Rethinking recruiting to rise to the staff churn challenge

Brian Knopp, VP at research and consulting giants Gartner, predicts business are facing 50-75% higher staff churn than they’d usually experience in an average year. That suggests it’s time to buckle up and re-think your recruitment processes in order to offset unusually high staff attrition rates.

The so-called Great Resignation is a hefty contributory factor. It shines a light on the post-pandemic mindset of millions of workers, who don’t share their employer’s enthusiasm to pick up where they left off. Priorities and terms of engagement have shifted. And there’s never been a more opportune moment for staff to dictate exactly what they want those terms to be.

As a result, your pre-February 2020 recruitment process might be falling massively short circa 2022. But you CANwork through this, efficiently and effectively, with transformational talent acquisition tools at your fingertips to skyrocket your efforts.

Admittedly, even the most majestic Applicant Tracking System (ATS) won’t sway staff who have their minds set on a different lifestyle. (An LMS can help. But this article is specifically focusing on recruitment rather than retention.) But it’s an impressive riposte for –

  • Increasing candidate attraction
  • Hiring great values-matched talent
  • Onboarding new hires to minimize ghosting and early exits

So, how does it work?

Can an ATS Really Help Avert a Potential Staffing Crisis?

Gartner’s Research Director Alexia Cambon advises, “Whether you face an attrition crisis or are planning your post-pandemic workforce strategy, you need to know when and how to repair, humanize, outcompete or double-down on recruiting efforts.”

To these ends, the answer is a whopping yes! Your ability to counterbalance churn is snowballed by an impeccable ATS that puts your employer branding front and center.

You see, there’s an unprecedented volume of shiny, pretty things out there to distract candidates and lure them away mid-journey. So, it’s essential to continuously convey and ‘bake in’ your employer branding to maintain optimum levels of engagement throughout the recruitment and onboarding processes.

 An elite ATS is your perfect partner for attracting quality talent, and also for keeping them stuck to you like glue. And it starts in your pipeline.

Building and Nurturing a Talent Pipeline

Imagine having a ready-made stage to jump on and perform for an engaged audience of prospective candidates every time you want to show them something. Well, you do if you have a careers site; your VIP club of proactive and passive candidates-in-waiting.

Linking your ATS blasts your careers site to previously untapped levels. You can keep your talent pool topped up to overflowing by –

  • Inviting past candidates – Pre-schedule automated invitations to candidates who make it through the initial stages for other openings, but aren’t ultimately successful. It doesn’t mean they won’t be exactly what you’re looking for next time. Remember, engaged talent is already way down your sales funnel when they receive automated job alerts about new vacancies.     
  • Hooking up your social media platforms – A prime ATS makes child’s play of linking up your social media channels. Sharing vacancies on your preferred platforms and enticing awesome talent to your careers site is simpler still.

Finding People Fits

A leading ATS empowers you harness values-based recruitment techniques to identify ideal cultural fits. With skills shortages at towering levels the bar is lower. But, with greater onus on softer skills, you can unearth hidden gems who might have gone unnoticed previously.

 It’s a refreshing change from imposing skills-based job specs that are no longer coming up with the goods. Instead, think about re-framing your application process by introducing –

  • Screening questions
  • Situational judgment tests (SJTs)
  • Values-based questions
  • Self-service video screening

When you use some or all of these features, you give candidates who might not be the most impressive on paper an opportunity to emerge from behind the CV or resume.

And even better that literally thousands of templated questions are included for free with Recruit by HireRoad – plus free video screening, too!

Getting Smarter About Onboarding

Things can go horribly wrong if there’s an awkward silence in the interim period between candidates accepting your job offer and their start dates. It doesn’t reflect well on your employer branding. And it leaves too much wriggle room for their heads to be turned in other directions.

Thankfully, there are multiple ways a premier ATS can help you scoop this phase up and use it wisely, so that intrepid new hires are prepped, primed and impatient get stuck in. A pre-start schedule can include elements like –

  • Self-service starter paperwork – Look sharp by sending links for new hires to e-sign their contracts and upload their routine starter information, like bank details, driving license, medical history and tax certificates. They’ll feel ‘official’ before they’re even in post. Plus, there’s the added bonus of internal ease, too, with information requested from your ATS and received back from your new hires in the same place.
  • Calendar for probationary period – Provide a time-lined schedule for new hires to see meetings that are already in their diaries and events happening in the business. It gives them a delicious taste of what’s in store.
  • Pre-start induction and early training – Forearm them with routine induction materials like your employee handbook and staff benefits information. And ask them to complete online early training modules ahead of their start date. They’ll be pumped up and ready to hit the ground running with the formalities already out of they way.  
  • Pre-scheduled welcome emails – Pre-scheduled text messages like “One week to go, we’re really looking forward to you joining us” will make nervous new hires feel like you’re as excited as they are.

At HireRoad, our products are purpose-designed to help you re-model your recruitment processes and re-shape your workforce adeptly.

Equip yourself to compete by clicking here to arrange a friendly, non-obligatory demo.