Uncertainty in the Markets: How to Maintain Stability in Your Business

By J. James O’Malley, Andersen Alumnus and Managing Director and Executive Search Practice Leader at Felix Global

Market uncertainty and disruption is going to create uncertainty and disruption in your workforce. This is especially true if you are in an industry that is being heavily impacted by Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), like the airline industry, energy sector, and hospitality market, where the impact is most volatile. Conversely, in healthcare, supply chain/distribution, crisis response, cleaning and community response, job needs are surging, according to Glassdoor reports.

Regardless of whether you’re hiring because of market demand or making up for employee losses, this is not a time to take a break—in recruiting and in long-term and on-going projects and priorities.

Instead, we need to work harder and continue to look ahead at what the impact will be once the dust settles. The market will rebound from this event and those that will happen in the future. That recovery will come just as hard and fast as we saw with the last downturn, making it critical that you are ready to leverage the strength of rising markets.

The question is: how do you continue moving forward while maintaining stability in business operations and hiring? Here are a few simple ways to keep the future as your focus.

Leverage Technology

There’s no reason to slow down with employees working from home. Thanks to technology and telecommunications, everything can remain on schedule. While this unplanned disruption requires you to re-think processes, you can shift and rely on the many solutions available to you, including:

• Digital meetings via phone or video allow you to continue connecting and innovating, regardless of location.
• Real-time chat tools make quick conversations and text-based collaboration easy.
• Shared drives or digital asset management tools (DAM) make it easy for everyone to have access to docs, videos, images and more without having to request access or get on a call.

Leverage the Gig Economy

The gig economy allows you to tap into a growing pool of talent that’s available nationwide, with 57 million Americans taking on freelance work, as of 2020. If you’ve lost employees and need someone to pick up the pieces fast, or are looking for quick support, freelancers and contract workers can step in, without extensive onboarding or the paperwork necessary for full-time hiring.

What’s more compelling, freelancers are used to working from home and connecting online, making the transition even easier for you during an already hectic time.

You can find freelancers through your current network of professionals and business owners, or online. Freelancing sites like UpWork provide a large network of freelancers to choose from. Simply search for what you need and sort through to find the best potential candidates.

Leverage Hiring Experts

If you’re losing employees, now is the time to connect with the people who know how to facilitate search, regardless of what’s going on in the world. Our name, Comhar means collaboration, and we are here to be a partner to our clients, regardless of market volatility. As Executive Search consultants we not only support your human capital needs but also provide strategic guidance for managing these unusual and unpredictable times.

Finally, we can provide you with a one-stop-shop experience, so you don’t need to juggle multiple companies or vendors. We have expanded our service offerings to include Retained Executive Search and Professional Recruiting so we can be the best partner for much of your hiring and talent needs.

You Can Maintain Stability During Uncertainty

Don’t let Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) scare you into losing a step—you’ll be at a further disadvantage once the economy bounces back if you lose sight of long-term goals now. The legacy problems you’ve been working to solve will remain once this passes, so keep moving forward, leveraging technology, the gig economy and the hiring experts you’ll need to bounce back stronger than before.

About J. James O’Malley

O’Malley leads Felix Global’s Executive Search Practice and brings with him 30 years of talent acquisition solutions. In 2018, he co-founded a retained search firm focused on recruitment in the private equity, professional services and financial services sectors. Previously, he was a partner and executive search practice leader at TalentRISE, a recruitment solutions firm in Chicago. Prior to that, he was senior vice president in the human resource function of Fifth Third Bancorp. O’Malley has also worked for several professional service firms, including Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Huron Consulting and Lante. He can be reached at jomalley@felixglobal.com