How to manage the return to office

By Laila Billberg, Director - APSCo Australia, General Manager - Ignite Services.

The past three months have certainly been a rollercoaster in recruitment.

The positive is that we have remained extremely busy despite new lockdowns, talent shortages and navigating the challenges of remote work over an extended period.

Lockdowns across Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane over the past few months have forced staff back into remote settings for an indefinite period.

Fortunately, client activity has remained resilient as employers appear to be preparing for a quick bounce back in activity once lockdown restrictions ease. This has seen demand for permanent work, in particular, remain relatively steady whereas in previous lockdowns demand was more volatile.

Shortages of candidates in high skill sectors continues to be a key pain point for our consultants. In particular, growing commercial and government demand for technology talent is inhibited by an ever-shrinking supply of local available talent. To combat this, we’ve focused on optimising the end-to-end experience of our candidates to effectively acquire and retain the top talent that our clients want and need.

The key question for many businesses at the moment is once again the return to offices, and how to effectively manage remote and/or hybrid teams longterm to maintain engagement and productivity.

While our teams are now better equipped to cope with the challenges of remote working than last year, we’ve certainly noticed some shortfalls emerge such as immersive learning, remote onboarding and team socialisation (particularly for new and junior staff) which are more difficult to replicate online.

We continue to focus on the mental health and physical wellbeing of our staff by hosting regular online social activities, have revamped our remote onboarding process, and are participating in a September walkathon. These activities have seen our teams flourish over the last quarter despite challenging conditions.