Employers Still Hiring During Coronavirus Pandemic
As many companies begin to temporarily close their doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are several companies that are beginning to hire mass amounts of employees. Although employers run the risk of hiring effectively, they are in need of employees. Read this blog post to learn more.
When one door closes, even temporarily, another often opens. As people practice social distancing to avoid contracting COVID-19—the disease caused by the coronavirus—restaurants, bars and retailers across the U.S. are closing their doors and laying off tens of thousands of workers. But needs must be met, so online sellers and a host of other businesses are mass hiring for delivery, security, warehousing and distribution personnel.
Amazon announced a push to add 100,000 workers to address customer need. National grocery chains are ramping up hiring for delivery staff, Walmart is looking for more than 1,000 distribution-center workers, and health care providers are ramping up hiring to address the expected surge in patients. Retailers and pizza chains are boosting their payrolls to meet takeout and delivery demand, even as their locations are closed to guests. A security company just announced mass hiring to fill full- and part-time security vacancies to help provide public-safety services.
The challenge for these organizations will be to hire quickly and effectively at scale, without putting recruitment professionals and the public at risk. Technology is driving the effort. Online applications, video interviewing, online onboarding and more are being leveraged to enable fast, effective hiring.
Meeting the Need—Safely
Josh Tolan, CEO of video-interviewing company Spark Hire, said, "Technology gives hiring pros a huge leg up in their processes. Especially during this pandemic, tools like video interviews and online applications achieve the goals of continuing recruitment efforts, learning more about applicants and speeding up the hiring process—all from an appropriate social distance."
Amy Champigny, senior product marketing manager at Deltek, a software provider for project-based work, said that competition for workers may require employers to actively self-promote. "Organizations should focus on posting job requisitions online and focus on boosting their LinkedIn branding, as well as employer presence, during this time," she said. She recommended that employers, along with making sure their brand is visible, move candidates through the hiring process as quickly as possible. "Businesses should consider candidate pools to speed up recruiting cycles for all roles and especially critical, hard-to-fill positions."
Many companies are practiced in mass hiring, said Peter Baskin, chief product officer at recruitment software company Modern Hire. "Similar to mass hiring for seasonal positions, companies should adopt purpose-built, on-demand text and video interviewing tools," he said. "This will allow them to reach a larger audience of candidates, provide candidates with the information needed about the open jobs, allow for both parties to complete the interviewing process quicker, and, in return, roles can be filled at a faster rate."
From Start to Finish
Effectively employing technology in hiring begins with an online application process that's seamless and at scale. Baskin suggested that recruiters work from home whenever possible, utilizing on-demand text and video technology instead of scheduling in-person interviews.
"HR teams must ensure any technology they use—whether for recruitment, prehire assessments or video interviewing—is purpose-built, not only for the task at hand, but also for the specific company and industry in which they operate," he said.
"From home," Tolan said, "candidates can conduct one-way video interviews that they record on their own time and the hiring team can review at their convenience, as well." Further along in the process, he added, "live video interviews allow the hiring team to connect with the candidate face to face without the handshake and any potential exposure to the [coronavirus]."
Good Hires vs. Fast Hires
Even when time is of the essence, quality can't be ignored. Many organizations use prehire assessment questions, which a candidate can answer during the video application process. These allow recruiters to quickly make a determination on moving the job seeker through to the next step.
For some organizations, artificial intelligence is being leveraged to boost hiring metrics. "Data-driven insights can predict hiring success by measuring personality traits and problem-solving skills," Tolan said, "and compare candidates to job benchmarks customized for your company."
Onboarding at Scale
When candidates are selected, onboarding at scale is the next hurdle for organizations. "Onboarding needs to be standardized and repeatable to help organizations onboard a greater number of candidates during periods of growth or at scale," Champigny said. "Comprehensive [applicant tracking system (ATS)] solutions include onboarding portals to help companies provide a consistent experience for new hires, while ensuring that those new hires have a good experience as they come through the door."
SOURCE: O'Donnell, R. (29 March 2020) "Employers Still Hiring During Coronavirus Pandemic" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/Pages/Employers-Still-Hiring-During-Coronavirus-Pandemic.aspx
Recruitment Research: A New Way to Find Top Talent
Many HR leaders and hiring managers want what is best for their organization. Prior to the year 2020 starting, a main and common goal was to attract and retain the top talent in their industries. Read this blog post to learn more.
Attracting and retaining top talent was the prevailing crisis for company leaders and HR heading into 2020. That was before a deadly virus wreaked havoc on the nation's economy and the unemployment rate went from a historic low to the highest since the Great Depression. COVID-19 has left millions of Americans out of work, yet some companies are still in a hiring mode. The challenge for hiring managers now is that they must wade through mounds of resumes to find the perfect candidate, and they must do it with a much smaller recruitment budget.
"For many companies, revenues are down, but there are still critical positions to fill," said Kathleen Duffy, president and CEO of Duffy Group, Inc., a global sourcing and recruitment firm based in Phoenix. What may come as a surprise is that some jobs are still tough to fill, she said.
Before the health crisis, companies addressed the talent shortfall by stockpiling high-demand workers with specific skill sets, even if there were no jobs available for them. This included a large percentage of hiring managers—about 77 percent—who hired for positions that did not exist a year earlier, according to research by Korn Ferry.
"Whether in traditional industries such as home health care or technology, or emerging fields like baby tech, CBD products or selfie services, there still don't seem to be enough qualified candidates to go around," Duffy said.
One way to combat the problem is for hiring managers to re-evaluate how they recruit candidates. That means considering approaches beyond adding more in-house recruiters, as well as contracting for retained and contingency searches. One often-overlooked alternative that has emerged in the last decade is recruitment research.
