The Biggest HR Challenges in Recruitment And Selection

In the wake of the previous industry challenges, including the Great Resignation or the Great Reshuffle, several companies have continued to face HR difficulties in recruitment and selection. On top of that, the year opened with a looming economic recession, which we, fortunately, averted in August.

During such a daunting period, businesses needed to react swiftly and intentionally to attract and retain talent successfully. Read on as we delve into the top HR challenges in Singapore and what solutions you can try to address them.

According to the National Business Survey of the Singapore Business Federation, the demand for skilled professionals in tech, business development, digital marketing, and e-commerce has led to a refocus in job seekers, causing a dearth in competent labour and local talent.

Separately, the recent inflation also triggered a spike in business costs, with wages among the top expenditures. Big tech companies, for instance, had to retrench employees as a response to the economic conditions.

Companies also experienced a high attrition rate among employees. PwC’s 2022 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey revealed that one in five Singapore workers were likely to switch jobs within a year, while almost a third of respondents plan on asking for a raise.

The paper identified five factors that pushed employees to quit:

• Not finding their job fulfilling;

• Not feeling they can be their true selves at work;

• Not feeling fairly rewarded financially;

• Not feeling their team cares about them;

• Not feeling that their manager listens to them

Remember that most Singaporeans want a good relationship with their superiors and colleagues. With these manpower issues, 40% of organisations plan on increasing wages, while 32% want to strengthen investments in new technologies and 27% want to focus on staff training.

On top of these concerns, employees also had a heightened demand for a better quality of life at work. In the face of such worker sentiments and economic disruptions, businesses must adapt and make modifications to their employee recruitment and retention model.

Work flexibility PwC also found that out of 1,043 local workers in Singapore, 73% preferred a hybrid work arrangement, 10% higher than the global average.

Such a high percentage emphasises the need for HR departments to integrate a flexible work arrangement with their employees. Hybrid and remote work setups provide workers with greater freedom to manage their work from the comfort of their homes or report to the office for valuable face-to-face activities. By offering work flexibility, employees can improve their work-life balance and still attend to office duties.

Employee surveys Knowing employees’ thoughts, opinions, and preferences allows companies to better navigate their labour practices and improve management performance. It gives them useful information they can use to help boost workers’ performance and satisfaction, both crucial at a time manpower supply remains strained.

Tools such as employee surveys, polls, and internal communication software provide HR and management valuable insights as to how workers are doing, if they are receiving sufficient support for their career growth, as well as what areas they can improve on. It also gives an idea of how happy employees are with the company’s engagement activities. The more engaged employees are, the more likely they are to be motivated and efficient at work.

Upskilling and re-skilling For employees spared by retrenchment, they will need to double their efforts to keep the business operating as usual. For them to remain competitive, it is key that their skills—both existing and new— continue to meet industry standards.

50% of Singaporeans expressed concern that their employers were not providing them enough training on digital and tech, both in-demand skills in the industry. By including upskilling and reskilling in the business strategy, employees can continuously sharpen and update their knowledge and skills, supporting their long-term career growth.

Conducting interviews may be a routine activity for those in recruitment, but for candidates, it’s their chance to land that dream job. It’s important that applicants feel that hiring managers have their best interests at heart—and that’s finding a job that matches their skills and qualifications.

According to JobStreet’s Future of Recruitment report, job seekers in Singapore prefer to be interviewed by their future manager, whether face-to-face, online, or over the phone. Such interactions help establish rapport with the candidate and give them a feel of what working at the company is like. By creating a more personable process, job seekers will trust interviewers as people who truly wish to support them in their careers.

Here are some solutions to bridge the gap between the hiring manager and candidates.

Choose a less formal place to do the interview. The location of an interview can establish the feel of the process. Conducting it in a typical meeting room may make the interview feel transactional, rather than an engaging Q&A. Job seekers may feel even more nervous and fail to answer questions confidently. Consider a more relaxed environment, such as the office lounge, which helps dial down the formality of the interview.

Make it a point to listen actively. Doing one interview after another may make the activity so routine that hiring managers may no longer process the job seeker’s background. Let the candidate take their time when answering so they can fully share their unique story and motivation for applying.

Share your own story as well. Job seekers must see interviews as engagement opportunities rather than just a routine process. Hiring managers or recruiters must not only facilitate the interview but build an interesting conversation as well. To help establish trust and further humanise the exchange, hiring managers can also share the story behind their career journey.

Give a primer on the interview. Having to discuss the interview process over and over can be a big time-waster. Consider crafting a fact sheet addressing Frequently Asked Questions that you can hand out to job seekers as they wait for their turn for the interview. It also gives them time to think ahead about their own questions about the job. It’s a simple act that shows you care about the candidate and what they may want to know.

Don’t keep job seekers in the dark. Candidates may be familiar with the saying, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” whenever they don’t receive word following an interview. However, keeping job seekers guessing can create unnecessary anxiety.

While candidates can send the company an e-mail to make a follow-up on the status of their application, hiring managers can practice transparency by proactively informing them. This creates a sense of honesty that the job seeker will truly appreciate, and he or she may even refer other job seekers to apply for the opening.

No matter what economic or geopolitical situation, hiring managers must adapt to the ever-evolving needs of employees and job seekers. The more satisfied and engaged workers are, the higher the likelihood of them contributing to a company’s operational efficiency. Find more tips on recruitment and selection when you check out our Career Resources page or download JobStreet’s app available on the App Store and Google Play.

What are the issues with HRM in Singapore? Following a looming economic recession, inflation, and the Great Resignation in 2022, Singapore’s HRM faced many talent recruitment issues, such as rising manpower costs, stricter policies on foreign labour, low talent retention, lack of skilled professionals, and a gap between hiring managers and candidates. Identified leading challenges faced by businesses include costs related to wages, logistics, as well as utilities.

What are the talent trends in Singapore in 2023? According to the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey Q1 2023, 65% of Singaporean workers expect a hybrid work arrangement. There’s a growing demand for a contingent workforce or people who work for a short term. Companies are also seeking more local talent, and organisations will be more people-centric. Companies will prioritise enhancing employees' benefit packages through subsidies, flexible spending accounts, rewards, and recognition. Employee upskilling through digital transformation is another HR trend to watch out for.

How can recruitment challenges be overcome? Hiring managers should rethink their recruitment approach, from maintaining a talent pipeline of candidates, standardising the interview and evaluation process, providing status updates to the job seeker, building a referral culture in the company, using recruitment analytics technology, and gathering feedback from applicants. The overall practice must be proactive rather than reactive, laying down guidelines and standard operating procedures regarding talent recruitment and selection.