📖 The Story of Framtiden

Framtiden was founded in 2004, and has today grown to the size of 100 in-house employees and between 400-500 consultants working with their clients. As the Sales and Recruitment Manager, Erik is the closest manager to all employees in Framtiden's Malmö office, and is supposed to look to the well-being of all employees and constantly maintain a helicopter perspective.

The pandemic has brought a difficult time for Framtiden during March of 2020, and they had to say goodbye to both colleagues and consultants. But it has not only been bad, they have dramatically improved their digitalization strategies, and is something that will prevail past the pandemic. It breaks down the barriers of distance, is environmentally friendly, and gives opportunities to be working more flexibly. However, personal meetings is still something that is missed and sought after. During the end of 2020 until now, things has started to move and companies are willing to recruit again.

💚 Erik + Vaam = The Future

So far, Erik is the only one at Framtiden who has integrated Vaam in his work and has continuously used it in his communication. For him, it is a way to convey feelings through body language and facial expressions in a way that texts never could. The messages becomes more difficult to misinterpret, and it is a great way to stand out from the crowd. However, he still uses it as a complement rather than a substitute to text-based communication.

Erik uses the tool in his sales processes primarily. Before, there was a lot of communication through cold-calls, which is something that he still uses, but since integrating Vaam he has noticed a tremendous increase in the frequency which people reply. The ones who are not interested do in fact still reply and reserve the opportunity for the future. Personally, he appreciates seeing the person behind the screen and has learned the importance of being personal since he gets a lot of sales calls himself. The big access to information online makes people more knowledgeable about each company, and therefore it is extremely important to build a personal relationship rather than only rely on pure competency and knowledge. He believes that it is important to build a "I like this person, and want to work with him" way of thinking.

When asked about the usage of video within recruitment, Erik is divided. He has thought many years about sending in videos in job seeking processes. He thinks that the opportunity and potential is there, but also sees a risk that the recruiter gets stuck with a charming person instead of someone with the right competency. Personally, he uses it to thank all the candidates for applying. Previously, he has only been calling those he has had a closer contact with, but this way everyone gets something personal.

The response from sent vaams has only been positive. He has both been able to open up new dialogues with potential costumers, and used it for internal education with his colleagues. It is a new, fun and personal way to communicate.

The threshold of starting to use Vaam is probably because it is a bit scary to be recording oneself. This way, people becomes more exposed, and has to go outside one's box of comfort. It becomes difficult to hide behind a wall of text, and the person in question is more receptive and vulnerable to critique. The fear, anxiety or simply unfamiliarity makes it more difficult.

How do one get over this? According to Erik, he emphasizes on Nike's slogan of "Just do it!".

"Try sending a vaam to a friend or a colleague whom you trust before getting yourself out there. It doesn't have to be 100%. It is okay to be stuttering and saying the wrong thing. It is not the end of the world. Actually, a lot of research suggests that we as people focus much more on how something is said rather than what is actually said. Vaam is a great tool there."

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