Talent Acquisition and COVID-19: What do we focus on now?
If you don’t work for a company hiring essential workers (think healthcare, grocery, and manufacturing workers), there’s a good chance that hiring has slowed or stopped altogether at your organization because of COVID-19. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by The Talent Board, 38% of respondents said that hiring had been severely impacted by the novel coronavirus — and that number is only likely to increase.
So this begs the question, as Talent Acquisition professionals, what can we focus on now to help our companies during this difficult time? If you find yourself with fewer reqs and a bit of extra time on your hands, how can you re-invest that time to ensure a brighter future for your company when hiring eventually does pick up again?
I think the activities that we can focus on now to support our companies can be separated into four areas:
Employee experience initiatives
Candidate experience initiatives
Candidate nurture initiatives
External communications initiatives
Employee experience
It makes sense to dedicate time and energy towards your employee experience in a concerted way at this time because it’s imperative we try to maintain a positive culture now. After all, your culture is your employer brand, and if you provide a terrible experience during this tumultuous period, your best employees will leave after this is done — and they will say negative things that deter future candidates from joining your organization.
In addition, taking the time to improve things here will help to boost morale, which is the right thing to do. People need all the sunshine they can get right now. And when employees are feeling good (or relatively good, all things considered), it will help to increase motivation and focus so people can continue doing a great job at work.
Here are a few ideas to get you started on thinking about what employee experience initiatives might be worth focusing on now:
Map out what the employee experience looks like at your organization in its current state today and look for problem areas where employees are likely having a very poor experience. Find ways to address and improve those points.
Conduct employee interviews to see how people are faring through all of this and determine what additional resources and programming employees might need right now.
Focus on boosting morale through new virtual culture activities and programs, including team events, clubs, support groups, and more, conducted via Slack or/and video conferencing.
Create an internal COVID-19 employee resource hub that provides resources for staying mentally and physically healthy and excelling at remote work during this time.
Ensure your onboarding and new hire experience is still as positive as can be, despite being conducted virtually — how can you find ways to still build team cohesion and positive feelings about your organization at this time?
If your company is or will be experiencing layoffs, consider ways that you can make this experience the least painful it can be through transparent, honest communications. This might be achieved by developing a message board and FAQs to run through with your team prior to executing on any furloughs or terminations.
Candidate experience
Taking the time now to improve your candidate messaging, touchpoints, and overall experience will majorly benefit your organization long term, once hiring picks up again. If there are areas of your candidate experience that are less than ideal — maybe parts that are cumbersome, outdated, or that aren’t reflecting your organization’s employee value proposition — now is a great time to step back and give those areas some TLC while you have the bandwidth.
Here are a few ideas to get you started here:
Conduct a candidate journey mapping exercise. Go through your end-to-end experience yourself and look for pain points that could be improved. This could include spots where candidates likely aren’t receiving enough information about your company, your application process (is it mobile optimized?!), your careers site, Glassdoor presence, and more.
Focus on your current interim candidate experience too. Even if hiring has slowed, there are likely still some roles you might be recruiting for in the coming weeks and months. Test out what your new virtual process looks like and find ways to optimize this experience. Develop resources to help candidates excel during your virtual hiring process.
Update your careers site with information about how your hiring has changed in light of COVID-19.
Create a resource hub for your recruiting teams to reference when having conversations with candidates so they are well prepared to deliver on a positive experience.
Candidate nurture initiatives
It’s important to continue to keep candidates in your pipeline warm, feeling good about your organization, and interested in working with you in the future. This way, when hiring efforts do ramp up again you’ll be prepared to proactively pick up where you left off without needing months to get back up to speed.
Here are some initiatives you can focus on here:
Create a communications plan for candidates who are already in your hiring process whose roles are being paused or cancelled altogether. Even if you can’t hire them right now, make sure they feel like their time was respected and they were treated well. It’s the right thing to do; plus candidates might consider jumping back into your process when the timing is right.
Nurture candidates through email marketing, if you’re not doing so already. Your ATS should provide the capability for you to do this in-platform, and if not you can export parts of your database and do this through an email marketing provider like MailChimp, Hive.co, or Constant Contact.
Encourage recruiters to stay in touch with their A-players. Create a communications plan that they can adhere to if they wish, including an email schedule, message templates, and content to use to re-engage candidates when hiring starts up again.
External communications initiatives
Your employer brand is more important now than ever before. The way that companies handle COVID-19 will have a lasting impact on how people think of their consumer and employer brands long term.
Companies that treat their employees well and prioritize their health and well-being will come out on top. Organizations who give back and do what they can to help will be celebrated. As Talent Acquisition professionals, look for ways that you can encourage this to happen within your organizations, and celebrate this externally too.
What this looks like in action:
Talk with your marketing and communications team and find out what they are planning to share publicly about your company’s COVID-19 response from an employee well being, recognition and social good perspective. Offer to help and share any posts they make on these topics with your network.
If you work in a recruitment marketing or employer branding role, slow down your content calendar and revisit your strategy to ensure the content you’re sharing now is right for this moment. At this time, people need content with heart and substance, so anything that feels overly fluffy or too positive likely won’t resonate and could do more harm than good.
Seek out stories of courage, bravery, resilience, and optimism that emerge from your employee base during this time. When powerful moments come to your attention, if the timing is right, ask leaders and employees if they’d be willing to have you share their story externally. Use your best judgment here regarding timing, and hold off reaching out or writing a story that might be sensitive for anyone involved.
At the end of the day, even if hiring has slowed down, I hope this article shows that there are still a range of important and significant activities that you can focus on and help with as Talent Acquisition and HR professionals during this critical moment. We wish you all the best as you help your company to overcome this difficult time, and together prepare for what comes next.