2020 has been a challenging year for people around the world, regardless of age, background or geography. HR professionals have had it even harder, supporting teams in times of crisis, while also working through these challenges themselves.
But hope springs from adversity, and this year HR has truly stepped up as a leader in the new world of work. Talent management has become everyone’s business, and talent teams are getting the attention they deserve from C-suite leaders that now fully appreciate their worth.
Old, outdated systems have been digitised, processes streamlined and centralised, virtual hiring and remote work practices accelerated overnight. Armed with the business-buy in and the technology solutions to make it work, HR is ready to take a seat at the table as we forge ahead into the new decade.
As we look back at the year that was, we can see how closely HR trends and challenges mirror our society. From a global pandemic and economic downturn, to racial upheaval across the globe, HR is the first responder and the first line of defence organisationsorganizations have to help their teams make sense of the world around them.
2020 will be remembered as a turbulent, tumultuous year. Let’s not forget how HR responded:
1. Employee communication and care
When the first wave of lockdowns rolled out around the world, many organisationsorganizations were forced into remote working arrangements overnight. HR teams had to figure out how to make it work, developing policies on the fly and ensuring teams were supported during this tough transition. With so much uncertainty in the air, HR stepped up and showed real leadership, reminding us what the ‘human’ aspect of human resources stands for. In this piece, we explored how talent teams were managing the shift to remote work, and how they were supporting teams in times of change.
Read: Taking care of teams in times of crisis
2. Mastering remote hiring and onboarding
As organisationsorganizations got into the groove of remote work, some hiring teams found themselves faced with a dilemma: how to provide a great, fully virtual recruitment experience. Even the most progressive organisations had probably met candidates in-person at one stage of the hiring process. Now, recruitment teams had to ensure a streamlined, fully tech-enabled experience that left applicants and candidates wanting more. No problem, right? In this blog, we explored 3 key considerations for organisations looking to find great talent in the time of COVID.
Read: Hiring in the time of COVID-19: 3 key considerations
3. Addressing COVID-19 challenges
This 7-part series saw our Head of Customer Insights and Market Research Rebecca Skilbeck in conversation with our SVP Global Talent Deborah Mason. They tackled how HR could address COVID-19 challenges: supporting employees, encouraging engagement, redeploying staff, managing remote workers and shared their thoughts for the future. It’s a great how-to playbook for HR professionals looking to hear from some of the best in the business about the issues facing the industry today.
Watch: PageUp talks: The COVID-19 playbook (7 episode series)
4. Supporting internal mobility
With the pandemic ramping up and an economic recession looming, many organisationsorganizations put a freeze on hiring. But that didn’t mean skills gaps went away. Roles still needed to be filled by skilled workers, and organisations started to look within to find this talent. In this article, we took a look at how organisations are leveraging internal mobility to meet their hiring needs, while also keeping employees engaged and developing in their careers.
Read: Internal mobility: An organisationorganization’s secret weapon in challenging times
5. Scaling up recruiting to meet COVID-19 demands
Not all organisationsorganizations were halting their hiring. Some were ramping up recruitment to meet demand: many retailers providing essential products were inundated with customer demand as lockdowns dragged on across the globe. Some PageUp customers processed as many as 55,000 applications in one recruitment campaign. To quickly hire the staff they needed at-scale, organisationsorganizations turned to technology to automate candidate care and process bulk applications. This article takes you through setting up and running effective recruitment campaigns at-scale, while remaining agile enough to respond rapidly to change.
Read: Running effective recruitment campaigns at-scale: A how-to guide in times of change
6. Proactively rebuilding recruitment strategies after COVID-19
As we adjusted to the new COVID normal, organisationsorganizations started to look to the future and wonder how they would rebuild. A crucial component of this was their recruitment strategy: what would it look like going forward? As the business landscape shifted, what new skills should they be recruiting for? And what new roles would emerge? This article deep-dives into how organisationsorganizations can rebuild, starting with their recruitment strategy. It takes a step by step approach, examining how COVID has affected the business landscape, how to identify emerging skills gaps, and the crucial behavioural traits you should be looking for in a top candidate.
Read: Rebuilding your recruitment strategy after COVID-19
7. Virtual recruiting tools
HR processes have been accelerated years into the future thanks to the overnight shift to remote working. PageUp is lucky to have a partner marketplace with a comprehensive collection of world-class HR tech vendors and software providers, and in this blog we cover 17 must-know tools to support online recruiting.
Read: 17 hiring tools to support your online recruiting
8. Workplace diversity, equity and inclusion
This year will be remembered not just for COVID-19, but also as the year the world stood up, spoke up and took action on racial inclusivity, diversity and demanded equal opportunity for people of all backgrounds. With organisationsorganizations around the world turning a spotlight to their own DE&I strategies, we took a look at the building blocks of a successful DE&I strategy in this step by step guide.
Read: Building a successful DE&I strategy: A step by step guide
9. Data-based recruitment strategies
What recruitment metrics should savvy hiring teams be tracking in 2020 and into the future? Last year, when we first released our research on 5 recruitment metrics you should use (but probably don’t), the world was a very different place. In this blog, we revisit each metric and analyse how they’ve changed in the last year – and what that means for the future.
Read: 5 Recruitment Metrics You Should Use in 2020 and Beyond
If you’d like to know more about how PageUp can help you adapt and thrive in the new world of work, request a demo today.
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