Recruiting and hiring don’t simply involve identifying strong candidates and giving them a reason to work at your company. To undertake these activities successfully, it’s also important to anticipate your company’s hiring needs. You’ll simply fill roles more quickly if you prepare for the hiring process ahead of time.
(That said, there are instances when you may need to coordinate with outside help to fill certain positions. For instance, when filling major executive roles at your company, consider engaging an executive search firm. Such firms can typically help you find and attract the strongest possible candidates more efficiently than you could on your own.)
That’s why the following tips are essential. Apply them to establish effective methods for predicting your hiring needs.
Consider Past Instances When Hiring Needs Increased
One of the best ways to prepare for the future is by studying the past. Your company’s historical data can help you determine more easily when hiring needs are greater than usual.
For instance, it’s not uncommon for companies to hire more employees leading up to and during product launches. If this is the case at your organization, you can coordinate with other departments to learn when product launches are expected to occur. This will help you get ready for the hiring spree that typically coincides with them.
That’s just one example, which may or may not apply to your company. The main point to keep in mind is that studying past trends is key to predicting future ones.
Consider Goals
From startups to major international enterprises, most companies share a common goal: growth. The leaders of virtually all organizations want to expand. Within individual departments, managers also frequently share the objective of embracing additional responsibilities and serving more customers.
To achieve these objectives generally entails taking on more employees. Thus, this is another instance when it makes sense to discuss future plans routinely with the various major decision makers at the company. Although they may not be able to guarantee they’ll actually achieve their growth goals, knowing they are setting such goals will still help you forecast hiring needs.
Research General Trends
You already know it’s important to refer to your company’s historical hiring trends when planning for the future. However, it’s also smart to consider general employment trends that typically affect all major organizations in your part of the world.
For instance, there are often times when large numbers of workers reach retirement age. When this happens, many companies lose major portions of their workforces.
Fortunately, preparing for these developments is easy. You simply need to research when people are likely to retire based on general data, using the insights you glean to create a basic plan for replacing the members of your workforce who you expect to retire soon.
Don’t Overlook Engagement
Once more, managers and company leaders usually want to serve as many customers as possible. However, that doesn’t mean they will always hire new employees immediately when they take on more projects. To save money, they often assign more work to their current team members until they reach a point where they simply no longer have the capacity to keep up with the increased demand.
It’s impossible to predict accurately when that time will come. That said, when employees start feeling overburdened by their workloads, engagement tends to decrease. They find it difficult to be as enthusiastic and productive as they may have been in the past when they are struggling to complete all their projects in a timely manner.
Keep this in mind when discussing future plans with organizational decision makers. This factor is particularly important to consider when discussing the topic with managers and others who supervise teams. During your discussions, ask them if their employees are still engaged after taking on more work, or if engagement seems to be on the decline. Although numerous factors may contribute to a rise in disengagement, managers will often address the problem by hiring more employees to share the workload. You need to prepare accordingly.
Keep the Impact of New Hires in Mind
Hiring patterns and trends in one area of an organization often affect hiring patterns in other areas. For example, perhaps you work for an app development company that has recently hired additional programmers to handle more projects and serve more clients. If the company is successful in leveraging its hires toward these ends, client relationship departments will also need to expand.
Remember these points as you forecast recruiting needs. Most importantly, make forecasting recruiting needs a regular process. Doing so will save your organization a lot of time and money in the long run.