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Despite demand for labour in certain sectors, such as travel and hospitality, taking a serious hit as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s not all bad news for the recruitment sector. In fact, demand for resource in food production and supply, supermarkets, and logistics roles, is currently outstripping supply in a big way.
With thousands of workers required by supermarkets and as part of the food supply chain alone,
Staffline (the UK’s largest recruitment company), and
PeoplePlus (a leading adult training provider), have partnered to launch a campaign,
#FeedtheNation, that aims to help transition workers from sectors badly impacted by COVID-19 into these in-demand roles. In addition to bringing together those who have lost their jobs with employers who badly need resources, this campaign will also ensure that the empty shelves, queues and rationing of basic produce will not be an ongoing output of the pandemic.
The problem with increased demand
You’d think that more demand would be good, right? Not necessarily. Placing candidates can take time and many recruitment companies are finding that they don’t have the business processes or systems in place to support the higher level of requests they’re receiving.
To further complicate things, a lot of these businesses are now working from home for the first time and experiencing time management and communication issues often associated with this way of working.
How you can keep up with demand
We’ve pulled together a few tips for anyone struggling to maintain supply during this time:
- Stay open-minded - As a result of COVID-19, the makeup of the candidate pool may look different to how it usually does, with a wider mix of work histories. Don’t rule out candidates that you might not ordinarily expect to place in specific roles – you may need to consider attitude and adaptability over whether they’re the traditional ‘fit’.
- Streamline your processes - The lack of supply has meant that speed has become more important than ever. If you’re struggling to keep up then some CRM enhancements will most likely make your teams more efficient. Our ‘AwesomeDocs’ (complete with DocuSign functionality) and ‘MassPlacement’ products are designed to streamline the time-taking actions that slow down the placement process and both can be used without leaving Bullhorn.
With AwesomeDocs, the creation and formatting of CVs is reduced from 15 minutes to just 2 minutes. It can also be used to generate and send contracts for signing via DocuSign, meaning that clients and candidates can sign electronically, wherever they are.
MassPlacement was built with high-volume recruitment in mind and allows you to create and manage multiple placements in one go, dramatically reducing the time normally spent on these tasks.
- Work in the cloud and be reachable – one of the problems we hear time and time again is that people are experiencing difficulties collaborating and communicating with colleagues. Now more than ever we need to ensure that we’re working in a centrally accessible place (i.e. not from your desktop), and that we’re contactable. If you don’t have them in place already then consider creating and implementing some best practices. These could include points as simple as not saving things locally, or making sure your online status is up-to-date.
As the pandemic continues there are no signs of demand for these roles slowing down. As such, there’s a real opportunity for recruitment companies to make the best out of a bad situation, and in turn help feed, care for, and support your nation.
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