The 6 hiring trends that you need to adopt post-Covid-19
The world of recruitment has been forever changed by Covid-19. We’ve been living with the pandemic for some time now, and along the way laws have changed, social justice movements have rallied and technology has rapidly developed.
So hiring trends post-Covid-19 are going to look very different from early 2020.
If you want to hire the best candidates and keep your employer brand strong, you need to pay attention to these 6 hiring predictions.
1 – Fewer people will be hired on a temporary or contract basis
Thanks to IR35 laws, we’re expecting fewer businesses to take on temporary talent. Because as of April 2021 it’s going to be a lot harder to hire a freelancer to work only for you in the long-term.
The new laws mean that these freelancers must be designated as employees and taxed as such. But the faff of adding someone new to payroll every time you take on a long-term contractor can be difficult and annoying. Far better to train someone internally to do the job.
So we’re expecting to see more internal upskilling to compensate!
2 – Virtual interviews are here to stay
Remote working made us realise that the sky is the limit when it comes to hiring. You can work with people from across the world, in different timezones and still get the job done.
So if we don’t want to miss out on global top talent, our interviews will have to stay virtual.
So I expect that Zoom, Whereby, Skype, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams will be here to stay.
This is one that I’m actually quite happy about. Something about wearing slippers in an interview really takes the edge off!
3 – Hiring for skills over personality
In the world of in-person interviews, it’s easy to get chatting with a candidate and want to hire them straight away. But when it comes to virtual interviews, building rapport can be much harder.
So if all of your top candidates are camera shy, you’re going to need another way to decide who to hire.
Last year we fully integrated a task-first process. This encourages our clients to hire for skills first and personality second. And the results have been really amazing.
So we expect that hiring for skills is here to stay for other companies too!
4 – Hiring for diversity and inclusion will be paramount
One upside of 2020 was that companies all over the world were finally paying attention to diversity.
We’ve all seen the statistics. Around 8% of Fortune 500 companies are led by women. And only 3 of those women are women of colour.
It’s no longer enough to say you care about diversity. You have to act like it too.
We’re expecting – and already seeing – a bigger focus on hiring for diversity and inclusion.
5 -Flexible hours across the board
When the schools closed and parents began having to juggle bored kids and their work, something changed. We all realised that flexible working could, well, work!
I expect that this benefit is definitely here to stay. If you’re still hiring remote workers, then having them work flexible hours just makes sense.
6 – A renewed focus on virtual onboarding
We all know that onboarding is vital for employee retention. But when hiring permanent remote workers it’s more important than ever.
We’re expecting to see more focus on proper, comprehensive onboarding as businesses ease themselves out of crisis mode.
If you need some help onboarding virtual hires, our free virtual Manager’s guide to the first 2 days is the place to start.
And if you’re looking to use some of these new hiring trends to take on the top talent post-Covid-19, DigitalGrads is the place to go.