Best Practices for Hiring Employees Post-Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown the entire world into a tailspin. However, companies and employees are still feeling the effects of the global health crisis, as navigating throughout nearly every industry in a post-pandemic world poses a litany of challenges.

One of the most apparent challenges, though, is hiring employees post-pandemic. Here are the best practices for hiring employees post-pandemic:

Go to the Talent

Before the pandemic, it was still preferable for hiring managers to attract local talent. However, with the accelerated advancements of working virtually, you can interview and hire talent worldwide for many industries.

Since the pandemic made many industries quickly figure out how to work remotely, it is much easier to onboard employees or contractors virtually. This virtual freedom opens your hiring process up to a world of possibilities. So, all that is left is for you to take advantage of those possibilities.

Offer a Virtual Work Option

Even if your company cannot or does not want to continue working virtually full-time, there is still a benefit to considering remaining partially virtual.

According to a study conducted by Dice,  71% of workers listed remote work as the most important hiring factor. While safety is a factor, the allure of working from home is emphatic. During the pandemic, the workforce practiced the benefits of working from home instead of just theorizing about them. Now, employees don’t want to give that up.

So, while you might not want to or have the capability to offer full-time virtual options to potential employees, you should work out a virtual strategy that is appealing to potential new hires.  

Conduct Employee Background Checks

Conducting a background check for employment is not a new concept. However, post-pandemic employee background checks are more important than ever. With all of the unique benefits businesses are offering, including employees working from home, your company needs to know who is working for you. You need to trust them, at least to a degree, from the moment you start their onboarding process.

So, the best way to do that, without them physically being present every day, like the pre-pandemic workforce, is through a background check.

Conduct Virtual Interviews

Many businesses have a multi-interview hiring process. This process is one aspect of post-pandemic hiring that shouldn’t change. Rather, you should alter this process, if you haven’t already, to include virtual interviews.

Over 114 million people lost their jobs throughout 2020. Therefore, you can expect many applicants to apply for your position. Some of those applicants may be willing to relocate, but even if all your applicants are local, it is much more cost-effective and safer to hold virtual interviews.

True, there is nothing like meeting someone face to face, but there is no need to meet everyone face to face. You should conduct preliminary interviews virtually to narrow down the talent. Then, you can limit your in-person meetings to just your top candidates.

Offer Virtual Training

The quality of training can often become a problem. When you train too much, you lose money and time, as the trainee is still learning the ropes. However, when you don’t train employees enough, there is a greater possibility of costly mistakes.

Fortunately, you have a lot less cost associated with your training process when you offer virtual training. Virtual training can be more in-depth and can get done in a digital setting. So, the new employee won’t be in anyone’s way or telling customers the wrong information.

Of course, they will need to be put on the floor when they start their job, but virtual training gives your company a cost-effective platform through which you can train employees and help them learn their role before interacting with the public.

Work Out a System for Everyone

Everyone has gone through a dramatic change since the pandemic. So, when you are offering updated options and benefits to new hires, don’t forget about those who continued to work with you throughout the pandemic. You don’t want your veteran employees to feel like they are getting slighted. After all, they have already proven their loyalty, especially when you think about large companies with thousands of employees who have remained steadfast in their dedication to the brand for years if not decades.

Fortunately, you can avoid creating feelings of underappreciation by implementing the same options for new and veteran employees.

Everyone expects changes to come to the workplace post-pandemic. Therefore, it shouldn’t be an issue for your company to offer a new employee benefit plan.

In summation, the best practices for hiring employees post-pandemic center around safety and convenience. Before the pandemic, the world was changing slowly, but we had to overcome a trial by fire since we got thrown into a global crisis. The good news is that we did it, and now, we have virtual options for hiring that accelerated due to the urgency of the pandemic.