Amid the coronavirus spread, the world faces uncertainty across all industries, including recruiting. How does this global health crisis change hiring and workforce management, and how will organizations restore normalcy once it is over? Here’s how COVID-19 has forced companies to switch to flexible recruitment and onboarding strategies.
As COVID-19 continues to sweep the country and the world, companies keep on looking for ways to continue staying productive in the face of unprecedented challenges. Managing human resources procedures, increasing or reducing the number of employees, and maintaining the workload has become a remote process for many companies looking to protect their employees, customers, and society.
The pandemic has shifted the primary sector of the workforce in ways we didn’t anticipate. For organizations that are able, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended social distancing measures have made remote work the new norm. Employees transform living rooms into workplaces, often managing children and personal responsibilities simultaneously. Firms face difficult decisions to adapt to and survive this seismic shift, and recruiting practices have changed overnight.
Recruitment trends in the aftermath of COVID-19
Upward trends
While some industries are decimated by the coronavirus pandemic, such as retailers, others are increasing hiring to meet demand. Hospitals and healthcare providers are the major sectors looking at increasing employment levels as systems prepare for worst-case scenarios that are already perceived or predicted.
And as Americans switch to online shopping to reduce exposure to viruses, delivery drivers, warehousing, and distribution are also hiring on a large scale.
Primary retailers who remain open during a pandemic, such as large grocery stores, pharmacies, and chains, are hiring large-scale to meet demand. In addition to maintaining employment levels, many are rapidly increasing hiring to allow for more extended downtimes or flexible employee schedules.
Trending Down
The tourism, catering, and hospitality industries are among the most affected by the pandemic. The pandemic is driving layoffs around the world from restaurants and international hotel chains to airlines and locally-run family restaurants.
Some restaurants have learned to change things quickly, and traffic restriction services and delivery options keep them on the sidelines during an outbreak. It will be crucial for these companies to assess which staff are required or transferred to new roles.
For the hospitality industry, the effects of COVID-19 can be far-reaching and long-term. Some industry leaders predict that hotels that manage to stay open will take five years to recover fully. Some have suggested an outbreak could wipe out half the airline industry. The rollback effect affects many other companies, from large conglomerates like Boeing to small manufacturing and service organizations that provide supplies and services at airports and beyond.
Bars and entertainment venues are also taking a significant impact due to the virus. Most of them, considered insignificant, slammed their doors in the outbreak. For some who served food, pick-up might be an option, but businesses are closed for many, and employees who used to receive tips are feeling a crisis. Many of them may wish to be a part of massive virtual employment to replace income during an outbreak.
How is recruiting different now that COVID-19 is already there?
Reliable technology is available for organizations looking to hire. Virtual recruitment is a method that allows you to maintain the continuity of recruitment processes while protecting recruiters and candidates.
Firms that persist and continue to plan for the future can attribute their growth during the pandemic to technological advances such as feature-rich recruiting software or video conferencing tools. Moreover, the widespread use of technology to manage the recruitment process is likely to continue after lifting the COVID-19 blockade. As the pandemic continues to push new digital recruiting strategies, companies have started rapidly introducing virtual recruiting platforms for video projection and interviews.
Besides, interviews are now taking place via videoconferencing, and companies have begun to network their Learning and Development (L&D) programs to deliver more e-learning materials and training than before. While efforts to ensure business continuity took priority when initiating stay at home orders, work is still ongoing on improvements to guarantee long-term digital hiring opportunities.
And, it is not just limited to recruitment. Even when it comes to onboarding post-recruitment and employee management, companies have shifted there strategies. Most companies are switching to online cloud-based tools that fulfill their requirements at an affordable cost while working remotely.
Below are a few essential aspects that an excellent online workforce management tool provides to help you manage your onboarding and employee management seamlessly:
Elimination of human error
When the burden of responsibility is on the person, there is always the risk of committing an error. This can lead to lost time and increased discrepancies. Workforce management solutions reduce the chance of human error and provide a smooth, unbiased, and structured approach to specific needs without confusion.
Increase employee satisfaction
Planning and handling layoffs are an essential part of keeping your workforce happy. When there is an increase in employee satisfaction, problems such as turnover decreases. Thanks to automated systems, it is possible to quickly view, approve, respond to absences, and manage planned absences to minimize their impact on your company.
Saves time
How much time and effort is spent each week (or day) trying to schedule work? Using workforce management software can save a lot of working hours per week so that you can spend that bonus time on the human aspect of HR in a corporate environment. A competent workforce manager is web-based, so you can manage tasks from anywhere instead of rushing back to the office.
Increase security
As all employee data is stored on a secure server online, you can easily access it wherever you are at any time without necessarily thinking about security. All your unorganized excel sheets and heaps of other workbooks are converted into online records and stored securely on the cloud.
Cloud-based
A cloud-based workforce management solution that runs as a SaaS brings immediate benefits to both small and large businesses. As the software is a web application, it can be accessed from smartphones, tablets, or computers with an internet connection. Cloud employee management software combines company data on a single platform and enables employees to manage self-service processes easily. This helps reduce the gap between different departments and allows your company’s HR staff to focus on analytics rather than manual tasks.
Fortunately, business leaders have not lost the ability to meet these challenges while working remotely. Existing recruitment and workforce management solutions have assisted organizations in developing and rapidly implementing hiring and onboarding strategies. Automating the entire pre and post-hiring process has also given them the ability to take digital action in a more structured and strategic way. Improving and expanding efforts such as candidate experience, workforce data, and recruiter productivity continues to be the overarching HR teams’ goals.
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