On kindness at work. No more Krampus-worthy Candidate Experience!

Merry Christmas! This holiday-special episode will talk about spreading kindness in the workplace. You could find the full episode by simply playing the video below, and we’ve also prepared the script for you in case you’d like to slowly digest it. Happy watching, and let us know what you think by dropping a comment on our Youtube video or via our host Elena Galli’s LinkedIn.

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Transcript

He’s making a list; he’s checking it twice. He’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice. Santa Claus is coming to town, and I’m here to lower your odds of getting a massive lump of coal thrown at your head for behaving like such an Ebenezer Scrooge. Today’s theme is treating people with kindness.

Welcome back to The Tea on Recruiting, where we share insightful and thought-provoking content that can help you shape your recruiting career.

What’s Your Workplace Love Language?

Have you ever heard of the five love languages? They show your preferred ways of receiving and showing affection. So we’ve read an article just about that by Career Contessa, and they translate the love languages into the workplace. This is particularly important now that we’re working from home more than we used to in the past. So shall we look at them?

Words of Affirmation translate into feedback and mentorship.

Then we have Quality Time, which becomes workplace bonding.

Receiving Gifts. Now, these don’t necessarily have to be physical gifts, but they can also be new opportunities and challenges.

Acts of Service: these are basically support. It’s when you go out of your way to make sure that your coworkers life is easier.

Physical Touch – now that’s a no no at the office, but it’s translated into encouraging touchpoints. Now an encouraging touchpoint is, for example, when you remind a colleague of how good they are at something specific, or how happy you are and excited to be working side by side with them.

Are you ready for today’s second piece of content?

Effective Ways To Show Workplace Kindness

Let’s go one level deeper. Workplace kindness is when you offer a positive attitude and a good will toward your coworkers. So how do you show kindness in the workplace? We’ve read a few articles and these are the examples that we preferred and we categorize them per love language.

Let’s start with Words of Affirmation:

You can mentor new employees; good onboarding makes a difference.

Feedback. Now, this isn’t only a vital element of your relationship with your candidates, but also with your coworkers.

Quality Time. This means that you take some time aside to nurture personal relationships with the people you work with.

You can do this by organizing team activities to bond. These can happen in the real time or be asynchronous. They can be just for fun, or fun and practical. And finally, they can be either one hit wonders or something that you keep on doing over time. Some examples: virtual lunches and coffee breaks, GIF battles and team playlists.

And the second point here is meaningful conversations that show intent. So you do that by asking your coworkers questions that allow you to get to know them at a deeper level. You also need to be vulnerable and share personal stories that shaped you. Please make sure to listen and not just talk.

Now we’re onto the Receiving Gifts. Love language in the workplace; what are some examples?

So first of all, assuming that you’re thinking about a coworker, that’s also your peer. If you can’t offer them new opportunities or challenges, that is, you can still provide them with so many possible material presents. So, for example, if it’s someone’s birthday, you can send them flowers, you can send them a yummy treats or maybe a board game they would like. You can also have lunch delivered to someone who’s been really busy lately so that you can make their life a little better.

But it doesn’t have to be a physical gift, per say, it doesn’t have to be a monetary sacrifice on your end. You can also send to your colleagues a link to an article, or a video about something that makes them feel seen.

And now the Acts of Service:

You should probably learn and follow your teammates’ work preferences. And you can do it through a user manual, for instance, where every employee gets to share in a document the ways that they prefer to work.

Second thing is you can make time for other employees in need. So schedule some time aside for those who ask you and you can step in if you have an on call rotation for someone who’s been working overtime lately.

And now we’re onto the Physical Touch category. Now, as I said before, don’t touch anyone at the office. This is to be intended as a metaphorical thing. As we said earlier, Career Contessa categorized it as encouraging touchpoints when translated into an office environment. So what are some examples of this?

You should signal your coworkers good performance, their positive behavior and recognize their unique strengths.

You can spontaneously provide public LinkedIn recommendation letters.

And you can hand out positive feedback – handwritten notes, or you can also write those on an E-card.

Now onto the CandE Crash.

CandE Crash

The more barbaric your treatment of candidates, the more demonic their Glassdoor reviews on your company page.

Shoutout to a company we won’t name. So after three interview rounds, you asked them for a reference, and then you drop them a week and a half later for a different candidate?! There’s no saving you! Krampus is on the way. You’re on your own!

Got something to say about this? Drop a comment in the section below. We’d love to pick your brains. Help us get better at helping you get better with your help.

If there is anything that you want us to explore further in terms of subjects that we should touch upon or dive deeper into, why don’t you reach out to me on LinkedIn under my name Elena Galli or via email at elena@starred.com.

Now thank you for watching The Tea on Recruiting. Take care, and see you soon!

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