Page 21 - Islands Business June 2023

Adapting recruitment practices

in the post-COVID world

The COVID-19 global pandemic impacted business, and economic and develop a deeper understanding
international development across the Pacific Islands and saw organisations of person preferences and
pivot focus to respond to the public health national emergencies and role responsibilities to help
challenges, and adjust their operations to the changing priorities and support recruitment activities.
resource availabilities. Increasingly, clients also
Link Personnel Services, a recruitment and employment firm in Vanuatu, needed candidates who could
was there to help organisations continue their operations throughout the demonstrate abilities in adapting
pandemic. Given Vanuatu’s closed international borders, LinkPS worked to changing circumstances, work
closely with their clients to adjust, where necessary, workforce plans and independently, and be flexible
role expectations, and to find the people within Vanuatu who could work in while having the discipline to focus Link’s Recruitment Manager Francoise Nguyen
support of their businesses and programs. While this created unforeseen on achieving outcomes. interviewing a candidate online
challenges for many organisations, this change in circumstances gave On the other side of this global pandemic, what recruitment lessons
many ni-Vanuatu more opportunities to develop their competencies and have we learnt? The challenges brought about by the pandemic brought
expertise given the sudden departure and absence of many international into focus the importance of engaging and connecting with clients to fully
workers. appreciate and have a clear idea of what is wanted, and what is needed. As
With a local skills database to tap in to, LinkPS was able to quickly the experts of the local Vanuatu labour market, LinkPS was able to help
source suitable workers, and in many cases, contract and manage the manage expectations and provide the best staffing solutions and advice so
teams and staff in country on behalf of their clients when they were unable that organisations could continue to operate in the face of the unexpected.
to establish themselves in Vanuatu. While nothing beats the value of face-to-face connections, especially
Like many other companies around the world LinkPS quickly adapted in the Pacific Islands, we have learnt how to attune to online meetings
to new technologies to enable online work given the requirement to work and interviews and improved the art reading and engaging with people
from home and preference for physical distancing. With meetings and across a screen. We have embraced technology to enable efficiencies in
interviews moving online, and with the nuances that is felt with face-to-face recruitment and opened our minds to different models of working to meet
communication missing, it was important to establish a strong rapport and staffing needs.
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