Dheeraj is an HR Advisor and stands at the forefront when it comes to helping Business Owners and HR Heads to overcome Tech challenges in People process. He has spent his last 10 years playing a vital role in assisting Startups, SMEs and Enterprise organizations to harness HR technology for maximizing people’s potential, performance to drive business outcomes. Dheeraj has used Keka as the platform of choice in helping 5300+ HR professionals at over 3000 organisations.
The world of recruitment has changed. It is being driven by the impact of COVID-19 and social awareness around work-life balance, employee rights, remote culture, etc. All in all, changes are happening speedily. Virtual is the new normal. Employee developments and skills are taking center stage, and diversity is the new big thing.
Amid all the chaos, many of us are thinking about ‘How do we hire and retain the best talent for our organization?’
To help you win the war of talent, this post will show you ways to deal with the nuances of modern hiring through empathy, technology, and transparency.
Attracting the best talent
Everyone is looking out for the best talent in the market, problem-solving folks who fit in the organization’s culture. According to a Gartner report, roughly 29 % of critical roles stay vacant for more than five months in organizations.
Why? Simply due to the lack of sourcing and hiring the right talent.
Below is a list of strategies that you can use to quickly hire better talent.
Network: Before you even start hiring, go out and create a strong network of candidates. It is like the practice stage before the action part. Start by engaging with people during conferences or seminars. It’s a great way to meet folks in the target industry.
Leverage Social Media: Most people do hang out on Social Media. If it involves a part of their work, they showcase it as well. For example, designers are posting sample designs all the time, writers post content on different channels, etc. Reach out to these potential employees and bring them on board.
Utilize Technology: Recruitment tools, virtual screening methods if used right will help you to pick the best candidates from the rest.
Current Employees: Yes, your current employees do help you hire better. Treat them well and they’ll not only perform better but refer other amazing folks to join the mission of your company.
Focus on skills: Recently, Google announced certification programs that’ll replace full-time degrees. How cool is that? This will level the playing field for deserving applicants. As an organization, you need to adapt to this change in the market. Start hiring people who drive results regardless of their educational background.
Retention starts with Engagement and Onboarding
So, you’ve interviewed some good contenders for the open roles. But that doesn’t mean they’re surely going to join. Great candidates have multiple job offers, so if you don’t engage them, they will join another company. Early engagement in the pre-onboarding stage needs to happen if you want to see your favorite applicant joining your firm.
Post-COVID, onboarding is now remote. Here, a tool that lets candidates fill in the information and upload documents days ahead of the joining date will help you complete onboarding easily.
Culture makes people stay
Every employee looks for a stable job that provides a lot of freedom and a platform to create their own processes. A set of strong company values helps you connect with employees at a deeper level.
At the same time, they need to feel relaxed at work. For starters, modern organizations have become outcome-driven. Less time is spent on the things that don’t affect the results. For example, employee outfits, work locations (for remote workers), schedule, etc.
If you offer ownership and autonomy to employees, they’ll produce remarkable results out of care for the organization. All of this will lead to people staying longer and doing better at work.
Candidates prefer businesses that take a stand during a crisis
Employer branding is rapidly becoming a key pillar of recruitment as candidates and customers expect brands to take stronger stances on social issues around us. Simply showing the products or facilities isn’t enough. What matters is what the company is doing to support employees, customers, and communities during tough times.
The way brands display empathy will build or destroy their brands. The brands that fire employees deliberately during a crisis will lose the image in public and most candidates will avoid joining them.
Contrary to what many think, employee-centric organizations are what employees care about compared to customer-centric. If you treat your employees well, the stories will spread soon, and everyone will want to work at your organization. However, vice versa is also true.
The Trend that will shape 2021 and recruitment future
The shift from working in offices to more people working remotely is going to have a significant impact as it will change how the concept of ‘Full-time employment’ works. People now have more time and freedom to work from any location, so quite a few will use this opportunity to pursue several ‘full-time careers.’
Job-seekers will think less about specific careers but more in terms of several side-careers and series of journeys. Come-in, get results, and go on the next journey. It is why for some industries, it’d be better to have hybrid workforces. A mix of full-time employees and a group of expert consultants as a default setup.
It also means that management, organization-specific training, part-time office staff will have less control in the future. Staff will be in total control as loyalty won’t exist. Only the output of a person will matter.
Finally…
Recruiters will increasingly serve as the connecting line between a company’s hiring needs and other HR initiatives. But they have their challenges like thousands of applications, incorrect information given by candidates, scheduling interviews, etc. They need more time.
A hiring software that comes integrated with an HRMS will remove all the manual tasks, and with an HR dashboard, potential employees will be matched to suitable jobs. Data and analytics will help track the performance of sourcing channels and the effectiveness of strategies. Reports will foster productive discussions involving leadership and management. Overall, ATS will allow recruiters to dedicate more time to strategic decisions.
As a continuous step towards improvement, everything we’ve talked about will allow you to fine-tune the process of hiring.