COVID-19 has changed employee expectations for good – and that means your recruitment strategy needs to change to match.
The top priorities for hiring managers and recruiters post-COVID are skills-based hiring, remote recruiting, and building a strong company culture where work supports life.
- SKILLS-BASED HIRING
Recruiting people with the right skills for the job was hard even pre-pandemic: a Gartner survey found only 29% of hiring managers thought their new hires were adequately skilled and capable of adapting for future skills. With all the changes brought about by COVID, employees who can hit the ground running are needed now more than ever.
Skills-based hiring means job descriptions must focus on the skills needed for the future of the role – not for what it was in the past – and on the ability to learn new skills.
- REMOTE RECRUITING
On the upside, remote work has expanded talent pools beyond the location and sometimes even the country the company is based in, opening up new opportunities to find skilled talent while cutting recruiting costs.
Good remote recruiting requires a lot more than a firm grasp of the Zoom interview and a smooth online onboarding process. Candidates now expect good communication about the company culture, the state of the company, how it’s evolving, and how HR decisions have been made during the pandemic and for the future.
- COMPANY CULTURE
The organisations that do best at attracting top talent post-COVID are the ones with a humanised focus on people, not just work. Your employee value proposition needs to focus on how working for you can improve people’s lives and to define how the company culture will impact them.
Company culture used to mean workplace culture; now that’s changed for good. An attractive employee experience now needs more emphasis on work-life balance and values and less on salary, benefits and workplace perks.
You’ll need to create insightful content about your company culture, featuring employee stories and videos rather than just the leaders and execs. And above all, you’ll need to offer as much flexibility as possible.
A virtual company culture demands less micromanagement and more trust and fairness. Use objective data to measure employee contributions, and go the extra mile to support your employees’ physical and mental health and work-life balance. People now want work that supports life.