Recruitment Research Defined
An offshoot of the executive search industry, recruitment research is a multistep methodology that targets desired candidates and connects them with employers using a flexible pricing model.
"The process is equal parts detective and skilled salesperson," Duffy said. "It begins with taking a deep dive into the company and its business, and ends with a list of interested, qualified candidates."
At the core of the process is strategy, according to Marcia Mintz, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Phoenix. When Mintz was hired to lead the organization four years ago, she had two key positions to fill immediately. "I needed to see a diverse pool of candidates with fundraising and staff coaching experience," she said.
Because the internal environment of Boys & Girls Clubs was changing, it was imperative to find leaders who not only had the skills to do the job, but whose personalities would fit into the new culture. The recruitment team leveraged its network to identify passive candidates at top local competitors and nonprofits in other parts of the nation, Mintz said.
"Ultimately, the process helped us increase the scope and quality of candidates while providing a highly cost-efficient alternative to traditional recruitment," she said.
The Building Blocks
Part art and part science, recruitment research entails some key steps. The foundation is a sourcing strategy, which includes an in-depth situation assessment to understand the culture and personality of the hiring company, along with the job's requirements, responsibilities and specific skill set needed. Using a comprehensive intake form, the recruitment team collects data about the company's recruiting targets, geographic preferences, salary and compensation levels, communication expectations, and industry-specific vernacular.
Next comes name generation. Armed with information from the hiring manager and others, the recruiter can identify candidates whose backgrounds, education and experiences dovetail with their company's needs. This is accomplished using a variety of methods, from cold-calling and Internet tools to probing professional organizations, trade shows and chambers of commerce. The goal is to find not only people who are looking for new careers but also those passive candidates who may not be looking at all.
"It's important to think outside of the box," said Victoria McCoy, former executive vice president of organizational strategy at the global information technology company Cyberscout in Cranston, R.I. "That means knowing where the best talent is working today, whether it is at one of your competitors or in another role at your company."
List in hand, the recruitment team is then ready to contact and prequalify candidates as part of the recruitment candidate vetting. Duffy said it is important to create sizzle around why potential hires should consider the opportunity. "In addition to courting the candidate, this is also the time to ask some all-important questions, including their interest in relocating to a particular area, if they have the right education and experience, and if they have a genuine interest in the job the client is trying to fill," she said.
Duffy's firm may search as many as 100 candidates for one position and then present the top three to five most qualified and fully screened candidates for interviews. These candidates are typically seen within 15 days of the start of the search. That's important, given that recruitment research takes a different approach to finding top talent, using a model based on billable hours, much like a CPA or an attorney.
The final step—presentation and reporting—gives hiring leaders a recap of the results and a database of all candidates for the open position that they can keep on hand for future searches.
Recruitment research isn't limited to outside recruitment firms. Internal company hiring managers have the institutional knowledge to use recruitment research effectively as well.
"They should apply the same elements of the process, starting by learning all they can about the company or the business unit for which they are hiring," Duffy said. "And they should put themselves in the candidate's shoes to create a story that will pique interest in the position and differentiate their company from competitors."
Whether internally, externally or as a collaboration, recruitment research can be a cost-effective, efficient approach to helping companies find their next new hire.
SOURCE: Magruder, J. (01 July 2020) "Recruitment Research: A New Way to Find Top Talent" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/recruitment-research-a-new-way-to-find-top-talent.aspx
3 tips for a successful virtual internship program
The coronavirus pandemic has created many disruptions for the workforce and many workplaces. Another disruption that has been caused has been a disruption in career development that is gained through internship programs. Read this blog post to learn more.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all manner of talent development and acquisition activities, including internship programs.
Talent acquisition software firm Yello found in an April survey of college students that more than one-third (35%) of those who had accepted internship offers had seen their internships canceled, while 24% said their internships would be virtual. A separate April poll of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found 22% of employers revoked offers to interns but that generally, "employers are adapting their summer 2020 internship programs by moving as much programming to a virtual space as possible."
Indeed, a number of larger employers have announced in recent months an intent to move internships to virtual status, similar to other roles. Microsoft, which was set to host 4,000 interns this summer, announced its shift to a virtual program in April. Kathleen Hogan, the company's executive vice president and chief people officer, previously said that students would be encouraged to "co-create their summer experience" while the program would also help shape the company's broader virtual employee experience.
Below are three ways employers can enhance their virtual internships.
#1: Choose accessible tech tools
In the scramble to move operations remote, employers have likely settled on solutions for video chat, team communication, presentations and other organizational functions. But it's important that these tools are available and accessible to interns, Bo Goliber, Head of Philanthropy at marketing agency Fingerpaint, told HR Dive in an email.
"We have some tools that work best for smaller, internal meetings, and others that we use for our clients," said Goliber, who is the creator and manager of Fingerpaint's internship program. "Our interns have access to anything our full-time staff would be using."
Shared software can enable interns to work in company systems using their own computers. That's the approach taken by Fannie Mae this summer: The mortgage financing company's nearly 140 interns use programs like Microsoft Teams, Whiteboard and Cisco Webex, Teresa Green, vice president of talent acquisition programs, told HR Dive in an interview. To keep in touch with team members, Fannie Mae's interns also have access to Yammer, a social networking service, as well as a dedicated Microsoft Teams site.
#2: Ensure equity
Even before the pandemic, employers considered a variety of factors, including manager reviews, when assessing interns' performances. In a virtual environment, managers at Fannie Mae work with interns to develop summer work plans that outline an intern's tasks and target skills to be developed and later used as the basis for evaluations, Green said. The company is also collecting feedback from other team members on their interactions with interns.
At Fingerpaint, both managers and interns fill out evaluation forms with questions that focus on areas including communication, presentation, performance and overall skills, Goliber said. The company schedules additional check-ins with teams, managers and the internships facilitators at each of its individual offices.
