3 minute read
Hiring Challenges as the World Returns to Work
Moving Forward Into A New Way of Recruiting and Retaining
As many businesses work through what “re-opening” looks like following a tough period of lockdowns and health crises, we have a hiring predicament happening as the world returns to work. The Oregon Leisure and Hospitality industry was one that was hit the hardest in 2020, accounting for 46.9 percent of payroll jobs lost in Oregon during the height of the pandemic. Now we’re addressing a new pairing of concerns: hiring surges in this industry are happening all at the same time, while many jobseekers aren’t wanting to return to work.
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What’s Driving the Gap Before we can find ways to attract talent in such a competitive job market, it’s important we start with some background understanding of what’s driving employees to not return to work. Many headlines stress the cause of this is extended unemployment benefits, and yes, we agree this is one driver. But as we look closer at this predicament, there’s not actually just one “simple” answer as to why we’re struggling to bring people back, but actually a number of barriers to returning to work. Record openings, but supply/demand issue. In March 2021, alone, there were 597,000 job openings, but even as unemployment rates decrease, it seems we have more jobs than people looking for work. People can now look beyond their state for the newly popular, remote work opportunities.
Stimulus & UI Benefits. With the recent extensions of some unemployment benefits, if someone was making under a $34K/ year, it may be more advantageous for them to stay on UI than get a lower paying job. We are starting to see states slowly start to reimplement job search requirements and other pre-pandemic UI rules, leading to a lower number of claims.
Childcare & School Instability. For those who do have children, future childcare and schooling is still so uncertain. Not knowing if in-person schooling will continue or if we’ll revert to virtual learning or even hybrid schedules, is making it difficult for parents to take a new job right now.
Fear & Uncertainty. This fight against COVID-19 isn't over, so we can't say we’re “post pandemic” yet. News of new variants and differing views on vaccines have people very cautious
about taking a new job. Many candidates are wanting to know company’s safety policies to make sure they’re really willing to take care of their employees.
Wage Competition. Companies are now trying to be more competitive by raising their minimums to over $15/hour or offering sign-on bonuses. Many hourly workers are wanting to find the job that pays the most possible and they have quite a few options to choose from.
Other Factors to Note. There are several other factors (even beyond the following list) contributing to this gap: early retirement, reevaluating career paths, going back to school, moving to lower cost of living markets, and having more time to look. The numbers also show that hiring takes time. It takes, on average, 23 days to bring someone in from posting the job to their first day.
Bouncing Forward To be able to attract (and retain) talent in such a competitive job landscape, it's crucial to make sure that your recruiting and company-wide efforts address the top concerns of jobseekers in the wake of the pandemic. Here are three areas of focus that we're seeing jobseekers look for in a future employer:
• Clear Health and Safety Protocols • A Flexible Work Environment • Strong Focus on Workplace Culture and Diversity • Competitive Wages and Benefits
We also can’t forget that hiring doesn’t just stop at the offer letter. Once they’re in the door, a solid foundation needs to be laid through their onboarding process. Statistics show that 58 percent of employees are more likely to stay at that company for three years or more if they experience a solid onboarding process.
So, the bottom line is this: work on ways to create a safe, diverse, flexible working environment that makes it an easy choice for the candidate to want to work for you over your competitors. Let’s not bounce back but bounce forward into a new way of recruiting and retaining top tier candidates. ZOE STANLEY FROM HR ANNIE
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