Half of companies didn't meet hiring goals last year: survey

Dive Brief:

Companies fell short of their hiring plans in 2021, with 50% of human resources (HR) pros surveyed saying their hiring goals weren’t met last year, according to a survey by GoodTime.
The hiring process has also lengthened. Sixty percent of HR pros surveyed said time-to-hire has increased in the past 12 months. Hiring managers are struggling to keep up with backfill hires amid the Great Resignation, the survey noted.
Retention remains a top challenge for HR pros, but especially so for those with remote work, the survey said. Notably, while 34% of mostly or fully remote companies surveyed said they struggled with a lack of qualified candidates, only 22% of fully or mostly in-office companies said the same, pointing to the downsides of a widened talent pool, GoodHire said.

Dive Insight:

Hiring woes have followed employers throughout 2022. At the beginning of the year, local chamber of commerce leaders reported that businesses in their respective regions were struggling to find new workers and that a lack of workers was the biggest factor affecting their local economies.

GoodTime’s report notes the difference between in-office hiring and remote hiring, which may reflect ongoing tensions regarding the choice between moving to a hybrid or fully remote structure versus retaining a mostly in-office workforce. Employers may underestimate the power of flexibility as a company benefit; an August 2021 PwC survey showed that while employees saw flexible work scheduling as a top incentive of their jobs, employers assumed “company purpose and values” were a top incentive.

Hiring has gotten harder over the course of the pandemic, lengthening already tough time-to-hire. But virtual hiring stepped up to bridge the gap, according to employers surveyed by Indeed, especially at the pandemic’s height. Respondents to the survey said they would likely retain virtual hiring processes in the future, as they tend to shorten time-to-hire and improve candidate experience.

To combat troubles with hiring, experts recommend that employers broaden their search nets in a variety of ways. One strategy is to drop college degree requirements from certain job listings altogether, especially as alternative means to gaining work experience emerge.