Many industries have suffered from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the recruitment industry is one that has had to adapt to the challenges. With so much uncertainty across sectors such as travel and events, many companies stopped recruitment altogether due to not being able to operate or plan effectively.
Planning for the future has been very difficult as a consequence of the pandemic and with lockdowns being announced, lifted and re-imposed, businesses in the hospitality industry have found it hard to know how many staff they require, if any at all, during the closures enforced by lockdowns.
According to CMD Recruitment, potential job candidates have also been scared to leave existing roles because they are worried that there will be less stability in a new role. So, this is another challenge that recruiting companies are facing to get the right people onto their team right now.
How to overcome recruitment challenges
There are a few changes that you can make to help recruitment go more smoothly in the age of COVID-19:
Provide greater flexibility
People have got used to the option of working from home, or working in the office less often, so offering some flexibility around working locations can help to attract more high calibre candidates.
You might also want to consider offering more flexibility around working hours, if this is possible for your business. People who take public transport to work may be hesitant to use public transport at the busiest periods, so giving them more flexibility with starting and finishing times could also ensure you are a more attractive employer than other companies.
Use the job ad to promote your company
How you write your job advert is really important as it will hopefully get viewed by a large volume of people, in addition to the ones who will apply for a role. You should use the advert content to promote your company and describe what is so special about working for your company. You should also explain any changes to policies due to COVID-19, for example if you will conduct virtual interviews for the role. If there is an option to work from home, you should also include these details, as this could help to receive more applications.
Virtual interviews
Many companies who decided to use virtual interviews during lockdown restrictions have decided to continue doing it this way. Virtual interviews have turned out to be a lot more convenient for both interviewers and interviewees. There is less time required to arrange the interview, as there is no physical visit to arrange and direct people to. For an interviewee, instead of taking a day off work from their current job, they can more easily fit a video call into an hour of their day.
If a lot of the job will require communicating by video call, it will also give interviewers the chance to see how good they are at taking video calls. One of the downsides of this option is that there may be technical issues but as long as both parties have the required software such as Zoom and a good internet connection, there should not be any problems.
Improve job perks for roles that are difficult to hire for
If you are recruiting for positions that are hard to fill due to shortages during COVID-19, you may need to adjust your current employee perks to ensure that candidates apply for your role, over your competitors. There are lots of different options for this, such as increasing your holiday entitlement, offering discounted gym memberships, a cycle to work scheme or bonuses.
Some companies have been offering ‘golden hello’ payments where they pay an amount when the employee joins the business. Amazon has started offering new employees a £1,000 bonus payment for starting working in their warehouse, due to the huge demand for workers as a result of the pandemic changing people’s shopping habits.
These are some of the ways that you can overcome the recruitment challenges that have arisen due to the health pandemic. With the infection rates still very concerning in the UK, there is no guarantee we won’t end up back in lockdown, so preparing for that scenario i.e. setting up for working from home is essential for many businesses.