"Our expectations for both interns and managers remain high, and we ensure proper training to navigate through any possible challenges that may arise from being virtual," Goliber added.
The issue of compensation has been one of concern for recent graduates as they endure the pandemic. Previous research cited in a 2019 analysis by researchers at the Stanford University Institute for Economic Policy Research showed that college graduates who started their working lives during a recession earned less for at least 10 to 15 years than those who graduated during more prosperous years. As COVID-19 impacts interns, some companies have publicly stated their intent to pay interns through the pandemic, sometimes regardless of delayed start dates.
Neither Fingerpaint nor Fannie Mae are changing the ways their interns are compensated this year, Goliber and Green said. In fact, Fannie Mae is also continuing to offer payments to interns for summer housing and commuting costs that have been offered in previous years. "We still honored that, because they made some of those investments already and we didn't want to put them at a disadvantage," Green added.
Fingerpaint has not wavered from the compensation promised to interns in the company's offer letters sent back in February, Goliber said: "Because the capabilities and expectations of our interns did not change, we believe the interns should be paid for their talent and work, no matter where they are physically performing it."
#3: Keep traditions and culture alive
Experience has been a key point of focus for HR departments as employees remain socially distanced, and Fannie Mae has extended this focus to internships by creating "business mentors," a new internal role, according to Green. Business mentors work with interns on building relationships, connecting them with other employees and identifying mentorship opportunities.
The initiative is in part meant to provide a replacement for the lack of "casual collisions," or chance interactions, interns might otherwise have with other employees in a normal office setting, Green said. Fannie Mae interns have connections with their managers, "but we knew they needed more than that," she added. "We needed to create another way to engage with them and show them other areas across the company."
Virtual meetings have replaced coffee runs and lunches for many employers, but interns should have the opportunity to participate as well, Goliber said, which is why Fingerpaint designates times for virtual meetings that allow interns to connect. "We want to ensure everyone feels seen and heard — not only as an intern team, but also as individuals," she added.
Employers should also plan to keep annual traditions alive, however small. Fannie Mae interns will still receive t-shirts, Green said, but they also have the opportunity to participate in virtual community service events. The company confirmed to HR Dive that its interns will participate in a virtual event with the nonprofit Love for the Elderly, collecting homemade cards and mailing them to global older adult communities.
SOURCE: Golden, R. (30 June 2020) "3 tips for a successful virtual internship program" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/3-tips-for-a-successful-virtual-internship-program/580803/
How COVID-19 has changed the recruiting tech stack
The rapid shift to telework for many office-based employers is not only forcing companies to conduct recruiting virtually, but also making them reconsider every aspect of their talent acquisition strategies. After implementing additional technology solutions amid the pandemic, experts suggest that some changes will be permanent.
While the talent acquisition function tends to lead technology adoption among HR groups, interviews were still commonly held face-to-face at some point in the process and deliberation over candidates often took place in in-person meetings. But recruiting leaders may find that digital processes offer new advantages and end up keeping them even when they return to their offices.
Improving the function
While many organizations scrambled to put together online fixes for manual or in-person processes during the pandemic, improvement took a back seat to maintaining continuity. Now that change is not so rapid, business leaders are focusing on how to improve in these conditions.
Recruiting is no different. Existing technology solutions can address strategic imperatives that were top of mind before the pandemic, such as workforce data, candidate experience or recruiter productivity. More importantly, these technologies can still be deployed while everyone is working from home.
"I think as you start to look at how things like machine learning can be applied, there's a lot of opportunities," Mark Brandau, a research principal, global industry analyst at Forrester, told HR Dive. "The ones I gravitate to are things that automate the process."
Scheduling, communicating with candidates and optimizing job board spend — the same way marketers do with online ad spend — represent the "low-hanging fruit" when it comes to recruiting technology, Brandau said. The tools are usually simple to use and do not depend on the technical maturity of the organization for adoption or implementation.
Having every single recruiting activity occurring within some sort of technology also allows for better data collection. While organizations are trying to collect as much as possible, it's a challenge to validate data entered by people and also can be subjective, such as a hiring manager's perception of a candidate after a first-round in-person interview.
"Something we suspected before the pandemic is organizations don't have a lot of necessary data to make adaptive forward decisions," Brandau said. "That includes candidate data and [talent] market data."
Having better data by having more widespread technology will allow talent acquisition leaders to be more informed about the metrics that matter and how they can improve the function's effectiveness. Efficiency gains, like being able to immediately schedule an interview, can improve the candidate experience and save recruiters time.
"They either want to automate [sourcing and screening] more because of high volume or they want to find better quality candidates," Brandau said. "So they're focused on automation and quality of time" to improve the caliber of candidates entering the funnel and their experience.
Expanding into onboarding
In a pre-pandemic interview process, once a candidate accepts a job offer, after the initial excitement from both parties subsides, there is often a hand-off to a different colleague to manage the onboarding process. Today, with remote work as the norm and more automation coming, there is an opportunity for talent acquisition to bolster, if not completely own, onboarding.
"Once a client understands and gets wind of what's possible with onboarding, especially as a part of a bigger HCM transformation, when you tie in learning and procurement and other things that can happen and goals within onboarding," Brandau said, "they start to light up because they see it way more transformative beyond talent acquisition."
Being able to seamlessly move into value-add onboarding activities without the possibility of a clunky handoff can pay off in many ways. It can boost a new employee's preparedness and excitement. It can also serve as an extension of a company's brand, Brandau said, noting the connections between candidate experience, employment branding and the overall branding of a company. Tactically, onboarding automation can include signaling procurement for a new computer or other supplies a new hire may need.
