culture, industry reputation or all the above? Develop a comprehensive roadmap that’ll enable you to reach the success you defined earlier. Finally, your strategy, and the activities that underpin it, must be a strategic priority across your whole business. From top to bottom, make diversity and inclusion a primary focus and be sure that you level-up and reap the rewards. 2. Make leaders accountable. Diversity and inclusion strategies tend to be driven from the top. Your leaders have a big role to play and must buy-in to enhance your chances of success. Their actions and decisions ultimately determine how diverse and inclusive your business is. If you really want to level up in diversity and inclusion, you could consider making your leaders more accountable. Add KPIs into their job remits. Create incentives that encourage diversity and inclusion. Increase the likelihood they buy-in to your strategy. Most good leaders will be doing this organically. However, if they aren't, making them more accountable for there actions is one strong way to help your business level up. 3. Upskill your employees Having buy-in from leaders is great. Having buy-in from all your employees is even better. The more buy-in you have internally, the more diverse and inclusive your workplace will inevitably be. One way to achieve collective buy-in is training. Upskill your employees in all things diversity and inclusions and highlight the value of it in their workplace. What does it mean? Why is it important? What are the organisation’s objectives? How can they contribute? What’s in it for them? Answering these questions will increase the understanding of employees, ideally shaping their attitudes and behaviours to foster a levelled-up environment of diversity and inclusion. If there are employees who aren’t willing to buy-in, they may not be the best fit for your organisation long-term. 4. Shakeup your hiring process Hiring is the gateway that determines the mix of talent who enters your business. Hire the same type of talent repeatedly and you are doomed to fail in diversity. However, by shaking up your hiring process to attract more diverse talent, your business can level up relatively quickly. A diverse and inclusive organisation must have a fair hiring process. One that is accessible for diverse talent and one that minimises any biases and discriminations that exist internally. There are multiple ways you can approach this. Understand the barriers in your hiring process that repels segments of talent. Introduce artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies into your hiring process to reduce biases. Stray away from the traditional recruitment process by dropping CVs in favour of psychometric and cognitive testing. Focus less on qualifications and more on soft skills and cultural alignment. Be more creative in your sourcing strategy to reach diverse people via niche channels. Create incentives or add quotas to ensure you bring in the diverse talent you desire. Such a shake-up could be just what your business needs to level up in diversity and inclusion. 5. Equal opportunity To reap the benefits of diversity and inclusion, businesses should aim for diversity across all seniority levels in their business. Organisations with a diverse senior leadership team are more likely to foster an inclusive workplace. They bring a larger pool of experience to solve complex problems. They inspire, motivate, and engage talent who share elements of their identity. But, how do you ensure the right people make it to the top? You need to create equal opportunity through your progression pathways. Just like your hiring process, make them clear, make them accessible and make them equitable for all employees. If an employee sees a clear path for their own career advancement, irrespective of their individual differences, they are far more likely to stay with a business and ascend the corporate ladder. When this happens, you are more likely to have an organisation brimming with diversity at each level. Diversity and inclusion should be a high priority goal for all organisations. It benefits you, your employees, and the broader community. In this blog we’ve shared five ways you can level up your business to reap these rewards moving forward. At Ignite, we’re very proud to have a diverse team and inclusive work culture. If this resonates with you, we are looking for exceptional talent to join our journey as we strive to continue levelling up our own diversity and inclusion strategy.

