In uncertain times, HR departments are scrambling to put out one fire after another. A company might be rebalancing overall head-counts today but striving to hire new talent tomorrow. No matter what, to build resilience in an organisation, it's more crucial than ever to create a flexible workforce. 

The HR department has entered the spotlight.

If you are working in the HR department, you are responsible for addressing needs, such as safely operating in a post-outbreak world, reassuring worried employees and identifying what resources you must retain or reorganise. If there was a time when the role of HR was crucial to their organisations' survival and growth, that time is now. 

Many of our clients are now asking themselves, what will our staffing needs look like in the months and years ahead?  

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The next few years will most likely be characterised by strong market fluctuations, forcing the HR department to build a flexible workforce, increasing the ability to scale up and down to adapt to market trends quickly. It will be critical to ensure the right talent is available when your company is ready for growth. According to Randstad Sourceright’s 2020 Talent Trends research — a global survey of more than 800 HR leaders conducted at the end of 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic — business agility was expected to be key to thriving this year.

Even before 2020 began, signs of an economic slowdown appeared in Europe, Australasia and North America. Now, this trend is increasingly important as business and workforce agility remain critical to the recovery stage in the months ahead. How can Randstad help me build a flexible workforce?

As you adapt to uncertain times, you need to organise your staff according to market trends. When an unforeseen need for staffing emerges, you need to have the capabilities to hire the right talent for as long as you need them.  

Below are some of the ways Randstad can help you build a flexible workforce:

leveraging temporary talent

Whether you require support during a peak production cycle, to fill a temporary placement due to a specific project or parental leave, or just need a more flexible option than permanent employment, you need to implement a flexible-employee strategy.

A successful flexible-employee strategy has a significant impact and can help you:

  • overcome a lack of specialised work-skills
  • manage peak production cycles
  • prevent burnouts among existing staff  
  • meet your customers’ expectations

ensuring the quality of candidates

The cost of hiring the wrong candidate can be very high. Bad hires usually take few initiatives on their own and have low productivity overall. Additionally, poor performers can drive away top performers in your organisation, thereby decreasing the total productivity of your teams. That is why it is so important to ensure the quality of the candidates and the people you end up hiring. 

Randstad makes sure the candidate has the skills and is a good fit with the company's culture. By using our staffing services, you can feel confident that the candidates are thoroughly vetted and qualified to help you make the right hire in minimal time. 

creating an effortless hiring experience

Candidates under time pressure tend to favour companies that offer an effortless hiring experience. They're also more likely to stay engaged if they receive hiring updates throughout the process. 

At Randstad, we focus on streamlining hiring for both employers and candidates. By using technologies like video interviewing as part of our process, candidates can apply from home. After the interview, the video is shared with you, your hiring managers, and other stakeholders.

using the latest technology

To build a modern flexible workforce you as an employer need to take advantage of tech-enabled tools to expedite the process of sourcing, pre-screening, assessing and interviewing candidates.

Randstad can offer you as employer access to the latest technology, such as Checkster, which uses collective intelligence for hiring and retaining talent. To increase the conversion of passive talent, you might be interested in Brazen, a software that allows you to host online recruiting and networking events. 

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