When Jacob Morgan released his book, The Employee Experience Advantage, in 2017, he brought a realisation for many about the importance of employee experience. For many companies it is now the key battle ground to attract and retain top talent.

Graeme Johnson, former HR leader at Virgin Media, speaking in Las Vegas in 2016 perfectly exemplified the cost of a bad candidate experience which for them stood at $5 million per year. We discussed this topic further with Silvina Layani, who advises companies on how to create a fabulous employee experience, and we agreed the following guidelines in regards to the candidate process:-

• The Application: Candidates must understand the process and what to expect.
• Communication throughout the process: Keep in touch with the candidate once they have applied. A ”black-box” process will frustrate, demotivate and detract talented individuals who will share the lack of ”human-touch” with their friends and contacts. That means communication with us, the Recruiter, so that we in turn can communicate with the candidates.
• Interviewing: Interviewers should apply a human-touch rather than simply reading a series of questions like a robot. This is an opportunity for a ”customer conversion” and should be treated with undivided attention. It's important that interviewers sell the benefits of the company and the role.
• Feedback: Providing feedback to candidates, even if not lengthy, will keep the experience positive and help them develop further. This will ensure that all candidates, including those who are not retained, will have a positive experience and might create positive brand advocacy in return.

We would like to congratulate the Buchillon Yacht Club (BYC) and its members for a successful start of the 2019 sail racing season! EMEA Recruitment is a proud supporter of BYC - an international sailing club based in Buchillon, Switzerland. The club promotes and encourages the sport of sailing and sailboat racing.
 
June has been a fantastic month for BYC with several podium finishes:

• Gold Medal in J70 Nordic Championship: Held in Hanko, Norway, BYC’s Fredrik Hedlund and his Agera3 Racing Team won 1st place among 33 competing teams.
• Gold Medal in J70 Grundig Cup: Held in Oslo Norway, Agera3 Racing Team won 1st place among 11 competing teams.
• Gold Medal in J70 Norwegian Championship: Held in Hanko, Norway, Agera3 Racing Team won 1st place among 20 competing teams.
• Gold Medal in 5.5 Metre Hanko Race Week: Held in Hanko Norway, BYC’s Christoph Burger won 1st place in the 5.5 Metre Class together with Team New Moon.
• Bronze Medal in Star Class World Championship: Held in Porto Cervo, Italy, BYC’s Eivind Melleby won 3rd place with his team in the highly competitive Star Class World Championship. The event saw 63 teams from 20 nations race for the Championship.

BYC has a busy sail racing calendar for the reminder of the year. Its members will participate in several national and world championships during the next few months. Best of luck from the EMEA Recruitment team!

As we approach International Women’s Day, we are delighted to share with you a new interview each day this week, with inspiring and successful professional women, currently working for multi-national businesses across Switzerland and the Netherlands.

With this year’s theme of #BalanceforBetter, driving gender balance across the globe, the experiences, motivations and advice of these women will no doubt to some prove aspirational. In May, we look forward to co-hosting an event with Heineken in the Netherlands, for ‘Women in Finance’, to which we look forward to inviting men and women in managerial roles to discuss ‘How to be an Inclusive Leader’.

The first interview we share this week is with Katariina Wallin, VP Finance of Black Box in the Netherlands. Katariina moved from Finland to study at university in the Netherlands and has never looked back, as she continued to pursue and embrace the opportunities which came her way.

You can read Katariina's interview here.

Congratulations to our High Achievers for 2018, who recently enjoyed a trip away in Las Vegas! Chairman, Paul Macildowie, and Managing Director, Richard Bailey, joined the trip, rewarding the team who have been dedicated in working to our values - Consultative, Specialist, Committed and Confidential; providing a quality service to clients and candidates which exceeds expectation.

Richard stated, ”EMEA Recruitment would not have the reputation it has today without the hard work and diligence of the team. We are thrilled to be able to reward those who performed exceptionally well in 2018. The happiness of our team is very much key to our success and we were so pleased to see results of an internal ‘happiness’ report recently, in which we achieved well above industry average in all categories, including ‘How much do you trust the people you work with?’ and ‘Overall, how happy are you at work?’. This is reflected in staff retention as we experienced 0% attrition in 2018 at senior level and above."

With existing divisions developing across the business and new ones being created, we are very excited to working with both new and existing clients in 2019 and continuing with our commitment to provide the highest levels of service across the board.