In our first webinar for 2021, we had Hung Lee, Editor of Recruiting BrainFood, and Doeke Geerstma, CEO and co-founder of WeAreKeen, discuss the biggest trends that will take over the world of recruitment this year. Here are their top 5 recruitment trends:
Last year has forced a lot of businesses to shift the way they operate. With home office becoming the “new normal” everyone has had to adapt in order to remain active and productive.
Hybrid working is now taking over, enabling personnel to work both from home and from the office. For the vast majority of the attendees, hybrid working is a dream come true as it combines the benefits of working remotely with the good old fashioned office days. According to our speakers, however, this new way of doing business will not be sustainable for a long period of time and the majority of working people. The main argument against this was the fact that businesses did not plan to operate remotely and despite being able to adapt to it out of necessity right now it will not last long. An issue that would soon arise would be the synchronization of operations in the office - as it is inevitable that given the option, employees would choose different days to work from the office forced synchronicity would become necessary in order to ensure productivity. This, however, would cause issues on its own (employee dissatisfaction, etc) ultimately forcing businesses to go back to only working from the office or going fully remote.
In 2020 diversity, equity and inclusion definitely became a hot topic as more and more businesses realized the importance and necessity of diverse teams. With movements like Black Lives Matter growing in popularity, important discussions were had - businesses had to deep-dive into their recruitment strategies and make sure they are inclusive.
In 2021, this trend is becoming way broader - it’s no longer a discussion only about race and gender; it is becoming an objective which CDOs (Chief Diversity Officers) are directly working on.
According to our speakers, remote working has figuratively opened the door for a lot of new candidates - not only people from around the world but also people who would normally struggle to get to the interviews, which now are online. Some examples being people who wouldn’t be able to commute, easily enter the building due to disabilities, or individuals who are primary childcarers. All of the above-mentioned would now be able to attend a Zoom call and become a part of your team.
Along with all of the positives, however, remote working brings some new challenges. An example being an unsafe home environment or uncontrolled environment, which would both negatively impact employee performance. Working on combating these challenges would take time, however, is doable and should be a priority.
People analytics is a sub-discipline in the Recruitment and HR space, which focuses on monitoring workforce activity and productivity using data. The ultimate goal is making more intelligent decisions when it comes to management.
Remote working has enabled people analytics to reach a whole new level as the majority of work is now done online. For example, it is now possible to analyse Zoom calls through meta analytics based on their length, the number of questions discussed etc. Therefore, it has become easier to stop training opportunities in order to upskill your personal (or yourself).
Apart from the opportunities, which people analytics brings, however, there is a fine line between supervision and surveillance, which employers/ managers need to bear in mind in order to increase job satisfaction