Organizational leaders often are interested in automating the first steps of onboarding to support a new employees' alignment with organizational goals and maximize the experience of their first 90 days, including what training they may need. "So there's a lot of there's a lot of immediate benefit, as opposed to longer term benefit, when you think about ROI and visibility and brand reinforcement, that's why they gravitate that way," he added.
Finding new sourcing channels
Another opportunity for remote recruiting teams is expanding the geography and scope of sourcing channels. When recruiters no longer need to travel to career fairs and instead interact with prospective employees virtually, they can speak to more candidates. And when candidates don't need to play email tag to schedule an interview, they move the process more efficiently.
SOURCE: Kidwai, A. (14 May 2020) "How COVID-19 has changed the recruiting tech stack" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/how-covid-19-has-changed-the-recruiting-tech-stack/577953/
AI helps applicants hone their soft skills
Due to the coronavirus causing many job losses, many are searching for a new place of employment. In competing markets, job candidates may now have to tune their skills and artificial intelligence can help. Read this blog post to learn more.
As millions of workers look for new positions due to the coronavirus pandemic, artificial intelligence can help job candidates fine-tune their interview skills and stand out from the crowd.
HR tech and recruiting company, CareerArc, launched a new interview assessment tool that uses artificial intelligence to highlight candidates’ soft skills, like organization and creativity. The feature, released this week as part of CareerArc Outplacement, helps job seekers learn how to market those traits on their resumes and LinkedIn profiles — which makes it easier for employers to identify the best candidates for open positions, CareerArc executives say.
“The most important thing job seekers can do right now is to use this time to make themselves more marketable, and our coaches are on standby seven days a week to help do just that,” says Yair Riemer, president of career transition services at CareerArc. “With this new assessment, our career coaches can better counsel job seekers to emphasize their unique strengths, while building the confidence they need to find their next opportunity as quickly as possible.”
Since March, more than 22 million people in the United States have been left unemployed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job seekers are increasingly turning to placement services — Riemer says 99% of CareerArc’s clients are currently unemployed.
The CareerArc assessment starts with having a user record and upload three videos of themselves responding to common interview questions. The software uses psychometric technology, pioneered by experts at University of Southern California and Purdue University, to analyze facial expressions to determine a candidate’s soft skills. Riemer says the software can determine whether a candidate is organized, creative, a formal or informal speaker and whether they communicate assertively or are more laid back.
“Soft skills are harder to learn, and it’s important they align with the job description because they definitely impact job performance,” Riemer says. “Having candidates who are self-aware of how their traits fit the role means [employers] will find someone who can meaningfully contribute to the company.”
Once they have an assessment of their traits, CareerArc places users with one of their career coaches to help decipher the results. The coaches also help candidates use the results to tweak their online presence and application materials.
“Most people don’t know how to highlight or market soft skills; resumes typically focus on hard skills,” Riemer says. “But our coaches are able to pick out keywords that grab the attention of recruiters and employers to help our candidates get noticed. Candidates will also come away more confident, with the skills to talk about their personal strengths.”
Going forward, Riemer says he’d like to extend the software to employers and recruiters so they can use it as part of their candidate evaluation process. He also sees potential for employers to offer the program to their employees as a means of improving their intrapersonal skills as they seek advancement opportunities within the company. CareerArc plans to hear from employers before pursuing either idea.
In the meantime, CareerArc plans to monitor the program’s results as job seekers continue to navigate the COVID-19 crisis.
“With the current job market, job seekers need tools and insights that will help them stand out from the crowd,” CareerArc CEO Robin D. Richards says.
SOURCE: Webster, K. (06 May 2020) "AI helps applicants hone their soft skills" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/ai-helps-applicants-home-in-on-their-soft-skills
Employees feel less connected working remotely but say work quality is improved
Dive Brief:
- Two recent surveys provide different impressions of how U.S. workers are adjusting to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, one painting a picture of engaged, productive employees and the other reporting disconnects
- Most employees in a KPMG survey said they felt prepared to transition to remote work and that their teams are collaborating better as a result of the changes. More than half (54%) said their productivity had improved since the transition, while 64% said the quality of their work improved.
- But most younger workers in particular have found the transition difficult, according to a survey by software platform Smartsheet. More than 90% of both Generation Z and millennial employees in that survey reported difficulty working from home, while more than 80% of both groups said they felt less connected. Half of respondents in both groups said they found it hard to get status updates.
Dive Insight:
As remote work becomes routine for companies that can afford to make it work during the pandemic, experts have questioned whether the trend will continue after the threat of the novel coronavirus has passed.
Early research showed many employees, at least, believe this will be the case. A survey conducted in early April by OnePoll and Citrix found more than a third of employee respondents believed their organizations would be more relaxed about remote work following the pandemic. Similar to the KPMG and Smartsheet surveys, however, employees had a mixed reaction to different components of the remote experience. For example, a third of the OnePoll/Citrix respondents said they felt overwhelmed by their remote work situation.
Even before the arrival of the pandemic in the U.S., a January survey by Robert Half found that employees felt deterred from taking advantage of remote work perks over concerns about technology and fears that distractions would hurt productivity.
Telework, reduction of hours and other impacts of the pandemic are also compounding employees' stress levels, an April 7 Gallup report found. Even so, more than half of respondents to a Gallup poll included in the report strongly agreed that they had a clear plan of action, a figure that rose by 15 percentage points since mid-March.
Employers are taking steps to address issues that may affect remote workers during the pandemic. Education company Chegg, for example, is offering childcare reimbursement worth up to $500 per family to employees who are working parents. Vendors are also pitching solutions to employers ranging from "wellness boxes" full of snacks to virtual, video-game like representations of their offices.
Emotional stability and autonomy can be important predictors of whether employees can successfully transition to remote work, a 2018 study published in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology found. Besides providing support, employers also need to prepare employees by giving them the proper equipment, sources previously told HR Dive.
