The job market has been hit hard, with unemployment rates soaring above 13%. Most industries are struggling to return to their pre-COVID employment levels. However, while many companies have reduced their workforce significantly, some large corporations, such as Amazon, CVS, and Albertsons, have actually expanded their hiring efforts to meet increased demand for their services.
As businesses reopen and more states ease lockdown restrictions, the need to rehire or hire furloughed employees becomes crucial. If your organization is hiring during the pandemic, focusing on furloughed employees could be an effective strategy. Here’s a guide on how to approach this:
What is a Furlough?
Before diving in, it’s important to understand what a furlough is and how it differs from a layoff. According to Fortune magazine:
A furlough is an unpaid leave of absence. Employees on furlough still technically have their jobs but are not working or earning a salary. The intent is for the furlough to be temporary, with the expectation that workers will return to their jobs once the situation improves. While furloughed employees do not receive a paycheck, they usually keep their benefits, such as healthcare, and are eligible for unemployment benefits.
In contrast, a layoff is a permanent termination of employment. Employees who are laid off lose their salary and benefits, and the opportunity to return to the company is rare.
Understanding this distinction is crucial when hiring. Furloughed workers are still employed and often expect to return to their previous roles once their furlough ends. During times of economic crisis, hiring these workers can be mutually beneficial, as their temporary availability aligns with the temporary increase in demand for your products or services.
How to Hire Furloughed Workers: The CVS Model
To hire furloughed workers effectively, it’s helpful to look at how major companies are managing this process. For example:
Hilton Hotels has furloughed over 250,000 workers—60,000 in corporate offices and 200,000 at franchise hotels. To help these employees find temporary work, Hilton has partnered with companies like Amazon and CVS.
This partnership has facilitated a smoother transition for furloughed employees by eliminating bureaucratic barriers and enhancing connectivity between organizations. Key to this partnership is the creation of a shared online resource center, which includes:
- Virtual job fairs
- Virtual interviews
- Virtual job tryouts
CVS, in particular, has had impressive results, hiring over 60,000 new employees—well above their initial goal of 50,000. Their VP of Talent Acquisition, Jeffrey Lackey, noted that CVS developed an accelerated hiring process in just 48 hours, a process that would normally take months.
Steps for Hiring Furloughed Workers
To effectively recruit furloughed workers, consider these three key steps:
- Identify Desired Workers:
- Determine if there are furloughed workers within your industry.
- If not, look for furloughed workers in related industries with similar skills.
- Consider other industries that might be furloughing workers and how their skills could meet your needs.
- Keep geography in mind, as relocating for temporary work is unlikely. Focus on local talent.
- Forge Partnerships:
- Partner with organizations that have furloughed workers. Ensure the partnership benefits all parties involved.
- Approach potential partners with a clear plan outlining how the arrangement will work and how it will benefit each organization.
- Streamline Hiring and Transition Processes:
- Develop technologies or systems to make the hiring and transition process more efficient. A shared database or talent redeployment platform can be particularly useful.
SmartRecruiters offers a talent redeployment platform that helps minimize the impact of layoffs and create talent communities for priority hiring. This tool enhances the placement and outplacement processes, improves visibility of internal skills, and helps quickly redeploy talent to reduce functional losses.
Conclusion
For hiring furloughed workers to be most effective, it needs to benefit everyone involved. Ensure that the arrangement is advantageous for your organization, the partner organization, and the workers. Workers should feel confident that temporary work with a partner company won’t negatively impact their future with their original employer.
P.S. Now is a great time to reassess your Applicant Tracking System (ATS). SmartRecruiters is offering a limited-time, cost-effective package for a complete and flexible talent acquisition platform. This package includes:
- Contract buyouts and zero transition costs
- Significant savings on technology, people, and sourcing costs
- An accelerated path to Hiring Success
Consider upgrading your ATS to take advantage of the current hiring slowdown and enhance your recruitment process.
