Recruitment policies are in place to help you find the best fit for your role.
While some policies are in place for health and safety reasons, such as in the food industry, where employees with infectious diseases can pose a risk, others may be hindering the growth and progress of certain industries and businesses.
Many industries are finding themselves in a recruitment crisis, with organisations such as the Army falling into this pitfall due to recruitment policies which limit who can apply.
David Banaghan, Interim CEO at Occupop, providers of hiring software, says: “Some recruitment policies are in place for the health and safety of all, but sometimes your recruitment policies could be holding you back. Adapting your recruitment policies to reflect the current demand of jobseekers, allowing it doesn’t interfere with their ability to complete the job, is a must if you’re wanting to build a strong workforce.”
IT
Another sector which might struggle with stricter recruitment policies is IT. The IT skills gap isn’t unknown to many, but the over-reliance on specific education could be a pitfall for the industry. By looking for applicants with university degrees, you could be discounting people with suitable experience, transferable skills, or someone who would benefit from training in-house to suit your business needs.
By filtering your applicants simply by their degrees or degree level, you could be missing recruits with skills suitable to the role. To start filling the skills gap, you might not find the perfect fit, but you could mould a perfect fit by training and upskilling new hires with your in-house expertise. By opening your sector to more entry-level roles, you might be able to shape a new generation of workers.
Education
The education sector has seen a recruitment crisis. Fewer people are willing to become teachers for a number of reasons, including pay and hours. And with 39,930 teachers leaving the profession in the 2021/22 academic year for reasons other than retirement, it is more important now that education providers look to hire replacement teachers to avoid disruptions. However, the education industry is also limiting itself with strict recruitment policies.
While there is a need for teachers to present themselves as role models to the community and students, recruitment policies such as not showing tattoos and natural hair could be harming their recruitment efforts.
Some 10 million women alone used hair dye to some extent in 2020. As more people start to express themselves with their clothing, piercings, and hairstyles, it is important that in these industries, we aren’t neglecting potentially good educators due to their appearance.
Embracing new dress codes in school will allow educators the freedom to express themselves and act as more realistic role models for young people and might encourage more people to get into education as they won’t feel the need to change their lifestyle and aesthetics for the role.
Police
Other work sectors, such as the Police, also deem tattoos as unacceptable during their recruitment runs. These are visible tattoos that can be seen while an officer is in uniform. However, with 26% of the UK having at least one tattoo, 11% of this population has visible tattoos, either on their neck, face, hands, forearms, or wrists. This policy could be affecting the number of applicants to the police force, as many cannot and will not remove their tattoos for the role.
This means that regardless of your skills and abilities, many suitable applicants will be denied for the role. Some police forces are more lenient and will allow visible tattoos, but nothing that could be deemed offensive or inappropriate. This lenience in policy could see more recruits joining forces across the country.
There are many recruitment policies in place for good reason, whether it is for health and safety purposes or to ensure you’ve got the right people on your team, but sometimes too tight restrictions can prevent you from finding and developing the right team.