Insights from "Hiring Through a Crisis"

As HR and Talent Acquisition are getting over the initial shock and disruption of ensuring BAU as we move to a virtual workforce and that our people are safe, I listened in to a webinar last week on "Hiring Through a Crisis" and thought I'd share some of the insights. It was a panel of 5 Talent Acquisition Leaders from different industries and locations in the US, 3 still very actively hiring due to demand for their service/product, 2 prioritizing which roles should still move forward.

It was a wide-ranging discussion, but some of the key insights, for me, were:

Online Assessments - before moving to virtual interviewers, Hiring Managers need training, not just on the technology, but also how unconscious bias is impacted in video interviews and virtual assessment centers.

Virtual On-Boarding – several companies were getting creative in how they verify employment documents, for example using online Notaries. They have also created virtual office tours to take the place of the on-site visit and give potential new hires the full “office experience”, even if they won’t be coming in initially.

On Campus Recruiting – those companies that hire a volume of graduates every year had to switch to virtual career fairs and assessment centers. Personally, I’ve often wondered why graduate employers still rely so heavily on on-campus events these days and the current situation could see a number of firms revisit this approach moving forward.

Culture change in the business – all expressed that they saw a lot of positives in their new online assessment processes and hoped to use this to challenge some of their businesses thinking about remote working in general.

Hiring different skill sets/demographics – virtual interviews and remote working are allowing some companies to access different skill sets for roles. A very real and immediate example of this was searching in the talent pool of available Hospitality workers to consider cross training them into Customer Service/Experience roles. This could be huge for some firms as the changing demographics in the US are well documented over the coming years and therefore companies will need to look to different skill sets and talent pools that they haven’t tapped in to in the past. So, if this crisis can challenge some of the prior, more traditional views, some companies could come out of this moving towards a very different workforce in the future.

As someone who works from home and is in the process of building a fully virtual business, I fully admit my personal bias on this subject as I firmly believe in the benefits of remote working. I also fully accept that not all roles can be virtual, and many industries need staff in a fixed location.  However, crisis is forcing businesses to get creative and challenging some of the preconceived notions around virtual working.

Overall, it was positive to hear these companies are continuing to hire and move forward and our clients are telling us the same at present, that they have stabilized the business and workforce and can now start to about how to move forward with hiring. However, this must be tempered by the fact they are still hiring to this year’s business and hiring plan right now. If the economy takes a nosedive and demand for their services and products dies off in Q2, obviously those plans will change.

While it’s way too early too look for any positives, those companies that can manage this transition in the short term and can take and embed the learning and practices from this, could come out in a stronger long term position from a talent perspective.

So, while we are still all adjusting and fire fighting the day to day issues this crisis has caused, at some point, take a breath and assess the outcomes and be ready for when this crisis ends.