SOURCE: Golden, R. (27 April 2020) "Employees feel less connected working remotely but say work quality is improved" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/employees-feel-less-connected-working-remotely-but-say-work-quality-is-impr/576809/
5 ways hiring will feel more, not less, human in 2030
The interviewing process, the hiring process, and the process regarding paperwork are becoming easier with the help of technology. Although technology is creating a more efficient way to complete these processes, it may create a dehumanizing feeling. Read this blog post to learn more about keeping the human touch in the hiring process.
While 2030 may feel like something out of science fiction, recruiting will likely look more human than android. Trends such as using artificial intelligence and cloud technology to curate candidate analytics are on the horizon, experts said. But any new technological trend must be paired with a focus on onboarding, upskilling and reskilling current employees to compliment new talent that all require a human touch.
1. Talent acquisition agendas go strategic
EY Partner and the Americas Leader for People Advisory Services Kim Billeter told HR Dive that HR transformation and technology will be the cornerstone of any organizational transformation.
“HR is going to play a far more important role going forward in the overall visualization and disruption of an organization,” Billeter said.
A recruiter’s job — bringing new talent, and retaining and upscaling that talent — will drive the success of business transformation as a whole, not just the HR function, she said. Billeter helps clients understand how digital transformation includes both digital aspects and embracing human beings. A successful transformation will require hiring talent with hybrid skills, or hard and soft skills. In the coming years, Billeter said companies will use both internal and external recruiters in finding talent for specialty areas.
Recruitment will be “done largely by the internal teams and organizations,” but organizations will also incorporate external niche recruiters to find candidates with very specific skills, she said. For example, a company may have a D&I; executive-level position in the slate. To find the right candidate, they may use a specialty recruiting team to really focus on all aspects of the hiring agenda, Billeter explained.
Sourcing upfront to get niche or digital skills will become essential for recruiters. However, a lot of organizations are realizing that hiring talent with advanced or emerging digital skills can be costly, and they can’t hire them fast enough, Billeter said.
“So, we’re seeing more focus on upscaling and rescaling [existing employees] perhaps than just the puristic talent recruiting,” she said. That’s the “real value for organizations,” she added.
2. Curating candidate analytics happens in the cloud
There will be a focus on not only measuring a candidate’s technical skills but a candidate’s ability to align with a company’s culture, Billeter said.
“Quality-level metrics are a little harder to try to define as it relates to recruiting,” she said. But, “we’re seeing clients wanting to get to those candidate pools in a far more qualified way.”
That can be challenging, though.
“If a company’s strategy is in innovation, how can you measure if the candidate brings innovation?” Billeter said. “That’s where a lot of the next level thinking is coming. Curating a lot of that analytical data as it comes to really qualified candidates, and moving them in a very different way than we’ve done before.”
She said the companies that have been the most successful in implementing technology have done the hard work to “both standardize [and] understand the nuances of the processes.” But there aren’t a lot of organizations that know how to effectively utilize talent acquisition solutions or cloud HCM solutions, which provide methods intended to improve operations and cut expenses, Billeter said. Companies such as ADP are working to create a user-friendly workforce analytics platform intelligence to drill into a candidate’s potential.
One feature of ADP’s DataCloud platform is intelligent recruiting, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
“Organizations say they have a hard time sifting through resumes for candidate relevancy,” Imran Ahmed, director of product marketing at ADP DataCloud, told HR Dive.
The new Storyboard feature uses a combination of machine learning and predictive analytics, along with advice based on ADP’s experience in human resources, Ahmed said, comparing it to Google Analytics.
“Storyboard is the exact same scenario where we’re pushing [insight] to the front of the organization,” he said. “We pull all of this information from various sources of data that we put out, and we actually serve up these recommendations to provide guidance.”
The tool can provide a narrative about human resources business challenges, such as the aging workforce, he said. For example, he said you could find out which positions are retirement eligible and what impact the positions have on the organization — low, medium or high.
Companies can also mimic the profiles of talented past employees to curate desired qualifications for a position, he said. “You can drill down so deep in this information to actually find look-alike employees,” Ahmed said.
In regard to choosing and implementing cloud solutions, Billeter said it’s essential to first solidify the goal of an organization’s transformation. It’s also important to keep in mind that it’s a “business-led transformation not an HR function transformation,” she added.
3. An entry-level hire will be the company’s future CEO
Organizations will still put a big emphasis on hiring for a diversity of ideas, which enhances a company’s culture and leads to profitability, according to Terrance S. Lockett, senior diversity program manager of Campus Advisory at Oracle.
“That’s why it’s critical that we get this diverse talent,” Lockett told HR Dive. But, in his opinion, a trend will be more of a focus on inclusion and equity, and “less about the word of diversity, per se.”
Recruiting diverse populations at the collegiate level will remain important as companies move those candidates up the talent pipeline into leadership roles, instead of looking outside of the organization for top executive talent, he added.
Organizations are focusing on the C-suite and “shaking up the board, shaking up the chart.”
“So it’s going to start from campus to recruiting,” Lockett said. “It’s key now that we get those people with potential because that’s going lead to the next wave of focusing on more internal growth of diversity.” According to the results of a survey by Zapier released on Jan. 27, 2020, millennials and Gen Zers want to stay a job for a significant amount of time, defying myths that younger generations tend to be job-hoppers and thus not worth the investment.
In searching for diverse talent, Lockett said Oracle, a multinational computer technology corporation, has partnered with Historically Black Colleges and Universities to find science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent, but the company is also focusing on what he referred to as high diversity institutions (HDIs). For example, an HDI could be a college or university in which the engineering program has a high concentration of women students.
Lockett said that at Arizona State University, 40% or more of their engineering students are women.
4. Adjusting to communication styles becomes the norm
Billeter said a focus on enhancing communication styles for recruiters will grow in importance.
