How HR Can Mitigate The Challenges In Remote Hiring

Even though the pandemic has eased in most places, remote work will stay. A good number of employees are tuned into working from home/remote work, and organizations, too, are okay with it.

While organizations have more or less managed to keep productivity even with remote work, HR is one area that continues to face challenges.

While HR managers see a good opportunity with remote work, they agree that remote hiring throws up challenges, and it’s not easy as one thinks. Let’s see what the major challenges HR faces in remote hiring are.

A large pool of applicants

Remote working offers a chance for every candidate to apply for their dream company. Since there are no compulsions regarding proximity to the workplace, people from different geographical locations can apply for vacancies. While it offers diversity and better talent, HR has to sift through many applications. HR managers must go through thousands of resumes before shortlisting candidates, which is a tedious process. Studies show that remote workers have increased by 160%. To manage the burgeoning number of applications, HR needs to be crystal clear about their expectations. They should create well-written and detailed job descriptions to avoid applications that lack the required qualifications and experience. They can take aid from tech as AI-based application tracking systems helps optimize the remote hiring process.

Differences in time zones

Remote hiring helps in tapping into a global talent pool. HR managers can now select prospective candidates from far-off places. But the geographical autonomy can be difficult to manage when scheduling interviews and conducting real-time assessments. However, here, HRs can take the help of automatic scheduling tools that help the candidates to choose a time that suits them best and for the company. Using such tools, HR managers can address the productivity gap due to time zone differences.

Technical difficulties

Sometimes, even after thorough preparation, too, technology can fail you. Software problems, poor internet connection, and inconsistent video or audio quality can hamper the interview process. When such technical issues happen, there is a high chance that the candidate may misunderstand the question or give an incorrect answer. Sometimes the noise from other sources can distract and disturb you. Such issues can influence your judgment of the interview process.

It’s better to create a backup plan if your web conferencing technology fails you. You can also reschedule the interviews and work on correcting the glitch.

Evaluation of skillsets 

HR managers must choose candidates with enough job-specific skills and relevant experience. To ensure the same, whatever the position be, HR Managers conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the skillset. However, skill assessments and evaluations are quite challenging in a remote setting.

To minimize the struggle, HRs should take help from the organization. They can create dedicated tests and skill assessments to screen the candidates effectively.

Difficulties in onboarding

A work-from-office model allows new joiners to interact with the employees in real-time, and it becomes easy for them, as well as the HRs, to align them to the company’s culture and vision. In remote hiring, onboarding is a bit tough. In the initial days, new employees may feel overwhelmed and find it tough to get the hang of things and create a peer group. These can lead to productivity loss, and HR must take measures to tackle it.

HR managers will have to put extra effort into creating a smooth onboarding process and should take care to enhance the learning curve. Introductory sessions, orientation programs, and impromptu sessions should be organized, so the new jokiness understands the company and the workflow in a stress-free manner.

Contracts

In remote work, legal contracts are critical. Though hiring managers might feel it is tedious work, they must understand the labor laws of different countries, so there is no compliance violation. Having a standard template and hiring law and compliance experts can fine–tune and speed up the process.

Payment of salaries

Proper salary disbursement is vital for employee retention and satisfaction. But, transferring salaries to remote employees is a challenging task. It can be complicated due to offshore issues. Tax laws, international money transfers, and calculations and invoicing can create issues.

One way to manage the above is to have payroll solutions. Remote payroll and compliance providers can help solve the challenges and ease the HR team’s pain areas.

Conclusion 

Although remote hiring throws up its share of challenges, it’s worth the trouble. Remote companies can tackle the challenges with the right remote hiring strategy. While AI-powered application tracking systems can speed up the screening process, automatic meeting schedulers can reduce interview time zone differences. Test projects and customized skill assessments would take care of the evaluation process.

Strategically planned introductory sessions can offer a smooth onboarding process. Having standardized templates reduce contractual misinterpretations, whereas remote payroll service providers can ensure punctuality and accuracy in salary disbursement.

With the right tools, planning, preparedness, and backup, the hiring team can complete the hiring process with minimal or no stress.