Due to the recent hiring shortage, applicants have more options, as well as more leverage to ask for better pay and benefits. And this means you need to make some changes if you want to have an efficient and productive hiring process.
With that said, let’s take a look at some ways you can improve your hiring process in 2021.
Emphasize what employees want over what you want.
One mistake we see over and over again is that employers don’t consider what a potential employee might want from them. They get into the habit of focusing on what the company needs, and they forget to even consider that employees have needs of their own. If you don’t think about what a potential employee might want from your organization, then you’re going into the hiring process with a gigantic blind spot.
So what do job seekers actually want? The answer is going to be different for every individual, and it will even vary quite a bit from industry to industry. There are a few rules of thumb, however, that you can keep in mind:
People work because they need money. If someone pays better than you, people will work for them instead of you. That’s just simple economics, right?
People want good benefits. While healthcare is always a great benefit (practically obligatory at this point), there are other types of benefits that are great too, such as flexibility, vacation time, and on-campus food options.
People want to grow. This is a facet of employment that far too many organizations overlook: When you offer advanced learning opportunities for your employees, they become better employees with higher-level talents and more diverse skillsets.
These are just three things that potential employees might want, but the possibilities are virtually endless. However, your focus needs to shift from what you want from an employee to what your employee wants from you.
Reconsider candidates who didn’t initially seem like a perfect cultural fit.
You might have turned some people away who seemed qualified but didn’t feel like they had a personality that would mesh with your team. While we don’t want to make it seem like work culture isn’t important (we believe it’s vitally important, in fact), a poor cultural fit might not necessarily be a bad thing if you’re desperate for qualified workers.
This is especially true if you’re letting your employees work remotely. The cultural dynamic has shifted toward an online space, and someone who was particularly awkward in an office environment might end up thriving in the digital realm.
Also, it’s always possible that you were overreacting to a sub-par interview. Recent research suggests that the interview process can oftentimes weed out high performers who don’t have great interviewing skills, and this tends to hit certain demographics harder than others. If interviewing skills aren’t essential to the job, then overly stressful interviews are nothing more than a hoop to jump through.
If you feel like you might have overreacted when you rejected a potential hire, it might be time to reach out to that person and see if they’re still available.
Of course, you might have to offer a little bit more than you offered the first time to get them to seriously consider your offer, but if this person ends up being a great hire, then it’s more than worth it.
Go digital.
It’s 2021. You can’t afford to be living in the 20th Century any longer. This seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many companies are still struggling with the 21st Century workplace.
First off, if at all possible, you need to offer remote work. If a person’s job is to, say, create marketing copy for your website, it hardly seems necessary to force that person into the office. Since people have grown used to working remotely in 2020, this is becoming an expectation rather than a nice little bonus.
On top of this, think about how many mindless tasks can be reduced by digitizing your workflow. Edwards Business Systems has a great article about digitization if you want to know more, but for the sake of this article we’re going to be brief. Let’s just say that there’s no reason to waste paper and ink – or manpower – on tasks that can be performed digitally.
While there’s a lot of talk about how this affects your day-to-day workflow, it also applies to the hiring process. Stop wasting time and money on 20th Century solutions to 21st Century problems. The digital revolution is upon us. In fact, the digital revolution is old enough to have a drink at a bar at this point. There’s no excuse to be stuck in the past.
Outsource your HR.
Outsourcing your HR department is almost like a cheat code for streamlining your hiring process. Instead of filling up office space for a full-time HR department – or, if your organization is small, relegating someone to a part-time HR position – you can simply outsource it. Put HR in the hands of people who focus exclusively on HR so you can focus exclusively on whatever it is you do best.
And this doesn’t just mean hiring through a staffing agency, though we definitely recommend that too. You can actually outsource all of your HR duties. There are plenty of companies that specialize in HR, and they’ll do a great job handling the tasks that you’re not necessarily equipped to handle on your own.
We’ve already written an entire article about why you should outsource your HR department, so we won’t belabor this point. But know that this can lead to better hires, a reduction in costs, and a higher-quality HR department overall.
Conclusion
It’s time to bring your hiring process into the modern age – not just the 21st Century, but the post-COVID workplace. A lot has changed in the past few years, and updating your hiring process can save you time, money, stress, and energy.
If you’re looking for great candidates to join your team, or if you want to talk about outsourcing your HR duties, contact Staffing Proxy today. We’d love to help you!
