The job market is an unpredictable behemoth of an industry. One minute an interview can go well and the next a pandemic can erupt globally, causing a worldwide hiring freeze.
There’s no way imaginable that employers could have prepared for COVID-19. Now, clients, employees, and temporary hires face a daunting unknown. They have a financial setback ahead of them with the economy fluctuating as COVID-19 cases continually increases and the world goes back and forth shutting down. As a response, employers will have to face the ugly truth of their own business efforts decreasing, including their clients.
To help prepare fellow employers, and based on his own knowledge, Houston car accident lawyer Hank Stout from Sutliff & Stout Law Firm has provided the following list of ways to help employers obtain clients during a worldwide work freeze due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Keep Your Current Client Relationships Alive
Everyone knows the saying “don’t fix what isn’t broken” and the very same can be applied to client relations. During this hectic time – a time of crisis and instability – maintaining current client relationships may be more important than trying to get new ones.
Hiring freezes muddle the security of getting new clients. If employers don’t maintain healthy conversation with current clients, those clients may feel compelled to leave that employer for another one, or altogether. Ask clients important career-based questions, such as:
- Are you looking for a new job at the moment?
- Where do you see yourself career-wise in six months to a year?
- Are you looking for a new opportunity or waiting?
- Are you going from job-to-job?
Asking these questions and keeping dialogue open with your clients will enhance trust between both parties. It also doesn’t hurt to open up a personal dialogue with your clients. Having a deep, personal relationship with your clients will go a long way than a stoic, impersonal relationship. Asking questions like “How was your day?” or “I’m checking in, how are you?” will have more of an impact that the client will remember. When in doubt, common courtesies and pleasant niceties are key.
Leverage Your Skills
You have your current clients and are maintaining those important relationships, so the next question is: How do I get new clients? Specifically, how do I get new clients during a tumultuous time, like a hiring freeze?
This is when leveraging your current skills come into play. No doubt the old way of doing things worked, but as everyone is staying at home to protect themselves from the Coronavirus, reinventing recruiting tactics are essential. Here are a few examples of how you can do this:
- Develop a new recruitment strategy. Just like gym-goers need to change their workout routine from time-to-time, employers need to rework their recruitment strategy. The workforce may change as a result of working from home, so implementing new strategies such as a hiring newsletter, a livestream of how people should apply, or an easy three-step online process can help with getting new clients.
- Attend online networking events. With successful video-conferencing tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, Skype, and Google Duo in our midst, online networking is as functional as ever. Connecting with others is one of the important skills for getting new clients. Don’t be afraid to transition in-person efforts online and maintain relationships via the Internet.
- Market differently. With everyone at home, an online presence is key. It’s important to consider that the efforts put forth into social media, the website, and video will gain more traction now that everyone is mostly online.
Those that work hard and prepare during the winter come out strong in the summer. In other words, honing down your skills now while in quarantine will allow for a swift and gradual comeback as the drastic effects of the virus come down.
Make Contact
As mentioned earlier, making connections during this global pandemic is vital for obtaining new clients. Once you get new clients, as previously mentioned, maintaining contact must be a priority.
Hiring freezes, especially during a quarantine, will devastate clients. Making updates, following-up with people, and overall acknowledgement is what will be needed for clients. The constant and consistent contact may be overwhelming, but when all is said and done, it’ll enhance a professional bond that exceeds expectations, hopefully one that will last for years.
In Conclusion: What Will Success Look Like?
Once you navigate the COVID-19 hiring freeze, the questions remains of how will success look like now? Before, when things were normal, so-to-say, success was predictable. Now, the U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent in April, the highest level since the Great Depression, according to the Washington Post. Now as we begin 2024, we are still questioning if this “new normal” will be a “forever normal.” In other words, success in 2024 is going to look different than it has been in the past.
The best way to tackle this new dilemma of discovering new success is to take baby steps with the business. Wherever there is a gap, whether minute or large, address it head-on. Rearrange priorities. Instead of recruiting new clients, make sure the ones you have are accounted for and taken care of. Have grace. Being hard on your employees are what may hurt you during this time. Conducting business with grace and mercy will help your employees and they will thank you for it. Essentially, help them and in turn they’ll help you.
Whatever it may be, success now means accomplishing the smaller steps rather than the extravagant obstacles.
About the Author
Hank Stout co-founded Sutliff & Stout, Injury & Accident Law Firm, to protect and pursue the rights of people who were harmed by the carelessness of others. Mr. Stout is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and has been actively trying cases for over fifteen years. In recognition of his accomplishments and results, he has been selected by Thompson Reuters as a Super Lawyer since 2014 (a distinction given to less than 1% of the lawyers in the state of Texas) and has been selected as Lead Counsel.
