# Silo 1: Recruitment in a Hybrid World

- **Episode:** [05](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/05.md) (2022-07-25)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** recruitment, hybrid-work
- **Time:** 14:06–20:16 (start 846s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/05?t=846](https://truthliesandwork.com/05?t=846)

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[14:06] Al Elliott: Yeah, why not?
[14:07] Leanne Elliott: So, I think recruitment is fairly, probably had the fewest changes in terms of how people recruit. People have been doing it online for a long time. They're used to advertising roles online. They're used to screening resumes remotely. They might even be used to doing telephone interviews as a first point of screening or You know, video interviews are more popular now. So, in terms of the process itself, it shifted the medium, but not necessarily the method. So, rather than bringing people into your organisation for an assessment centre, for example, where you give them lots of different activities, you do them maybe staggered and on a remote basis. So, the process didn't change so much, just the medium in which it was delivered does. In terms of recruitment as well, if you are a fully remote organization or an organization that will support fully remote workers, you've just massively increased your talent pool. You're no longer just looking at people who can travel into central Manchester or get to London. You're now talking about people who— it's not only even UK-wide, but globally. You can now dip into the talent pools of people in North America, in Asia, in Africa, across Europe. Your talent pool has just significantly increased
[15:26] Al Elliott: I think that's, that's such a good point, which I hadn't really considered. Um, I think I mentioned on my previous podcast that I haven't really had a job since about 1999. Um, and that was the time when, if, when I went for my job, I was for a pub manager, and I was like, okay, so I go and meet one person, then I go for an assessment center like you said, and then I go and meet the pub manager and see if we, see if I like them to work with them. And it was all very face-to- face. And that just seems so archaic. Even before the pandemic, it seems so archaic to do it that way. So are there any downsides to this way of recruiting now?
[16:00] Leanne Elliott: I think the obvious downside is that now, because so many organisations have some kind of remote working policy or hybrid structure, is that all of your competitors too have access to this broader talent pool. So it's not a case of— and I've worked for organisations that were fully remote pre-pandemic, And we've seen the, you know, the, the level of talent we're able to engage reduce, the volume significantly reduce, because now there are so many more roles out there that offer this way of working. So, you are, you know, as before, competing directly with other organizations. I think the upside though is, is it's— there are so many organizations that are still trying to figure out where they stand on remote work, where they stand on hybrid working. If you have a really clear idea of what your commitment is, what your promises are, what your structure is, how people are supported, you're gonna have an advantage over— because so many people haven't figured it out yet. Figure it out and you're already going to be a step ahead of your competitors. The only other difficulty with recruitment in, in a remote setting is the onboarding process. That can be more difficult. How do you onboard somebody when you're, you know, that they might not meet their team, or, or how do you show them through processes and doing things virtually? It's more challenging, but again, many organizations onboarded staff during the pandemic. We've shown it can work. Remote organizations have been onboarding people virtually for years. There are ways of doing it. It just probably needs a bit more organization, a bit more structure, and a sprinkle of innovation
[17:40] Al Elliott: I love that. The apps that have really grown from this— Zoom has got some amazing new features on it. Um, Google Meet, I think if I'm right in thinking, they're rolling out something which they can test the emotion of the person on the other end of the, of the, on the end of the call. So you can see if they're engaged or not, etc., etc. And so, I mean, the tech is just playing a bigger, bigger part
[18:02] Leanne Elliott: It's amazing. I was, I was doing some work with a client who's worked, I don't think I'm allowed to say, but a very large social media organisation. And they really quickly rolled out virtual reality and a virtual reality app for collaboration huddles. And it's just cool the things that have accelerated. And that is now being sold to many other app developers, which is brilliant. I think the reality is, yes, the technology is there, it is evolving, it is maturing. And bear in mind as well, the majority of You know, the vast proportion of people you are recruiting into your business, like you say, you know, average working ages, etc., etc., you're probably looking at people who are under 50 as the majority of people you recruit into your business. Well, a large proportion of them are digital natives, or like us, in their shoulder generations, where, you know, these technologies have been around since we were in our early 20s. So people are much more adept and have more skills in terms of Using communication and also communicating virtually
[19:10] Al Elliott: I love it. Right. So we've gone through the recruitment. By the way, if you want some context on this, if you go to oblonghq.com/roadmap, you're going to see our culture roadmap, which essentially breaks this down into 3 strands. It starts off with it, with recruitment, then goes to engagement, and then goes to management. And so we've just covered off essentially the step 1 of that. There's much more stuff to it though. Go to oblonghq.com/roadmap. Totally free, not even asking for your email. So let's go on to the next stage
[19:37] Leanne Elliott: We're not?
[19:38] Al Elliott: We're not. Nope, it's totally free. Anyone can, anyone can look at it, no opt-in required. So let's go back into the second stage, which was engagement. So you've recruited someone. Well, actually, let's not, let's not take that same person because as you said, there's an onboarding process. So you have existing employees, they're working remotely or hybrid in some way. Things must be different from, from the water cooler moment. I hate that phrase, but the water cooler moments, the making cups of tea, the, you know, the, the going to the pub after the office, after, after office hours. What, what's changed there? And how can we, as leaders and managers, how can we mitigate against those kind of problems?