It’s time to reset the talent acquisition and mobility landscape
Covid-19 has changed the landscape of talent acquisition and mobility in a matter of weeks. We’ve gone from a talent shortage to large scale redundancies, furloughed employees and reduced working hours. Recruitment freezes are commonplace, as companies batten down the hatches to ride out the storm. This has also led to a significant loss of talent acquisition roles. It’s tough reading on HR forums or receiving emails from friends in the industry who have lost their jobs. So what should we do?
For me there are two clear paths that anyone involved in HR and Talent acquisition should be taking right now.
- For those who have lost their jobs, you can’t stand still, now has to be a time of learning. The focus has to be on adding to your skill set, discovering and becoming familiar with new technologies, changes to work processes etc all of which will help you secure your next role. It’s not always easy to motivate yourself straight after a job loss, but as things return to normality at some point during the year, it says far more about a person that they took the time to upskill, broaden their knowledge and fine tune their existing skill set, than those who sat back and did nothing.
- For talent acquisition professionals still in a job you need to reset your thinking. You may be working in a front line industry, with big hiring targets right now or an industry with a nominal amount of roles to fill. Now is the time to reassess current working practices and prepare for what talent acquisition will look like post Covid-19.
Early this year Linkedin produced the Future of recruiting report. Within it they touched upon something I’ve been talking about at HR events throughout Europe for several years. The need to look at the effectiveness of your hiring channels.
In a post Covid talent market this will become even more relevant. Hiring may be slow to take off again, but you will need to hire quality candidates and companies will need to keep their costs down, so looking at your most effective sourcing channels is a must.
According to ERE, recruiter.com and many more, the most effective hiring channels are internal mobility and employee referrals. Why? Because they not only have lower recruitment costs associated with them, but the quality of candidates is higher, retention rates exceed all other channels and candidates from these channels add to the company’s bottom line quicker. A fact that won’t be lost on companies struggling to become profitable again.
Certainly these two channels should be able to account for at least 70% of your initial hiring. In fact 40-50% of hiring through internal mobility and 30% through referrals were common industry goals pre Covid-19, when talent was perhaps harder to come by. Let’s not forget, due to slowing birth rates, we’re still facing a talent shortage. There may be a temporary reprieve immediately post covid-19 but don’t expect that to last too long.
Employees will assess how their company is treating them during this time of crisis. It means those that reset their talent focus to accommodate improved internal mobility and referrals will be best placed to retain their talent and to attract quality candidates.
Taking the time now to reset these two key talent mobility and acquisition channels will ensure you find yourself better placed to meet the future budgetary restrictions and hiring requirements of your company.