Life After Lockdown: How businesses are changing their hiring habits

As the country emerges from lockdown, it’s a very different landscape for a lot of businesses.

Bdaily spoke to business owners across the country about how they’re changing their ways of working, and what innovations they’re adopting permanently after lockdown.

A new report from 4media and redwigwam shows that businesses are changing the way that they look at hiring following the pandemic.

According to the report, in four companies said they plan to increase their flexible teams in terms of the number of temporary workers they hire.

Of those, 40 per cent planned to grow the size of their flexible workforce by between 51-75 per cent while 34 per cent planned increases of 26-50 per cent.

The main reason cited was the ability to invest with less risk, closely followed by being able to react faster, feeling more in control and the increased appetite of society for working flexibly.

The greater use of flexible teams comes as 70 per cent of businesses say they have been forced to overhaul their long-term business strategies because of the pandemic.

Lorna Davidson, CEO of redwigwam, commented: “Our report shows that businesses are increasingly valuing the flexibility provided by a flexible workforce and that there is a growing appetite to embrace this modern approach to work by many businesses and to think differently in a post-Covid world.

“With employees typically accounting for the biggest business cost by some distance, it will be necessary to look at innovation and ways in which this risk might be minimised and made flexible where possible.

“For workers, there will be a greater need than before to search for jobs more broadly and to fill an increased number of temporary roles offered by businesses that are no longer employing as many permanent staff.”

Looking to promote your product/service to SME businesses in your region? Find out how Bdaily can help →