Top 8 Staffing and Recruitment Trends to Watch for in 2024

The future of recruitment and staffing has always promised more remote and hybrid employment for companies and employees. Before the pandemic, the gig economy grew for some years, with contract and contingent work becoming more popular, and freelancers took charge of their employment. Even as some companies began to contemplate remote labor, the new coronavirus epidemic pushed them to comply. This not only forced current workers to work from home, but it also affected organizations' newly remote recruiting techniques in the future.

The emerging recruitment trends in 2024 highlight HR’s crucial role as caretakers in a rapidly shifting workplace culture. Human resources will ensure business continuity while boosting employee morale. Now more than ever, recruiters will need to rethink traditional approaches to recruiting and talent development. Complacency about changing business and talent expectations can cost your business a competitive edge. Below are the recruitment and staffing trends to expect in 2024.

 

1. Virtual Hiring Is Here to Stay

The shift to remote hiring over the last year has positively influenced how companies attract people. By removing geographical distance as a limiting factor, remote recruitment has opened the doors to a more extensive and diversified talent pool.  Recruitment and staffing services can access rich sourcing opportunities for sought-after talent. They have more freedom to hire the best candidates they can find regardless of their location.

Whether you’re hiring for remote roles or are a recruiter yourself, connecting candidates will remain a top priority.

Video interviewing will become a core skill for human resource professionals without face-to-face connection.  

 

2. Hybrid and Remote Work in a Post-Pandemic World

Notwithstanding many corporate executives’ opposing remote work, one thing is for sure: We will never completely go back to the way it was before. The landscape of work has changed. Stodgily resistant CEOs will either have to stop fighting reality and accept flexible-work options or risk losing out on as much as 70 percent of job candidates.

Hybrid work will become the default for most knowledge workers, but it will take work. Companies are still struggling with managing in-person and remote work, balancing what days people come in without reinforcing silos between teams.

Thankfully, we can expect them to get better in time. According to Jessica Reeder, senior-all remote campaign manager at GitLab, remote working will no longer be considered as a temporary solution to pandemic lockdowns or as an employee benefit but as a buffer against future crises. Companies realize the need for remote working expertise and are looking for dedicated leadership positions focused on future-of-work strategies.

“Just as organizations are currently expected to have succession and security plans, having a remote work strategy will be critical to business continuity,” Reeder says.

 

3. Growing Reliance on Social Recruiting

Using social media in recruitment and staffing will remain a critical component of candidate sourcing strategies. Human resource departments are further developing fully formed social media recruitment[C10]  strategies and including them in their overall human capital management plans. While 91 percent of companies already use social media in some capacity throughout the recruiting process, their methods are often only focused on popular social platforms and professional sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub for developers, and Behance for creatives.

As the social space becomes more competitive, recruiters should look beyond these apparent sites and invest time in non-traditional social platforms such as:

• Tiktok – best for recruiting young professionals and Gen Z workforce.
• Snapchat – best for engaging and attracting Gen Zers and female millennial employees.
• Quora – best for recruiting IT, developers, and engineers.
• Stack Overflow – best for recruiting developers, engineers, and IT experts.
• Xing – best for recruiting high-quality candidates in German-speaking countries.
• Meetup – suitable for all industries.
• Medium – best for finding passionate professionals in all fields.

Social media sites will not replace formal recruiting channels, like job boards. At least, not yet. But expect social media recruiting to grow in popularity within the following years.

 

4. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Will Be a Major Competitive Differentiator

The future workforce is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse in an increasingly globalized society. More employees, especially younger workers, want to see a similar diversity reflected in the people they’re working with. DEI came into prominence after Black Lives Matter protests swelled across the United States in 2020.

The rest of the world followed with similar protests. Crossing continents and cultures, activists saw George Floyd's death as a symbol of the intolerance and injustice they face at home.

Afro-Latinos in Latin America are speaking out about colorism and structural racism. 20,000 people joined Black, Indigenous Māori, and Pacific Islanders in New Zealand to call for racial progress in the country. And Indonesian activists held #PapuaLivesMatter signs calling attention to the decades-long discrimination against minority Papuans by the ethnic Javanese-majority in the archipelago.

Corporations worldwide quickly had to face their form of reckoning. Within two years, many companies hired a diversity, equity, and inclusion firm to offer employee training or built an internal DEI program.

 

5. Prioritizing Mental Health and Work-Life Balance

Employees’ mental health has taken a beating over the last two years. This year’s Gallup report finds American workers are among the most stressed in the world. Concerns over the virus, sickness, financial insecurity, and racial trauma contributed to added stress during the pandemic.

Harvard Business Review reports that 76 percent of workers reported at least one mental health condition in 2023, up from 59 percent in 2019.

Employers are looking for new methods to understand what employees need to feel supported. When building business culture and benefits packages, human resource professionals should consider the increasing demand for well-being and mental health support. This might take the form of a more flexible PTO policy, childcare benefits, an employee assistance program (EAP), or even pet-friendly perks.

 

6. Increased Demand for Healthcare and Chronic Disease Needs

Covid-19’s seemingly never-ending variants of concern will continue to have a long-term impact on employees’ physical health in 2024. In addition to expanding mental healthcare support, company human resources expect their group health plan premiums to increase by 5 percent in 2024. Overall costs for health claims are also likely to rise.

Other healthcare-related concerns for 2024 include higher chronic management demands and higher disability claims as employees battle long-term mental health issues and coronavirus symptoms.

 

7.  Artificial Intelligence Will Continue to Change Hiring Practices

Recruiters are adapting to market changes by being agile and efficient, despite additional stresses and hurdles. This year’s Recruiter Nation Report found that recruiters are using more AI and automation tools for more recruiting processes in 2023 in the previous year. These technologies are used to find, screen, schedule, and talk with prospects during critical stages of the recruiting process.

Chatbots and automated texting are the most used tools by Talent Acquisition (TA) teams. 60 percent of recruiters feel that texting is an efficient method to interact and communicate with prospects, and 51 percent say their company employs chatbots throughout the hiring process.

 

8. Hub and Spoke Recruitment is on the Rise

New research from Robert Walters reveals that more companies may choose smaller city center offices and rural co-working spaces. Many of the businesses that took part in the survey have plans to move to a 'hub and spoke office model.' The Hub and Spoke model finds talented employees for clients by having spokes in different locations. The hub's job is to match the best candidate with the client who needs them in their area.

There are many benefits to this type of hiring, including increased access to talent, better employee satisfaction, and significant cost savings for the company.

For recruiters, working in Hub and Spoke means agents work at home but live within a convenient drive of the brick-and-mortar center. Recruiters can potentially do all hiring and training at the contact center, which reduces the employee learning curve and investment, and in-person contact with the candidate is possible.