Despite many companies pushing for employees to return to the office full-time after COVID-19, some employees prefer a permanent remote/hybrid working model due to the many benefits this work-from-home flexibility provides. This includes the elimination of the morning and evening commute, improved productivity, and an overall improved balance between their personal and professional lives.
Faced with a requirement to return to the office full-time, many workers decided to seek new job opportunities at businesses still allowing remote/hybrid work options. This phenomenon became known as The Great Resignation, causing many companies to re-evaluate their workplace flexibility model. Notably, businesses keeping or adopting a hybrid work approach enjoyed improved retention.
In this new landscape, it has become evident that employee recruitment strategies need to evolve. This is especially the case when considering that modern workers have different priorities compared to earlier generations. In this article, we will cover insights on effective hiring and employee retention strategies in the Post-Great-Resignation era. You may leverage this information as a guide to ensure your business can attract the talent it needs for success.
A Professional Recruitment Firm Shares Tips for Effective Hiring
Despite the lasting effects of The Great Resignation, a strong demand for talented candidates still exists. Businesses hoping to make a successful hire should consider improving their staffing efforts to attract the talent they need. This includes offering certain perks modern employees want, like flexible scheduling and hybrid location options.
Next, we will explore a few strategies on how you can improve your company’s hiring efforts. From crafting effective job descriptions to optimizing your staffing process, there are many ways to prevent a talent gap from hampering your business’ productivity and profitability.
Reevaluate Recruitment Priorities
As the job market continues to evolve, businesses may need to reevaluate their profile of an ideal candidate. It also becomes important to consider the needs of the modern employee, which often includes the ability to work remotely part-time or full-time.
Simply stated, strictly in-office working models can create a smaller candidate pool. Of course, smaller doesn’t necessarily mean non-existent. If your company operates on an in-office-only model, it may be necessary to amplify your recruiting efforts to identify top candidates willing to work daily in the office. Attractive job offers with generous pay and benefits can help to compensate for the lack of remote or hybrid working flexibility.
Additionally, implementing an analysis of your business’ talent needs for the next year or two can help to update your ideal candidate profile if necessary. Prioritize finding those candidates with your HR team or by partnering with an experienced staffing firm.
Reframe Job Descriptions and Expectations
The modern worker desires more from an employer than great pay and generous benefits. They increasingly want flexible work options and the ability to balance their personal and professional lives. Therefore, job descriptions should highlight the aspects of your company and culture that meet these needs.
To create compelling job descriptions, consider employing talented copywriters who are able to write in a specific, tailored style to attract suitable candidates. Generative AI or ChatGPT can be helpful, but these tools should not be used to generate job descriptions without human oversight and editing.
Transparent job descriptions free from bias play a critical role in attracting the right candidates for your company’s openings. If you want the benefits of a diverse workforce, top-shelf job descriptions are crucial to success and result in a more talented and experienced candidate pool as a result.
Embrace Digital and Hybrid Recruitment Channels
Recruiting success in the wake of The Great Resignation requires using a variety of channels to source talent. Of course, recruiters continue to rely on digital online partners when sourcing and connecting with candidates, but social media is also a great resource. LinkedIn remains the preeminent social network for professionals, but other platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, should not be overlooked.
Virtual events and digital conferences also provide a great resource for finding and connecting with talented professionals. It is expected that this channel will grow in importance for recruiting as the relevance of the metaverse expands. As mentioned, many candidates expect remote or hybrid work, but this expectation may be even more prominent when these individuals are sourced via a virtual event.
Along with digital channels, it can also be helpful to use employee referrals as a source of talent. This approach remains a great way to find exceptional professionals not actively looking for work, as passive candidates typically make a substantial impact when successfully hired.
Streamline Your Company’s Hiring Process
The strong demand for exceptional professionals means that top talent remains on the market for only a short time. By the time your company makes a job offer, your top candidate might no longer be available. Because of this, it is important to take steps to optimize your company’s hiring process.
This is one area where artificial intelligence makes a difference. Using an AI-powered applicant tracking system (ATS) provides many significant benefits to HR personnel. These tools can filter out and contact unqualified candidates, allowing your HR team to focus on the best talent. Managing initial messaging in this manner frees up your team for more value-added tasks.
Additionally, after identifying a few top candidates, try to limit the number of interview rounds in order to make a hiring decision as quickly as possible. This remains one of the best options for getting job offers accepted.
Showcase Company Culture and Purpose
Cultural fit remains a leading factor in long-term employee retention and also helps attract great new candidates. Therefore, highlighting your company’s culture in job descriptions and on your corporate website and social media accounts is paramount. Posting relevant stories about currently successful employees or interesting project work also showcases your company culture. This can be a great way to amplify your social media presence while benefiting your staffing efforts.
Focusing on your culture as an employee recruiting strategy attracts candidates that align with your company’s values. Showcasing a supportive and inclusive work environment makes your company a place where modern candidates want to work and improves retention rates, creating a lasting positive impact for both employees and your organization.
Highlight Company Professional Development Opportunities
Another factor contributing to The Great Resignation relates to modern employees’ desire for employers that value professional development. Providing a robust training program and tuition reimbursement as employee benefits is a great place to start. Additionally, requiring employees to stay with your business for a set period after receiving assistance can be an effective employee retention strategy.
Encouraging your employees to take advantage of your business’ professional development resources dramatically improves your organization’s skill set and retention rate. For example, reward each new certification with a financial bonus, like a gift card or extra PTO.
Highlighting a strong focus on professional development as part of your company culture also attracts interested candidates. Employee achievements, such as a new certification or advanced degree, can be publicized via social media channels to attract a larger candidate pool. Showing examples of real employee success stories due to company professional development programs gives credibility to company culture. It also provides candidates with concrete examples of how they could grow their careers by working for your organization.
Provide the Ability to Balance an Employee’s Personal and Professional Lives
At the heart of many modern professionals is the desire to balance their personal and professional lives, and this is a driving factor for why many want to work for companies providing remote or hybrid work options.
The lack of a daily commute also saves employees time and money while reducing stress. Additionally, not traveling to the office daily likely contributes to the higher productivity levels many remote employees enjoy. Remote working remains a significant issue your business needs to consider before starting any new staffing process.
However, many businesses want to foster collaboration and teamwork that becomes easier with everyone in the same room. In this scenario, a hybrid employment model becomes an option that effectively provides the best of both worlds. It can also be helpful to explore digital collaboration platforms to facilitate interaction between employees virtually when working from home.
Prioritize Candidate Experience and Communication
Finally, providing a seamless and engaging candidate experience is critical because it gives your business a better chance of making a great hire. Spending time polishing this important piece of the recruitment process is worthwhile moving forward.
Providing a single recruiter to handle communication with top candidates forges an initial relationship between the company and the talent. Once again, using an AI-powered ATS to manage communication with unqualified candidates benefits your company as it allows recruiters to focus on creating personalized communication to nurture and attract the most qualified talent.
Navigate the Hiring Evolution with Professional Recruiters
After reading this article, we hope you feel more prepared to craft effective employment recruitment strategies successfully. In addition to using these strategies, partnering with an experienced professional recruiting agency boosts your organization’s hiring efforts. Connect with our team at Dahl Consulting if you have any additional questions or are looking to start hiring great talent!