Hiring is like spinning plates. Just as the spinner manages plates on a pole, the recruiter juggles candidates through a hiring process. To be successful in either profession, you need focus, attention to detail and a unique set of skills. You need a strategic plan in place to reach your goals. You have a small margin of error where simple mistakes can be costly. In this blog, we discuss how can you effectively manage talent in your hiring process and keep the plates spinning? Plates, like candidates, come in all shapes and sizes. Some break easily and others require more attention. Some breaks are tolerable, and others are devastating. Any professional plate spinner will tell you that success is highly dependent on the type of plate you spin in the first place. Spin the wrong plates from the outset and watch them crash out no matter what you do. When it comes to talent, all businesses are looking for the expensive china. Yet, with no strategic hiring plan in place, too many are wasting precious time, money and effort focusing on the everyday crockery instead. In this market, businesses need to be targeted in who enters their hiring process. Look beyond the CV and be more proactive and creative in who you identify to enter your hiring process. Once you know who you’re targeting, the challenge becomes developing an effective hiring process that’ll give you the best chance of hitting your key objectives. The best hiring processes are all underpinned by a well thought out and repeatable strategic plan. A plan that outlines the structure of your hiring process and keeps talent engaged and satisfied throughout. You need to consider the following questions: What is your key objective(s)? Who are you targeting? How will you source them? How will you screen them? How will you assess them? How will you interview them? How will you negotiate with them? How will you onboard them? Each question represents a key stage of a typical hiring process where any plate could begin to wobble or fall. The more thought that goes into a comprehensive and harmonious hiring plan the better chance you have of executing it successfully. An effective hiring process must focus on optimising the talent experience. In a competitive market where talent has more options and bargaining power than usual, creating an experience that positively differentiates you from competitors is key to success. To do this, you need to align your hiring process with the features and benefits that relevant talent wants the most. Talent wants respect, honesty, communication and feedback from employers. They want to feel like they’ve been fairly treated irrespective of if their application is successful or not. With this in mind, be honest in ALL your interactions, be quick in ALL your responses, be constructive in ALL your feedback and treat ALL candidates with respect. Pay the appropriate attention to each plate or watch each plate fall. An effective hiring process also needs to be agile. Plates won’t spin forever and are more likely to fall the longer you keep them spinning. In this market, take too long and the highest quality plates will be spun by someone else. Talent, just like employers, tend to want to move through a hiring process quickly. Talent is understanding of a business doing their due diligence (interviews, assessments, reference checks etc.), but they won’t sit on their hands for too long. This doesn’t mean you should rush your process; it simply means be prompt in your decision making and don’t leave talent waiting. Otherwise, you risk missing out on talent with skills that are increasingly challenging and expensive to re-find. Spinning plates is a complex task. As is managing talent through a hiring process. A successful hiring process requires a well thought out end-to-end strategic plan that optimises the candidate experience. This can be achieved by building strong relationships with prospective talent and having an agile and effective hiring process. Your ability to do this will determine if the plates keep spinning. At Ignite, we have established a recruitment process over four decades to help our clients find the talent they need to be successful. We specialise in IT & Digital, Business Support, Engineering, Government, Professional Services and Information Management recruitment. If you need support in your recruitment process, our teams can help.

You’re looking to fill an open position, and it’s currently a race between two. There’s John, the candidate with the impeccable resume, who had a silky-smooth answer to every interview question you fired his way. Then there’s Jennifer, who didn’t tick as many boxes on paper, and who, despite coming across very personable and genuine, struggled to find her words in the interview. You’d think the best choice is John, right? Perhaps not. The truth is that many hiring processes are standardised and can be learned and exploited by experienced candidates. Many employers rely on common interview questions, generic assessments and other techniques that can inhibit them from revealing the true suitability of prospective talent. In the example above, John may appear to be the best candidate, but when pushed further,  it’s quite possible that Jennifer could be the right candidate.  So, if this is the case, how can an employer reliably differentiate between hiring the best candidates and the right candidates for their organisation?  According to this Leadership IQ study, the hard, technical skills found on a resume account for just 11% of hiring failures. This means the remaining 89% can be attributed to soft skills; things like attitude, personality and cultural fit. Evaluating these intangible skills is challenging, and is becoming an increasingly important part of any recruiter’s job. Below are five ways to do just that ensuring you hire the right talent for your organisation.. Complete a cultural fit assessment How well does a candidate align with the personality, philosophy, goals and motivations of your organisation? A cultural fit assessment seeks to answer exactly that. Ask the candidates questions like: What drove you to choose this as your career? What is your dream job? What is your ideal work schedule? How could a manager best support you? Work aside, what is most important to you? A personality test like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator may be helpful in identifying how well the candidate will work with others, or how they might fill a temperamental gap in your team. Gamified assessments are also becoming more popular, with such options often delivered by companies that specialise in providing cultural fit assessment solutions. A company must first know itself before it can identify a perfect candidate. If you can’t define your culture, then it’s almost impossible to secure the right talent.  Ask the right questions in the right way Why did Jennifer underperform in the interview? There are a range of possible reasons, many of which could be totally separate from her ability to do the work. The truth is that no matter your age, experience or fit for a role, interviews are high-pressure situations that can trip up even the most ideal candidates. If a candidate is anxious or an introvert, the interviewer could fail to see the valuable professional that lies beneath. Instead of just relying on talk, it’s often beneficial to put a candidate’s skills to the test. Ask unique questions that negate the use of pre-prepared answers. Even better, give the candidate a problem to solve or action to complete, allowing them to demonstrate their skill set. Abstract questions or tests that take an interviewee by surprise can also help to remove the prim and proper candidate facade and get to the heart of whether this individual is right for your team. Talk with their references References are an incredibly valuable and often underutilised source of information. They can paint a clear picture of the performance and demeanour of a candidate from a broadly unbiased third party. Ask past employers questions like: What did you perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate? How did the candidate perform as part of a team? How well did the candidate take and/or deliver instruction? Why did your working relationship end? Be conscious that a candidate may have selected a particular reference because they know they will receive a positive review. If you get a sense that there are skeletons in the closet, dig deeper to find them with more probing questions. Make interviews a collaborative effort We all bring inherent bias to the table; it’s part of human nature, for better or worse. This makes hiring the right candidate a challenge, as we tend to gravitate towards people we like or people who are similar to ourselves. Often this bias can mask the most objectively suitable person for the job resulting in a sub-optimal hiring decision.  