What To Do When Unexpected Factors Impact Your Business
If your business hasn’t changed over the past few weeks, you’re one of the few. COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of our communities - our lives, our workplaces, and our peace of mind. It’s something that many of us did not see coming, and it has brought unprecedented changes to the way our economy operates.
While this is hopefully a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, there are often external factors that force us to change hiring and management strategies on a dime. If you’re still working to adapt to the changes COVID-19 has brought your business, or looking to be prepared for anything the future may bring, here are a few things to keep in mind when forced to change your hiring strategy.
1) Ways to cope when you’re hit with large surges
Large-scale change won’t always mean that your business gets put on pause. For many industries - grocery stores, pharmacies, delivery services, medical supplies - Coronavirus has brought a massive increase in demand.
Keeping up with a sudden rush isn’t easy. Often, you simply need more hands. There are two things to think about:
Who can you transition?
In the case of the current pandemic, for example, many retail stores are closed while fulfillment centers struggle to keep up. Are there Retail Associates who you can transition to serve as Picker/Packers or to help online customer service? Does your restaurant have front-of-house employees who could add their skills to your delivery team?
Workers who you can transition already know your company and your processes. Transitioning those workers should be your first step.
How quickly can you hire?
Hiring en masse can be tricky. You don’t have the time you typically need to do background checks, fully evaluate candidates, and pick the best ones. Many companies are hiring on-the-spot just to keep up with demand.
One thing to remember here: just because you have to hire quickly doesn’t mean you should skip crucial steps. Continue to screen candidates, ask important questions, and run background checks. Even if you have to speed up the process, you’ll be glad if you didn’t let worker quality slide.
2) Training and onboarding are still critical
Even when hiring quickly, training and onboarding cannot be sacrificed. Employees transitioning into new positions may know the company well, but they’re likely not familiar with the ins and outs of their new roles. And giving new team members all the information they need up-front can really pay off down the line. Here are a few things to consider:
Onboarding is a new worker’s first impression of your company.
This is your chance to make a great first impression on your new team members and ensure their success. Make sure your onboarding gives workers a real understanding of how their positions contribute to the business and what makes them successful on the job. Plus, your added team members can be an asset to other departments, or even your seasonal crew, after this high-demand time has slowed down.
Update your policies to cover the current situation.
It is critical to ensure that all workers - your new team members and old employees alike - understand how COVID-19 impacts the way they should do their jobs. This may include how they handle customer transactions, how they interact with others in the warehouse, sanitation policies, and more.
Take the opportunity to recognize top performers.
Are there some great workers on your original team? Take this opportunity to promote them as shift supervisors, assistant managers, or trainers. They can help train newcomers and ensure quality performance. Promoting those individuals shows your new team what a success story looks like and can help to inspire more loyalty among top employees who are working hard to keep your business flowing.
3) Use your resources
There are a number of resources available to help you scale quickly in the face of unexpected surges. Data, in particular, can be hugely helpful. Using a data-focused hiring approach, you can more accurately predict worker success, and after hiring, data can be leveraged to help evaluate how well your workforce is performing.
The hiring process itself can also become much easier if you look for help. Tapping into a pre-vetted workforce, like Bluecrew, allows you to ramp up quickly without sacrificing worker quality or skipping crucial steps in the screening process. We interview every Crew Member before they make it onto our platform, performing background checks and verifying skills. Plus, your positions are matched with the best fit workers using our proprietary algorithm to ensure employees match with the job that’s the best fit for them.
Never be afraid to ask for help. And if you need us, our Bluecrew team is here for you.
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