“If someone is very analytical, you’re communicating with them much differently than someone who’s on the more emotional side or more communicative,” she explained. “You’ll have to understand how to engage with them to get a more productive conversation.”
Even if a candidate is more analytical and prefers technology to be present in the interviewing process, like the 24/7 ability to ask questions online through chatbots, there still needs to be personal, one-on-one communication, Billeter said.
“It can’t just be only technology-based,” she said. “The human side of this is going to win the day.”
In addition to online conversations or phone calls, Billeter recommended that if a candidate is based in a location outside an organization’s headquarters, a company representative in that location could meet with them. She also said having “a quality candidate pool based on analytics and curating all of the different experience data” will enhance the delivery model, resulting in moving the process forward more quickly.
5. Candidate, employee and customer messaging merge
This year employers will begin to connect the candidate, employee and customer through one, insync company experience. “We’re seeing the employee and the candidate experience needs to meld into the customer experience because often times employees and or candidates are going to become customers,” Billeter said. “You have to be attracting the talent that’s going to drive your overall business strategy, but most importantly your customer strategy.”
She said chief human resources officers will focus on experience strategy first — one that involves both heightened tech and the human touch.
“The medium with which we meet people is going to be a combination of human as well as technology as well as ... living, feeling and seeing the culture of an organization — all of those things have to come together for it to be a good experience,” Billeter said.
No matter what year it is, candidates consider the quality of the recruitment process and their impressions of the recruiters, according to December 2019 survey results from career site Zety.
“If you can’t get the experience part of this equation right, you are probably going to be an unfortunate loser in the talent game,” Billeter said.
SOURCE: Estrada, S. (09 March 2020) "5 ways hiring will feel more, not less, human in 2030" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/5-ways-hiring-will-feel-more-not-less-human-in-2030/573153/
Sharpen Your Recruiting Workflow with Service-Level Agreements
Recruiting can be a long and drawn-out process, but using service-level agreements (SLAs) can speed up the dreary process along with generating accountable talent. Firms are beginning to use SLAs to improve recruiting results and consistency. Continue reading this blog post from SHRM to learn more.
Using service-level agreements (SLAs) in recruitment can speed up a laggard hiring process, generate accountability from hiring managers and create the expectation that talent acquisition (TA) is a top company priority.
Common in sales, marketing and procurement, SLAs are written standards that the TA function and hiring managers agree upon in order to understand the responsibilities of each party.
"Service-level agreements have proven to be one of the most effective ways to improve recruiting results, increase recruiting consistency, and, at the same time, strengthen the relationship between recruiters and hiring managers," said John Sullivan, an HR thought leader and professor of management at San Francisco State University. "If you want to improve your quality of hire, reduce position vacancy days and improve process compliance, it only makes sense to try to get hiring managers to put a greater focus on recruiting. You can reduce the blame game [between recruiters and hiring managers] by spelling out responsibilities, timelines, deliverables and success measures in advance."
SLAs are essentially informal contracts, said Jessica Miller-Merrell, SHRM-SCP, an HR consultant and the founder of Workology, an Austin, Texas-based workplace resource site.
They can be time-bound or focused on quality control, with both parties agreeing to specific deadlines or commitments related to resume review, interview scheduling, candidate interview feedback and final selection.
There is one important prerequisite to using the agreements: getting buy-in from hiring managers and leadership. "SLAs won't work if the relationship and the respect are not there first," Miller-Merrell said. "SLAs have value even in just getting the conversation started with your hiring managers. Frame it as a process improvement that will serve both of your goals."
Without that crucial buy-in, "HR and TA are seen as more of an obstacle rather than as a partner," said Caitlin Wilterdink, director of HR and talent acquisition at Paxos, a financial technology company in New York City, and the owner of Wilterdink Consulting. A longtime believer in the SLA model's effectiveness, she's introduced the concept to several companies, receiving both positive and negative reactions. At Paxos, where both time-bound and quality-control SLAs are in use, reaction was initially mixed. When implementing SLAs there, Wilterdink asked hiring managers to take on extra recruiting tasks due to a lack of TA staff.
"There was a bit of questioning from some hiring managers about why they were being asked to do things that HR usually did for them [in past roles]," she said. "That's fair, and it's important for HR leadership to empathize with that sentiment and be able to help them understand why they are being asked to do this. It's about balance, and the TA leader has to have a good pulse on the organization and know when to strictly enforce an SLA and when to bend the rules."
Benefits of Using SLAs in Recruiting
Experts say organizations that use SLAs in recruiting could see several improvements in the process:
Hiring. "Simply setting minimum and maximum times for recruiting steps will speed up your overall recruiting process," Sullivan said. He added that recruiter and manager satisfaction with the process will improve, hiring costs will decrease, and confusion and duplication will be dramatically reduced.
"Being confused about who does what and when can certainly slow down the hiring process and result in the unintended duplication of work," he said. "SLAs lead to clarity and agreement on what must be done and who must do it."
Coordination. "The process of jointly working together in order to create the SLA agreement by itself helps to improve the relationship between recruiters and hiring managers," Sullivan said. "The initial negotiation process also helps both parties understand the needs, expectations and problems of the other party."
Accountability. When Wilterdink joined Paxos, "there wasn't a lot of accountability for how feedback was used to inform the rest of the recruiting team about a candidate, leading to a lot of false positives coming in for onsite interviews." She explained that some managers were marking "yes" on interview score cards to advance a candidate, but their written feedback would indicate they actually felt more like "meh." In order to control for that, Wilterdink initiated an advocacy-modeled SLA, stipulating that an interviewer must advocate for the person he or she advances before the person is moved forward in the process. "Doing this has reduced the number of false positives," she said.
