What Employers Need To Draw In New Talent

So many companies are struggling to survive at the moment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside of essential providers, those requiring footfall have had to close down. Others have had to start operating remotely, struggling to make the transition and seeing their offices left empty.

There are some, though, that are managing to not only endure but also thrive: they were quicker to adapt than others, or perhaps they were simply fortunate to work in industries that saw upticks in demand (ecommerce, for instance, or haulage). Those companies are actually looking to hire now, and there’s a lot of talent available due to all the layoffs.

That doesn’t mean they’ll find it easy to bring in new talent, though. The best of the bunch will still be picky, particularly now that the employment world has changed. To convince top prospects to join them, employers need the following:

Excellent perks

When you’re hiring remote workers, you have more options, but so do the candidates. They can apply to positions throughout the world, and with no locational bias, they can find a solid average salary — meaning you’d need to really bump up your offering to hook someone with your pay alone (though you do of course need to be competitive in that area). In general, you should look more to perks when trying to impress potential hires.

At the moment, perks matter the most to non-remote workers. This is a scary time for those who can’t work from home (such as drivers), so they need to be enticed to take the risk of venturing to your workplace. Give out protective equipment where possible. Allow flexible hours so people can avoid others as much as possible. Make the practical processes as easy as possible: Shell's fuel card offering will make paying for fuel simple, for instance.

They still matter to remote workers, of course. People new to remote working will want to know that you’ll support them fully, doing everything from shipping them home office equipment when needed to arranging virtual work socials via Zoom so they can get to know their new colleagues. And those who are used to it will want to know that they’ll be allowed to manage their own workloads for the most part instead of going through a lot of unnecessary admin.

Strong reputations

You can table the best offer out of all the companies trying to hire someone, but that won’t guarantee anything, and you’re still likely to miss out if your company has a bad reputation. It’s something that you can’t create artificially: it needs to be steadily earned through treating your employees well and generally acting ethically.

People today are more concerned about business ethics than ever before, and in a time when many companies are doing their best to support efforts to fight COVID-19, you can understand why someone might want to join a business that’s worthy of their efforts (as opposed to a company that will pay them well but not really warrant their support).

Long-term planning

“Where is your company going to be in a year, or two years, or three?” That’s the kind of question that a savvy candidate might have asked before this outbreak, but now they might ask something slightly different: something more like “How confident are you that your company will still be here in six months?” followed by “What steps have you taken to ensure your survival?”.

The average candidate today is looking for stability. They might like to freshen up their career by moving between companies, yes, but on their own terms. They want to feel that they could stay with any given company indefinitely in the event that they couldn’t find a viable alternative.

Accordingly, you need to present a sensible long-term plan for your business, explaining how you’re going to get by in these trying times and what you expect your business to look like in six months if the lockdown measures stay in place. If you can convince someone that your company is a safe bet, they’ll be much more likely to be interested in working for you.