2020 has been a challenging year for people around the world, regardless of age, background or geography. HR professionals have had it even harder, supporting teams in times of crisis, while also working through these challenges themselves.

But hope springs from adversity, and this year HR has truly stepped up as a leader in the new world of work. Talent management has become everyone’s business, and talent teams are getting the attention they deserve from C-suite leaders that now fully appreciate their worth.

Old, outdated systems have been digitised, processes streamlined and centralised, virtual hiring and remote work practices accelerated overnight. Armed with the business buy-in and technology solutions to make it work, HR is ready to take a seat at the table as we forge ahead into the new decade.

As we look back at the year that was, we can see how closely HR trends and challenges mirror our society. From a global pandemic and economic downturn, to racial upheaval across the globe, HR is the first responder and the first line of defence organisations have to help their teams make sense of the world around them.

2020 will be remembered as a turbulent, tumultuous year. Let’s not forget how HR responded:

1. Employee communication and care

When the first wave of lockdowns rolled out around the world, many organisations were forced into remote working arrangements overnight. HR teams had to figure out how to make it work, developing policies on the fly and ensuring teams were supported during this tough transition. With so much uncertainty in the air, HR stepped up and showed real leadership, reminding us what the ‘human’ aspect of human resources stands for. Talent teams used different strategies to shift to remote work and support their teams in times of change.

2. Mastering remote hiring and onboarding

As organisations got into the groove of remote work, some hiring teams found themselves faced with a dilemma: how to provide a great, fully virtual recruitment experience. Even the most progressive organisations had probably met candidates in-person at one stage of the hiring process. Now, recruitment teams had to ensure a streamlined, fully tech-enabled experience that left applicants and candidates wanting more. No problem, right? There were 3 key considerations for organisations looking to find great talent in the time of COVID; these included understanding your video interviewing needs, adjusting your approach to screening and prioritising onboarding.

3. Addressing COVID-19 challenges

Our Head of Customer Insights and Market Research Rebecca Skilbeck and SVP Global Talent Deborah Mason tackled how HR could address COVID-19 challenges. They discussed supporting employees, encouraging engagement, redeploying staff, managing remote workers and shared their thoughts for the future.

4. Supporting internal mobility

With the pandemic ramping up and an economic recession looming, many organisations put a freeze on hiring. But that didn’t mean skills gaps went away. Roles still needed to be filled by skilled workers, and organisations started to look within to find this talent. Many organisations are leveraging internal mobility to meet their hiring needs, while also keeping employees engaged and developing in their careers.

5. Scaling up recruiting to meet COVID-19 demands

Not all organisations were halting their hiring. Some were ramping up recruitment to meet demand: many retailers providing essential products were inundated with customer demand as lockdowns dragged on across the globe. Some PageUp customers processed as many as 55,000 applications in one recruitment campaign. To quickly hire the staff they needed at-scale, organisations turned to technology to automate candidate care and process bulk applications. Talent teams needed to establish processes to set up and run effective recruitment campaigns at scale, while remaining agile enough to respond rapidly to change.

6. Proactively rebuilding recruitment strategies after COVID-19

As we adjusted to the new COVID normal, organisations started to look to the future and wonder how they would rebuild. A crucial component of this was their recruitment strategy: what would it look like going forward? As the business landscape shifted, what new skills should they be recruiting for? And what new roles would emerge? Many organisations began rebuilding, starting with their recruitment strategy. This required a step by step approach, examining how COVID has affected the business landscape, identifying emerging skills gaps, and targeting the crucial behavioural traits you should be looking for in a top candidate.

7. Virtual recruiting tools

HR processes have been accelerated years into the future thanks to the overnight shift to remote working. We shared 17 must-know tools to support online recruiting; from voice-based and text-based AI-interviewing and online testing, to online assessments, video interviews and reference checking.

8. Workplace diversity, equity and inclusion

This year will be remembered not just for COVID-19, but also as the year the world stood up, spoke up and took action on racial inclusivity, diversity and demanded equal opportunity for people of all backgrounds. With organisations around the world turning a spotlight to their own DE&I strategies, many began prioritising and establishing the building blocks of a successful DE&I strategy.

9. Data-based recruitment strategies

What recruitment metrics should savvy hiring teams be tracking in 2020 and into the future? A lot has changed in the past year, and many talent teams have started to review and revise the recruitment metrics they track in line with their organisational goals. The best recruitment metrics to track in now, in 2021 and beyond include offer acceptance rate, applicant-to-hire rate, candidate-to-hire rate, sourcing channel effectiveness, and mobile application and time-to-apply rates.

Marion Robinson is responsible for spearheading global growth for PageUp in all its forms. She provides strategic direction across PageUp’s client advocacy, partner alliance, marketing and brand-building programs, ensuring total alignment between them so as to deliver on the PageUp growth strategy. Leveraging a wealth of experience in client management roles across a range of industries including Banking, Human Resources and IT, Marion understands the daily people challenges of our clients first-hand. Her experience ranges from sales and marketing, change management, consulting and people development.

