Harness the Power of Online Forms to Boost Your HR Efforts

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BoostIt’s hard to get excited about online forms, especially when your focus is on finding and retaining dynamic talent for your company. But by executing high-quality online forms, your HR department will become perhaps the single most indispensable asset to your company. 

And the great thing is that upping your form game will not only help you attract employees, but hang on to them as well.

Attracting Employees

Avoid Overcomplicating the Application Form: Questions should be pertinent to the job, and that’s about it. Aside from name and email, you shouldn’t ask for anything already included on an applicant’s resume (address, work experience, education, etc.). Respect an applicant’s time, and you’re likely to get a better applicant pool. 

Embed Application Forms Directly on Your Website: There’s a certain legitimacy that comes from allowing applicants to apply to positions directly from your website. There’s also the added benefit that you’re attracting applicants who are genuinely interested in your company in the first place, rather than applicants who happened to stumble across an opportunity on a job board — which is all the more reason to embed an application form on your website.

Embedding an application form is not as difficult as it sounds: just use a simple drag-and-drop form-building tool to create the form, then copy and pastForme the embed link into your site. 

Include the Form Link on Job Postings: Instead of offering a company email address and asking applicants to respond, you can post a form link instead. A beautiful, branded job application form assures applicants they’re applying for a job at a noteworthy company. It’s a move that requires very little effort, but one that helps your company stand out and attract top talent.  

Retaining Employees

Even more important than attracting top talent is making sure that talent stays put once it joins your organization. Most effective managers are gifted in the realm of delivering feedback, but the truly masterful employers excel at receiving feedback. 

Sure, one-on-one meetings may seem like a way to get to the root of any potential employee issues, but employees will naturally hold back in such meetings. Call it “self-preservation.” Anonymous online surveys, however, allow employees to give honest, insightful, and often invaluable feedback. Especially at larger organizations, such anonymous surveys should be common practice. 

Keep Questions Open-Ended: Seeking feedback from employees isn’t the time to ask “yes” or “no” questions. Employees open up when you give them the floor, so ask questions that give them the chance to be heard, questions like “How do you feel about … ?” and “What are your thoughts on … ?” The feedback received from such questions could change the shape of your company. 

Ask Anything and Everything: Job application forms are best when they keep things brief, but employee feedback forms should give workers every opportunity to reflect on their work experiences. Consider asking about satisfaction levels with pay, coworkers, culture, management, facilities, and benefits, among other, more company-specific questions. Use radio buttons to determine overall satisfaction levels, use the data collected from employee feedback to make company-wide changes, and — if you’re really on your game — create charts or graphs based on the submissions you receive so that you can visually identify and present key issues in the company. 

Be Forthright About How You Intend to Use the Feedback: This is a great opportunity for transparency. Let your employees know how valued their feedback is and exactly how you intend on using the feedback. Most employees want to have an impact and feel important — more than they want money, titles, or vacation time. An effective survey form allows you to empower employees to have exactly the sort of impact they desire to have. This comes straight out of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People ;one of his greatest lessons is to“become genuinely interested in other people.” So become genuinely interested in what your employees have to say about their work experiences. 

The beauty of all of the form advice above is that it doesn’t require technical expertise. Form-building tools are easy to use and allow anyone to create job application or feedback forms in a matter of minutes.

Do you have any other advice on, or experience using, online forms to boost your HR efforts? Let us know! 

By Chad Reid