Employers have to stay on top of employment and hiring trends to remain relevant in their industry. This means you have to consider what other jobs are offering in terms of workplace culture, benefits, and wages. Here are some upcoming trends to keep on your radar.
Remote Work
Many sectors saw productivity shoot through the roof during the pandemic. This was because many people were working from home at least two to three days a week. Even though the pandemic is slowing down, remote work is here to stay.
Agencies that went back to an in-person setting full-time saw a huge impact on overall motivation and productivity. In fact, offering remote work seems to have become an incentive and even an additional benefit for incoming candidates. You may attract more top talent to your jobs by offering more flexibility in this way.
Upskilling and Reskilling
While offering remote work is a great way to attract and retain talent, it does not address the talent gap many agencies are experiencing. This is because the timeline for acquiring skills that are in high demand has slowed down significantly. For this reason, it is important to have a plan for upskilling and reskilling your current staff.
To do this, you have to have a good ongoing training program, which can be difficult. Typically, if there are budget cuts in the government sector, training is one of the first things to be cut. However, agencies need to change their mindset about this and shift focus to continued training to ensure they have the skilled workers they need. Offering this type of training will also help you retain the top talent on your team.
Fine-Tune Hiring Materials
There is no shortage of applicants for government positions, but the process itself could use some work. Many of the candidates who apply never receive correspondence about whether or not they have progressed in the hiring process. Teams who are recruiting for these positions should set up better assessments so that unqualified candidates don’t make it too far in the hiring process.
On top of improving the assessments and narrowing down the talent pool, improvements can be made with communication. First, job descriptions should be made more clear so that each applicant truly knows what they are applying for. Once they have applied and completed an assessment, there should be automated correspondence to let them know where they stand in the application process.
Outsource Human Resources
When it comes to sourcing candidates for an open position, everyone thinks they can perform the human resources duties. It is more complicated than you think, especially when it comes to hiring a government employee. Outsourcing HR tasks in relation to recruiting, hiring, training, and onboarding new employees can save your agency a lot of time and headache. It also makes staying on top of hiring trends a breeze because the staffing firm does the heavy lifting for you.
You can take some of the pressure off your organization when it comes to staying on top of hiring trends by working with a staffing agency. The Staffing Resource Group specializes in placing government employees. Contact us to learn more about our services.