What a difference a year makes!
In the aftermath of Covid-19, leaders have been forced to re-examine Talent Acquisition strategies, resources, and technology. Numerous transformations have elevated the bar for recruitment processes and candidate involvement. These changes are here to stay.
Human Resource leaders and their recruiting teams have learned to quickly adapt by embracing technology, flexible schedules, and recreating their hiring strategies to keep the hiring process moving along efficiently.
Now more than ever, organizations are outsourcing their HR, Recruiting, and Talent Acquisition services. It’s now common practice for HR outsourcing of Talent Acquisition to meet hiring targets and free up resources. HR leaders are being drawn into more administrative roles and becoming distracted from handling HR-only related business essentials. Today over 85% of companies outsource some HR functions, and over 93% partially or fully outsource recruiting and talent acquisition.
What goes on behind the scenes in human resources can have a massive impact on the bottom line. COVID-19 realities are all over recruiting. Before covid, the recruitment process at most companies was only 40% or less paperless in the U.S. Now over 92% percent of major companies are completely paperless when it comes to talent acquisition. COVID has also accelerated the adoption of recruiting automation tools. Recruiting processes are being reinvented, especially for interviews, assessments, and candidate experience during the hiring process and onboarding.
There is no longer a need for a team of interviewers to schedule travel time to meet in person with a candidate that has flown in for an interview from faraway places. Once candidates have been identified, the interview process can be performed online with various platforms such as Zoom, Teams, and WebEx, to name a few. The candidates, the HR Team, the Hiring Managers, and Direct Report can all be involved in the interview process from their respective locations at any given time. Evaluations can be made together after the interviews and an offer made with Adobe, DocuSign, or other document management tools. Onboarding can be achieved just as easily for one new employee or an entire team. Technology has fundamentally changed the way employers connect, interview, hire, and onboard with talent.
It’s essential to remember that most employees hired in the past year have never stepped foot into their new employers’ office and have only seen their manager through a computer screen. For this reason, many HR professionals now conduct live tours of their offices and facilities via FaceTime or other platforms to give job candidates, and new hires a taste of their physical environment and the company’s culture. Some companies even go so far as to produce interactive webcasts; participants can interact with the host and co-workers directly.
Some companies are introducing “Break Time” every other week. New employees can interact with staff and upper management via live webcasts to welcome new employees, introduce further information, celebrate wins, and encourage morale.
COVID has also had an impact on the way recruiters themselves are hired. Many are now independent contractors or employed at recruiting firms. Companies are hesitant to make a permanent decision about retaining in-house recruiters. Companies are looking for the flexibility of adding more hiring firepower in times of need or ratcheting down as dictated by demand. The more imaginative organizations become with the recruitment process, the more advanced and proactive they appear to candidates.
COVID has demanded a new way of thinking, and HR leaders need to demonstrate to job candidates the lengths they have gone to embrace our new reality. These changes attract talent during the interview and onboarding process and show job seekers that employers are flexible, creative, and forward-thinking.
By Bill Raney, Eureka Recruiting braney@eurekarecruiting.com