By Simon Osman, CEO of iFollowOffice
Modern technology has pretty much changed everything from the way we shop, to the way we manage our money and everything else in-between. It’s also changed the way we work; it even means you can operate a recruitment agency from a mobile device.
But does that mean you should? Conventional industry wisdom says no: that these things are useful, but serve as substitutes for the in-office experience rather than replacements. The notion is that tablets are designed for the casual user: they are for browsing Netflix and playing Candy crush, not conducting serious business. And cloud technology, being famously ‘insecure’, isn’t good for mission-critical IT tasks.
But conventional wisdom changes all the time. The nine-to-five model, for example, used to be the standard across all business – now employees have the legal right to request flexible working, and they’re taking advantage of it. And where recruitment is concerned, they absolutely should.
Why recruitment needs to go mobile
In many sectors, it’s entirely possible to spend your whole career staring at a monitor from the comfort of your cubicle – it may not be the best way to do things, but if you lack suitable investment in remote working technology, it can be done. But recruitment isn’t like other sectors, and its employees have never been particularly well-suited to the deskbound way of life. Whether its client meetings, candidate interviews or networking events, recruiters spend a lot of time away from the office and without the right tech, they might well find themselves flying blind.
Getting on the cloud
Cloud technology provides a simple, elegant solution to this problem – one that more than matches up to the in-office experience.
The first thing to understand is that security concerns, while always a pressing issue, are overblown. Alongside a sort of general technophobia, these fears have their origin in high-profile incidents like 2014’s iCloud hack, and in bad experiences with cloud service providers. In the former case – as is the case with many of these things – this was due to a phishing scam rather than any issue with the technology. In the latter case, it’s because they’re often not providing a genuine ‘cloud’ experience, but a poorly-implemented hosted solution dressed up to look like it. Cloud technology, in reality, is held to the highest IT standards: used properly, it is a secure, efficient business-enabler that allows your employees to work in a way that suits them and your agency.
You don’t need me to tell you how important the CRM is to a recruiter, enabling them to more effectively manage their candidate pool and match them to appropriate roles. When you’re meeting a client for coffee, however, it’s entirely possible that, with the data tied to your comms room, you won’t have all the relevant information to hand. Cloud desktops enable you to log in to your CRM from your mobile device, ensuring that you’re equipped with any information you need well in advance of when you actually need it.
Equally, communication has always been a vital part of recruitment – and when you’re attending an all-day conference, it’s very easy for emails and missed calls to pile up. Keeping on top of your messages on the move is necessary to succeed in this industry: when you’re competing for candidates with other agencies, the ‘slow and steady’ approach will leave you falling behind. Cloud technology allows you to simulate your desktop and access your mail application in an instant – enabling you to respond to your most important e-mails quickly, and from anywhere. Where internal communication with other team members is concerned, group chat apps like Slack mean you to receive and provide instant updates to your colleagues from any mobile device.
Additionally, mobile access to your essential software is useful for expanding your business as well as keeping everything ticking along when employees are out of the office. Setting up a new office, for example, can often involve a long wait for your IT infrastructure to become operational. Employees, lacking access to the materials needed to do their job, will be at a loss. Cloud desktops can provide a good interim solution – but they can also negate the need for a ‘comms room’ entirely. Without having to worry about IT, you can redirect resources towards the things your organisation does best.
Better, smarter working
Flexible working is usually seen as something more beneficial for employees than employers: they’re the ones who want to work 7-3 rather than 9-5, after all. Where recruitment agencies are concerned, it’s thought of as, at best, a minor inconvenience. It’s wise to get out of this mindset: making your company more flexible will ease things for your employees, certainly, but it also expands possibilities for your business.
Better communication; access to the best information available; fully streamlined IT operations – it’s all available to recruitment leaders now. They can – and should – seize this opportunity.
