The Effects of the Global Pandemic on the Employment and Recruitment Sector

The World Health Organization has identified the workplace as a priority area for health promotion. Why then, does the word work have such a negative and unhealthy connotation for so many people? Think about it, we spend so much of our adult lives at work. Why should it be in a role or in an environment that doesn't support our health and well-being? Brian Crooke, our podcast host, is on a mission to make workplaces more positive places to be and the working day as healthy and productive as possible. 

In this podcast episode, we are looking at the employment and recruitment industry in the current climate. How are recruitment professionals coping in the midst of the global pandemic?  What type of businesses are seeing a negative impact from this situation and how are they dealing with the uncertainty of the future? 

Donal O'Donoghue, our guest today, is the Managing Director of Sanderson, a recruitment business that focuses on placing people from graduate level up to a senior level in different organizations in marketing, finance, H.R. procurement, IT, and business change. He is also President of the National Recruitment Federation, the representative body for most of the recruitment companies and employment agencies around the country. On this episode he gives us his take on the state of the employment market and on the future of this sector. 

Businesses are resorting to different methods in order to keep their doors open

While businesses that are recruiting health care clinicians and medical staff have become incredibly busy in the past months, other recruitment sectors have been put to a halt overnight. “We've seen a huge amount of jobs go, as everybody knows overnight. Equally, there has been some demand in other sectors, a significant upswing in demand in logistics, distribution, supply chain quality and some of the food manufacturing businesses as well.” Donal says. 

Some businesses are already reducing working hours depending on workload, while others in the UK have implemented the government furloughed worker scheme. Therefore, if there isn't enough work for all employees, they are able to put them on furlough where the government covers a percentage and then the organization can pay the rest. This is somewhat similar to Ireland’s wage subsidy scheme. With the initial confusion in the matter being clarified, more and more businesses in Ireland have been availing of the scheme. 

Keeping employees motivated and connected is crucial during these times

The team at Sanderson are focused on helping their employees develop and invest their free time in additional learning and development tools. What are the areas that the employees want to upskill in? What are some wellness initiatives that can be implemented for them? Donal gave us some simple and creative ideas they are trying at Sanderson, from investing in a Learning and Development tool to starting fun collaborative competitions between employees. They are also dedicated to keeping up with one of the organization’s trademarked initiatives, the Friday morning Sander Cafe, which now happens online. It’s important to keep people engaged and connected with each other and with the company culture through these difficult times. 

The NRF is planning to help people that have been laid off 

The National Recruitment Federation has launched a campaign called Keep Ireland Working through which they are looking to support people that have found themselves out of work at this time. As some industries like the airline sector or hospitality are in a tough situation it is important for workers to be able to look at their core skill set to assess where they can transfer.  There are still industries where jobs exist at the moment. The NRF is encouraging providers to make online courses available for free or at a discounted rate to allow for upskilling or in a new area. Reaching out and connecting with others is also essential for people that are in a difficult situation. Whether it’s people in their network, employers or recruitment companies it's important to connect and to try to find new opportunities that will get them through the next period of time.

The future of the employment sector is directly linked to the duration of the shutdown

The health crisis has resulted in a significant economic impact which has directly impacted the employment sector. The shorter the duration of the restrictions, the more probability there is for SMEs to bounce back. Time is the biggest killer for these small owner-managed businesses, as some are burning fast through their liquidities while others are managing to avail of some government assistance in order to survive. It’s a very steep drop in economic activity but a steep upswing is expected as well. Ireland is fortunate to have had good leadership that responded quickly to the situation and people have been open to embrace what has been asked of them.

How the recruitment industry is handling remote working conditions

It’s quite interesting to hear from Donal that recruitment hasn’t changed as much as other sectors. The recruitment industry had already embraced a lot of the prerequisites for remote working in terms of interviewing by video platform, having good GDPR compliant ways of dealing with personal data and allowing people to work flexibly. Of course, there are recruitment businesses that have been affected by the crisis but Donal is quite confident in the capacity people have to bounce back: “ I think for the businesses that are casualties of this virus, I think we'll see a lot of those come back again, maybe in a different form (...)  Like your success is often directly linked to the tough times you've had to overcome. And it's certainly a tough time for a lot of businesses, but I'm sure many of them will bounce back even stronger. “

For Sanderson for example, It was more a matter of changing their perception of office work versus remote work. The old school mentality that implies productivity is directly linked to seeing someone at their desk is a thing of the past. Employers need to concentrate on measuring outcomes, setting objectives to be delivered and getting better at working with their teams remotely.

Finishing up on a positive note Donal O'Donoghue says:  “If businesses are able to grow without being constrained to having exactly the number of desk spaces or office space for each employee, that's another positive that can come from this and also lead into that output-driven culture”

Listen to the entire podcast here. You can watch a full video of the interview through this link

Want to find out more about our guest?  Go to www.nrf.ie or www.sanderson.ie

Want to connect with Donald O’Donoghue? Find him on Twitter or LinkedIn