High Impact Staffing Trends to Watch for in 2019

By: Shruthi Reddy

The current job market is perpetually shifting and evolving, and with each of those shifts come new challenges and obstacles for organizations seeking to hire qualified new talent.  For many businesses, the challenges associated with recruitment, hiring, and potential turnover can result in significant variability of overall company health, with over $11 billion dollars lost to ineffective hiring annually in the United States alone.  As the hiring market tightens, the skills levels adjust, and global hiring becomes more commonplace, it becomes imperative for companies to make the right hire the first time.  From new regulations dictated by State and Federal agencies to changing academic standards in our institutions of higher learning, there are several emerging trends in modern Talent Acquisition that every company and corporation must take note of in order to remain competitive when it comes to identifying and hiring qualified candidates in 2019.

Industry giant BullHorn reached out to over 2,000 industry professionals in recruitment and staffing to get their take on the issues, topics, and challenges that they expect to arise during 2019.  Throughout the comprehensive look into the hiring and talent acquisition, several topics continued to surface and gave a great deal of insight into the staffing trends unfolding in 2019.

Optimism in the Job Market

Overall, the job market is enjoying an upward trajectory, and as such, staffing professionals are feeling more confident than ever about widespread hiring across all industries.  According to Staffing Industry Analysts’ recent “US Staffing Industry Forecast: April 2019 Update”, The US IT Staffing sector alone is projected to reach an astonishing $35.5 billion, a 4% increase over the previous year and potentially a record setting amount.  With increased hiring comes increased pressure to identify and capture talent, creating a need for organizations of every size to seek the help of recruitment professionals in order to remain competitive.

Contingent Workforce is Taking Over

As a global business community, many businesses are taking advantage of offering alternative working solutions for potential candidates and employees.  With technology allowing any space worldwide with Internet access to be a potential office, many employees are cutting overhead by offering work from home or co-working solutions to employees.  With the numbers projected to rise annually, the current workforce is estimated to be comprised of 41.5% non-employee workers, resulting in far more blended and flexible staffing circumstances.  While the contingent workforce model is providing employers with maximum flexibility to seek and retain talent that meets precise operational needs and tasks, it also brings with it specific staffing and hiring challenges.  Additionally, the flexibility in workspace and hours has become an attractive selling point for employment seekers.

IT and Non-IT Skilled Job Trends

There is currently a significant shortfall of skilled labor talent in the market, both for IT fields as well as non-IT positions.  The shortage is resulting in a true dog-fight when it comes to hiring qualified applicants.  For many businesses, the shortage in talent has resulted in a sharp increase in wages or alternative benefits.  Robert Half International Inc. recently conducted a survey of over 2,800 senior managers, asking specifically what they believed to be the hardest aspect of the hiring process.  The answer was clear:  Generating interest from qualified candidates.  With a significant gap between the skilled employee market and the number of skilled positions open, companies find themselves on the losing end of a supply-and-demand trend that heavily favors potential candidates.  Attracting, hiring, and retaining a skilled workforce has become increasingly difficult in 2019, and companies who continue to rest on their laurels are finding themselves outspending potential wage increases or benefit offerings in turnover costs and lost productivity hours.

Millennial Hiring in Focus

In just the past few years, the Millennial generation overtook the Baby Boomers in the employment sector.  With the Millennial’s now outnumbering every other generation in the workforce, it has become increasingly important for businesses to understand how to attract, capture, and motivate this massive pool of talent.  Unlike every other generation that has come before them, Millennials are motivated and secured by far different priorities than their predecessors, and tapping into that mindset has become one of the single most pressing issues in staffing for 2019.  Seeking personal satisfaction before traditional employment roles, the Millennials abide by an entirely different set of recruitment, hiring, and retention rules:  They are less likely to be attracted to an organization with formal and rigid hiring processes, they expect total flexibility in their job, they are more likely to communicate through mobile devices rather than interpersonal communication, and they are a generation that will push back and question policy and procedure.  However, once on a team, the Millennial generation has a vast wealth of knowledge and ability to help stagnant companies push forward into the future.

Sage Group Technologies Value Added Services

Talent and workforce acquisition is an ever evolving landscape, and understanding the ebbs and flows of the process can literally make or break a business.   At Sage Group Technologies, we are focused on providing highly optimized Talent and Workforce Management Solutions through our Sage Recruit Model.  Our Sage Recruit Model uses cutting edge tools and technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Data Accumulation, predictive modeling, and forecasting.  When combined with our Diversity and Millennial hiring initiatives and strategies, Sage Group Technologies is able to help companies overcome challenges within their contingent workforce programs, recruitment, and talent acquisition through optimized workforce identification and procurement. Our Sage Recruit Model has facilitated and supported organizations of every size to identify and address their most critical talent needs, minimize risk, maximize profitability, increase their agility, and expand their competitiveness by adding value to their contingent workforce programs.

Recruitment and Staffing is a fast-paced and ever changing industry, At Sage Group we understand and keep up with the ebbs and flows of hiring, reach out to Our Team to know more about Sage Recruit Model and Our Value Added Services – the future of your business may very well depend on it.