To overcome this bias, use multiple managers (2-3) to interview candidates through a hiring process. Not only do many hands make light work, many perspectives make better decisions. A diverse mix of interviewers will enable you to gather deeper insights on each candidate to make a superior hiring decision.  Take the candidate out of the ‘interview zone’ The traditional interview demands that a candidate dress, speak and act a certain way. This means that the person being interviewed isn’t a particularly authentic representation of the human you have sitting in front of you, or the human you need in your organisation. Mix things up by making the interview less formal. In some ways COVID has forced the hands of many companies in this respect, as candidates are interviewed in virtually home offices and bedrooms. In terms of traditional interviews, consider taking a candidate out for coffee or to lunch, and witness how the dynamics of an interview shift markedly. You can also observe and analyse unique personality and behaviour: watch their interactions with staff, for example. A relaxed setting may just be what’s needed to allow the true nature of a candidate to shine through.   Securing top talent isn’t about hiring what convention deems to be the best person, or relying on a traditional or standardised recruitment approach. It’s about finding the right person – the one who not only has the technical proficiency to perform a role, but one who also aligns with your philosophy and will gel well with your team. With almost four decades experience helping organisations hire this type of candidate, you can trust Ignite to help you find the right candidates for you. Get in touch with our friendly team today.

Humans seek comfort in what they know. We tend to avoid the different and strange, gravitating instead towards familiarity. Sure, we think to ourselves, change might be for the better, but it could also be for the worse. Better the devil you know. This force of habit isn’t great for an organisation’s diversity and inclusion efforts. It means that even the most open-minded and open-hearted interviewer can unconsciously prefer someone who looks, talks and acts like them over another candidate whose differences could bring real value to the company. Diversity, as we now know, is fantastic for the bottom line. Diversity and inclusion thus demands an organisation’s attention if it is to be realised. Measures must be put in place to spur these efforts on, track their progress and evolve them over time. This helps to erase often unconscious blind spots that we all possess. The key question is how do you track such seemingly ambiguous concepts as ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’? In this article we’ll take a look at doing just that. Why measure diversity and inclusion? Let’s first take a moment to understand what each of these words means: Diversity is measured in demographic representation. Inclusion is measured in the employee experience. They essentially form different sides of the same coin, and are equally important from both financial and corporate culture perspectives. According to this 2018 McKinsey report, companies in the top quartile for diversity are 21% more likely to have superior financial performance than companies in the bottom quartile. Why? Diversity encourages broader perspectives and understanding of market needs enabling business to better address and resolve business problems. The dimensions of diversity Diversity has become increasingly complex in the corporate environment. For the longest time, workplace diversity revolved simply around gender. However, organisations are now digging deeper to establish an employment mix representative of the broader population. Today’s diversity and inclusion efforts extend to race, ethnicity, age, physical ability amongst many other dimensions. A representative mix of these dimensions is increasingly perceived favourably by both internal and external stakeholders. However, a certain business will likely have a different employment mix to another, depending on its goals. For example, a 60+ year old recently arrived migrant might be of limited use to an accounting firm with a focus on digital transformation and Australian regulation, as their technical ability (due to age) and lack of understanding of local regulations (due to location) don’t meet the demands of the job. In this case, diversity and inclusion dimensions of focus must be location- and context-specific. In short, they need to be relevant. The diversity and inclusion metrics to monitor Once you’ve settled on the dimensions you need to focus on, it’s time to use metrics to analyse your current position and track your progress. These include: Representation: Which groups are over-represented and under-represented in your organisation? Don’t just look at representation at an organisational level, but break it down in individual departments and teams as well. Retention: Do you have trouble retaining individuals from a certain group? If you do, there’s probably a good reason for it – perhaps they don’t feel welcomed, supported, or a true part of the team. Recruitment: What type of applicants do you attract? Limited diversity highlights a need to sell yourself as a more inclusive employer. Perhaps you need a more universal employer brand or new hiring strategies to reach talent within your focus dimensions. Promotion: Who is selected to move up within your company? Tracking the demographics of promoted employees can be quite revealing. Lack of diversity is often more pronounced the higher up the corporate ladder you climb. Salary and benefits: This is one of the simplest metrics to highlight your current state of diversity and inclusion. Compare the rewards (financial and otherwise) offered to focus dimension groups with those offered to other employees. There should be equal reward for equal roles across the board. If there isn’t, you have work to do. Things to consider when benchmarking D&I It’s vital to first diagnose then continually track your organisation’s progress against these metrics. To assist in benchmarking diversity and inclusion, consider the following: Set and track targets: Your journey needs a destination. Set specific and measurable goals using the metrics above. Assign responsibility, ensure accountability: A party must be responsible for achieving those goals. If your diversity and inclusion efforts are treated as an afterthought, they’re doomed to fail. Incentivise success and hold the responsible party accountable. Report, review and evolve: Declare your successes and admit your failures. Get to know what works and what doesn’t. Your diversity and inclusion efforts must also evolve with your needs, so regularly review your objectives, metrics and targets. We humans aren’t instinctively great at diversity and inclusion, but as the world gets smaller and markets get more competitive, diversity and inclusion is becoming less of a plus and more of a must for modern organisations. Happily you now have the tools to diagnose, track and improve your organisational diversity. If you need assistance in attracting and retaining talent to meet your diversity and inclusion goals Ignite is ready to assist. Simply get in touch with our friendly team today.

“Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head. Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, and looking up I noticed I was late. Found my coat and grabbed my hat, made the bus in seconds flat. Made my way upstairs and had a smoke, and everybody spoke and I went into a dream…” As outlined by The Beatles in A Day in the Life, travelling to the office every day is at best inefficient, and at worst a total waste of time. Happily we now know that there’s an alternative way. Remote teams: the new management frontier Say what you will about COVID-19, it has made us realise the value of working remotely. Wake up, fall out of bed, open your laptop and start typing - not a particularly catchy song, sure, but it is a great way to work, as demonstrated by the sustained uptake even after the worst of the pandemic has passed. The question then is not if you should offer remote work, but how you should manage it. A lack of in-person contact makes the successful management of remote workers a unique challenge: do it wrong and you risk demotivating, fragmenting and neglecting your team. Do it well, you provide flexibility and convenience that could greatly empower your workforce. However, there’s no need to fret. Today we’ll take a look at five rules that will ensure you don’t just avoid potential remote working disasters, but create an environment that could well be more supportive, collaborative and productive than the one found in-office. Rule 1: Give your team the tools they need It’s been a business truism since the dawn of time: give your team the tools they need to succeed. For remote workers that means providing the software, hardware and support that allows them to create an office wherever they please. They need a computer and smartphone that’s up to the task, the software and cloud service subscriptions that allow them to do their jobs, and any peripherals that are deemed necessary, from printers to office chairs. Rule 2: Secure your systems One of the greatest challenges of managing a team of remote workers is maintaining the integrity of your business systems. By giving your workers remote access, your systems are now only as secure as the worker’s laptop, phone or WiFi password… unless you set your own protocols that they must adhere to. The greater prevalence of remote work has shone a spotlight on the potential risks. A recent Apricorn survey found that in April 2020, 57% of IT decision makers believe remote workers increased their exposure to cyber-security breaches, up from 44% in 2018. This jump isn’t to say that the threats are greater now than they were, but rather that companies are more aware of them, which is an exceedingly good thing. Rule 3: Establish a remote working culture As much as a business might hate to admit it, in-office workers enjoy a lot of downtime between the hours of nine and five; the watercooler chats, the cubicle visits (of either type), the browsing of not quite business-related articles. These mini-breaks are incredibly important for productivity, revitalising an employee as they navigate the typical working day. It’s vital then, that you make time for similar non-work activities while working remotely as well. Encourage brunch catch-ups or Friday knock-offs over Zoom. Devote a room in Slack or Microsoft Teams to chit-chat and banter. Run footy tips or another form of friendly competition. Make your digital space feel as much like a physical space as possible. Rule 4: Regular, transparent and effective communication Sure, banter is important, but clear and consistent work communication is even more so. Choose a platform that will serve as the hub for all communications. Conduct a morning scrum to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Establish simple and well-defined ways for team members to ask for extra support. Do all that you can to elevate any voices that could potentially be drowned out. Rule 5: Build an invested team and lead from the front Remote working isn’t for everyone. Some people prefer to keep their personal and professional lives separate. Many simply don’t have a space or situation at home that is conducive to work. These people shouldn’t be forced to work remotely, as they’re destined to fail. Instead, you should build a team of talented individuals who are excited about the opportunity to work remotely, because, as this Gallup study found, engaged teams are 21% more profitable. While an invested team makes your job as a leader easier, you should still be conscious of leading by example. Be sure to practice what you preach, while providing levels of support that more than make up for the lack of face-to-face contact. While the humble work commute may well have inspired The Beatles to write one of their finest songs, these isolated times have shown us that an office is far from a necessity for many businesses. Adapting to a remote working world will be a challenge for managers, but by following the rules above, you can be confident of taking a step in the right direction. If you’re looking for committed workers to go on the journey with you, we at Ignite are ready to help you find them.