Responding to industry surges and mass hiring

Photo: © nimito / Adobe Stock

Rapid growth in consumerism, technological transformation, the heightened standard of living, and population increase is fuelling industry growth across North America. This is forcing workforces to scale immediately to respond to the industry surges.

It is essential for organizations to prepare for this in the coming years, as it’s inevitable in this exponentially growing economy.

With rapid growth comes mass hiring. Due to increased and consistent demand, organizations are recruiting in large numbers during a compressed time frame. Mass hiring often doesn’t have sound plans or frameworks to follow, leaving organizations struggling to find qualified candidates, reach new markets, and build talent pools. These are challenges for everyone facing mass hiring, but it doesn’t have to be.

Organizational strategies
Preparing to mass hire requires a framework that responds to company missions, values and goals. The framework should incorporate who your organization is, and what your organization wants to maintain through this process. This might mean that your organization also needs to do a systems audit to reflect on current policies, practices and procedures to determine if they are the most equitable foundation. To bring in high quality talent, your organization must also be of high-quality.

After an organization clearly defines the expectations of mass hiring, it is critical to focus on where candidates are being searched for and who is the target. Expanding candidate sourcing is the primary way to diversify potential hires, ensuring that your organization will not have homogenous talent. When the workforce diversifies, there are a plethora of cultural and corporate benefits, including better problem solving, decision-making and employee satisfaction.

However, in mass hiring, attention to potential issues does not end after the candidate accepts an offer; the focus switches to retention. After mass hiring, your organization will have a group of new employees who are new to the workplace culture. That doesn’t mean you have to teach them the workplace culture, instead you must welcome them into the process of creating a new culture. Candidate experience is a key factor for retention and mass hiring opens the doors for detrimental effects on this.

The strategies to mitigate this potential problem come through planning of the onboarding process. Structure in opportunities to collaborate, and meet and grow together. Don’t wait until the three- or six-month review, regularly check in with new hires individually and as a group. Don’t simply ask, “how are you doing?” Instead, consider asking, “how are you finding the routine?” or “is there any additional support I can provide you to help ease your transition into this role?”

By asking specific and prompting questions, the relationship develops, and the new hires feel welcomed into the process rather than being isolated in a new space. This is an opportunity to find out what is failing them before they start to show failure to meet expectations.

Approaching employee relationships will allow the individual to develop a sense of purpose, visibility, and sense of community. Paired with ongoing and continued training and support, employees will be more likely to stay at an organization, even when there is potential chaos and fog of mass hiring processes.

Individual strategies
Listen, really listen. Just because there are a lot of new hires, doesn’t mean you have to double down on enforcement and training of policies, procedures and practices. If there is consistent error or oversight, pause and ask. Perhaps workplace habits or actions that existed prior to mass hiring were not as necessary as previously thought. Perhaps they are complicating worker experience, leading to heightened problems. With a diversifying and growing workforce, there are new perspectives, mindsets and ideologies that work, think and problem-solve differently.

Therefore, by asking these new contributors to the workforce why they might be struggling, or why they might be doing something differently, you may find that the answer will positively influence the organization.

Transparency is also a daunting change that organizations must work towards to allow workers to see their contributions and value within an organization. Stronger relationships and transparency lean into the desire for collaboration and involvement in organizational growth, from all stakeholders.

However, before that, each of us must look at ourselves. Reflect on the self and how we as an individual impact those around us. Reflection is something that a lot of people struggle with, for a variety of reasons. You might not have the time, know what you are reflecting on, have the knowledge or skills for effective reflection, or what to do with the information that you gather. Reflection is the key to responding to the major changes we are seeing in the workplace.

Things that require reflection are:

1. Intersectionality: Our intersectionality is the unique experiences that influence discrimination and oppression, such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and physical ability. These are aspects of our identity that influence who we are and how the world interacts with us. These markers may have influenced your experiences and your relationship with people around you due to biases or stereotypes. By reflecting on our intersectionality, we can better understand how our social location influences the way we see the world, but also acknowledge that others see from different lenses or viewpoints that make our experiences
unique to us.

2. Experiences and socialization: Built upon our intersectionality, our experiences and the way we were socialized can strongly influence the way that the world interacts with us. Whether it is formal education or immigration from one country to another, our experiences and what has been taught to us as socially acceptable will influence how we perceive and treat those around us. This also contributes to our expectations or determinations of what is right or wrong, the language we use, our values and desires, and how we create or maintain relationship.

3. Learning and language use: Our vocabulary is responsive to our experiences and socialization. We interact in a world that has taught us how to interact with it. However, if we take the time to recognize what we know, how we know it and what that means, then we can better reflect on the impact for others. The -isms are at play here (classism, racism, ageism, and sexism) can have drastic impacts on others, without us even knowing. By looking inward, we see the difference between our intention and our impact, and can do the work to ensure those always align.

4. Biases: Everything we think, assume, process and do is based on biases. Having bias is normal and it’s not something you can just get rid of overnight. However, we can reflect on what types of bias we have and ask why we have them. Bias can happen with and without us knowing. The without (unconscious bias) happens all the time. It is as simple as preferring blackberries over raspberries because one time you found a bug in your raspberry. Bias isn’t always harmful to others, but it can be. Therefore, it is important to understand why you think the way you do and recognize measures to alleviate this harm against others.

As you continue to engage with new people in the workplace, take the above thoughts into consideration. Recognize the newness to all the things that you are experiencing and how other people are experiencing these situations. Take into consideration how we are growing, why we are growing, and how we can grow together. Change is inevitable, and in the case of mass hiring, we have an opportunity to do it ethically, respectfully, and with everyone in mind. MRO
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Janelle Abela founded Diverse Solutions Strategy Firm with the goal of increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in corporate settings, while comprehensively benefiting the organization, employees, and clientele. Contact Janelle: janelle@diversesolutions.ca.