Talent Acquisition COVID-19 Recording: HCA Healthcare's Carla Worthey-Sewell and Mark Dupay 6-17-20

In response to the rapidly developing coronavirus outbreak and its unprecedented impact to business and employers, i4cp has launched a series of weekly standing calls specific to Talent Acquisition Leaders.

For talent acquisition leaders, the coronavirus pandemic has provided an opportunity to reassess both the way they attract talent and the attributes their organizations seek and value in job candidates. Talent acquisition professionals from organizations such as ServiceNow, Samsung, Talend and many others joined special Q&A guests from HCA Healthcare to discuss this topic on this week's Talent Acquisition Leader COVID-19 Series call.

Some highlights: Whether they’ve been out of work or working from home, employees are beginning to return to the office, and organizations must take steps to ensure they feel safe and are ready to be productive. This reality underscores the importance of reboarding, as discussed on today’s call—refamiliarizing employees with the company, and keeping them up to speed on updates and changes within the organization. Some companies might start this process by holding companywide calls with relevant stakeholders, or having a similar call with only managers, who will then connect and share information with their teams, for example.

Achieving diversity and inclusion goals can be a challenge for organizations with high internal promotion rates but not especially diverse workforces. In response, some organizations are revamping their internal mobility strategies and accelerating D&I initiatives in all aspects of hiring, including internal hiring. Some organizations, for example, are applying “strive” stretch goals with regard to D&I to recruiters, as a way to get them ready for upcoming hiring initiatives that are still in development.

The coronavirus pandemic has provided organizations an opportunity to examine the traits they look for in job candidates, and has underscored the need to revisit their own hiring practices as well. Today’s Q&A guests—Carla Worthey-Sewell, AVP Executive Talent Acquisition and Development and Mark Dupay, Director, Executive Recruitment at HCA Healthcare—noted how the organization is navigating the recruitment process with more sensitivity, for instance. “We’re understanding that people are making a lot of life decisions in taking a role in another part of the country or world. [And for our talent acquisition team], there’s a lot more psychology and candidate management involved, and we’re helping to empower our hiring managers to feel more comfortable with a virtual hiring process, for example,” said Worthey-Sewell.

To some extent, organizations and talent acquisition function are adapting to a much more virtual-oriented hiring process. Today’s instant poll, for example, found the largest percentage of respondents (44%) saying their organizations are not currently doing virtual tours with job candidates, as a way to provide a connection to their company and culture, and don’t presently have plans to do so. Another 22%, however, indicated that their organizations use and have updated video in the past 12 months as part of their candidate experience, with the same percentage saying they have nothing in place as far as video, but is developing video for this purpose. Finally, 11% reported that their company uses video tours with candidates, but that it “needs updating.”    

In addition to this recording, please see these resources: