Positive Updates from my Clients for Finance Professionals

Positive Updates from my Clients for Finance Professionals

The Impacts of Covid-19 on Finance Leaders Now and into the Future.

The ongoing situation with Covid-19 has certainly affected us all one way or another. The everyday routine as we knew it changed overnight with the impacts being felt around the world. Working from home used to be a policy that only tech companies and the incredibly innovative implemented. When the pandemic hit, all companies had to review their ‘state of play’ and were forced to make some quick decisions. Sending all employees capable of working from home to do just that. Nearly overnight laptops were ordered, projects were put on hold, and employees were sent home with no timeframe of their return. For the HR community, the impacts of this change were palpable. Teams were spread apart, people were working in uncontrollable home environments and there was, for many companies, no protocol in place.

Many companies hiring processes were put on hold or cancelled, but for some, they still had crucial roles to fill and have been figuring out what this looks like as they go. We have been busy the last number of weeks supporting both clients and candidates on navigating this new landscape. Quite a few of my own clients made the decision to defer new employee start dates. Many simply were not sure how they could bring new people on board and train them remotely. While other’s were concerned about how introducing a new employee into a remote team would work logistically.

In my role, I have the great pleasure of working with a number of clients across a range of sectors including Technology and Pharmaceuticals to name a few as they look to hire finance professionals. All of my clients are learning and adapting in this time. Some clients have had great success stories of implementing impactful strategic business initiatives which will aid them through Covid-19 and beyond and change the future of their business.

In one such instance, a client had initially deferred a new hires’ start date but ultimately deciding to on-board remotely as the candidate was critically needed.

When the news of lockdown first broke and saw entire companies having to move to working from home, the onboarding of new hires was deferred until there was a clearer update as to how long lockdown might last. Unfortunately, this affected some of the candidates I was working with. However, the longer the lockdown continued, and business kept coming through, companies realized that they still needed finance professionals and could not maintain the workload without onboarding the new hires. I have had this happen in a number of key finance positions over the last couple of weeks. We have seen an increase in the number of

our clients decide to onboard remotely. The news was positively received by the candidates who were delighted to get up and running in their new

role. And clients are reporting great progress on these remotely onboarded candidates as they have been excelling in their new roles as accountants, accounts assistants and payroll officers.

While the idea of bringing someone new into a company during this time seems daunting, some companies are adapting quite well and embracing the change and it’s paying off for their business. Onboarding remotely is working very well for many companies who never would have thought it possible. If your company is thinking about remote onboarding we have a complete remote onboarding guide here to help: https://engagepeople.ie/resources/remote-onboarding-e-book/.

Several companies I speak to are considering implementing a working from home policy beyond Covid-19.

Whether personally or professionally, the extra time to reflect on how we used to do things has made us think about what new habits we will be bringing forward with us when lockdown eases. I have been speaking with many clients who have begun to think about taking their work from home policies with them into the future. The ‘luxury’ of working from home was previously more common in certain sectors or with companies of a certain size. For many, there was no policy in place for working from home and certainly no formal agreement between the employer and employees. Quite a few of the hiring managers and HR professionals I have been speaking with recently have said that the lockdown has made them rethink working from home. They have been expressing to me, ‘why do so many of us spend hours a week commuting to and from work when we can be just as productive at home?’ Working from home has taught managers and employees a lot about autonomy, managing their own schedules, and using time productively. I believe these are important lessons to learn in the workplace and in the future we should strike a balance between spending time in the office with colleagues building that collaborative culture and having flexibility and responsibility in managing our own work from home when it suits for the individual and employer.

While the circumstances that lead to this point are not ideal. Introducing flexibility into the business seems to be an important factor going forward.

If you have a role to fill and are thinking that remote hiring and onboarding are achievable in your business. Get in touch with us today, any of our consultants would be happy to help. We have created helpful guides on our video interviewing software and the 360 hiring process we operate with our clients. Find out more about this here: https://engagepeople.ie/video-interviewing-through-engage-people/.