What to Include in Your SLA
Service-level agreements can range from basic one-pagers with general statements to detailed documents covering many aspects of the recruiting process. Sullivan said that upfront basics of an SLA can include setting the goals and business impact of the process and defining the role of each party.
"Defining roles and making it clear who has ownership can reduce hesitation, as well as duplicate work. Roles that frequently need clarification include interview scheduling, interview participation, reference checking and documentation."
The recruiting process should be listed in clear steps in an SLA. "The required and optional recruiting steps are listed in order to make it clear to everyone what steps must be executed, which ones can be expedited and which ones are optional," he said. "It's probably also a good idea to include a visual process map or flowchart so that everyone can clearly see the steps and the flow of the process."
Be sure to specify deadlines and deliverables, as well. "Getting quick feedback from the manager about the quality of the submitted candidate slate is critical," Miller-Merrell said.
At Paxos, SLAs include a commitment to reviewing resumes within 24 hours and attaining a performance benchmark of application-to-offer in about 27 days.
Sullivan said that SLAs should specify how the success of reaching each goal and activity will be monitored and measured. Miller-Merrell said that measuring the time it takes to receive feedback may help the TA team uncover critical bottlenecks in the recruitment process and avoid both delays and the loss of good candidates who remain in limbo.
SLAs can also identify potential risk factors, conflicts, rewards and penalties for nonperformance. "If your recruiting process lacks structure, it might be a good idea to outline any unacceptable actions or behaviors," Sullivan said. "When you specify the don'ts, everyone knows upfront what they cannot do under any circumstances."
Tips for Making SLAs Work
Wilterdink said that a partnership approach will go a long way to smooth over any negative reactions from hiring managers who are presented with an SLA. She suggested some ways TA can achieve cooperation:
- Train hiring managers on how to fill out interview score cards.
- Provide recruiting software, which makes completing score cards and tracking manager participation easier. If you don't have technology that does this, you can use Google Docs, she said.
- Be flexible with enforcement.
- Pair managers with recruiters, if possible. "When I have a fully staffed team, I'll have the hiring manager work side by side with a recruiter," Wilterdink said. "The reason for that is that the manager needs to understand the market we're looking for before posting a role, so we spend our time fitting the actual business need.
SOURCE: Maurer, R. (21 February 2020) "Sharpen Your Recruiting Workflow with Service-Level Agreements" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/sharpen-recruiting-workflow-service-level-agreements.aspx
6 Practical Ways to Recruit More Strategically
How can HR departments recruit more strategically? Successful recruiters will go above and beyond and come up with ways to change how they work in order to deliver better results. Read this blog post for six low-cost things recruiters can do to become more strategic and to improve the hiring process at their organizations.
DALLAS—The most successful recruiters will go beyond doing more of the same and instead come up with ways to fundamentally change how they work in order to deliver better results.
"Every hiring manager wants more strategy from recruiters," said John Vlastelica, former recruiting director at Amazon and Expedia and founder of Recruiting Toolbox, a Seattle-based recruitment management consulting and training firm.
But what does that mean? "Just calling yourself a talent advisor doesn't mean you're going to be strategic," Vlastelica told attendees at the recent LinkedIn Talent Connect 2019 conference for recruiting and HR professionals. "PowerPoint decks do not make you strategic. Strategic does not mean being innovative. Business executives want speed, quality and diversity."
He shared six low-cost, practical things recruiters can do to become more strategic and to improve the hiring process at their organizations.
1. Get Hiring Managers Involved Early
The companies that are most strategic about pipeline recruiting get hiring managers engaged at the start of the process, Vlastelica said. "Every hiring manager I've spoken to wants pipelines, and they see that as being your job, not theirs," he said. But candidates are more likely to respond to outreach from hiring managers than recruiters.
Vlastelica advised talent acquisition professionals to train managers on how "to show up online"; by that, he meant "be thought leaders who engage with the communities they will be sourcing from and have conversations across social media channels that aren't just interviews of potential candidates.
"Getting them to be more visible among the communities they want to hire from is key to getting passive talent," he said. Hiring managers can also help by hosting meetups, game nights, sourcing jams and thought-leader webinars.
2. Know Your Source-of-Hire Mix
Vlastelica said facilities management company Sodexo recently realized that 90 percent of the source of hire for one of its core higher-volume jobs was internal candidates, so it changed the role to an internal requisition.
"Take a look at common roles and see what kind of internal versus external fill you have," he said. "Have a conversation with your department leaders about the hiring mix they want and then allocate your resources to the jobs you intend to hire externally. That saves the company time and money and provides a good development opportunity for employees."
3. Give the Gift of Time
Hiring managers are busy, and most of the time recruiters are giving them more to do.
"Whenever you are able to give back time, you are winning," Vlastelica said.
The Walt Disney Co. recently decided that hiring managers didn't need to screen all candidates.
"What if recruiters were qualified to screen candidates and send finalists to onsite interviews?" he asked. "You'd be giving managers hundreds of hours back."
Another way to streamline the interview process is to reduce the number of people involved. Too many interviewers in the process leads to slow hiring and bad consensus decisions. How many interviews are needed depends on job function, but "you don't need 16 interviewers for most jobs," he said.
4. Help Your Candidates Out
If the candidates you bring in don't have much experience with interviewing, "it's important to set them up for success," Vlastelica said. "I want candidates to bring their best selves to the interview."
He recommended that recruiters coach them on what to expect and ask them if they would like to meet with any employee resource groups.
5. Change the Approval Process
One of the biggest misalignments between recruiters and the business is when the time-to-fill countdown starts. To talent acquisition professionals, the clock begins when the requisition is approved, or even when the job is posted. But for hiring managers, the process started weeks prior.
"Hiring managers hate the approval process for opening a new requisition," Vlastelica said. Talent acquisition leaders at KPMG studied turnover and discovered that they could predict position vacancies in advance for certain jobs.
