Workforce Strategy Survey 2020 - Findings

Aim

The teams at Diversity Scotland and Includes You worked in collaboration to better understand how organisations in the UK operated during lockdown and how they are planning to operate as COVID-19 restrictions start to ease across the country from July 2020.

The survey sought to understand what employers are now considering about their workforce strategy in terms of:

recruitment
possible redundancies

Highlights

The majority of respondents (78%) continued to make new external hires across H1 2020
However, the number of respondents making new external hires dropped by 20% between 23rd March 2020 to 30th June 2020
Three quarters of respondents expect their organisation to make new external hires until 31st December 2020, with one quarter having no such plans
The majority of respondents said their organisation did not make redundancies as a direct result of COVID-19 in 2020
However, 31% of respondents said their organisation did plan on making redundancies prior to 31st December 2020 because of COVID-19

Conclusions

Based on the respondent group, it is encouraging to see new external hires continue throughout Q1 and Q2 of 2020, even during the height of the COVID-19 crisis. However, we found this trend slowed around Q2 with a 20% drop in respondents making new hires during that time.

The majority of respondents (78%) said their organisation had not made redundancies as a direct result of COVID-19 and three quarters (75%) still plan on making new hires across the remainder of 2020.

Looking ahead the picture is potentially less optimistic, with 31% of respondents stating their organisation had plans for redundancies as a result of COVID-19 (11% preferring not to respond). This suggests there is pain to come and potentially as initiatives such as the UK Government’s Furlough Scheme ends.

Findings

Did your organisation make any new external hires in the UK during the period 1st January to 22nd March 2020?

NO 22% YES 78%