Recruitment in Canada In 2020
As a subject of many forecasts and market predictions, the year 2020 has been greatly anticipated. This is especially true for HR consultants, companies, and employers as a whole who have been paying close attention to expert opinions and predictions on recruitment in 2020.
Over the last five years, HR experts and industry stakeholders have analyzed and proposed drastic measures to mitigate the looming recruitment horror that is based on the skills shortage in Canada. However, the fact remains that hiring and managing a workforce will be a challenging feat in the year 2020. Throughout this article we’re going to share two powerful strategies to future-proof your organization so you can continue to attract the best talent.
Amid the turmoil, experts project that only the prepared and focused employers will prove successful. Thus, the question is what should you focus on? and where should you begin as a brand?
As an employer or human resources manager, a good place to begin will be to consider the current state of recruitment in Canada in an effort to understand and identify the critical measures to take in 2020. The unemployment rate in Canada is down to 5.5%, and on the whole, recruitment in Canada is quite. In addition to that, employees across Canada have employment tenure of 8.5 years on average before moving on to the next job. This is being reduced by the influx of millennials into the labor market as millennials move from job to job in search of better opportunities or to advance their professional career.
Amid the shortage of skilled labor, hiring and retaining individuals in certain professions can prove to be even more challenging for a number of reasons. Prime among these professions are registered and licensed practical nurses, truck drivers, college-level lecturers, and welders to name a few. These professionals are highly aware of their value, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to any employer that hiring and retaining one can be tricky.
There are various reasons for the short employee tenure and the rising complexity in recruiting a skilled workforce. This could be profession-dependent or not. Largely, it can be blamed on the aging workforce, and partly on the lack of interest to go into this profession on the part of new individuals.
Plumbers, for instance, can make a lot more money working for themselves on average than they can while working for someone else, which makes it difficult to recruit for such roles. The situation is so pronounced that institutions even offer students automatic employment on completion of their program. This is done in a bid to attract skilled labor.
In the current decade, employers of skilled labor will need more than attractive job descriptions to attract competent personnel in any field, be it sales, project management or even plumbing. To recruit the professionals you need, you must develop a strong employer offering, knowing that you are competing with other companies to attract professionals.
Employer Branding is the Key
Starting off as a buzzword, employer branding has become a requirement for employers in the current decade. Recruiting competent professionals in any field has gone beyond crafting pretty job descriptions, hence, to attract and retain the right talent, you must combine the efforts of your marketing, recruitment, and internal communications team to develop and maintain a viable employer brand.
If you don’t already have employer branding in place, a good place to start would be to perform a stance check. The first step is to achieve this is to analyze your HR policies, and check if they are making things easier for your employees or the contrary. Is it easy to access your maternity leave? What does your sick leave look like? How many days of vacation do you offer your employees? These are critical things that would make your employer brand enticing or generally unappealing.
You also have to consider when last you carried out an employee satisfaction survey to know what your employees are looking for in working for you, and if they get a sense of satisfaction from working for you. If you have carried out the survey, then what have you done with the result? When was the last time an employee recommended a friend for a position that you advertised? Are your employees happy about working for you so much that they can recommend their friends to work for you as well?
These are effective measures in determining how strong your employment brand is.
Furthering your effort towards superior recruitment results, you have to ask yourself what makes your brand unique, and what separates you from your competitors. If you’re unable to answer these questions then you’re not in a strong position as an employer. This is because convincing a potential employee or customer to choose your brand over competition will be impractical.
Being able to analyze and answer these questions is necessary in building your employer brand, and this is one of the things you need to put in place for recruitment in 2020. The Scout Talent weekly Podcast provides a wealth of resources on these critical steps, and the techniques you can utilize or leverage as an employer to develop a sustainable employer brand. It’s a good place to start.
Talent Pooling
Talent Pooling is yet another essential requirement for successful recruitment and managing a competent workforce in the year 2020. While it is not uncommon to hire a competent professional at the expense of a relatively less-competent but also highly-valuable candidate, the connection established between the company and the discarded candidate is a vital resource that talent pooling seeks to leverage.
A talent pool is achieved by keeping in touch and deploying strategies to actively engage candidates who are unfit for the roles they applied to but are considered a cultural fit for your organization.
This approach to talent sourcing aims to utilize only existing resources in retaining the interest of these talents and preparing them for prospective opportunities in the company. How is this achieved?
You simply direct your marketing or learning and development team to repurpose and redevelop the training materials or information which was initially directed at your staff towards your Talent Pool. You can use this to keep your Talent Pool engaged, thus, creating a pool of well-trained professionals for the company’s long-term personnel needs.
As we move into 2020 and beyond, reducing employee turnover will only become increasingly important. Employees have the power of choice, and qualified employees have an awful lot of choices. While a good recruitment process can help you attract the right employees, it won’t prevent them from leaving three months later.
Brands will get desperate and unethical in means of sourcing employees, and only well-grounded employer brands can successfully attract and retain the highest level of talents available on the market. After all, a happy employee is always your company’s best ambassador.
Recruitment in 2020 will be tough and challenging. However, nothing worth doing is ever easy, and exceptional results are achievable with the right team. Our professional team of consultants at Scout Talent will be there to address your hiring needs and to develop workable strategies for your long-term recruitment needs.
To get in contact with the Scout Talent team, please email hello@scouttalent or call us directly at 1 866 474 3140.