Josh TolanHiring new talent is like a song that never ends for HR. It’s an inevitable and essential recurring task for company growth. However, the hiring process eats up a significant amount of time for everyone in the cycle from recruiters to final decision-makers which can hurt team productivity.
The average time to hire is approximately 42 days per open role. That’s a potentially devastating amount of time to delay other responsibilities with a slow hiring process. Additionally, keeping seats empty longer means your team’s workflow and morale are negatively impacted.
You take a hit to your bottom line when you allow the consequences of slow hiring speed to drain your workforce. Performance, engagement, and even your work culture and reputation can feel the effects of pouring too much time and resources into an ineffective hiring process.
Here’s a breakdown of where hiring delays trickle into everyday team productivity in the workplace and how improving speed to hire can improve it:
HR pros
Your hardworking HR team has a long list of responsibilities that include everything from recruiting/hiring to benefits, payroll, employee engagement, and more. It’s worth mentioning, HR burnout is high and a slow hiring process only adds to their pressure.
In fact, Workvivo found that nearly all HR professionals report feeling burned out in the last year. Shockingly, one of the key reasons stated is they don’t feel their organization supports them. Nearly ¾ of HR pros surveyed said they don’t have the tools they need to perform their job and as a result, 71% don’t feel valued.
Implementing efficient tools that enable HR professionals to get feedback from hiring managers faster helps move the hiring process along without delays creating more work for HR.
Sending out repeated follow-up emails, working around several scheduling conflicts, and coordinating extra meetings to collaborate add significant stress to HR pro’s workdays. And when those additional tasks pile up over weeks in a slow hiring process, stress levels rise.
The impact of improving speed to hire for HR
Implementing solutions to speed up time to hire dramatically increases the time available for HR pros to focus on other tasks associated with their roles. This provides significant balance and reduces stress. For example, using video interview software to screen candidates in place of phone interviews cuts initial interview stages down to an average of 10 minutes per candidate compared to 45+ minutes.
HR pros can also depend on convenient scheduling features, SMS interview invitations and reminders, and streamlined collaboration and communication tools to reduce time spent at each stage of hiring. Automations happen in tedious steps, leaving more time to make meaningful connections and valuable assessments. They can even focus more attention on empowering team productivity.
Hiring managers
Managers are deeply involved with day-to-day happenings across their team, ensuring goals are met and everyone is engaged. Their tasks could include conducting surveys and preparing reports for their department in addition to team management.
They are responsible for conducting reviews, stay interviews, and working through training and updates HR hands down to their team. They are also critical in the hiring decision-making process for their team so they are likely to put on their ‘hiring hat’ and weigh in on various stages of hiring, including conducting their own interviews.
When hiring managers have to provide feedback on several candidates, it takes time out of their schedule to support their team. Long hiring processes can cause distractions and disruptions that cause unnecessary stress for managers. In fact, Gallup found in its annual State of the Global Workforce survey that managers are significantly stressed.
Nearly 50% of managers strongly agree they have multiple competing priorities on the job and two in ten say they quite frankly have too much to do. Their workweek, on average, is as much as a half day longer than their employees and they are more than 67% more likely to say they have a lot of interruptions at work.
The most troubling revelation from Gallup’s recent report is that managers are less likely to believe they have the opportunity to do what they do best at work. Your slow hiring process is a likely culprit if your managers feel too distracted and stressed on the job.
The impact of improving speed to hire for hiring managers
When hiring managers have to review resumes and notes recruiters and HR team members have already reviewed, they spend their time needlessly repeating work. When they have to sit in on long interviews for several candidates that overbook their schedule and impede on the needs of their team, they lose valuable time working toward personal and team goals.
But when hiring managers are able to weigh in on one-way video interview responses at a time that’s convenient for them, they are in control. They can more effectively contribute to hiring decisions without the risk of burnout, and a faster hiring process means empty seats are filled on their team sooner. This can quickly alleviate some of the burdens from managers who may be picking up the slack for lost team productivity.
Employees
When seats are left open on the team for long stretches of time, other employees have to take on tasks that may be out of their wheelhouse. A slow hiring process also means your current team has more tasks to juggle, which pushes out their deadlines for projects, or worse, creates too much pressure trying to hit goals on time. This leads to burnout, frustration, and disengagement.
Three in four American workers in Gallup’s survey say they experience burnout on the job, with more than a quarter of respondents reporting they always feel burned out. With managers and HR professionals above them also caving under the pressure of a slow hiring process, there’s little room to turn for relief from workplace stress.
The longer seats stay empty, the more vacant roles your team may need to fill, as turnover rises. This creates an exhausting cycle that can damage your employer brand permanently.
The impact of improving speed to hire for employees
When the hiring process is fast, effective, and efficient, seats are filled faster so the distribution of work and workflow is streamlined for employees. Additionally, managers and HR are more available to employees to support them in their work and develop valuable programs for training and development or culture growth.
Additionally, employees can focus on the skills and tasks they excel in, while high-quality hires fill additional roles that contribute to the bigger picture. Individually and collectively, your employees reap the rewards of hitting goals and doing their best work.
Your hiring velocity affects every level and function of your organization in some capacity. Increasing your speed to hire by improving hiring processes and interview technology ensures everyone on your team is empowered to perform well in their role without unnecessary stress or distractions affecting team productivity.
