As the pandemic continues and rays of hope emerge in the form of treatment, many clients are thinking how about how to operate in the post Covid19 world. HR leaders are debating, in their minds, if talent will be easily available as companies pause or slow down hiring. Google announced this week that they are pausing hiring of Nooglers (new Googlers) in one of their recent emails.

Some leaders are comparing this current event with 2008 financial crisis to see if talent availability will get easier or if they should pause on recruitment efforts. While there is no doubt there will be some pause in immediate hiring, it is important get Strategic in directing Workforce Planning, Recruitment and Reskilling into unique efforts that will be extremely valuable for the Enterprise.

There is one very critical characteristic of this global pause and a very different nature of this episode compared to 2008 financial crisis. This episode is creating significant demand in Digital priorities for enterprises(very different than 2008 time frame).  Solutioning customer demand is at its peak for many companies.  Our discussions with business leaders across industries show that there are several solutions they are working very hard to implement for customers.  This require good and innovative talent.  Let us look at the top priorities that organizations are pursuing now.

Companies are doing everything to preserve and scale Cybersecurity priorities given the exposure and risk

• Demand on IT support and troubleshooting has gone up significantly with knowledge workers operating from home (many of them working round the clock)
• Many companies are launching or enhancing the existing Mobile apps related to Covid19 protocols for their customers
• Companies like Bank of America are forced to use large developer talent to design and implement federal programs like Payroll Protection Plan.
• Examining security vulnerabilities by working with video conferencing vendors is consuming technical bandwidth
• Complicated procurement cycles are consuming internal procurement teams
• Demand for storytelling, risk investigation and other similar skills are on the rise when we text mine the jobs that opened post April-07^th
• Demand for Full Stack Developers, Backend Development, product managers are increasing
• HRBPs are reporting the need to do more number of 1:1s and team meetings as employees are stressed
• Employees are demanding unique online engagement models as lockdown continues

Connect with Business on key priorities through a simple survey (driven by data and facts)

At Draup, we are helping HR design quick surveys to reach out to Engineering leaders or Business leaders with a facts based approach.  Here are some example questions that Workforce Planning team can leverage.

Sample Questions: 

• We have initial data that Startups are facing financial pressure. Series-A funds are getting deferred as VCs are not making decisions unless they meet the founders in person.  Would you like to see a targeted profiles of Engineers in key startups in our industry/areas of focus?  HR will do some short listing and identify innovators.  What is your opinion on this?
• Cybersecurity firms reported over 18 million daily malware about Covid19 last week.  What is your perspective on amplifying our Cybersecurity team?
• Crisis often builds leaders in Enterprise. Based on our historical hiring Python and React are very critical skills for our teams. What are your thoughts on amplifying our communication around existing engineers learning this? Can we our L&D develop a plan?
• What are the top 3 digital priorities you think will emerge post Covid19?
• Google is not going to tap into big universities talent that aggressively  this year as per their recent email. (typically they bring in 20,000 people every year).  We have always wanted to bring some folks from IVY league but unable to do so in the past.  Should we attempt to get few graduates this year from IVY league?

Such a survey will ensure your assets are super productive depending upon the responses.  This also ensures that HR is bringing in significant Labor Market Intelligence to your leaders.  Let us know and we can work with you on these questionnaires if you are interested

When we were evaluating the job of a financial advisor for a bank, we realized that many of them do not have the modern digital skills to go fully online.  In such scenarios, you have two options:

• Launch a series of training around digital skills
• Establish a support COE for digital tasks and let the advisor continue in the same manner (through phone)

For example, when a Financial Advisor talks to a prospect, the notes from that meeting will be documented in SalesForce through this COE rather than the advisor themselves completing the same.  This type of dynamics exists in every job and provides interesting opportunities around this.  In this manner, we should evaluate all the jobs to see how it can be Reimagined and Reengineered

We are helping a lot of the companies understand their existing footprint and see how they can be used differently in the new world.  For example, if you have a call center in Oklahoma City, can that center be used to do CRM documentation?  In such scenarios, you would have to understand the talent that is easily available in the local ecosystem and look at it from efficiency and effectiveness perspective

This is an interesting workforce planning project we can assist

Capturing customer interaction and translating those into data assets is a very critical activity that many companies are undertaking. HR can lead this activity for many job families.  We are building a number of Simulation models around this.  Here is an example of how customer order taking may form a key data feed for Digital Marketing in expanding sales.  This is a theoretical example for demonstration but this will help you think through similar scenarios.    This is given as an example but we can study specific job families.