How to Survive and Thrive in a Recession. A Hiring Managers' Guide

With the recent downfall of the stock market due to Coronavirus and the economic growth grinding to a halt, the threat of a global recession is imminent. For business owners, this may be the biggest challenge they will have ever faced before. The impact on some industries will be catastrophic, and the new remote working model enforced by government restrictions will mean many companies can simply no longer function. The road ahead seems bleak, there is no doubt about it, but for those who adapt quickly, take a swift left turn or even find a few new back routes, there is a real opportunity during a recession, not just to survive but to come out the other side accelerating faster than ever before!

This eBook will inform you of some key opportunities to leverage that will help to increase your revenue and ensure your business thrives rather than just survives during a time of crisis.

If you are looking to save costs, yet still make a valuable impact across your business growth at this time - here’s the secret - determining your Opportunity Cost. 

First, let’s talk about the current Talent Acquisition landscape. The market has changed  overnight and HR leaders are now faced with a challenge that none of us have ever experienced before. Most travel, retail, hospitality and manufacturing companies are under hiring freezes, and many are being forced to let their staff go. Brandi Britton, District President of Southern California at Robert Half staffing agency says about ‘30%’ of her clients have placed hiring on hold. The remainder are conducting virtual interviews by Skype or FaceTime. Those who are hiring have been forced to change the parameters: reducing the package, delaying start dates, and struggling to keep promising candidates engaged if and when a full time job offer can be extended.

On the other side of the coin, candidate experience at the moment is less than desirable. Hundreds of talented employees are being stood down as the weeks go by, are being made redundant or strung along by companies under hiring freezes. Nobody likes to feel they have dropped down the priority list at a company before they have even started! The quality of candidates out in the market right now is strong and given the current climate, they are going to be more responsive than ever. Now is the perfect time to be pipelining for those specialised and senior roles that are going to shape and drive your company, and starting conversations with top talent that is being kept in limbo by your competitors. The power of a sincere message of praise will be a powerful tool in a time of disappointment and uncertainty.

The COVID-19 situation is changing daily and the impacts for both employees and employers is no different. However, when things get back to normal, which they eventually will - there will be a recruitment rebound and competition for quality talent is set to be higher than ever. Now is also a great time therefore, to ensure your EVP and Employer Brand are on point so that when you do attract talent new to the market - you have the best chance of securing them, setting them up for success and retaining them as the economy around us begins to pick up again.

That said, the day to day needs of some industries - for example Groceries/Retail, Online Learning, Remote working and Superannuation Funds, are rapidly increasing in accordance with changing customer behaviours such as panic buying. The Zendesk Benchmark Report, compared the support teams of over 22,000 companies worldwide in March 2020. The results proved that customers are being left waiting significantly longer across the board, which highlights the importance of teams adapting quickly to meet customer demands and safeguard customers’ trust now and in the future.

Most of these teams who are struggling to keep up with customer enquiries are also transitioning to remote working environments, putting additional strain on Managers to ensure they are set up correctly, staying engaged and coping effectively with the changes. Having the right-sized team to manage increased customer demands is vital, but how can business leaders ensure they are staying on top of their day to day administrative and operational roles, whilst also taking advantage of the current hiring landscape - pipelining rare talent at the right time, and ensure their strategic Employer Branding projects are progressing too? 

What is meant by opportunity cost?  Determining where exactly, your company's efforts - in particular your hiring team, are best focused right now. What they work on today will impact your ability to run faster than the competition, and thrive throughout the recruitment rebound, post-Coronavirus. How to make sure you’re set up to accelerate and run after the global pandemic? By focusing on what matters. Pivot your HR or Talent team to focus on hunting and uncovering that specialised, hard-to-come-by talent that is now available in the market due to being made redundant; and hiring them, at a super competitive cost.

There really is no better time to execute real change and embrace the power of technology in all areas of our business continuity planning. Those who can quickly adopt new tools for their BAU hiring efforts will be far better positioned to gain a competitive advantage in the long run by freeing up their time to work on pipelining talent and working on strategic HR projects. Those that don’t will risk getting left behind more nimble competitors, who are ready to sign on their next great hire, or get their best-in-class new Onboarding workflow rolled out when business picks up again.

Thanks to the speed of technology, using an online hiring platform like Weploy to maintain BAU hiring activity is by far the most cost-effective way. Let us break it down for you.

When you consider that the average salary for a Human Resources Manager (let’s call her Rachel) is $115,694 per year in Australia. (Indeed.com) 

Per week - Rachel will therefore earn $2,313.88, which equates to $0.96 per minute. The average time taken to hire a Customer Service Agent in Australia is 36 days. In Salary terms that equals $16,197.16.