Business Info - issue 137

HR IRRELEVANT REWARDSWIN FEW FRIENDS Three out of five (61%) employees aren’t satisfied with the benefits and rewards offered by their employer, according to research by Sodexo Engage, with 19% complaining that the benefits on offer lack relevance to them. Iain Thomson, director of Incentive and Recognition at Sodexo Engage, said: “This research shows that there is a clear lack of understanding of how best to use benefits and rewards to incentivise and engage employees. It’s worrying to see that one in five employees doesn’t think their benefits and rewards are relevant to them, as that’s exactly what they should be! “Ultimately, what the research shows is that it’s all about genuinely understanding the people that work for the business. Once employers know this, they can begin developing a programme that works for everyone, not just a few.” https://sodexoengage.com/ Recruitment GDPR COMPLIANT RECRUITMENT Vacancy Filler, a supplier of cloud- based online recruitment software, has developed an entry-level Careers Page for small firms that recruit several times a year and don’t want to commit to a full-service online recruitment system. Vacancy Filler’s SmartFeed technology integrates the fully branded careers page with an organisation’s website and social media, saving businesses the expense of employing a website design agency. In the interests of GDPR compliance, job applicants can withdraw their application or remove their details at any time. Explaining the rationale for the Careers Page, Vacancy Filler marketing director Jason Staniforth said: “We have been approached by organisations who don’t feel ready to adopt a fully fledged online recruitment system but want to use elements of it, such as a basic job board capability and careers page, and who may want to add additional modules over time. By using an entry-level service such as this, smaller organisations can begin to manage their own hiring in an effective way whilst saving a considerable amount of money through the reduction of recruitment agency usage.” Businesses can choose credits for the level of service they require, from a basic job board service through to a fully-branded and managed campaign. www.vacancy-filler.co.uk Recruitment SOFTWARE TAUGHT TO HIDE GENDER OF JOB APPLICANTS A clear difference in the language used by men and women on their CVs has been identified by hiring software provider Oleeo, in partnership with University College London. A study of over 200,000 CVs from job applicants across the world shows that women are more likely to use words such as volunteer, assistant, organise and social, while male peers are more likely to use stronger sounding words such as engineer, analyst, investment and leadership. Researchers warn that even if CVs are anonymised and a candidate’s gender is removed, there’s a potential for unconscious bias to creep in to the recruitment process due to the language being used. Oleeo CEO Charles Hipps said: “The first objective of our study was to establish if there are key identifiers that differentiate a male from a female candidate’s CV.We found that there are, with the language used in a female CV tending to be more emotive and gender identifiable.We’re now using these insights to train our prescriptive intelligence software so that, unlike humans, it learns to ignore these gender indicators when reviewing CVs.” www.oleeo.com Virtual reality SCAN AND TELL OrCam Technologies has added a barcode recognition feature to its OrCam MyEye 2.0 artificial vision device. The device helps visually impaired people read, recognise faces, identify bank notes and, with this latest update, identify a wide range of consumer products. The device recognises a barcode and tells the user the product name and other important information, such as its weight or if the product is a multipack. www.orcam.com BULLETIN Web design ST JOHNSTONE FC KICKS OFF DIGITAL INCLUSION St Johnstone FC has become the first professional football club in the UK to add Recite Me’s access and language software to their club website. The software makes online content more accessible for people who are partially sighted, colour blind, dyslexic or whose first language is not English. An ‘access’ button in the bottom right-hand corner of the website activates the Recite Me toolbar, giving users the ability to change font, font size, background colour etc. and access text-to-speech and translate functionality. www.reciteme.com www.perthstjohnstonefc.co.uk businessinfomag.uk magazine 08 Flexible working LARGE FIRMS LEADWAY IN FLEXIBLE WORKING SMEs are lagging behind larger firms in the provision of flexible working, according to research by the Smarter Working Initiative. This shows that four years on from the introduction of the FlexibleWorking Regulations, workers in small companies with less than 50 people are the least likely to be offered flexible working, with just 56% being given the option, compared to 60% in medium-sized companies and 74% in companies with more than 250 employees. Recruitment ONLINE BOOST FOR TEMP RECRUITMENT TempRocket aims to revolutionise the hiring of temporary staff through an online bidding system that enables hirers and agencies to compare contractor details and costs, then bid (and counter- bid) for their services. The entire process can be completed in seconds and is accessible 24/7 via an online booking dashboard that can be tailored to an individual user’s requirements. www.temprocket.com