Recruitment on The Other Side of the pandemic

The biggest pandemic in the history of humanity has shaken up every possible business and enterprise as you know it. While some companies are laying off to keep their engines running at a minimal cost, others continue to sail through somehow. Despite the constantly looming threat, some industries like e-commerce, technology, logistics, healthcare, and retail, etc. are and will continue to hire. If you, as an entrepreneur or a hiring manager, thought that recruitment is out of the window, you couldn’t be more wrong!

Here’s something for encouragement-

Although the current year might not seem promising enough, the coming year sure is!

Recruitment and Covid-19

As someone who continually works with CHROs and recruitment managers, I observe and learn every moment of this crisis period. And thus, I have realized that hiring will continue; it may be at a slow pace but will go on for sure. And it brings a whole new set of challenges due to the current crisis. Yes, it’s a tough game out there, and that’s why it’s time to unlearn and have a do-over of your recruitment processes.

Before I jump into what you can do and how, here are a few things to keep in mind-
#1 Candidates are still actively looking for jobs, and companies are still hiring. But the competition is lesser than earlier, so you have an advantage.

#2 Companies need to follow the rule of 3Ps- prepare, protect, and persist.

#3 Harness the power of every possible technology during the recruitment

As the world order changes, recruitment managers need to be on the top of the curve. For starters, the conventional methods of the recruitment process will undergo an upheaval. While preparing for your recruitment process, harness machine learning, and AI-driven software to gather candidate data, analyze skills and cull out the best talent your business needs at this time.

Job interviews, which used to be a face-to-face thing, will have to stop. This is where more innovative methods would come in handy. The idea is to prevent travel and physical proximity. You can use live video interview tools instead. These advanced tools can help in technical skill assessment too. With the right kind of ATS, you can even integrate these within your hiring process.

Make AI, ML, Online videos, virtual office, hygiene your mantra

Once you manage to hire, you also need to do the onboarding remotely. Yes, it does sound difficult and raises questions like – how would we give an orientation? Or, what about taking a tour of the office? Extraordinary times call for exceptional measures! Set up a pre-onboarding process, which can take care of the manual intervention of orientation. Also, let’s not forget the viability of the “virtual tour”!

If you want to gain an advantage over the changing market curve, you must make your recruitment process edgy, efficient, and engaging.

To make onboarding virtual, you can digitize every material that you would use physically as a presentation, discussion, etc. Ask your existing employees to make quick clips of themselves and compile them. Have a video tour of the workplace, or get a live chat session with the Management. There are all the tools that you need; one needs to use it right and on time!

Remember, when I said earlier about the 3Ps, I mentioned: “protect”?

As the ones managing the human resource, the onus lies on HR managers to ensure that they are well prepared and protect their employees. The pandemic and the radical change it brought with it, has affected social order, lifestyle, and even the mental health and well-being of people.

Whether you are working remotely/virtually or in a limited capacity in an office space, protecting your employees is essential. Create a culture of understanding, accountability, and trust to ensure inclusivity and make your employees feel cared for.

But to ensure the welfare of your people, you need to incorporate strict hygiene practices at the workplace like limited or no physical contact, use of disinfectants and sanitizers, creating awareness on health and wellness, etc. Use engaging and fun materials to create awareness.

While employee skills, work performance, meeting targets are essential, at this point, immunity and wellness are equally vital. They will help with improved productivity and employee retention.

Like every bad thing, the pandemic and its scare too shall pass. But we can’t say when and how long it will take to return to normalcy finally. In the meantime, it is all about finding order in the chaos and doing it efficiently.

Tags: Recruitment