The post 9 things HR cared about in 2020 appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Job offers have overall reduced but contactless onboarding – where offers and all related information is provided to candidates electronically – is definitely on the rise, says HROnboard founder and CEO Peter Forbes.

“People don’t want to be touching forms and packages if they don’t need to”, and postal services are experiencing delays, he tells Shortlist, noting that hospitals are key among the increase in uptake while they scramble to hire more health professionals.

Contactless is, however, “a terrible word, because you don’t want to take out the personal side,” Forbes says.

It’s therefore important to find the balance between “adapting to the world we now find ourselves in, and making sure that you can create a personalised experience, even if you are hiring 500 people per year.”

This means adjusting the parts of employers’ onboarding journeys that are designed to help new hires understand the business culture and objectives, that would normally be facilitated by half-day workshops or coffee meet-and-greets with department heads.

Now, in line with social distancing requirements, many employers are moving those onboarding activities online with the help of tools such as Zoom and Google Hangouts.

Meanwhile organisations are also moving up some of the onboarding information they usually “drip feed” to new hires over the first six-to-eight weeks, and “bringing it forward into the first week, or even before day one”.

The key is to keep the human element in onboarding. 

Here are some recommended steps for digitally onboarding new hires.

1. Send necessary documents to sign digitally ahead of time 

Enabling your new hires to complete the new starter formalities online empowers them to take care of all paperwork ahead of time. From signing their letter of engagement to acknowledging your workplace policies, and completing payroll paperwork digitally before they start ensures they are not greeted with a stack of paperwork on their first day. This ensures their first day can be dedicated to meeting their team and learning about their role which makes for a more memorable first day on the job.

2. Minimise manual process-driven tasks

Create templates to free up resources from repetitive paperwork and minimise the potential for human error. As an example, at beauty retailer Sephora, it used to take two people two weeks to complete onboarding paperwork. Their new digital onboarding platform takes just 60 seconds.

3. Establish meetings and introductions

Another important factor in helping a new hire settle into their roles is building rapport with their new colleagues. All new hires need a support network to help show them the ropes and provide guidance.

Automate workflows to trigger all the necessary team introductions and check-ins, and even assign a buddy or mentor. This allows you to keep your new hires busy with a highly-structured schedule without having to personally check schedules and individually set up meetings with their team.

4. Set objectives and timelines

Setting expectations and introducing goal setting for your new hire’s first 30, 60 and 90 days at in your workforce is fundamental to helping new hires settle in.

Rather than leaving them to figure out what is expected and how they can be successful in their new workplace, make it plain as part of your digital onboarding. You can create content that explains how they can best achieve these goals, trigger training modules, and connect them with the staff members who can help them along the way.

A quality digital onboarding platform also allows you to easily track the progress and status of their training since.

5. Make it personal and engaging

To engage your new starters, use interactive video or games as a fun way to get your new hires in the know about any behaviours and language that are unique to your way of working. Include practical things like seating layout and names and descriptions of team members. Having your new hires interact with the information via an onboarding platform will help them remember the information.

6. Create a paper trail 

Creating a digital paper trail allows you to quickly identify any documents you may need to chase an employee to sign, or confirm when information has been sent and accessed.

7. Gain compliance peace of mind

With all your new hire documents, policies, and training documented online, a digital onboarding program helps you maintain employee confidentiality and compliance. By centralising all new hire paperwork digitally, you can keep sensitive information secure, and still easy to access when you need it.

Employers managing digital onboarding well also tailor onboarding journeys to the job type, office location and the culture of the business area or team. 

For example, if you’re an organisation with offices around Australia, the culture, terminology and ceremonies you have in the Sydney office might be very different from the Perth office.

Companies that have personalised the journey will include introduction videos featuring the team leader or department head, outlining the work they do and what they want to achieve. 

Source

Contactless onboarding reigns amid social distancing

Shortlist 

7 ways digital onboarding will boost productivity

Flare HR

The post Employers moving to fully digital onboarding to welcome new hires appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Some organisations are in the midst of recruitment freezes, others need to recruit but are being flooded with applications. With the economy uncertain, some businesses being closed and a huge portion of the workforce working from home, there are a number of challenges talent leaders need to address. 

So, what can you do? Kate Neilson reporting for HRM spoke with five recruitment experts about how to hire when things are “business as unusual”.

“It’s hard to offer specific advice during times where facts are changing at a rapid pace, but there are emerging trends we can already see.”

Certain industries will have an advantage 

The airline and tourism industries are feeling the pinch harder than most. But there are other industries where demand is outweighing supply and recruitment efforts are skyrocketing.

“For example, Woolworths has offered to redeploy some of the 20,000 Qantas and Jetstar employees in a bid to cater to the panic buying tendencies of a worried Australia. Amazon is reported to be recruiting for 100,000 workers to cater to a spike in online shopping. There is also increased demand in the healthcare industry and investments in IT specialists across many industries.” 

