Thoughtful talent management in troubling times: Tips across the employee lifecycle

The impact of the world-wide crisis has affected most factors of our lives outside of work just as it has inside of work. For lots of company’s where and what work gets done and by who it gets done by has changed hugely within a short time of weeks. It has however, become a challenge for managers and leaders as there has been a lot of prevailing uncertainty. To adapt in maintaining to focus on employees’ sense of value, their well-being, and their experience overall, there are practice to support in this.

Recruiting

A latest survey on LinkedIn has shown a high number of complaints from job candidates are ‘long and burdensome process’, and ‘ambiguous responses from recruiters’ and included ‘lack of communication’. This is not good for applicant experience in the future or when they may feel overwhelmed in the current times and is a “bad” sign. To stop this from happening in the future action must be taken as people say that applicant experience shows how the business values it is people by 78 percent, therefore it is crucial.

• It is key to make aware that applicants can still apply if your company is hiring as people may not have this knowledge. It you have stop hiring it is always a good idea to let the applicant know of this, to manage expectations appropriately. With any job roles in the future, it is important to be transparent and clear to applicants as much as you can be, so that it is not unclear to them.

Onboarding

Coming onboard as a new hire in a company can be a stressful time. New hire experience can become intense as it can be a challenge with all the following factors, distracted colleagues, fewer and limited opportunities to meet other colleagues or managers in person and an overwhelmed IT department.

• Making sure that tools and resources are available to hires hire is more important than it ever was before, for them to succeed. Before new hires start on their start date managers must check if all equipment/ resources like technology have arrived and is working properly. If managers are not ready and prepared so there are no problems when new hired employees start to work. Having a strong working relationship is shown in research to be an essential for a successful relationship early with new workers. To meet new employees’ co-workers can set up a virtual meeting, this helps with encouraging new ways of communication or anything that a new employee may want to bring up like concerns etc.

Learning

Companies are being made to reimagine traditional, events, training in-person corporate and change these into virtual learning for people quickly at a massive scale. At Complygate we know that bringing engagement learning experiences and designing thoughtfully, especially virtual ones is done harder than it is said.

• Leader in companies must be able to work as a team together to identify the businesses most key objectives, for employees’ skills and knowledge has meaning to it when training is taken place, according to Forbes. Leaders and managers must ensure that communication is taken place in any changes that is made in the expected way in learning around workers and employees, like changes made to the location or hours that they may work.
• Ensuring that any skills gaps is a good thing to be updated on. As companies also are depending on re-skilling and up-skilling in workplaces.

Performance Management

Successful and effective communication is important to keep employees positive. As well as leaders and manger relationships with employees are key, especially in time of crisis that cause distress and uncertainty. Reassurance is necessary to give employees that managers and leader stay and care about committing to their success. Managers also need to have understanding what is exactly needed to support and be there for them better.

• Performance check-ins should be a continued process for leaders and sentiment gathering to get insight into the “pulse” of their workplace must be done by employees. Previously goals that were set must be revisited when managers and leaders have a conversation about employee performance, this is to make sure that they are achievable goals and if needed to adjust.

Compensation

It is said by a HR leader, “Many companies today can see the imminent economic downturn and are trying to balance ‘capacity to pay’ vs. ‘need to pay’.” Lots of employees work overtime, are stretched, and go far for what their managers and leaders could not have expected.

• One of the long pain points for managers is communicating hard decisions of payment. When making a tough compensation, clarity, transparency, and empathy can go a long way to make those conversations easier and it is least likely to hurt workers/employee’s perception of fairness and motivation. Not being able to rewards workers/employees within your company for their commitment to it and customer monetarily. Considering a different route to a more meaningful non-monetary rewards you may be able to offer.

Succession & Development

Over 60 percent of all businesses say “leadership gaps” to be the most challenging in a business. It is essential to know that you have the top talent in organisation critical job roles, especially in time of uncertainty. Making sure that have a developed a strong talent pipeline for future job roles as imperative.

• To make sure future managers and leaders have a procedure for crucial soft skills is important in facilitating internal talent mobility like, resilience, optimism, agility and “lead during disruption” as in capability, for companies to be ready and prepared to manage any future world-wide crisis or emergency. Leader and managers must be sure to communicate the skills that they want to their workers/employees so that they can develop a plan to go against.

The essentiality for effective and having thought within HR team will never be clearer, and neither will it be more meaningful. Even though there have been major changes happened and experience, and there may be more to come, companies can always count on some things to stay the same: clarity, empathy, and putting workers/employees at the centre of all things you do and value transparency.