Resourcing Talent and Meeting Demand Amidst COVID-19: A Case Study of Lighthouse HR Consultancy

Demanding Year for Lighthouse HR

SECTION A 

Case Study: Lighthouse HR consultancy 
Lighthouse is a non-family-owned medium sized recruitment and training organisation that has been in business for over 20 years. The company resource staff for Nottingham and Derby Hospitals, and train NVQ courses to nursing assistants for nursing homes across the East Midlands. The organisation experienced the 2009/10 recession and economic downturn. Since then, it has integrated its HR strategy with the business strategy. Hence, with the impact of COVID-19, Lighthouse has seen an increase in demand for health workers across all jobs and departments from the two hospitals and nursing homes around Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and at times Sheffield. This has made the senior management happy as they are able to stay afloat and not having to furlough workers or make any staff redundant. 

 

Lighthouse HR is in for a demanding year with resourcing staff to meet needs of the two hospitals. It has not been easy for them to find staff as there is a huge demand for healthcare workers everywhere. The organisation is in a critical situation and period. The pressure is intense to meet the high demand. Just like other recruitment agencies resourcing healthcare workers in Britain, Lighthouse is likely to experience something similar in the year ahead, presenting a stern test to resourcing talent and remaining competitive in a labour market where the supply of labour is outweighed by demand.

 

The past two years have witnessed changes in the labour market for healthcare workers, as well as other labour markets. As this year draws to a close, so are the needs for talent and human capital for hospital workers, especially for nurses, doctors, physiotherapists, mental healthcare professionals, radiographers and domestic personnel to name just a few. Even though the need for labour seems to be focused on healthcare workers, Lighthouse has also seen itself in need of more workers to work on their recruitment department. 

 

The staff at Lighthouse have been working from home until the lockdown was lifted back in July. After engaging in a survey, 86% of their staff indicated that they would like to work under flexible working or hybrid working, where they will mix remote working and in-office working. Similarly, the HR manager has noticed that even new staff would prefer a balance where they are in the office for some days and at home for the remainder of the week. The findings of the survey have tempted the management and the HR to evaluate their approach in managing the situation effectively without making reactive strategies that may be detrimental to the organisation’s reputation. 

 

Following research from the CIPD, Acas and YouGov, as the Assistant HR manager you understand that after the pandemic, majority of workers want to continue working from home for at least a few days a week, presenting new opportunities for organisations to establish new ways of working. However, according to the CIPD research, before the pandemic, 65% of employers either did not offer regular working from home at all or offered it to 10% or less of their workforce. After the crisis, that 65% is expected to fall dramatically to 37%. This represents a significant shift in ways of working which people professionals will need to prepare for (https://www.cipd.co.uk/).

The senior management understand that they might have to meet this employee demand, and what needs to be in place for new ways to be effective and to secure employee engagement and retention. It is encouraging that the senior management supports the HR manager in introducing and implementing new resourcing policies and practices. In this case, with your assistance, the HR manager is planning to implement the following for Lighthouse: a) update the recruitment strategies for its workers using the flexible map; b) resource talent workers through succession planning; c) develop a high-performance work practice and, d) devolve performance appraisal to line managers.

In addition, the senior management from Lighthouse are working together with the hospitals management to understand the labour market. They know that if the hospitals want people to apply for vacant positions, some practices must be changed, and the hospital management have to understand implications of talent management approaches and relevance of employer branding. This is not to say that the hospital management do not have HR managers who are familiar with these practices, it is because as Lighthouse has been recruiting staff for them (hospitals) they have noticed that a large number of people they recruit are not taking jobs after they attend interviews. Rather, the people are opting to take up jobs working for agencies and private companies.