Situations vacant: hiring and onboarding staff amid Covid-19

As the world continues to turn despite the global pandemic, the egaming and betting industry follows in kind. Our industry faces both short-term challenges and long-term consequences. The challenge of responding to the silence of sportsbook and casino floors from Vegas to Macau is, for the long term, though.

More and more businesses are embracing remote working in response to the international race for talent. Naturally, these firms are in the best place to respond quickly and continue in their hiring strategy with minimal disruption, while many are keen to continue with business-critical hires in preparation for the current restrictions to be lifted.

Depending on which survey you believe, as many as 60% of us have some remote aspect to our current jobs. The higher end of this range is certainly possible in such a forward-thinking environment as egaming and betting. As an industry, we must adapt to the new reality of supporting work from home and allow ourselves to embrace the methods which make it possible.

Home from home

The reasons for embracing such an approach are plentiful. Operational and commercial benefits can be found, as well as the ability to attract talent without the geographic restriction. Pace of process and financial premium can all too often drive recruitment in some of the world’s most competitive job locations. The influence of these factors can exist in better balance by allowing the freedom of remote hiring.

Hiring for teams in highly competitive locations and recruitment markets will generally result in an entirely candidate-driven process. A growing percentage of employers recognise the value in offering remote flexibility in order to grow their appeal over the competition.

Acknowledging that your next CRM marketing manager, software developer or data scientist is human and has a broad spectrum of motivations adds value beyond the purely financial. The flexibility to partially work from home can lift time pressures arising from commutes or free up priceless family time.

Nice to e-meet you

Remote recruitment methods have long been vital to ensuring that we maintain our thorough qualification process. Of course, the traditional face-to-face meeting remains for many the preferred final stage before hiring. However, even prior to the current restrictions, many clients are now conducting fully remote processes.

Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts are only a few of the video conferencing tools taking prominence thus far. This variety of methods helps to ensure that we remain closely connected, regardless of our actual proximity. Coupling face-to-face online interviews with the ability to screen share and deliver presentations is key.

When complimenting these interview methods with the time we invest in our initial search and qualification process of all candidates before application, the results are reassuring. Indeed, even the ‘meet the team’ closing stage of many processes has found a home with multi-participant video conferencing. In the current situation, this mirrors our own communications with friends and family.

Shifting sands

After consideration of the recruitment methods being implemented in the current situation, it follows that we should then examine the hiring patterns which are emerging. The landscape, for many, has shifted beyond any reasonable expectations. In spite of this, we continue to see consistent recruitment in many of our key markets and locations.

During the sporting downtime, there is naturally a relative strength in online casino, bingo and egaming products. This, coupled with the areas highlighted above, form the majority of the most immediate hiring decisions. Also, as previously discussed, many long-term recruitment priorities have been able to continue.

For those willing and able to embrace change in the face of unprecedented external challenges to the industry, there has been a way forward. There are certainly opportunities to allow key talent to continue in delivering as they have been employed to do. The switch to remote working structure as an immediate, temporary response has been unavoidable. We may now see an acceleration in the movement towards a more flexible working norm in the longer term.

David Copeland founded the egaming and betting recruitment solutions provider BettingJobs.com in 2003. He is currently active in the affiliate space as co-founder of US market specialists Wedge Traffic.