Q&A with Richard Mortimer, Chief People Officer, Egress.

With the current global Coronavirus pandemic, remote hiring has increased exponentially. And as debate on the future of the office continues, chances are high that new employees will work much more flexibility in future, either completely or partially from home. So how can organisations overcome recruitment and onboarding challenges during lockdown and beyond? We sat down with Egress Chief People Officer Richard Mortimer to hear what he had to say on the subject.

Q –

The physical meet and greet has always been a critical part of the recruitment process. With social distancing laws still in effect and advice to continue working remotely if possible, how is Egress overcoming this challenge and what advice do you have for other organisations in a similar position?

A –

Before COVID-19, although we did use filter calls in the interview process, we’d never hired someone that we hadn’t met in person before. That meet and greet aspect not only provided us with an opportunity to assess critical soft skills but also afforded candidates the opportunity to see our offices, and get a feel for our culture and what it’s like to work here. So, it’s a milestone for us and many fast-growth businesses like ours to hire people without meeting them in person at least once.

In this new environment, we’ve given extra emphasis to some of our usual hiring process steps and have virtualised them wherever possible. We’ve not gone back to the drawing board and redesigned our whole recruitment process from scratch, but we’ve tweaked it and changed the way we conduct interviews. For example, video conference calls have become massively more significant than they were in our previous process.

I think the other thing that is important in the recruitment process now is explaining to candidates how we as a business are functioning during the lockdown, including how we’re treating our current employees during this period. An interviewee may have been furloughed or made redundant by a previous employer, and does not want to be in that situation again, so it’s important to remove any concerns they have about job security. In our case, we’ve not had to furlough anyone, cut basic pay or make any of our employees redundant during the pandemic. It’s critical we communicate that to candidates, so they know they’re coming into a secure environment.

Q –

Do you think organisations will prioritise different skill sets from potential recruits now due to how the working world may look post-lockdown?

A –

Yes, personal qualities such as being able to work independently will become critical.

Even in the ‘previous’ world where a candidate is across the table from you, it’s actually quite difficult to ascertain that without going down a psychometric route and that’s not a road we’ve travelled down as yet..  I’m not a great fan of psychometrics in recruitment, but right now, we do need to find out whether someone is capable of working entirely from home.

We’ve not had a choice in this current scenario because people have had to react without warning or much preparation, but when bringing candidates on board in future, it’ll now be a key priority to as them how they’d function working from home – whether it’s full time, like we are right now, or just for a couple of days each week.

Additionally, it’s important to gain an understanding of the environment people will be working in when at home.  Greater flexibility and remote working is likely to be the new normal when social distancing restrictions end, so we need to know that people the ability to work effectively wherever they’re based. So, you could see potential recruits miss out on opportunities purely because they do not have the right working environment at home.

Q –

Hiring has changed due to the pandemic. Some organisations have had hiring freezes and others are struggling with onboarding new employees. What are your tips for these organisations?

A –

It’s massively important to focus on being able to continue your growth once this crisis subsides.  It’s very easy for businesses to start navel gazing, focusing on the here and now, and just managing to get through. But when things do start getting back to a version of normal, you’ll need to be able to execute just as effectively, or perhaps even more effectively, than you did prior to the crisis. And if organisations aren’t looking forward now, then in a few weeks’ or months’ time when they’re ready to continue scaling their employee base, they’re going to be on the back foot as  their competitors will have hired the best candidates.

Many organisations have had to suspend hiring for positions that were available pre-pandemic, and the future for those roles isuncertain right now. If recruiters from an organisation find themselves in that position, I’d recommend being upfront with the candidates but, wherever possible, still complete the interview process, even if you can’t make an offer then and there. This would get candidates to the point where they are effectively in what we call the ‘green room’, where you know you will offer them employment when ready – and then you have a head-start when the role opens up again.

Secondly, don’t stop looking for candidates and building shortlists. Your recruitment may well have slowed down or even stopped right now, but you have got to keep sourcing talent and testing the waters for the time new roles become available again.

Next, if you are still hiring new staff, don’t try to change too much of the onboarding process. Obviously, the way you bring people into the company right now has changed radically, but the actual content and structure of your induction training and onboarding programme should be kept as consistent as possible. This is so that you don’t have to do masses of rework to do when this crisis is over to put it back to what it was. That’s what we’ve done here at Egress; our induction programme hasn’t really changed – all we’ve done is transport it to a virtual world. So instead of bringing every new joiner to our monthly Induction Accelerator programme in London, we’re now doing it all through video conferencing, but the content is pretty much identical to before.

And probably most importantly of all, I think the final thing would be being available for support much more readily than you would’ve been in an office environment. For someone new to the business right now, sitting in their dining room or home office on their own is a very different onboarding experience to sitting next to a colleague who they can speak with and ask questions to. So, you’ve got to be available for support throughout those early weeks and throughout their probation, to ensure they succeed. I’m sure there will be situations where good people will be hired in this sort of environment and, if not provided with that support, won’t succeed at their jobs.