With Unfilled Positions, HR Teams Are Doing More with Less
As an HR professional, you’re undoubtedly aware of how challenging it is to find the right talent. Companies are scrambling to fill their open positions. According to Indeed, the average number of job postings has increased 30.5% over February of 2020 — the pre-pandemic baseline. As of June 18, there were an estimated 9.8 million job openings — a figure that itself has increased nearly 6% since late May.
The sectors with the greatest increases in openings as of June 18, and in which those increases are better than the economy average, include loading and stocking, production and manufacturing, construction, and human resources. The latter, in particular, has seen a 52.5% increase over the pre-pandemic baseline and a 12.4% increase since late May. Clearly, hiring in HR is both a priority and a challenge.
It’s a priority because HR is the lifeblood of an organization. It impacts which employees join the company, what their experiences and contributions are like, and empowers their careers and personal and professional long-term plans. But hiring in HR is also a challenge because with those key positions vacant, the pressure on existing HR teams is significant.
Payroll still needs to be processed. Benefits still need to be administered. Enrollment still needs to be managed. Hirings and terminations must move forward. Policies need to be developed and revised. Employee development and engagement must carry on. The more short-staffed an HR department is, the more challenging it gets. And all the while, other departments are expecting HR to support them in finding the right talent.
How PEO Providers Alleviate the Pressures of Hiring in HR
With HR teams looking to staff up while continuing to meet their obligations (and with Heads of People looking to build company culture and focus on recruiting), working with professional employer organization (PEO) providers is more essential than ever. It’s not about outsourcing your HR function — it’s about partnering with a company that fills in the gaps, provides guidance and support, and delivers the HR support your team needs. So what kind of HR support can a PEO provider offer?
1. They Keep the Current HR Team Out of the Weeds
Whether you’re a small business, a middle-market employer, or an enterprise organization, there will always be myriad tasks for HR to handle on a daily basis. The math here is simple: a smaller HR team means fewer people and less time to handle those tasks. While these tasks are important, they nevertheless detract HR and people teams from higher-value tasks like finding the right people to fill their open positions. PEO providers support hiring in HR by taking care of these administrative necessities — everything from HRIS software, payroll and benefits administration to compliance and more.
2. They Support the Post-Hire Process
An employee’s first few months with your company are critical. According to SHRM, nearly one-third of all new hires quit within the first six months. The last thing you need when hiring in HR is to bring a new employee or leader aboard only to have them leave when they’re supposed to be running at full speed. Onboarding is important for longevity, too — 69 percent of employees that experience a great onboarding are more likely to stay with a company for three years. With the right PEO provider, you can focus on finding the right people, and the provider will take the reins from there — leaning on the infrastructure they’ve helped to build and are managing on your behalf.
3. They Serve as a Consultative Expert
Handling daily HR support needs and ensuring new hires are a success are definitely great starts, but those are just the beginning of what a PEO provider can do for you. At any point, your partner can serve as a consultative expert for your HR and people teams as they grow, providing guidance, best practices, strategy, and more. Whenever new or complex situations arise, your PEO provider will serve as a sounding board — providing unbiased insights and recommendations, assisting with training employees and even the HR team, serving in mediations, and much more.
4. They Scale with You
As your efforts toward hiring in HR progress and you welcome new team members aboard, it stands that your needs will grow, too. With the prevalence of remote and hybrid work, ensuring compliance with people working in different states will be essential. Your partner can even make hiring in HR more effective by increasing your buying power when it comes to new benefits offers, which is particularly important for small businesses looking to attract the best talent. They can save you on costly technology implementations by providing the technology you need to enable self-service for employees and make HR more streamlined. And, they can connect you with proven partners to support your recruiting efforts, enabling you to go after the leaders and doers that drive growth and change.
Get the HR Support You Need to Keep Moving Forward
Cognos HR is a human capital consulting organization that serves as a PEO provider for countless businesses across the country. With the capability to support your strategic HR goals and the flexibility and responsiveness needed to keep daily tasks flowing, we’re the ideal partner for organizations that are focused on hiring in HR and other departments.
With our services, your team can focus on finding the best possible talent for your open positions — HR or otherwise. But as HR experts, we’re uniquely positioned to help you maximize the effectiveness of your HR team as you welcome new team members aboard into this critical department. We’ll work closely with you to engage them for long-term retention, advise them on best practices and processes, and support their workloads on a daily basis so they can continue doing what HR does best: managing your people.
Having trouble hiring for HR roles? Work with the experts. Connect with us today.