When it comes to staffing and talent pools – like so many other workplace issues in our post-COVID world – the new reality is quite different: Many organizations are facing unique and unprecedented staffing issues. Stay-at-home orders have dramatically impacted our workplaces. Valued workers may have been furloughed as businesses temporarily shuttered or needed to reduce payroll expenses.

As the economy recovers, the challenge is not only how to respond to new and changing demand, but, more importantly, how to re-engage furloughed or laid-off employees. The new reality of work and the demand for services may be slightly or dramatically different. Employers will need to respond quickly with an agile workforce to fill these unpredictable needs.

How can companies ensure they can tap into talented employees who may have been laid off during the pandemic when the need arises again? The answer is to maintain your relationship with separated employees. SAP SuccessFactors Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) empowers you to do just that with features that help you track and engage with inactive talent.

Configuring Talent Pools in SAP SuccessFactors CRM

Rizing is offering a free configuration guide to help you enable this functionality in your SAP SuccessFactors CRM. The solution uses Candidate Profile Extension to capture more fields on a candidate’s profile and use these characteristics when searching for candidates.  Here you can collect information from candidates about alternative roles you need to fill.

SAP SuccessFactors’ CRM Data Capture Forms are then configured to determine if your inactive employees have skills in other areas that meet your changing needs by asking specific questions. This configuration will also allow inactive employees to attach a resume that will be parsed, meaning it becomes searchable for your recruiters. Here are a few examples of where skillsets may be expanded beyond the last role an employee held with your organization:

    • Healthcare: A surgical nurse may not be needed as elective surgeries are down, but respiratory therapy support needs are critical on every COVID hospital floor. Data Capture Forms can be used to find furloughed surgical nurses that can fill in as respiratory technicians.
    • Food Service: With restaurants closed, the waitstaff is not required, but delivery drivers are. Use the Data Capture Forms to discover who has a valid driver’s license and car.

Your recruiting landing page is where the engagement with inactive employees begins.

SAP SuccessFactors CRM config Talent Pools landing page
An example questionnaire in SAP SuccessFactors CRM for laid-off or furloughed employees.

Using this CRM configuration will allow you to adapt to changing workforce needs and maintain a viable talent pool in these ways:

  • Create Talent Pools of inactive employees, so you don’t have to start recruiting from scratch as business recovers. This will reduce your sourcing time.
  • Hire right. Talent Pools will enable you to rehire people you know, which may reduce the time and money you may spend on things like background checks, checking references, and confirming employment eligibility.
  • Stay engaged. Use Email Campaigns to stay in touch with these inactive employees and communicate updates about employment opportunities on the horizon.
Rizing HCM SAP SuccessFactors Config guide CRM Talent Pools
The Talent Pools interface in SAP SuccessFactors CRM.

It’s a challenging time now, but at some point, we must start considering what each of our situations will look like in a post-COVID-19 world. By keeping the data of your furloughed or laid-off employees closely accessible for future opportunities, you are not only making life easier on your HR department but also doing right by your staff.

The SAP SuccessFactors CRM configuration guide is embedded below and can be downloaded here. If you do not have the resources in-house to set this up yourself, we have several options available to help you out. Please reach out to us at hcm@rizing.com or contact your Rizing representative for more information.

Let’s make sure to do what we can now to come out on the other side as strong as possible. We’re all in this together. 

To help you deal with the current situation, we are also offering a free COVID-19 SAP SuccessFactors configuration to help you track employee data specific to the crisis.