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When to defrost the recruitment freeze

News item added 19th July 2009

Putting a freeze on recruitment has been the number one action organisations have taken to help in the current war on business overheads. This makes particular sense when it is so easy to implement and it doesn’t have the same negative impact on employee engagement and commitment as slashing salaries, making redundancies and cutting employee development programmes.  But is freezing recruitment across the board really a good strategic option?

When the green shoots finally break through and start to thrive, there will be a shortage of talented people with key skills.  This has occurred in the aftermath of every previous recession, and will be compounded further as baby-boomers head toward retirement and the numbers of new entrants into the workforce continues to decline.

Coupled with the fact that unemployment figures continue to rise, albeit more slowly and there is a higher degree of resentment felt towards current employers due to salary and benefit cuts, the current climate has created a buyers market for those looking to recruit key talent.

So if we know the fight for good people is only going to intensify and we are currently in a buyers market does the recruitment freeze need a re-think? Probably.

Sure, some business don’t even have the liquidity to consider recruiting at present, but the ones that do, and which make smart choices about the talent they acquire, will be the first to see the benefits at the end of this turmoil. 

Obviously the first goal is just to survive the current climate. But remember that when things pick up there will be plenty of businesses that go under purely because, in failing the long term talent test, they can’t deploy the right people with the right skills at the same speed as their competition. 

So what are the risks in looking to recruit at the present time? 

For the business, the obvious risk is that it is hard to know exactly what will be required until the new economic dawn has well and truly broken, but the reality is that unless the strategy for recovery hasn’t even been considered (in which case do it now!) the core requirement for talent is likely to be reasonably predictable. The other key risk lies with the HR professional, because if you are thawing the recruitment freeze, then in the current climate there is no margin for error.  It isn’t about picking the low hanging fruit, but securing the high quality talent needed for the future.

If you think your recruitment strategy needs a strategic re-think or your organisation needs some help defining its talent needs then we’d love to discuss with you how we might assist.  Call us on +44(0)208 371 7050, or email enquiries.