Digital recruitment and a post-pandemic world

Within digital recruitment,  the COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on professionals everywhere. Of course, this was the case for many industries. We previously wrote about how digital professionals expected the industry to be impacted in 2022. Now that we are halfway through the year, we can now see what has changed.

With the situation subsiding, what are employee sentiments now? While lockdown is a thing of the past, it has forever shaped how people feel about their careers. In our 2022 digital salary survey & insights report, we asked the all-important questions.

How has COVID-19 changed digital employee perspectives?

Has your perspective towards work changed? Let’s start by looking at how people feel about the way they work after the last two years. Before the pandemic, everyone was in a routine that they never expected to change. Suddenly, it did. This allowed people to reflect on their career happiness, the work-life balance they could have or if being in an office full-time was right for them.

We asked respondents to rate how the COVID-19 pandemic changed their outlook on their career, with 0 being no it hasn’t affected my outlook and 10 being it has completely changed my outlook on work. The average score was 7.2/10 – an increase from 2021. It’s very likely that remote working plays a part in this. Now it is more common, employees are seeing the impact on productivity and work-life balance.

Working situations in digital – the rise of hybrid working

Within digital recruitment, hybrid working is becoming a key factor in talent attraction. Candidates will be looking for this. Therefore, if you cannot offer it, the best talent will look elsewhere. To give you an idea of the current work situations, here is what our respondents shared…

• Fully remote: 42%
• Hybrid (1-2 days at home): 15%
• Hybrid (1-2 days at the office): 36%
• In the office full time: 7%

As we can see, the majority of respondents are still fully remote. When looking deeper, 58% of all respondents prefer to work from home. From this, it seems there is still some learning to do when it comes to hybrid working. While employees are getting time at home, they prefer this to the office. Senior management will have to determine what will make employees happy to be in the office once more.

Working from home – does it stifle productivity?

Within the digital industry, working from home wasn’t a new concept. Professionals always had the capabilities, though it wasn’t a regular occurrence. There have been many arguments both for and against working from home, with those against the idea concerned about productivity. However, what do our respondents think?

• 74% believe they work well from home, with a dedicated work space
• 13% believe their work is generally fine and they can keep up with life admin
• 9% shared they work well from home, but do not have a dedicated work space
• 8% told us they work moderately well, though they could be more disciplined to avoid distractions
• 0% said they do not work well from home

These are just a few of the opinions shared in our report – find out below how you can get yourself a free copy!

Looking for more digital recruitment insights?

We hope these statistics on COVID-19 and employee sentiments have provided key insight into the industry. There are more digital recruitment insights to be discovered in the full 2022 report. From salary benchmarks to work-life balance changes, download your free copy now!