Making quality hires for your business is crucial to sustained growth. However, because of a triple threat of recent lockdowns and social distancing events, the economic downturn, and Brexit, which has led to an emigration of overseas talent, tensions have risen among business owners as they speak out about what it is is meant to recruit the best workers.
The recent economic crisis led to a widespread embrace of digitalization as a means of enhancing organizational continuity. In Gartner’s report on this crucial macro-development, statistics indicated that 48% of the UK workforce would be utterly remote by 2021. Consequently, businesses have been increasing their investment into the efficient technology needed to facilitate this massive change in the work environment – with investment levels rising by 17 percent more spent on collaboration and content platforms and four percent on Cloud conferencing and communications solutions.
The idea of doing remote business practices is something that seems overwhelming, especially if you’re someone who has gotten used to the traditional way of doing things. But the cloud working movement – the freedom to work almost anywhere nowadays – is here to stay. And while many businesses are wary of it at first, there are plenty of reasons why more and more companies are starting to get on board.
At a quarter of organizations, the talent pool has become more diverse over the last year due to redundancies due to the most recent worker illness. However, senior leaders still struggle to find new employees even though they’ve spent over £1 billion on temporary employees to quickly fill skills gaps and cover roles. This is where going digital with your recruitment efforts will come in handy.
Navigating remote working with experts can be both brilliant and tricky. Like most things, it’s about finding the right people to fill the roles you need and making sure everyone is entirely on board with how they will work together. We recently had a client in an industry with no previous experience, so we helped them redefine what types of experts they wanted on board and build a hiring process around that. It was vital to find the right fit to perform at their best from day one, with all parties already aligned on shared goals, direction, and success metrics for each project.
Further, the ramifications of #Brexit present exciting opportunities for companies in the UK. Many skilled foreigners who might otherwise have been hindered by lengthy visa and immigration processes and other travel restrictions can now work remotely from their locations in the EU.
There is a considerable benefit to digital-first hiring for smaller companies, especially those who want to scale and do not have the budget to hire extensively or be disrupted by mismanagement of resources or people. Last year alone, 772,002 new businesses were launched in the UK, and their success will play an integral role in driving post-pandemic economic recovery. Therefore, they must find potential staff without restriction since the business is at its most critical growth stage as unsound individuals risk harming an organization as it tries to secure funding and build out its infrastructure.
This brings us to the next thing we need to keep in mind as it pertains to any remote hiring strategy – not just how we attract new hires, but how we make our team feel like an integral part of the company and not only productive and entertained by their job but also fully engaged and immersed in company culture throughout and after the hiring process.
Integrating employees into new teams remotely requires visual real-time communication and collaboration. This can be achieved by using SaaS-enabled tools that are affordable and deployable seamlessly without the need for convoluted IT overhauls.
It starts with the hiring stage, which you should know is typically a chance to see whether candidates are gelled with the company culture, and of course, face-to-face interaction is necessary to build rapport. However, it’s possible to bring in new employees and make them feel genuinely engaged through today’s fast-evolving digital and video technologies. There is much scope for companies adopting video technology, for example, to make the interviewing process even more interactive and helpful – possibly even making it available as a mobile application!
As opposed to a physical office environment, creating a virtual workplace allows remote workers to quickly connect with other team members, and cross-communication between managers and employees is simpler and more streamlined. Remote workers also feel less isolated and become much more motivated to work hard because they realize that their contributions are valued by others whenever there is online access or possible video meetings. It is easier for companies that have created these types of workspaces to assess employee performance because of increased accessibility. HR departments can deliver better support, more frequent feedback, customized training programs geared towards the individual’s needs, personal development strategies, etc.…
To attract top talent, companies must adapt to changing expectations. For instance, after an entire year in the same position, people are more accustomed to having greater freedom to manage their schedules while remaining as productive as before. Many would prefer working remotely or in hybrid mode into the future, and 54% of employees say they would leave a job if there weren’t optional remote or flexible work available. Businesses that give employees such options will be the ones to keep this top talent for years to come.
If you haven’t already, there is a reason why every company should have some remote working option within their physical premises or as another option, because it has been a practice that not only helps employers hire better talent at a faster pace without the usual time constraints but also provides a more flexible work environment.
