How To Get Your Workforce & Recruitment Strategy Ready

The festive season is often one for professional reflection. This year should be no different, and we urge employers and employees both to take a good look at their working culture and plans for the future to make sure their stall is set out for the new year. The next year will be a challenging one. In light of changing expectations around career mobility and the cost of living crisis, taking a microscope to why you work, how you work and where you work this Xmas season is warranted.

But this doesn’t mean putting well-made career or workplace plans in the bin. We urge employers and employees alike to take stock of their needs, their future plans, and the state of working in the modern workplace over this coming Xmas break, so you can start the new year at a sprint.

So here are 9 tips for job seekers and employees on how to build a recruitment strategy fit for winter!

For Employers…

Celebrate your people and recognise performance

• Your reward and recognition scheme should stretch beyond the Xmas party and, ideally, beyond the end-of-year review. Evaluating staff performance via the use of continual, or 360 feedback strategies has been known to increase staff advocacy, improve staff retention and result in better productivity and outcomes.
• Ahead of the New Year, New Me season, factoring in more contemporary staff performance analysis will make a marked impact on staff performance come January.

Revamp your ESG and Company Purpose

• Your company purpose is the glue that holds your teams together, and your commitment to improved environmental, social and governance is one of the primary USPs for all good hiring and staff welfare strategies.
• But this Xmas period, we urge you to evaluate your company purpose and ESG commitments in light of the changing nature of work and your community. We feel the most effective and long-lasting way you can do this is by involving every stakeholder in your business to have input in your company’s ESG planning.
• Utilise every tool at your dispersal – staff evaluations, peer reviews, feedback forms, surveys – to get a full understanding of what your people want, and you’ll find you create an envy-inducing culture of employer advocacy.

Don’t stop recruiting!

• It might be a quieter time of year for setting budgets or completing projects but you can be one step ahead of the high turnover season if you start making candidate inroads now.
• We don’t, however, advocate for recruiting too fast, cutting corners or trying to onboard talent before Xmas eve. Go slow, and set standards and priorities for pulling the trigger on new staff after the Xmas break.
• Be honest – a lot of people are keeping their heads down as we edge closer to Xmas (and a recession), so be subtle, be empathetic, and make sure every candidate approach is high quality.

Remember the flexibility of contingent hiring

• Of course, if you do need to do some rapid Xmas hiring we urge you to steer clear of the perm market and focus exclusively on the temp/contingent market.
• Again, this isn’t about gap-filling or rushing a hire for the sake of it. More and more professionals are heading into the freelance or contractor market for the inherent freedom it gives them to accept – and decline – work, so again every approach has to be targeted, well-researched, well remunerated and high-quality.

Do some pre-Spring cleaning

• Finally, pre-Spring cleaning is another way of saying put your spare time to good use. Focus on some of the “shop front” assets you have – your social media platforms, your marketing output and your branding. Is everything as it should be? Do you look and feel competitive?
• If in doubt, reach out to the consultancy market and have someone do a brief evaluation of your market placement and branding overview. After all, New Year, New Me counts for businesses too, and having a sense of where you could improve ready for the new year is a strong step towards future success.

For Job Seekers…

Get your CV in order

• CVs should always be works in progress but the Xmas period should always be seen as one of evaluation and planning for the future.
• If in doubt, lean on a recruitment consultant to help polish your CV. Seeking external advice is always warranted and having a fresh set of eyes on your working history could open up opportunity to better present your work. If in doubt, always rely on the XYZ format of building a CV!

Do a little soul-searching

• Does your current job meet your needs? Does it make you happy? Do you see your current employment as helping you reach your goals? Does your employer help you develop your skills?
• These are perennially good questions to ask yourself, but you want to start the new year from a place of positivity. By asking yourself the above questions you end up knowing why you work and this gives you a sense of direction and career growth. Ideally, you’ll be able to communicate that to your workplace, and have them help you meet your goals!

Build your network by utilising goodwill!

• Xmas is a time of goodwill, which means you should take advantage of any knocking around and build up some rapport with your network.
• People might not be at the office or their desk, but they are online so whether it’s a hiring manager for your dream firm you’ve held off on messaging on LinkedIn, or a bank of recruiter outreach emails you haven’t had the chance to reply to, use your Xmas break to fortify your network and explore potential opportunities.

Seek feedback, constantly

• Finally, when it comes to your own end-of-year evaluation, focus on growth. But rather than simply ask for feedback and step away, we urge you to ask your employer to offer regular check-ins and context-led feedback on a more frequent basis.
• This is a more effective way of understanding exactly how impactful your labour is on a day-to-day or week-by-week basis, which in turn builds confidence in direction and skills growth. In short, regular feedback should be par for the course in the new year so you can visualise your successes!

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