One of the many changes that businesses are witnessing as a result of the pandemic is a change in the job market and a change in the way we recruit new colleagues; whether it's retention, hybrid working or an influx of applications. Candidates may now have more choices open to them than ever before, so how can you ensure that recruitment works for both of you?
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One of the topics that has clearly become much more relevant now is the job market. It's just simply a fact that whether it's caused by Brexit, whether it's caused by COVID - whatever the drivers are - there are significantly more difficult problems in recruiting talent into organisations than perhaps two or three years ago.
Because we coach and work with a wide variety of organisations, the problems of recruitment may be around particular skills, particular experiences, and particular locations, but the general truth is that it's hard to find good people and that it's hard to keep good people.
So, what are the sorts of things we see that work? Well, the sort of things that we see are actually being played with and experimented within an attempt to be creative and different.
The first thing that we see is a focus on retaining people because clearly if the bucket's not leaking or certainly not leaking as badly as it might do, it's easier for you to find replacements - there's less pressure. The focus on retention means people are really thinking very carefully about their relationships; whether it's terms and conditions, whether it's hybrid working, whether it's offering incentives and reasons to be with your organisation that otherwise weren't important.
Then, it's not simply a matter of changing working conditions, it can be all about the way in which people are managed and the way in which they're involved. When we say they're ‘engaged in the business', rather than simply doing the same old way that you did, prepare the actual recruitment process. There are talented people out there. There are talented people who are very much more willing to change jobs now than they ever were two or three years ago. It's interesting, therefore, that if you are actively in the market and seeking that talent, there's a jolly good chance you're going to bump into it.
There are two or three stages to this...
First of all, you've got to get active. You've got to do the things that are going to enable you to find that talent, engage with that talent and get a chance to put your offer to them.
The second thing is that when you are putting your offer to them, you may have to be more flexible. You may have to be more adaptive in what you're looking for from them and how you're going to get it because they've got more choices than they used to have.
So, perhaps by bringing somebody in who needs a bit more training, perhaps bringing somebody on is a little bit more expensive than you really wanted to pay, perhaps bringing on somebody who's not quite in the right geographic location, you can find a way of making it work one way or another.
We've seen a marked shift away from traditional employment agencies. Recruitment agencies clearly had a big role in finding talent, but because of the advent of the digital world - because over the last two years, people have become increasingly more committed to their PCs, increasingly more open and more focused on what's going on digitally. So, recruitment using LinkedIn - and not just placing an advert on LinkedIn or placing a post on LinkedIn, but being actively promoting your business on LinkedIn - in conjunction with the recruitment process, seems to go a long way to catching people's eyes.
Another aspect is making sure that when you do engage with a potential employee, you are as much in listening-mode, as you are in transmitting mode because you want to know what the success factors are going to be in your relationship with them, from their perspective, that way you can do your best to match it. That requires quite a lot of empathy and a change to the style of the employer, employee interviews, or first conversations.
Another aspect that we're seeing and another technique that we're seeing has been around a very long time - the confidential headhunt. It's back front and centre because if people are not actively seeking a job, you've got to go find them. The skilled researchers in that particular sector are the very, very best at unearthing these people and reaching out to them. These are talented organisations. These are talented people who know precisely what they're doing and have the wherewithal to reach out to people that are otherwise not looking for a new role.
And all in all, this wraps up into you just need to be a lot more active, and bring a lot more to the table. I recognise that the employees have got new requirements. There are fewer of them. Your choices are more limited and they're choosier. So, you've got to work harder. You’ve got to put more into it and you've got to accept that it's not the way that it used to be. And the more you do that, the sooner you do that, the better the chances are you're going to attract and retain the kind of talent that you would like.
So, attracting retaining talent and the post-pandemic world. I hope you found that helpful. I hope you found that useful. I look forward to seeing you again soon.
So, there you have it, the latest edition of The Coaching Conversation. I hope you found it interesting. I hope you found it useful. You can find out more about our coaching programmes at theexecutivemindset.co.uk
If you want to reach out you can send us an email at theexecutivemindset@sagegreen.com you can book a free 15-minute coaching session at theexecutivemindset.co.uk which will give you a really good feel for how coaching can help you.
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