If you’re reading this, you’re fed up with the world of the ‘pandemic,’ because you’re having a hard time hiring key employees, managers, and leaders for jobs that are best done at the office, not remotely.
Your business will perform at its best when led by in-person managers and leaders who show up, who care about their work, and who want to be there. Your company achieves its best outcomes when key employees are working together, in person. And it will always be this way because humans work best in collaboration, not isolation. This is not a political opinion. It’s a fact of human nature.
But because of all the free money being thrown around by the government and all the fear surrounding covid, too many would-be workers just don’t want to come in.
Your goal is to figure how to find workers, managers, and leaders who want to work in-person, because they know that’s what produces the best results and its where they thrive. These people exist, and they’re in demand. But they’re hard to find.
We have seen workers get hired for key positions, and then just stop showing up with no explanation. And the data bears this out.
Several studies have found that about 30% of workers would rather quit than have to leave home to work. And 62% said they would give preference to jobs that let them work remotely.
Especially when it comes to leadership and management positions that just can’t be done as well remotely, your task is the find the remaining 38% who haven’t succumbed to fear and the warped reality of our times, and who want to get out there and lead.
How do you do this?
Here are three strategies to start using as soon as possible.
3 Strategies for Finding Workers Who Want to Work In Person
1. Advertise for the Right People – And Don’t Hold Back
Your job advertisements and job descriptions need to be much more than a list of skills and qualifications.
Use these tools to call out the kind of person you want – a leader, not ruled by fear or anxiety, who knows their strengths and knows that the best work happens when people meet and work together in person. Don’t be soft here. Don’t try to appeal to all kinds of people.
Be clear that this job is for someone who wants to get out of the home and get back to work, because that’s where they thrive. Appeal to abilities and talents such as collaboration, motivating other people, and helping others to be their best and maximize their abilities.
You want leaders and managers who know how to help other workers do more than they thought was possible, and who know this happens best in person.
As Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon put it, covid is “not a new normal. It’s an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible.”
What’s he doing by making that statement?
He’s identifying and calling out the kind of top tier workers he wants at his company. Put that kind of language in your job descriptions and job ads. Make sure your hiring consultant, like PainLess Hire, knows that’s what you’re looking for.
2. Appease Any Lingering Uncertainty
Even the most motivated leaders and workers are going to want to know what your company is doing in response to covid. Even if they aren’t afraid of it, they know other workers might be, and they want to know what to tell people so they can build the best possible team around them.
So, develop a clear strategy and language around it that expresses what your company is doing to make working in person free from anxiety, comfortable, and facilitative of a positive and productive workplace.
The specifics for this depend on your location and layout. Your strategy could include things like:
- Electronic air cleaners placed at key locations
- Indoor air quality sensors that give real-time status reports
- Incorporation of indoor and outdoor spaces for lunch, breaks, and socialization – a critical component of working together in person
- Adding a terrace or garden area
- Revised office layouts, which could include isolated areas for focused work, spaced out cubicles, and many other strategies best developed with an interior designer
Do these strategies help?
A CNBC report in late 2020 found that three out of four workers want to return to the office in the future.
It also found that 44% of workers said having spaces dedicated to ‘focus work’ would make working in the office more appealing and effective.
Pay attention to surveys like this. These are the people who are tired of being stuck at home staring at screens all day. To attract them to your company, offer safety upgrades, re-imagined interior layouts, and new uses for exteriors and socialization areas. And put this in your job descriptions and ads as well.
3. Use a Hiring Consultant
Finding that 38% who don’t need to work at home just to ‘feel safe’ won’t be easy, even with these focused strategies. Get help from a hiring consultant such as PainLess Hire that has access to many more job boards and outreach strategies than you do.
Finding top leaders, managers, and key workers takes time, and that’s time you don’t have to lose.
PainLess Hire uses a specialized scientific process for finding and qualifying the best people for every job. We have gone far beyond resumes, hard skills, and interviews. Resumes are shallow. Hard skills tell you little about the job candidate’s soft skills – which in the end matter much more. And interviews are subjective.
Don’t get us wrong – all these tools have a place in our process. They do have some value. But you can’t rely only on them, which is what most traditional recruiters and HR people do. It’s not enough.
To identify the very best candidates, you need to use soft skills assessments and pre-testing, tailored to the strengths and requirements of each position. Our hiring process is built around this, as well as on taking almost all the steps to hiring for key positions off your plate. We make hiring as easy as possible on you, so you can focus on your business.
Reach out today for a free hiring quote by clicking the button below.