If you’ve been paying attention to the weekly U.S. jobs report, you know how grim the labor market is right now due to COVID-19 and government restrictions.
Per the Department of Labor, 2.4 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week on a seasonally adjusted basis as more businesses and organizations were faced with tough decisions as revenues continue to slow.
It’s not all bad news, as most of the U.S. is starting to reopen and ease restrictions in hopes that some of those jobs will come back.
If your integration firm is hoping to welcome back some furloughed or laid off workers and even increase your pre-coronavirus headcount, you’ll have a rather large talent pool to choose from. According to the Department of Labor, a total of 38.6 million people have filed for unemployment since mid-March when lockdowns really began.
We don’t have industry specific numbers, but we’ve heard anecdotally about layoffs in the industry at companies of all sizes. Since there will be an influx of hungry job seekers, finding qualified workers once economies begin to reopen might not be that difficult.
However, if you run into some trouble finding that talent to scale up your workforce, here are some tried and true practices to help create that talent pipeline the industry has long been seeking and rebuild your workforce:
Stay connected to the workforce
The grim reality is that some of you have had to let some employees go or put them on furloughs to preserve the business. However, revenues will come back eventually and you’ll be able to welcome some or most of those employees back.
With states starting to ease restrictions, now is the time to plan that process of bringing back those employees. Stay connected and keep them updated on those plans with emails, social media and other correspondence. You might even consider just calling them personally to make sure they’re doing alright.
Mark Cuban, a businessman, television personality and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, was one of the early business leaders to say he would take steps to create a program to provide income to his hourly staff.
In a March segment on CNBC, Cuban doubled down on the importance of being both a smart businessman and taking care of your employees.
“How companies respond to that very question is going to define their brand for decades,” he said.
