Covid-19 has changed the world for good, and as the world of work has changed, the expectations and demands of employees have grown. As the world starts to emerge from restrictions and lockdowns, the race to secure resources has begun and, within organisations, human resources and the quality of those human resources are crucial. Therefore, it is vital that organisations promote, understand and execute a flexible and attractive recruitment process in order to be in a better position to fill jobs promptly with quality candidates.

 That being said, employees now have different expectations when pursuing new roles because of the shift in their priorities, especially when considering their work/life balance. Steven Atkins, Global Analytics Enablement Director, SplashBI, discusses how employers need to think about 24/7 recruiting in a way that they’ve never thought of before, to keep up with the change of employees’ expectations and provide long term success.

Putting candidates first
As businesses were plunged into lockdown for months, employers were forced to quickly adapt in order to ensure businesses ran as usual by transitioning to remote working. As a result of this successful approach, 85% of employees want to continue to use a “hybrid working” model to keep a better work-life balance.

 It is crucial for employers to ensure flexibility as this is now one of the top incentives for employees. Pre-pandemic, location has always been crucial when searching for a job. What used to be a significant barrier to applying for a new job, is now no longer a problem. If candidates lived five hours away from the workplace, traditionally they wouldn’t apply for the job. Now, with remote and hybrid working, opportunities are farther afield allowing employees to have a vast choice of jobs because they aren’t tied down to a certain location..

Additionally, the hybrid model benefits employers too. It means they can spread their recruitment net much further and look for talent across counties, countries and continents.

Over the past year, employees have proved that they can get the same work done at home just as well as they could within the office. It is therefore viewed as a win-win situation for both employees and employers to continue the hybrid way of working as we move on from the pandemic. Companies will have to adapt quickly or they will be left behind as prospective employees will now expect this type of flexibility in their working lives to be the norm, rather than the exception. 

 In today’s rapidly changing world of work, offering some flexibility in employee work schedules is key to retaining and attracting top talent, whether it’s allowing employees to work from home or letting them work outside of the standard nine-to-five schedule, depending on their availability.

Listening to your workforce
Offices are reopening their doors – and business leaders need to start planning. A hybrid model that suits one employee might not suit everyone, and imposing rules that completely undermine the concept of flexible working undermines the concept as well. Employees need to be educated about the advantages of face-to-face interactions with colleagues as well as understand their perceptions of hybrid working. They need to highlight to clients and suppliers the value of hybrid working – before companies stumble by default back into unhealthy, unproductive working models.

The bottom line is that business owners and managers need to acknowledge that managing employees has become  a lot more complicated. As a result, organisations need to put in place a powerful Human Capital Management (HCM) solution. HCM is vital to help HR hire and onboard  the right candidates but even more so for your current employees, to increase engagement with work-life solutions that help motivate employees and deliver a great employee experience. Active management is going to be crucial if they want to build a productive, well-balanced, and committed workforce. In addition, employee wellness and mindfulness are critical things to consider to ensure your teams are best placed to cope with the new demands placed on them.

Understanding and utilising data
As many organisations struggle with the new ways of working, data should sit at the heart of the decision making. Companies harvest all kinds of valuable and usable data from their employees and they need to capitalise it. Decision making is a critical function within any business and decisions that have been taken based on data nearly always produce better outcomes – with 91% of businesses stating that data-driven decision-making is important to the growth of their business. So, if organisations use this methodology for product development or marketing, why don’t they use that approach when it comes to recruitment and retention?

Organisations need to select data from across their HR infrastructure, such as an ATS or Talent System, and then begin the analysis journey to understand employee behaviour.  Organisations are now utilising and maximising people analytics tools that can help drive successful decision making, and more importantly, based on evidence to support these decisions.  In order to analyse past and present data, predictive analytics in HR is needed to forecast future outcomes and identify patterns that may be crucial for organisations retaining their current talent. With the help of these tools, businesses can not only select the important data but crucially analyse the data efficiently.

Conclusion
It is vital for organisations to ensure they never stop recruiting and boosting their investment in Talent Acquisition. Maximising people resources not only helps drive business success but it helps drive recruitment and retention success. For employers, hiring decisions can now be based on talent rather than geography. Employee outlook has dramatically changed over the last twelve months but organisations who don’t adapt, run the risk of losing their talent to other businesses that meet employees personal and professional goals.

 Organisations have skills and talents in the workforce but do they really understand what those skills are and where they are located? Do they know how they are measured in terms of diversity? Can they drill into the information to see which areas are doing well and which are doing not so well? Harvesting and utilising people analytics data will ultimately help drive internal mobility for employees and drive better company culture as well as drawing in new talent and retaining your experts, and all the while delivering improved business outcomes.