"Why wait for people to resign before starting the hiring process? Start it earlier, so the approval is already done. This is a planning issue. Tell the business you need to open certain requisitions now if you want the jobs filled quickly when they're needed."
6. Conduct Batch Interviews
Batch interviews—grouping several onsite interviews on one day—serves both speed and quality, he said. "One of the biggest constraints we find in time-to-fill is scheduling. Scheduling can add five, 10, 20 days to your process, which is ridiculous."
Instead, Vlastelica recommended "finding high-volume open jobs you always need and plan the interview days far in advance—have dedicated sourcers and recruiters to fill 12 interviewing slots each day."
He said that was the strategy when he was at Amazon, with Mondays and Fridays reserved for interviews. "We made same-day decisions and sometimes same-day offers," he said.
SOURCE: Maurer, R. (14 October 2019) "6 Practical Ways to Recruit More Strategically" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/6-practical-ways-to-recruit-more-strategically.aspx
Top 10 Workplace Trends for 2019
During this year's SHRM's Annual Conference & Exposition, Dan Schawbel discussed the importance of looking forward three to six months or even a few years for new and emerging trends. Factors such as technological developments, economic changes, globalization and automation, all affect how companies do business and attract top talent. Read this blog post to learn more.
LAS VEGAS — HR professionals and organization leaders have a lot to keep up with: technological developments, economic changes, globalization and automation. All of these factors affect how companies do business and attract and retain talented workers.
"If we don't keep up with all the changes going on around us in terms of the tasks we do every day, we become obsolete," said Dan Schawbel, partner and research director at New York City-based Future Workplace, an executive development firm dedicated to rethinking and reimagining the workplace.
It's more important now than ever for business professionals to look forward three or six months or even a few years, he said during a mega session at the Society for Human Resource Management 2019 Annual Conference & Exposition.
Conference attendee Jessica Whitney said she hoped to learn about any new trends for the workplace so she could compare what's discussed to what her company is currently doing—to see what it's doing right and if there are any new ideas she can take back to the office. Whitney is a people partner at Unum Therapeutics in Massachusetts.
These are the top 10 trends that will impact HR departments in 2019, according to Schawbel's research.
1. Fostering the relationship between workers and robots.
One of the biggest trends of 2019 is the partnership between robots and humans. "The human element will never go away," Schawbel said. HR will continue to manage the human workforce, and information technology (IT) teams will manage the robots. "The big opportunity moving forward is for HR to partner with IT and even other departments … in order to collaborate and manage the human experience," he said.
2. Creating flexible work schedules.
"Flexibility is something that we want because we're working more hours than ever before," he said. Regardless of age or generation, employees want to have a life outside of work.
3. Taking a stand on social issues.
Younger workers, especially, want to work for companies that are making a positive difference in the world, Schawbel said. Companies that take a stand on social issues will be unpopular with some people, he noted, but if they want to attract the right talent, they have almost no choice.
4. Improving gender diversity.
Compared to men, few women hold executive positions. The New York Times reported that "fewer women run big companies than men named John." That's the bad news. "The great news," Schawbel said, "is that countries are getting involved, companies are getting involved, and it looks like changes are on the horizon."
5. Investing in mental health.
Many people either have mental disorders or interact with someone who does, and mental health is becoming less stigmatized as more people speak publicly on the topic. Britain's Prince Harry, for example, is partnering with Oprah Winfrey and Apple on a series about mental health and has also asked employers in the United Kingdom to sign a pledge to take a stand on this issue. Schawbel noted that employers who sign the pledge signal to employees that they take mental health seriously.
6. Addressing the loneliness of remote workers.
Many employees today can work from wherever they want. Remote work is great—and employers need to promote flexibility—but there is a cost, Schawbel said. The isolation employees feel when they don't interact enough with co-workers may cause them to check out. Investing in offsite and team-building events can help. Connecting with remote workers in person even once a year can make a huge difference and build trust, he noted.
7. Upskilling the workforce.
There are 7.4 million open jobs in the U.S., and the unemployment rate is 3.6 percent. So employers need to find creative ways to close the skills gap. Companies are starting to hire more older workers, workers with disabilities, workers who were formerly incarcerated and veterans. "The [talent] pool is getting wider and wider, which is great," Schawbel said. "It's great because talent can come from anywhere." Companies are less focused on age, gender and other factors and more concerned with whether the person can do the joband work well with others, he added.
8. Focusing on soft skills.
"Soft skills are the new hard skills," Schawbel said. Ninety-one percent of HR professionals surveyed by LinkedIn believe soft skills are very important for the future of recruiting. "You can train for hard skills, but soft skills take a long time to learn," Schawbel noted. "If you hire someone who has a positive attitude, good organizational skills, is able to delegate work … they're going to be incredibly valuable in today's world."
9. Preparing for Generation Z.
Employers need to understand Generation Z, the demographic born between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. Many in this cohort identify anxiety as a major issue that gets in the way of their workplace success, which relates to addressing mental health, Schawbel said. And even though Generation Z workers self-identify as the digital generation, they say they want more face-to-face interaction at work. Additionally, they tend to expect quick promotions, so employers should set realistic expectations, he noted.
10. Preventing burnout.
Employees must grapple with an "always on" work culture, and many employees leave their companies as a result of being overworked. Employers should recognize what causes burnout and aim to fix it, because it may cost them more over time if they don't, Schawbel said.
"We have to think about work differently," he added. "The future is uncertain … but we can make changes today that will give us a better tomorrow."
SOURCE: Nagele-Piazza, L., J.D., SHRM-SCP (27 June 2019) "Top 10 Workplace Trends for 2019" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/Pages/Top-10-Workplace-Trends-for-2019.aspx