A Turbulent Economy: Turning a Triple Threat into an Opportunity

There are three big challenges that should keep HR and business leaders up at night during this economic turbulence. The way organizations confront and address these issues will separate the success stories from the failures.

1. Talent Acquisition: There still is a war for the best talent. Is your company finding it?
2. Branding: What is your mechanism for protecting your company brand as you respond to the unprecedented applicant flow for the open positions you have?
3. Talent Management: Does your organization have a strategy for downsizing with dignity to preserve relationships with former employees, and for engaging your core and high potential employees during these difficult times?

Review and Revitalize Your Talent Acquisition Function
The first step is to review the current state of your talent acquisition function and ensure it is aligned with the business needs. If it is not, you must quickly determine what new people, structure, process and enabling technology will give you the flexibility to deliver the right levels of service to the business at the right cost.  

Many companies are finding they need to adopt a dual recruiting model with specialized work streams for 1) processing a high volume of candidates for far fewer job requisitions, while at the same time 2) mining passive candidates for those strategic positions in your business units and divisions that ARE hiring.  

If you are handling much, or all, of the recruiting with an internal team, you’ve probably gone through some unpleasant staff cuts and may be operating under extremely reduced hiring conditions. But the silver lining is that there is less work for your HR staff and you can cut external recruiting expenses, right? Wrong. You may have fewer openings, but you now have many more people applying, which will significantly increase the amount of time spent screening and responding to applicants. This will exhaust your HR team, particularly if you are already operating with a skeleton staff. At the same time, with HR staff stretched like never before, the sourcing of candidates for the highly selective jobs will be limited as well.

If yours is like most companies, you don’t have the technology to automate either the sourcing or the screening process. However, many recruiting specialists do. This may be the time to take the burden off your internal teams and augment their efforts with the latest available solutions with an external recruitment partner.

Technology Tools
Technology enables the process in a candidate friendly way. Many organizations let the wrong candidates get too far in their process. Design your talent acquisition, screening and selection processes carefully. Screen people in – and out – early. Move your online pre-qualifiers to the top of the funnel and save the paid online screens and assessments for the spot where the funnel is slimmer. Get ahead of the curve NOW, not after your budget explodes!

As we all know, tracking down candidates can be time consuming and frustrating, not to mention costly. Now that we are seeing many more candidates for far fewer jobs, we HAVE to be efficient. One of the easiest solutions is to work with a provider to automate the process.  The most attractive tools and software available are those that include auto-scheduling, online minimum qualification screening, and telephony/video interviewing platforms.

You’ll also want to improve and perhaps automate your sourcing and selection tools.  Pinstripe’s research has uncovered a shift in job seeker behavior – a move away from candidates going directly to specific job sites. Instead, they are conducting their job searches through the major search engines like Google. This trend makes it more critical than ever to enhance your approach to SEO so you can better anticipate the ever-changing criteria of search engines and find those few great needles in the now huge proverbial haystack.

Technology also allows organizations to take their in-person recruitment techniques into the virtual world. The introduction of virtual job fairs allows recruiters and hiring managers to meet qualified candidates who may not want to physically attend a job fair or want more information before committing to an interview. Podcasts and video links are also an excellent way to share information with passive job seekers at their convenience.

Recruiting in the Age of Social Networking
In addition to being the “new way” to connect with candidates, today’s social media tools also provide the most cost effective approach for delivering results. Once viewed as a cutting edge tool used by only the most forward looking recruiters, social networking is a must for today’s recruitment teams.

Candidates are more technology savvy than ever before. Expertise in social networking and online research is a must for today’s recruitment teams. The online opportunity can be missed without sophisticated knowledge of the latest sourcing and spidering techniques for building a robust database of current and future candidates.

Findings from a talent acquisition survey conducted last fall by Pinstripe, the Human Resources Outsourcing Association and TPI – revealed that eighty percent of those surveyed utilize the web and social networks for candidate sourcing. This increased adoption has pushed social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others to the top of a recruiter’s tool-box and transformed the way they find skilled candidates. It has also changed how candidates learn about jobs and companies. The good news for companies is that they can be far more proactive and effective in uncovering “passive candidates” AND they can find additional information about candidates as they surf their personal web pages and pages on social networking sites.  

These social networking sites are a reality of conducting business today. For the recruiter it is an important new avenue for connection. Here are a few tips for getting started:
1. Check with your manager and the Marketing and IT departments to develop a policy that works for your company.
2. Add the social networks as sources in your applicant tracking system.  
3. Set up a profile. We suggest starting with LinkedIn and Facebook. Search online for the blogs that will give you best practices, online etiquette and tips and tools.
4. Leverage Twitter and start a blog to promote your company and any job opening you may have.  
5. And finally, start networking and have fun with it. This may well be the coolest part of you job if you are a recruiter… connecting with people you never would have uncovered in the past!

