As we approach the ‘return to normal’ and the job market starts to rebound, it’s important to remember that we’re going into a vastly different employment landscape compared to two years ago. Here our partners, JobLookUp, share their thoughts on why hybrid working is a secret weapon.
While remote and flexible working were becoming more common pre-Covid, the cat’s now firmly out the bag and clawing the sofa with aplomb. Research commissioned by the Economic & Social Research Council found that just over 70% of employees want some form of home working to stay in place after the pandemic is over. Couple that with the fact that staff working from home during the pandemic jumped to 30% from a pre pandemic level of 3%, and it’s no surprise that a vast majority of professionals aren’t that excited about returning to a five-day commute and office grind.
Advertising for remote roles on job boards has jumped as a result. It’s now a much more accepted and common thing than before the pandemic. There are a few reasons why agencies and their clients should take this chance to focus on offering remote and/or flexible working, because it’s a hot topic for candidates and an easy win for recruiters and employers.
In 2019, research by one remote work consultancy claimed that job ad performance that included remote or flexible work options performed around 3000% better. Not only that, despite the fact that remote working has now become more accepted, there is still quite a large disparity in what candidates want and what they’re being offered.
Many jobs advertised during the pandemic were billed as ‘remote for now’ or something similar, implying that flexibility or home working will be off the agenda as soon as it’s possible to return to a more normal working environment. This is understandable, but as we’ve seen from the ongoing debate around working from home vs the office, there isn’t a simple answer. Perhaps more importantly, there isn’t a clear ‘winner’ – while the majority seem to want to work more from home, we can’t discount those that prefer being in the office, or those roles that simply require onsite work.
Different roles, different people, and different locations all have their own demands and preferences. Like many other aspects of recruiting – candidate experience, interviewing, and assessments, to mention a few, the focus is shifting away from a homogenised and generalised concept of ‘workforce’, and moving to a more bespoke, individualised approach.
We know this more individualised approach works well (and you can apply this to almost any industry), so regardless of personal opinions on the matter, the fact is that employers that offer choice to candidates are simply going to be more attractive, that in turn will lead to much better employee retention, and better applicants as well.
The flip side to this, of course, is that employers that are too slow or refuse to adapt to these new expectations are likely to quickly find themselves haemorrhaging talent – the much sought-after passive candidates recruiters are always on the lookout for.
To summarise then, recruiters and HR teams should certainly be considering the following as we start to move into a post-pandemic world:
- The global talent pool is now more accessible than ever, waiting to be tapped by a new culture of remote work preference
- Putting flexible working front and centre when advertising roles is likely to attract more talent
- There is currently a massive demand for flexible and remote working that isn’t being met
- Passive candidates are very likely to migrate to employers that offer flexible and hybrid working
Keeping these in mind when developing a hiring strategy could quickly start to reap rewards. The demand is there for remote positions and more flexibility, and currently it isn’t close to being met.
Recruiters should also be encouraging their clients to exploit this. It could be what helps both parties secure the talent they need for the upcoming bounce back, as things start to take on a semblance of (new) normality.
Author biography:
Simon Marshall, Head of Content and Communications at JobLookup.
Simon is a technology enthusiast, with an interest in how the application of science, philosophy, ethics, and psychology can benefit us in both the workplace and wider society.
