The triple trick to post downsizing recruitment
Facing a period of financial crisis is inevitable for any organisation. At some point of the organisational life cycle such a scenario occurs where the final resort would turn out to be downsizing. According to previous research it can be identified that downsizing tends to bring negative consequences not only to employees but to the organisation as whole. It is evident that the long term negative consequences tends to overrule the short term benefits in the context of downsizing. One such consequence is the fall of the organisational image as an effective employer. Once the labour market losses their trust it tends to hugely impact the recruitment level of the organisation once the period of crisis comes to an end.
In order to overcome this challenge of recruitment and obtain suitable candidates the organisation needs to have a few tricks up their sleeves to get back on track. Given below are 3 such tricks considered to be most effective.
1. Rehiring incentives:
Rehiring laid-off employees may seem unusual but this can turn out to be one of the best methods towards getting your recruitment activities back on track. There are two possible methods to conduct such an initiative. While some organisations provide a rehiring bonus for specialists who return within a specific period of time, others use the laid off employees as external consultants to the organisation.
2. Maintain a good rapport with laid-off employees:
Organisations need to make an effort to maintain relationships with the victims of downsizing whenever possible. Technology has paved the way for this initiative to take place more smoothly and consistently than ever before. Social media platforms, email facilities and other communication services help to foster and sustain positive employer – employee relationships. This would ideally work when there is an idea to rehire former employees during an improvement in the economic environment and bringing them into notice regarding the current organisational situation.
3. Internal job fairs:
It is the duty of the HR department to try every possible way to recruit and retain high performing employees as long as possible. A strong initiative towards this would be to conduct small events hosted by the organisation known as internal job fairs. The main aim of this would be to help place and redeploy downsized employees back into the organisation. This can be done to either to recruit for already existing job openings or newly created openings that were established as a result of the economic environment.
No matter what initiative the organisation decides to implement, it needs to be remembered that not all work in a favorable manner. It’s up to HR to strategically identify the most suitable initiative that is appropriate for the organisational culture and present situation. These strategies are definitely costly but needs to be considered as an investment made towards obtaining an asset that provides competitive advantage in the long run. Hence this investment needs to be made carefully after a thorough analysis.