Swings and roundabouts

As a busy recruitment company that specialise in both temporary and permanent recruitment, Tailor Made Sourcing are seeing almost daily changes in recruitment and employment throughout Lancashire. The good news is there is still lots of jobs and companies recruiting out there! The bad news is there are certain industries who are suffering and having to make cutbacks as a result of COVID-19 and changes to the economy. 

The effects of COVID are definitely presenting issues for businesses – but in many cases, there can also be benefits. We are finding that many employees are being far more understanding to the plights of their employers, adaptable to their needs, and supportive and flexible to help ensure they have long term employment.  

Employers more than ever seem to be empathetic to their workforce. This means that they are keeping their workers better informed to give them confidence and reassure them of their employment status.  These approaches can be great for morale within the workforce and the relationship between management and staff. However, it does leave the question ‘why wasn’t this the norm before?’ 

There also seems to be a large number of businesses who have adopted a consultative approach to exploring whether staff may be interested in retraining or upskilling to accommodate a change in the business's direction of activity.  

The changes in freedom that COVID has presented means that organisations want to protect themselves in the event of a ‘second wave’ or a similar event in the future. So, things like online presence, networking and diversification are very topical. The market of subcontracting and businesses ‘scratching each other's backs’ to help each other out, or co-operation, does also seem more alive than ever. 

For larger companies, the effect of COVID seems to be making them review their recruitment policies and recruitment protocols. This has included increasing its usage of temporary workers or engaging more senior staff on an interim basis.  

Both of these options give them opportunity to assess the quality of the employee before committing to a long-term working relationship. It also means that in the event of another change to the economy the company can react quickly and without the constraints of long notice periods and redundancy. 

COVID has undoubtedly had a massive impact on businesses and some haven’t survived. But it’s important to try and take positives from the situation. Not all the forced changes have been bad. Some might have actually made things a bit better. So, let’s try to focus on those and continue to move forward.