The Post-Pandemic Boom: Hiring and Retaining Talent

Increased demand means increased competition for quality workers. Is your company ready?

The post-pandemic boom is on track. US gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.4% in the first quarter, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta expects the economy to “exceed its pre-pandemic strength in the second quarter.” With a rapidly increased demand for goods and services comes a tighter labor market.

Unemployment dropped to only 6% in March from its April 2020 peak of 14.7%. And the job market is expected to get competitive, with one major recruiting firm CEO telling CNBC that it’s “the most optimistic job market I’ve ever seen.”

This is all great news, of course. But businesses will need to adapt hiring and onboarding policies—and revisit culture and needs—to succeed in a competitive hiring environment.

Here are some essential steps to position your company:

1. Revising hiring and onboarding policies to account for remote work

As we covered in our previous blog, remote work is here to stay. Most companies are adopting a hybrid remote/onsite model to reduce overhead, meet new worker demands for flexibility, and ensure continued safety as the pandemic winds down.

So, the first step in staying competitive is creating an effective remote work policy—if this model applies to your business.  The effort doesn’t end there, however. Hand in hand with remote work arrangements is developing digital hiring and onboarding policies. Many of these steps are simply adaptations of standard best practices:

Institute structured hiring and onboarding processes

These processes should be consistently applied to all new employees and candidates and include an efficient way to shortlist good prospects. Prescreening assessments can help, as can implementing a quality applicant tracking system (ATS) and digital onboarding software.

Get comfortable with video interviews and meetings—and ensure they work

Videoconferencing has become a crucial workplace tool, and it enables employers, candidates, and new hires to pick up on visual cues absent in a phone call. Many tips for using video effectively mirror those for in-person interviews: be prepared, ask good, focused questions, and follow the law.

But video adds technological complications that should be addressed: pick a quality, commonly used platform for all interviews and meetings, and provide tech specs and instructions for using it to all prospects and hires.

Prioritize the candidate and new employee experiences

While the workplace has changed radically, job seekers’ complaints largely haven’t: no or delayed responses from employers, onerous applicant tracking systems, refusals to discuss salary, and an overall lack of communication. Even after hire, many new employees feel lost in a new organization.

Stay in touch with candidates on a consistent schedule through automated emails to those at the top of the funnel and personal communications to shortlisted individuals. When someone is hired, immediately provide them with company policies, technology, IT support, and other training resources. Introduce these new hires to the team and maintain consistent check-ins, especially for remote workers.

Most of the remote hiring and onboarding tips boil down to consistency and communication. Many of these challenges can be solved by new technology, good processes, and maintaining a schedule that leverages those assets.

2. Ensuring salaries and benefits are competitive

Wages are a lagging indicator that is often the last thing to grow after the rest of the economy. In a pre-pandemic analysis, the Economic Policy Institute found that “Consistent positive wage growth has occurred in only 10 of the last 40 years.” Employer hesitance about raising pay is understandable—it’s typically a company’s biggest expense, and organizations can often get away with few increases.

But just as the pandemic upended many norms, it may have this impact on positions and pay. Despite record unemployment during COVID’s onset, most of the jobs lost were lower-paid and lower-skilled positions; some white-collar industries saw little or no slowdown in employment. The pandemic also caused some workers to re-evaluate their priorities and quit their jobs.

These factors, coupled with a tightening labor market and increased consumer demand, will force many organizations to re-evaluate how much they need to pay. Ensure your salaries are competitive using online statistical tools and job boards. And do not forget the power of benefits. While standard benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans remain priorities, there are a host of customized options that can attract candidates and have less impact on the bottom line.

3. Strengthening company branding and revising job postings

Many job candidates want new things from employers in the current environment. The broader demand for flexibility and remote work is one change accelerated by COVID.

But many trends predated the pandemic and involved a generational shift in the workplace. Millennials, for example, are now the largest share of the US workforce, and research shows that both Millennials and Gen Z prioritize work-life balance, opportunities for training and career progression, corporate responsibility, and finding purpose in their work.

It’s an excellent time for companies to evaluate their actions and how they brand themselves—and effectively express this information in job postings and other communications. Areas of interest to job seekers include an employer’s track record on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), environmental and social governance, and—crucially—how they prioritize employee well-being and treat their people. The bottom line: Attracting quality candidates may rely on stronger employee branding backed up by tangible initiatives.

4. Redefining culture, maintaining it, and using it to choose employees

Among the silver linings afforded by last year’s crisis is the opportunity to redefine what your company is and which types of people it needs. Many organizations learned that some lost employees weren’t required and could be replaced with contract workers or technology. Others refined processes to make them more efficient, “rethinking their approach to accomplishing tasks.”

This opportunity for change includes culture and hiring. First, you must define (or redefine) culture to adapt to your company’s objectives and workforce demands. The most obvious step for many organizations will be adjusting to remote work. Prioritizing flexibility and work-life balance—and evaluating performance via results rather than hours logged—are aspects of this shift. Learning to forge strong bonds and keep remote employees engaged is another challenge.

But changing culture also extends to the people you choose to hire. Some crucial questions employers should ask themselves before investing in new workers:

1. What type of employer do you want to be?
2. Where are you going as an organization?
3. What types of positions do you need, and has it changed?
4. Who do you want working for you and in what capacity?

The answers will vary significantly by the organization. But it’s crucial to remember that while the job market may get competitive, quality employers with a strong culture will retain leverage and appeal. And often, hiring the wrong people is worse than hiring no one at all.

Assess your needs and solidify a culture to meet them. Hiring only the personnel who fit will help your company excel during the post-pandemic boom.

Karp HR Solutions stands ready to assist your company in adapting to this new environment—helping you implement remote policies and customized benefits that attract and retain quality employees.  Contact Karp HR Solutions today for a free consultation.