Four Strategies for Hiring and Retaining Top Talent in the Post-Pandemic Workforce

Learn new strategies to hire and retain top talent for your small business—without breaking the bank or adding complexity to compensation packages.

The speed of change in the business landscape is still in overdrive. As of July 2022, the rate of inflation is outpacing wages. As a result, small business leaders are struggling with understaffed departments and face record numbers of employees reporting burnout.

Our partners at Inspiring HR recently hosted a webinar for clients to address hiring and retention best practices for the post-pandemic workforce. During the webinar, Inspiring HR consultants shared ways to address employee burnout, get creative with compensation, and offer flexibility in work schedules to create a win-win for your company’s bottom line and your employees.

THERE ARE FOUR STRATEGIES FOR HIRING AND RETAINING TOP TALENT IN THE POST-PANDEMIC WORKFORCE:

1. Learn to spot and mitigate employee burnout
2. Get creative with employee compensation
3. Rethinking job design and workloads
4. Provide flexible work scheduling options

Let’s explore each and share ideas and solutions to help you hire and retain top talent.

Employee Burnout

As a manager or leader, you want to spot burnout early so you can address your employees proactively. So, how do you know when a star employee is approaching burnout?

Burnout Warning Signs:

• A star employee exhibits more negative, cynical, or emotionally volatile behavior
• A star employee begins showing up to work late or missing deadlines

The simple (and sad fact) is that most of us are experiencing some level of burnout.

The chances that your best employees are on the burnout spectrum are high. The pandemic and other changes in our work and home lives over the past 2+ years have taken their toll. Assume that your employees are experiencing burnout, even if their outward behaviors don’t show it yet.

How to Support Your Burned-Out Employees:

• Remember we’re all human. What happens to an employee outside of work will impact their lives and performance at work.
• Utilize empathy. Ask, “How are you doing?” Begin a conversation. Do this before you schedule a performance review to address problem behaviors. Start by acknowledging the person before addressing job performance.
• Verify that your company culture encourages open and supportive conversations. Ask yourself: is my company rewarding employees for “compartmentalizing” their lives and leaving their feelings on the shelf? While it is important to have boundaries in the workplace, your workplace culture should invite employees to be open with their feelings so managers and leaders can address them thoughtfully and effectively.
• Use this ice-breaker to begin a conversation: “I recognize that recent news events and life today may be hard for you. What can I do to support you?” This acknowledgment can be a gateway to inviting your employees to do their best work by showing up their best.
• Ask the employee to weigh in on how to perform the job duties while attending to their personal needs. You might say: “We are a business, but we also want you to take care of your personal needs. What can we do to find a win-win?” One of our clients asked an employee exhibiting burnout what the company could do to help the individual. The employee asked to arrive at work 30 minutes later to attend to personal needs in the morning. That slight shift from the employee’s start to the workday allowed the employee to show up well to work, get the job done, and thrive.
• What if you think you are being taken advantage of by poor-performing employees? You might say, “I think we’ve hit a point where we need to discuss the essential duties of your job.” Then begin that performance improvement conversation. But first, check in with yourself to ensure you are in the right headspace and leading with empathy. (Remember: you might be experiencing burnout, too!)
• Watch for red flags when employees note illnesses, disabilities, etc. Contact your HR consultant to avoid unnecessary risk before discussing performance improvement plans.

Approaches to Creative Compensation 

If you’ve been to a grocery store or gas station recently, you know that wages are not pacing with the steep rise in inflation. Everyone is feeling crunched right now. Unfortunately, there is not a perfect “rule book” on how to address compensation, given the hyperdrive changes in the economy. This is both a positive and a potential negative. The good news is that this is an invitation to think holistically and creatively about compensation. On the other hand, it’s a challenge because we don’t know whether our solutions will work out. With that said, we’ll share now what is working with our other small business clients.

How to Think Creatively About Compensation:

• Reward top employees with low-cost compensation solutions like $50 gas cards to help relieve some of the pain from going to the gas pump.
• Leverage one-time-only compensation strategies, such as spot, referral, and retention bonuses. These compensation strategies can be paid out without increasing your company’s operating budget long-term.
• Incentivize employees with profit-sharing when specific company goals are met. This strategy “lifts all boats.”

Reimagining Job Design and Workload

There has been a seismic shift in how people work since the pandemic, and that pace of rapid change continues. As a result, you’ve likely re-evaluated your employees’ jobs and workloads at different points during the pandemic. We recommend maintaining a consistent evaluation to ensure the job design matches the company’s needs and your best employees are set up for ongoing success.

How to Reimagine Job Design and Overall Workload

• Ask these questions:
  • What has changed in the job?
  • What is required to be successful in the job?
  • What new skills are needed to ensure the job is done at optimum levels?
• Involve the employee responsible for the job in the decision-making process. This will help with engagement and overall buy-in and gain key insights.
• Involve the manager and leader in the job design process. Have each person (including the employee) write down what they believe the current job design should be, along with what’s working and not working.
• Together, document the updated job description.

Best Practices for Writing Job Descriptions

At INFINITI HR, we consult with clients on best practices in writing job descriptions. A well-written job description helps to support hiring, overall performance, compliance, and delivering feedback to the employee. The following are essential best practices in writing or updating your company’s job descriptions:

• List no more than 15 essential duties only.
• If the job description is for a manager or leader, the first essential duties are what the employee is expected to do to serve as a manager or leader.
• Write the job description to clearly designate if the position is exempt or non-exempt status.
• If you’re still operating on the belief that 40 hours is considered “full-time status,” think again. Work-life integration is essential to avoid employee burnout, and studies suggest that a 40-hour work week is arbitrary, and does not correlate to higher productivity or overall “value” to the company.

Flexible Work Schedule Options 

Work flexibility was a hot topic during the early days of the pandemic and continues to be an essential conversation in the post-pandemic workforce. Giving employees more freedom when and where they want to work is an excellent strategy for small businesses to recruit and retain top talent.

Following are ideas to provide more flexible work schedule options:

• Offer more part-time roles in your company as many employees are opting for less pay in return for more time off.
• Offer a compressed work week: for example, offering employees the opportunity to work 4, 10-hour shifts in return for a shorter work week.
• Offer flex time so employees can come and go from the workplace more freely, provided expectations are made clear for attending meetings and events.
• Offer floating holidays: discretionary holidays that employees can use and paid time off.

Flexible work schedule options give you more tools to recruit and retain top talent. But there are a few cons to consider before adjusting your company policies:

• It can be a challenge to execute flex work policies
• It’s vital to set clear expectations for employees
• Not every industry can support flexible work schedules, such as customer service, medical, and manufacturing.

So, where do you start? 

• Conduct an employee survey: find out what they want? Find out what added flexibility means to them as a way to generate ideas.
• Be transparent with employees: let them know you are testing new ways to provide a better work experience and reserve the right to change your policies.

Interested in other current employment trends? Click the link to view the recent blog: Small Business Leaders: It’s Harvest Time or check back for more on human resources, payroll, insurance, and benefits.

This article does not constitute legal advice, and there are subtle variations in employment law as it pertains to this topic, depending on where your business operates. It is strongly suggested that you seek consultation or legal counsel before making policy decisions.