We asked Tim Seyner Harness, Founder Director at Artisan People, a bespoke recruitment agency on Upper Berkeley Street to give us his top tips for preparing to mobilise your staff team as businesses start planning to re-open.

Artisan People specialises in the Beauty, Fashion, Event, Corporate & Retail sectors, and Tim knows first hand how to plan for recruitment in uncertain times, as we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis.

• Plan to be as flexible as possible for re-opening. Don’t rush and bring all staff back immediately. No one knows how long it will take for business to recover but it certainly won’t happen at once. A phased return of staffing over a sensible period of three months is advisable for all sectors.
• Don’t be afraid of making big recruitment decisions. If an employee isn’t performing, this is the time to make radical changes. It is almost like re-starting from scratch with your business.
• Explore new ways of recruiting. There are many ways of filling positions from employment agencies who can offer short term solutions to plug specific gaps, to staffing on a flexible arrangement with existing employees.
• If your current staffing model isn’t going to work for you after this pandemic, change it. It is important to look at flexible hours from staff and splitting shifts to accommodate business recovery. There will be a big requirement for part-time shifts after the lockdown is lifted, so don’t feel you have to keep all staff on full-time hours.
• Recruit talent from different areas of experience. The consequences of both Brexit and Coronavirus  are that traditional talent pools will no longer exist. The number of job-available international candidates has dropped massively and it is important to look at candidates’ experience from areas that you may not have previously recognised as useful.
• Be reassured with safety measures. We are well underway with our training and certification of Artisan’s “safe touch” policy to ensure safety. Social distancing is key at this time.
• Try before you buy! Trial shifts could be an option  from an employment agency so that you have the opportunity to see the candidates in action before any commitment.
• Right people, right time, right place! Flexibility is key to optimise cover versus business requirements, ensure that you only staff what you need. Be proactive but also reactive as the patterns will change.
• Consider temporary measures. In these uncertain times, a temporary solution like using an agency can give you an opportunity to review your staffing model before committing to a full-time permanent person on your payroll. It may even turn out that the temporary candidate can be taken on as permanent member of staff and save you the time, resource and the cost of hiring the vacancy from scratch.

If you’d like more advice from Artisan People, simply get in touch with Tim.