The Hybrid Workforce: Employee recruitment and onboarding challenges in a hybrid workforce

A hybrid workforce blends remote and on-site work models to give employees the flexibility and freedom they value – and expect.

As identified in part 1 last week, a hybrid workforce offers clear advantages, yet these can only be realised with some radical shifts in HR procedure. The pandemic forced businesses to change their processes – particularly their recruiting and onboarding approach – virtually overnight. While this kickstarted procedural innovation and optimisation, it also unearthed some new challenges for HR departments. A Mindedge survey of almost 800 senior-level HR professionals found that 35% of those surveyed felt that remote recruiting is more challenging than in-person recruiting and 38% said that remote interviews are less productive than in-person. And in another recent survey, almost 50% of respondents indicated that remote onboarding processes would be one of the “biggest challenges” they would face in the post-pandemic world of work.

Cultural challenges:

• Remote interviews can

seem to require less commitment. When all a candidate must do is sit down at a screen, it can seem to recruiters that they are less serious about a role compared to when they take the time and effort required for an in-person interview.

• It can be difficult to build relationships and impart company culture and values without in-person contact. If not done well, remote onboarding can leave new hires feeling anxious and isolated because they are missing social norms and feedback they would expect from inperson interactions.

Technological challenges:

• Legacy software – still used by many organisations – cannot personalise and humanise the recruitment experience nor deliver good the UI/UX and omni-device functionality that are required today.

• Traditional HR systems without a centralised platform force both employees and employers to juggle multiple software tools and manual processes.

• When wedged into legacy and manual systems, technologically sophisticated processes like video interviews and recruitment apps actually add more work, rather than reduce it.

This article is part 2 in a series exploring the concept of the hybrid workforce and how it might help in overcoming current workforce challenges.

Join us for part 3 next week as we look at “The power of AI-driven HR technologies”.

For more information, please visit www.deloitte.com/mt/hr