Things will continue to change, but it’s still early days. Many organisations are working to ensure they are properly resourced for remote work. 

Recruitment experts state institutions will be judged by the public about how they treat customers and other businesses going forward, so they must be vigilant in ensuring they are compliant with obligations. 

It’s an opportunity for Australia to rethink how we hire and work. Traditionally, we’ve been focused on face-to-face meetings, but now the current situation has forced us to adopt virtual recruitment and online interviews. 

Interviewing candidates online 

There’s a way to conduct video interviewing recruitment correctly. Firstly, manage and adjust candidates’ expectations. Let them know the recruitment process may be longer during this time, and you may be using virtual onboarding. 

“Be more candid than you might normally be. Virtual recruiting can be clumsy and awkward. Someone’s laptop might be sitting at an unflattering angle. The internet connection could lag and distractions can emerge from off screen on both ends. 

“To combat this…[set] aside some time at the beginning to iron out any wrinkles. It’s about hiring managers taking the time to ask, ‘Can you hear me? Can you see me? I’d like to make sure we have good eye contact. I understand you might be more nervous because this is over video, I want to assure you this is all new to me too.’ 

“Or, ‘You’re actually sitting a little too far away from the camera, would you mind sitting closer so we can have a better conversation’. Or, ‘The quality isn’t that great, perhaps your internet is down.’ You just have to be really upfront. Because if there is a lag or you can’t have good eye contact, you’re never going to be able to make a good assessment.”

“This pre-interview time also acts as a buffer for the candidate to catch their breath. When they’re meeting you face-to-face, they have a commute to calm their nerves and consider their responses. In a virtual meeting, none of this space exists. They’re just sitting in their lounge room or home office and then, all of a sudden, a stranger is asking a series of probing questions through their computer screen.” 

Have a back up plan, such as mobile numbers, in case technology fails. 

Changing times, changed questions

Be transparent about the type of environment candidates are joining. 

“In times like this, you can’t afford to invest in new people only to have them jump ship during the middle of a global crisis. Setting hiring managers up with consistent questions around values is important. And be really upfront with employees about the environment they’re about to enter. For example, saying ‘We’re a start-up. We work in a really fast-paced environment and there are times where there is some ambiguity’. Then ask for examples of where they’ve dealt with ambiguity in the past.”

Consider the challenges that may come with onboarding someone without face-to-face inductions. Can they pick up things quickly? 

Include competency-based questions around learning capabilities, such as, “What was the hardest task you had to learn and how did you go about doing it?” 

Use creative solutions

Are you confident assessing cultural fit via computer screen? It can be tough, but some recruiters are coming up with creative solutions, such as inviting candidates to submit a short video that encompasses their personality (a great way to get a glimpse into their personality, humour, and communication and presentation skills!). 

“We had one candidate who said, ‘Outside of work, I’m all about family’ then moved the camera to show his mum standing next to him. Someone else just pointed their camera at their dog. They might say something like, “I’m an accountant, but outside of work I like rock climbing, badminton and I’m a chauffeur for my two kids for the majority of my weekend.” 

“Our conversion rate of candidates who are willing to do it is currently sitting at 65 per cent. It’s not a deal breaker or a decision-making tool. It’s just an extra ingredient to bring someone to life.”

Understand the consequences of leaving gaps

“Organisations have to get strategic about which gaps they fill and which they leave vacant during a pandemic. It makes sense to hold onto pennies, times are tough, but there can be long-term impacts to not hiring for crucial roles.” 

With less people doing more, it can be tough to maintain a good team culture. Strong leadership can be something that makes all the difference. People are more willing to work for a good leader, and will rise to the challenge knowing that the team will work together to get through it. 

“While staff are likely to stay with a business during a crisis, if they’re not treated right (having their efforts acknowledged and their wellbeing accounted for) they’ll be running for the hills the second the economy recovers. This is where HR can really step up by supporting leaders to take a people-lens to every decision they make to ensure business longevity.” 

HR and recruitment skills, such as implementing a shorter working week or working remotely, can become critical to the survival of a business. 

Delayed start dates

In prioritising the health and safety of your people (new hires included), if any new starter comes down with flu-like symptoms, be flexible in moving their start dates. 

“Delays to start dates aren’t unusual. It’s more about the employer [feeling comfort] in knowing they have someone in place. Also, there are candidates out there with one, two, three month notice periods.” 

In these challenging times, it’s okay not to know what to do. But there are plenty of resources becoming available to share knowledge and help us fill in the gaps. 

“We’re all finding our way in the dark. That goes for everyone in society at the moment. But there’s a lot of noise out there, so we should be focussing on what we can control, rather than what we can’t.”

What are your best tips for virtual recruitment? Share a comment below. 

If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered in Recruitment Marketing Magazine, let us know. 

Source 

Ask a recruiter: Recruiting during the COVID-19 outbreak

Kate Neilson

HRM

The post Business as unusual: How to recruit effectively during COVID-19  appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.