Protect Your Brand
Your potential employees are also potential clients. As you get inundated with applicants it might be difficult to keep this in mind. But, a company’s brand is arguably its most valuable asset. It is critical that you do not damage your brand as you become overwhelmed by the growing number of applicants.  

When you are one of a few companies hiring, and you  get 500 plus resumes for every job you post, you have to change your process to make sure you don’t miss good people or alienate future prospects and customers. You have to be polite and respectful every time. This is particularly important if you are a major consumer brand, and every applicant is also a consumer, and your every move is closely followed on twitter, the local TV, Radio, and sometimes the national news.

Basic steps for protecting your brand include making sure that:
• Every applicant who contacts your organization should receive an acknowledgement.  This can be automated or customized.  Currently, according to Peter Weddle, less than 20% of all organizations even turn on the auto email replies in their ATS
• All job postings are current and detailed – and branded correctly and consistently.
• All candidate interactions are prompt and respectful.
• Every candidate receives updates on the decision making process.
• Every question is acknowledged and answered in a timely fashion.
• Turndowns are handled carefully and promptly

While this short list may seem impossible, consumer research shows us that “self service”, if it is well-designed, is the BEST service … and this is true for employment as well. Most of the above can be handled by automation and is very cost effective.  

Re-Recruit Your Keepers and Keep in Touch
Employee relations are critical right now.  You need to keep your employees engaged, and then, when you do have to lay off good performers, you want to keep them close. No one knows how bad this economy will get before it gets better.   

The jobless rate rose to 8.1 percent in February as 651,000 more people were handed their pink slips and there are likely to be upwards of 1.5 million more layoffs before things improve.  So how does your company handle off-boarding in a sensitive and respectful manner?  Companies today must have a well thought-out exit management plan in place. There’s an expression that character is exhibited in how one makes the best of a bad situation. Well here we are, in the worst employment situation most of us have ever lived through. From an organizational and a humanitarian perspective, it is critical that to be as passionate and supportive as possible as you downsize employees. The way you handle disengaging an employee is as important as on- boarding them. And the employees that remain, especially your high performers, will notice how you treat people!  

Keep your “keepers”
In the first place, re-recruit your keepers. Keep them connected to you, and to each other.    Following are some goals to strive toward in the work experience you make available to your employees to enrich their lives and deepen their loyalty.  
• Motivating work. People derive meaning and perform when the nature of their work is intrinsically motivating.
• Cultivate a sense of belonging. Cultivating a sense of community spurs innovation and fuels emotional bonding.
• Pride of mission. People seek work that mirrors their core values in organizations that are highly regarded by the broader community.
• Provide strategic direction. To know that their efforts are worthwhile, people need a clear sense of strategic direction and how their individual efforts contribute to growth.

Downsizing with Dignity
During the off-boarding process, you need to ensure all logistics are managed in a timely, efficient, and secure manner, while providing great customer service to the employee. The employee’s experience as they depart will leave a lasting impression on them and your remaining staff who are watching careful to see how well things are handled. This will impact compliance and organizational security. You want it to be as positive as it possibly can be under the circumstances. Coordinating the logistical components of the departing employee is critical. In involves everything form security and IT access deactivation, to property retrieval and employment termination paperwork. A comprehensive Off-Boarding program should include:
• Creation, automation and tracking of your termination process and tasks
• Development of a customized portal for HR and leaders with information on off-boarding employees
• Implementation of electronic forms to enhance speed, reduce error and provide easy access
• Thorough tracking of employee termination, benefit administration and discontinuation
• Confirmation of the recall of all employee equipment and revocation of security access

Staying Connected
Once an employee leaves, it is important to stay in touch with them to track their new employment experiences, continue the relationship and keep them informed of what is happening at your organization. You want to track competency development and new experiences, as well as offer the departed employee an opportunity to stay in touch and keep your organization in mind for future employment opportunities. Through routine emails blasts, calls and updates you can continue to strengthen your employment brand while preserving and extending your network. You should also:
• Develop a former employee (alumni) portal for posting notices, breaking news, information and announcements
• Routinely schedule email blasts and networking initiatives to keep former employees up to date
• Track and document all former employee interactions
• Develop a former employee referral process to recommend friends and family

HR’s Role
During this economic turbulence, things are tough and the human resources function is on the front lines of the battle more than ever today. But remember, every downturn yields winners and losers. Some organizations will not merely weather this storm, but will actually seize the opportunity to emerge as a more efficient and successful organization. The leadership taken by HR will make the difference!