HR Recruiting: Creating a New Normal
By Jay Rock
The COVID-19 crisis has seen millions of people confined to their homes for weeks and months, employees furloughed and working hours reduced to unprecedented levels on a truly global scale. The challenges faced by HR recruiters and departments, as a result, have been enormous and with no real precedent for comparison, most have been feeling their way.
The economics of the lockdown situation has placed further pressure on companies to resume operations fast. There is much we don’t know about COVID-19 and with no vaccine or treatment on the horizon, the focus will be on curtailing the spread of the virus as we return to work. Lockdown measures are easing quickly, and the workforce, managers and HR recruiters know that things won’t be the same as before.
Communication is key in HR and particularly during a crisis. Both existing and new employees will need clarity to instill in them the confidence to return to or join your workforce. Now is the ideal time to create a new normal for HR recruiters to enable business continuity.
A shift in working practices
Leading and guiding the workforce through these uncertain times requires planning. A shift in working practices is now needed to maintain vital social distancing measures and ensure hygiene standards are met. If you’re running your HR recruitment team from a busy physical office, you will already have realised the challenges.
HR recruiters and teams have a critical role to play in business continuity and are typically excellent communicators. Ensuring seamless continuity needs an understanding of the risks and a plan to reduce them, which needs to filter through the business to the people on the ground to create clarity. However, changing working practices typically means rewriting the rule book for HR recruitment, so keeping things simple and concise is key. Some of the biggest changes are likely to lie in:
- Routine hygiene habits
- Communication of sickness benefits
- Staff training
- Social distancing
- Limiting travel
- Implementing work at home initiatives
- Video interviewing
- Enabling collaborative systems
Support remote working
Social distancing is one of the biggest ways to help minimise the spread of COVID-19. However, the traditional office environment isn’t necessarily conducive to promoting social distancing measures without reducing the number of people congregating there.
The COVID-19 crisis has meant that for many, working from home has become the new normal. While some tech-based companies can operate effectively and support their employees to work at home, others do not have the infrastructure or procedures in place to do so. Now is an excellent time to ensure the right support network is in place for your HR recruiters to leverage working from home opportunities. This could include:
- Strengthen network infrastructure
- Create specific guidance for managing teams
- Introduce video interviews
- Ensure all employees are fully equipped
- Implement a centralised, compliant recruitment database
- Consider cloud integration
- Automate CRM
- Create flexible work plans
- Keep teams and candidates connected
- Streamline recruitment practices
Managing a remote, disparate workforce can be challenging and time-consuming. Therefore, it is critical to make sure the right technologies are fully leveraged to streamline recruitment processes and increase efficiency. With data privacy a core, mandatory requirement in today’s HR recruitment processes, centralising data from a secure, yet fully accessible management platform can also prove invaluable.
Leveraging recruitment management software
Recruitment management software can take HR recruitment to another level and support vital social distancing initiatives. With the challenges of learning a new normal at work, already lengthy recruitment processes could potentially slow down even further. To combat this, consider automating routine recruitment processes such as:
- CV profiling
- Skills matching
- Powerful, fully configurable search functionality
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Data privacy compliance
- Applicant tracking
When routine tasks are automated, reliance on heavy manual resources is immediately reduced and the pressure lifted. Recruitment management software can also tick your compliance boxes with centralised data storage either within a secure network or in the cloud. This means that you can give access to those that need your data in real-time, yet ensure it remains seamlessly secure and compliant.
How we can help?
Vacancy Lab is continuing to support our HR recruiters with social distancing initiatives across the UK. We’re here at the end of the phone as usual for our clients with no interruption of service. The expert team at Vacancy Lab is accelerating new implementations of our recruitment management software to help businesses like yours embrace a new normal working environment. Why not take advantage of our knowledge and experience and talk to us about your concerns about managing your HR recruiters remotely? Let us help guide you through.