Stay ahead of the talent trends and build your workforce
We all know that company. We may be that company. Call it Company A: coming out of the pandemic strong with a bold plan to infuse their workforce with a big hiring boost. Their target: 15% new hires, starting right now. They’re excited about it: if they can use Q4 to rev up recruiting now, they reason, they’ll be a big step ahead of their competition for the coming year.
Their idea: while the rest of the market is still recovering, they plant their flag in the ground with a huge hiring push. Then they can adjust their workplace for changing needs and expectations with a revitalized workforce that’s raring to go.
It’s a nice idea, and I’m hearing it from recruiting decision-makers and their teams more and more. Call it pandemic fatigue or the irresistible pull of growth or both, but everyone wants to move on, to bounce back, to step forward. Companies want to shake off the constraints and snafus of the last year and a half, and return to “normal.”
Certainly how each organization decides to do so is going to have to fit that particular entity. But this push to hire isn’t necessarily going to succeed — or set up an organization for success over the long term. Let’s deconstruct this scenario:
You’re Not Actually That Special — or Different
The decision to recoup, grow, expand, rebuild — whatever the action you’re taking — is a common one right now. You might even say it’s trending. The global employment outlook survey by Manpower Group that came out recently found that there are a whole lot of company A’s right now, especially in the U.S.
The survey covered 43 countries, asking 45,000 employers about their hiring plans for Q4 2021. Particularly in North America and Europe, employers reported their biggest hiring outlook since the survey started — which was back in 1962. Overall the global hiring outlook is the strongest it was since the pandemic.
There’s a Serious Labor Shortage
But that’s not all that’s booming. The survey itself notes that set against all these great intentions is a profound and serious labor shortage. More than two-thirds of employers (69%) report that it’s hard to fill roles — a 15-year peak for the second consecutive quarter, as the survey says.
The Great Resignation Really Is Real
Another thing I’m hearing from HR leaders is skepticism regarding the Great Resignation. To recap, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that in the three months from April through June 2021, 11.5 million workers quit their jobs. And as of July 2021, for every 100 job openings, there were only 82 unemployed workers. Employees resigned at record rates for a host of reasons — none of which can be discounted as you try to woo them back.
And Not a New Concept
The concept of employees resigning en masse isn’t exactly new: a Texas A&M business professor, Anthony Klotz, predicted the Great Resignation in 2019, well before the virus to come. He was looking at the conditions already bearing down on recruiting and workplace tenure: a buyer’s market in terms of choosing a job, rising levels of office-related stress and burnout, a dose of younger-gen perspective on the futility of staying too long in a stagnant position without growth, and a rise in awareness about toxic work cultures. These factors were intensified by the maelstrom of the pandemic — and then some. Even Klotz noted his predictions came true faster than anyone expected, let alone him.
The Leadership Bubble Is Dangerous
A hiring push may be electrifying leadership in any given organization, and linked to a morale boost. There’s nothing wrong with leaders searching for solutions — or articulating goals and initiatives that catalyze engagement and a sense of optimism. But exercise caution: that grand plan to hire may be a self-made myth at this point if your infrastructure hasn’t adapted to new realities. And so many organizations with the same plans could result in a logjam, a feeding frenzy, mistakes made, overspending, overlooking promising talent for and possibly other unintended consequences.
We’re still in a period when employees are reassessing their work situations (and the Great Resignation has also been called the Great Reassessment). If the perception is that their employer is throwing everything into recruiting new blood, you may have just given some of your top talent another reason to leave.
How to Build Your Workforce Now
Given that reality check, what’s next? Combine some deep strategizing with deploying the best sourcing, recruiting, hiring and talent management tools available. Listen to your employees. They’ve likely been saying what they need all along.
Don’t Overlook Attrition
Say “talent” and the reflex is to think of shiny new hires. But as of this July, for every 100 job openings in the U.S., there were only 82 unemployed workers. Think of it this way: 18% of new hires are either poached from the competition or poached by the competition. Given the inevitable rule that what goes around comes around, we may think we’re plotting a simple course to successful hiring, but while we do, we may also be losing some great people to an organization doing the exact same thing.
Now is the time to harness the power of recognition and rewards tools to engage and retain. Run surveys on engagement and satisfaction with relevant questions and use that data to spot the weak spots and double down before an issue becomes an exit. Bring your managers into the process and lean on them for input. They’ve been your eyes on the ground. Provide them with the data-driven insights that paint a bigger picture — and you’ll have a great ally in keeping your people happy and engaged.
Recalibrate for Flexibility
Lack of flexibility is a key factor in an employee’s decision to leave. Well before the pandemic, a 2019 survey of some 7,300 employees found that 16% were seeking an employer who offered more flexibility than their current one. 80% said having more flexible work options would make them more loyal to their employer, and 52% had tried to negotiate flexible work arrangements with their companies.
The link between flexibility and retention was already tangible. But in just a few months, flexibility became a necessity. Employers who had been entertaining thoughts of increasing flexibility and remote work arrangements were suddenly left having to do it. For some, it went from zero flexibility to an everyone-on-Zoom scenario.
But even for industries that can’t go remote, flexibility is an enormously effective engagement strategy. Retail giant Target is heading into the holiday hiring rush by hiring less seasonal employees — from 130,000 over the past two years to 100,000 this year. Instead, it’s offering more hours and providing more flexibility to its approximately 300,000 existing employees. Technology is making it work: the retailer launched an app that enables employees to opt for more shifts, swap hours on demand, and change their schedule to deal with responsibilities like caregiving, health, family and education.
Strengthening Culture Is Strengthening Engagement
This is the opportunity to put initiatives into place that aren’t just about a quota, but a culture. Whatever your hiring intentions, if you’re not providing an overall work culture that supports the needs of your employees, those intentions are just that — intentions. But when you can enable access, self-service, management, and real-time reporting — those are the levers for engagement and retention. It’s the combination of technology and strategy that conveys to employees that they’re valued.
What we’re going to see going forward is that employers who find a new equilibrium between workforce and workplace objectives are the ones that demonstrate more success when it comes to hiring. And there’s a simple reason for that: those organizations are the ones that people want to work for now. Given the choice, that’s where they’ll go. Winning at recruiting and hiring is all about what’s going on with your existing employees.
This article was written by Meghan M. Biro from Forbes and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.
