4 Ways to Build Your Workforce Optimization Strategy
Today’s job candidates want speed. They want efficiency and accessibility, and they’ll gladly excuse themselves from any application process that doesn’t meet their standards.
Why is this becoming a more prominent hiring trend? According to a LinkedIn survey, employees are now taking a more consumer-style “shopping” approach to job hunting. The survey shows that 35% of hiring and talent acquisition professionals reported automation as the top trend affecting hiring practices.
There’s no doubt that your company needs to streamline its hiring process to attract the most talented candidate pool. Yet simply investing in customer relationship management software and applicant tracking systems won’t be enough. You must also centralize and standardize the candidate experience to smooth out any friction points. When you do, you’ll be able to support scaling expectations, guarantee a reliable candidate journey, and prioritize compliance from beginning to end.
Sound like a big job to tackle? It can be, but these four steps can help bring your workforce optimization strategy to life:
Align HR technology with organizational goals.
Tech stack must-haves may seem mission-critical in terms of function, but that doesn’t mean they configure correctly with your business requirements. For instance, a piece of software that wows you with features you’ve never seen before might be useless to your team in practice. In that case, the investment would just be a waste of money.
Before adding any technical tools to your lineup, measure them against what you need. That way, you won’t overpay for something that sounds terrific on paper but doesn’t get you closer to your ideal hiring process.
Assess your hiring journey for sticky spots.
Applicants don’t appreciate getting stuck in recruitment pipelines. Now more than ever, those who feel abandoned or stuck will simply bow out. Focus on creating a productive hiring journey that delivers predictable outcomes.
Where can you start? First, pick a handful of metrics, like candidate dropout or time-to-fill rates. Then, compare those metrics to what’s happening in your current manual or automated hiring pipeline. For example, is your candidate pipeline at an acceptable level? Has it been decreasing? Create a baseline report, then use those findings to make data-driven adjustments to your HR hiring strategies.
Plan for the hiring needs and trends of today and tomorrow.
With a proactive hiring approach, you can develop cost-effective solutions that create short-term and long-term success. At Integrity Staffing Solutions, we often work with our clients to design workforce plans and capacity modeling to make the search for associates smoother and more cost-effective. Again, we use automation in hiring when applicable.
Above all else, take capacity planning seriously. You don’t want to wait until the last minute to hire and train people, especially if you know you’ll need them in advance. Instead, go back to that hiring data to get a sense of when you’ll need to hire more and when you can scale down hiring efforts. It’s the best solution for giving you enough runway to ensure you aren’t operating with too few employees when you need them most.
Follow a rule of no-nonsense consistency.
When optimizing your workforce strategy, consistency will always be your friend. Why? Inconsistent processes lead to ineffective hires, negative candidate experiences, and waning employer brand reputation.
Get your hiring team on board with these consistent systems. Leveraging the right automated software can help with this objective. So can constructing specific frameworks that act as standard operating procedures.
Right now, hiring trends suggest that job candidates want a search that’s worth their time. Don’t worry, though: With the right software and a partner like us, you can reinvent your HR hiring strategies to meet the expectations of eager yet discerning applicants.
