By: Cydni Thebert, Global Manager, Talent Acquisition | 10/13/2020 |

In March of 2020, companies across the world were forced to change their overall work model. Many never had employees work from home and had to swiftly move their entire workforce to what is now being considered the “new normal” – working from home.

So, how did Percepta successfully move to work from home from a Talent Acquisition standpoint?  

How we moved to work from home
Percepta was able to move nearly all of its workforce to work from home status within a four-day timeframe! Within Talent Acquisition, we were able to take home necessary equipment – not just our laptops but monitors, headsets, whatever we needed to continue to perform successfully in our roles.

One of the first challenges our teams overcame was maintaining a connection with our teams. We created group chat areas through Microsoft Teams so that we could keep in touch through daily, weekly and bi-weekly team meetings. Our Talent Acquisition leaders also created individual team huddles accomplishing a greater connection with their individual teams and the ability to get quick responses to questions when needed.  

Leveraging our Global Organizational Development team, we provided training, tips and tools to make sure we could manage our time, keep engaged, and stay connected as a team. We even discussed self-care and making sure that we are organizing our days to allow time away from our desks for a break or lunch, something you can easily forget to do when working from home!

What is making talent acquisition successful in working from home
First of all, having full team commitment to being able to move quickly to adapt to change is key. 

We’ve put in place processes that we had not used before. Talent Acquisition is very paper-driven, and working remotely has allowed us to improve our processes so that we are more digital. We submit all New Hire Paperwork digitally for HR files.

We have also worked on creating a seamless candidate experience in this new virtual world. We provide every candidate documents on video interviewing expectations, step by step instructions on how to use the video platform for their interview (Zoom or Skype), as well as connecting them to our YouTube site which includes interviewing tips and tricks. We thoroughly prepare our candidates for our full interview process so that they are prepared to be on camera and maintain engagement. From a Hiring Manager standpoint, we request that they are always on camera for the interview. Our goal is to ensure the interview is as personable and engaging as an in-person meeting.

We market our positions so that potential candidates understand that we are currently working from a work from home model making sure that they have required capabilities by having them conduct internet speed tests, and if not, assisting in strengthening their connectivity by partnering with our IT team. 

We have also implemented more touchpoints with our candidates after an offer has been made to make sure that we are keeping them engaged and excited by the opportunity. 

We have set up contactless delivery of equipment with social distancing in place, and even provide goodie bags, consisting of note pads, pens and pencils, fidget spinners and other little trinkets when they pick up their equipment! We use Enboarder as a tool to send out reminders to new hires and get feedback on their hiring experience. We pay close attention to that feedback so that we can make changes as needed to any process. Enboarder is a great tool to support new hire engagement.

We are constantly evaluating processes and continue to make changes as needed to make sure that we continue to engage and hire top talent.