According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 5.8 Mn hires in July 2020. But there were also 5.0 Mn separations (quits and layoffs) in the same period.
Though this trend indicates that the job market continues to persevere through the fallout from COVID-19, the attrition rates are alarming. And recruitment plays a crucial role in acquiring and keeping employees for the long-term growth of the organization.
Recruitment has been highly prone to human errors such as bias, insufficient screening, or inadequate knowledge of business goals, often resulting in alarming attrition rates and unbalanced work culture.
Today, HRs have several talent management issues at hand, from evolving remote work archetypes to employee bonus programs. At a time like this, it’s imperative to look within than to look around and shape recruitment to best suit your organization.
The digital revolution has transformed recruitment. In the space of a decade, there’s been a move away from traditional job websites to an innovative world of modern-day recruitment tools and techniques. But what are the recruiting best practices that’ll shape organizational hiring in the future?
Engage your Candidates
Candidates tend to have certain expectations about the organization and how the process of recruitment will be. If those expectations are unmatched, chances are you’ll lose the candidate before the interview.
Candidate engagement is a part of candidate experience. Taking it lightly often results in candidates either refusing the offer or quitting soon after joining.
Most organizations have started to focus on candidate experience, resulting in a substantial decrease in time-to-hire and an increase in candidate satisfaction.
Since most global organizations are turning digital and enabling work-from-home, it may seem quite tricky to craft a candidate experience, but in reality, it can be done with the least effort.
There are a few ways to engage your candidates, including:
Scheduling video interviews: Video interviews can be an incredible engagement factor as they are the closest to face-to-face communication. Also, a video interview gives a clear understanding of the candidate’s infrastructure availability and their commitment to remote working.
Communicating consistently: Using a chatbox should be preferred over email for simple queries resulting in consistent communication until the candidate is hired. This also makes the candidate feel welcomed by the organization.
Driving the excitement: During the selection process, HR executives can engage the candidate by sharing pictures, videos, and documents about the company, the work culture, and key executives to drive excitement for joining the company.
Some companies such as Airbnb & DigitalOcean have implemented this with great success.
Onboarding to Remember
Organizations that practice effective employee onboarding understand that the process of integrating a new hire into a company and its culture requires more than just a great first day at work or a week-long orientation program.
Most organizations think onboarding is only a matter of a few days, but those few days play the most crucial role in employee retention, productivity, and satisfaction.
Research shows that implementing an effective new hire onboarding process can substantially impact company success and long-term employee engagement, productivity, and retention.
Effective onboarding can result in:
- Retention and loyalty for long-term growth
- A motivated company culture that innovates
- Feeling of belonging and inclusion for new hires
- Improved productivity and employee satisfaction
- Reduced attrition rates and improved performance
The best employee onboarding programs extend throughout the first 60-90 days and may even extend out for an entire year. This is to ensure new hires are fully supported in a new culture and feel included in it.
Here are a few top tips to onboarding with an experience:
Onboarding 24/7: Use AI and chatbots to make onboarding a 24-hour process. AI and chatbots can work around the clock, guiding a new hire throu gh all aspects of onboarding and answering questions as they arise.
Automation: AI can deliver an overview of company policies and deliver login information for portals relevant to a given job. AI can track forms and capture electronic signatures as new hires finish steps. This reduces the workload on HRs and speeds up onboarding.
Developing a Feedback system: Asking candidates about the application and selection process and finding areas of improvement should be every Hiring manager’s priority. This also lets the candidates know that the company cares about their experience.
Be a Brand that Attracts
Employers must invest in is creating and nurturing a positive brand image, something people want to be a part of. Spending time and resources on attracting the best talent means little if your company branding falls short compared to your competitors.
Think about why millennials want to work at Google, Apple, or Microsoft. It’s not because they understand the work or want to work with that specific company; it’s because they admire the brand.
If your company branding is a weak point, consider working with people throughout your organization to improve this business element.
Company branding can include anywhere from a good company culture to celebrating employee achievements that candidates can see and want to be a part of.
Cisco can be a great example of a company struggling to send a consistent employer brand message on social media, despite being active across channels. Cisco was a known-brand at the time, yet, for potential candidates, even those who wanted to work with the firm, the message of the company was unclear. The candidates were unable to understand what goes on in the company, why this particular organization has a better culture than others.
By thorough introspection of their goals and the message they wanted to convey, Cisco was able to take control of their company narrative and turn their social media presence around.
By figuring out what potential candidates may want, they devised a social media strategy anchored by employee-generated content, allowing potential candidates to get a natural feel of what it’s like to work there.
Let your team find a team
Employee referral programs are a powerful way to harness your colleague’s industry contacts. These programs encourage employees to help fill vacant positions by recommending qualified candidates and confirm their skills and experience.
This can speed up the screening process of vacant roles and let you tap into candidate pools you may not otherwise have accessed.
A referral program should offer incentives and recognition for successful hires. This motivates employees to bring a team and results in ease of work considering the new candidate knows somebody in the organization.
AI is being actively used in employee referrals to evaluate types of employees referred and gaining insight into who refers to the most efficient ones. AI also analyzes performance data from previous referrals and recognizes when candidates similar to successful employees are recommended.
Talent intelligence meets Recruitment
As companies increasingly adopt different technologies to help streamline their hiring processes, data-driven recruitment will help drive more innovative strategies for finding and screening candidates.
Data-driven recruitment can be performed through talent intelligence platforms backed by AI and Machine learning to hire faster and better candidates. These talent management platforms allow recruiters to manage candidate data securely, analyze candidate personalities, devise onboarding strategies, and manage talent.
In 2021, companies are moving from talent data to talent intelligence and utilizing the power of AI and ML in recruitment.
Recruitment with the use of AI and ML results in the elimination of bias and human error. It can efficiently target and analyze candidates and display only the information necessary to the recruiter.
Draup for talent enables HR leaders and Hiring Strategists to dive deep into various trends in hiring and engagement to empower their recruitment with data collected from over 4,500+ Job roles spread across 33 industries, 7,000+ universities, and 30,000 skills.
