How to maximise your recruitment for a mobile workforce: top tips from employment experts

“Attracting candidates is easier than it was pre-pandemic, but it’s really important that organisations are clear in their recruitment and employer brand communications about their employee or colleague proposition. Essentially, what’s it like to work in our business?”

“By being clear and honest and setting out a compelling but realistic proposition, you’ll attract the right candidates and retain them for longer when they realise the job is what they signed up for.”

Emily KnowlesCandidate Marketer at Co-op

“Look at your recruitment processes and think through how to digitise them to ensure they enable safe, virtual recruitment. That might be through video interviewing or virtual assessment centres or something else. Look carefully at how you remodel these elements.”

Robert PeasnellDeputy Managing Director at PeopleScout

“Embrace flexibility wherever you can. This means “debundling” jobs. Look in detail at what tasks make up existing jobs and critically ask whether they are bundled up in a sensible way for the world we’re moving into.”

“In particular, consider whether tasks can be allocated between jobs differently, in order to maximise the opportunities afforded to make an increasing proportion of jobs doable, flexibly.”

Geraint JohnesProfessor of Economics at Lancaster University

“When you’re receiving loads of applications, it can be really tempting to make your hiring criteria much more extensive and exclusive, aiming to attract mainly candidates who can ‘hit the ground running’. By doing this, you’re probably also going to make your talent pools much less diverse.”

“It’s never been more important for organisations to focus on diversity and inclusion, so make sure your communications, processes and policies are geared towards attracting and retaining people from a broad range of backgrounds.”

Gina GodsiffCandidate Marketer at Co-op

“One thing that Covid-19 has given, possibly never more than before, is that we’re seeing a really visible style of authentic leadership. We’ve seen our leaders in their living rooms, looked at the pictures behind them, had a look at what they’ve got on their bookcases, etc.”

“It has made people more accessible and more personal. There should be a real desire to make sure that this continues, and that leadership is authentic and clear about the direction of travel going forward.”

Robert PeasnellDeputy Managing Director at PeopleScout

“You’re inevitably going to be declining a lot of candidates in the current climate [post Covid-19], so at the very least, you should make sure they all get some communication informing them of the outcome of their application. Try to give useful, meaningful feedback to as many people as you can. The way you treat candidates is very much in the spotlight at the moment, and it directly impacts your ability to attract the best candidates now and in the future.”

Gina GodsiffCandidate Marketer at Co-op

“Organisation are beginning to see a deluge of applications, so how can they build in more filters at the start of the process to aid selection? Maybe it’s being more candid about what the business is all about, the culture, opportunities and some of the challenges they face, to help people self-select out – as well as into – the process more quickly.”

Robert PeasnellDeputy Managing Director at PeopleScout

“Know your market and be ambitious. Given the opportunities for flexible working, don’t be shy about entering a global market for talent if that’s where the opportunities are for your business.”

Geraint JohnesProfessor of Economics at Lancaster University