Post-COVID19, HR processes across the employee lifecycle had to be reimagined for a remote working world.

The talent acquisition function had to navigate an uncertain business roadmap – as there was little visibility into staffing needs. They also had to shift their entire operations digitally, and find the right candidates among a large pool of prospective candidates and onboard them effectively. As many jobs moved online, new skill sets were needed and new concern areas had to be addressed.

According to one Study , 74 percent employers said that salary was the ‘top of mind’ concern for candidates, and 38 percent said ‘flexibility’ to work from home will be a top priority. To balance the changing priorities, companies need to think long-term about their remote hiring strategy.

“In a remote working world, employees are looking are a unified vision that can rally the organization, empathy and trust, and recognition – as there’s little visibility on continuing performance,” said Christina Southgate, Head of HR APAC - Sales and Marketing Solutions addressing an audience on collaboration. These insights can be applied to the recruiting process too. Recruiters need to be able to convey the vision and build trust with prospective candidates and also convey expectations clearly in a remote working scenario.

Here are a few suggestions:

1.  Build a strong employer brand over digital channels

Recent research suggests that people spend an average of three hours and fifteen minutes on their phones every day, with the top 20 percent of the smartphone users spending upwards of four and a half hours. Given the amount of time we’re connected to the internet for both personal and professional reasons, it’s more than likely that the next candidate you hire is going to check your website and social media channels. Building a strong online employer brand presence is critical to the success of your strategy.

2. Focus on storytelling

If you want to move away from occasionally posting as part of your employer branding, then it’s time to focus on inspiring posts that feature real employees with real-life messages. 

The benefit of engaging in storytelling is that it helps prospective candidates imagine themselves in the role that they are applying for. There are a number of creative ways to reach out to your audience – from blog posts, infographics, and videos to long-form features. Storytelling techniques are also powerful to boost your diversity and inclusion based hiring mandates – here are a few stories from Microsoft.

3. Leverage technology tools to boost candidate experience and collaborative hiring

The challenge and opportunity with hiring in a remote working world is the access to a huge pool of prospective candidates. Since location is not necessarily a barrier for work, talent acquisition professionals need to be offer a great candidate experience in order to attract thr right talent.

Microsoft Teams’ recent partnerships with Phenom and Talview are geared at ensuring the seamless collaboration with hiring managers, video interview scheduling and capture of real-time interview feedback – all of which can greatly enhance the talent acquisition team’s capabilities.

4. Focus on a human connect by automating transactional tasks – From recruiting, onboarding to employee lifecycle

Personalizing and automating the talent journey for candidates, recruiters, employers, and management can be achieved using a variety of digital tools including a career site, chatbot, CRM, SMS and email campaigns, recruiting and analytics, tools that support university recruitment, internal mobility and career pathing.

As recruiters automate mundane processes, the focus can shift towards building a human connection with a prospective candidate that can further help set the right expectations at work. 

Apart from drawing a roadmap to evaluate a large pool of candidates, talent acquisition professionals need to lead the digital adoption mandate – without which attracting talent is going to become increasingly difficult in a permanently changing world of work.

Listen to the conversations on how to reimagine work here.