How to Manage a Hiring Freeze (Without Losing Your Mind or Your Team)
When a hiring freeze hits, it feels like someone slammed the brakes on your carefully constructed recruitment process. No new heads, no extra help, and a whole lot of side-eyes from your team.
But before you start panic-Googling “how to lead with no budget,” take a breath.
Despite the negative impacts it can bring—like an overburdened current workforce, stressed-out current employees, and anxious potential candidates—this isn’t the apocalypse.
It’s just a very boring purgatory in talent acquisition strategy. Let’s explore how to get through it without lighting your org chart on fire.
What is a Hiring Freeze?
A hiring freeze is often a cost-saving measure implemented during economic downturns, periods of financial instability, or times when leadership puts a “pause” on external hiring.
While widespread hiring freezes might shake up your candidate relationships and affect your recruitment metrics, they’re usually temporary.
What matters is how your human resources and talent leaders respond during this challenging time of economic uncertainty to protect employee morale, maintain employee wellbeing, and plan for future hiring.
5 Key Strategies for Managing During a Hiring Freeze
- Transparent Communication: Stop Pretending Everything’s Fine
- Rebalancing Workloads: Fewer People, Same Work
- Creative Resourcing: Think Beyond Full-Time Hires
- Employee Engagement: Morale Doesn’t Freeze With Hiring
- Planning for the Thaw: Because Eventually, HR Will Hire Again
1. Transparent Communication: Stop Pretending Everything’s Fine
The first rule of managing during a hiring freeze? Don’t ghost your team.
Use transparent communication to explain what’s happening, even if you don’t have all the answers.
Acknowledging the impact on employees helps reinforce job security, even during moments of uncertainty.
2. Rebalancing Workloads: Fewer People, Same Work
The work hasn’t vanished just because the applicant tracking system is collecting dust.
Focus on essential positions and crucial roles that move the needle.
Engage the current workforce to redistribute tasks fairly and realistically, taking into account employee health and employee wellbeing.
Keeping an eye on burnout is one of the few effective strategies that doesn’t require funding.
3. Creative Resourcing: Think Beyond Full-Time Hires
If external hiring is off the table, tap into internal resources rather than any existing external talent pipeline.
This is a prime moment to explore internal talent mobility, alternative positions, and internal career opportunities to fill skills gaps.
Bring in contractors or freelancers to plug holes without overcommitting, or consider high-impact talent mobility to bridge the gap between critical roles and current employees who could step up.
4. Employee Engagement: Morale Doesn’t Freeze With Hiring
You might not have budget for bonuses, but you do have words.
Use them for employee engagement, public praise, and making people feel like something other than cogs in a wheel.
Invest in employee development opportunities like cross-training or short-term learning sprints to show that career advancement still exists.
Even in this phase, you can improve employee retention rates by listening and offering accessible career exploration opportunities.
5. Planning for the Thaw: Because Eventually, HR Will Hire Again
Just because you’re not hiring now doesn’t mean you won’t be forever.
Keep talent pools warm by maintaining relationships with qualified candidates and passive candidates.
Build succession plans that identify future roles and map out internal career growth opportunities.
This freeze is an excellent opportunity to reassess your hiring process, current roles, and gear up for a future-ready workforce with solid key roles already in motion.
Understanding Hiring Freezes
Managing through a hiring freeze is a test of leadership, improvisation, and your team’s tolerance for “doing more with less.”
But it’s also a moment to improve employee learning, retool your talent development model, and have meaningful career conversations with your people.
Whether you’re dreaming up flexible career paths and career development opportunities or finally throwing out the traditional career ladders, this is your chance to shift from survival mode to strategic mode.
Looking to hire top-tier Tech, Digital Marketing, or Creative Talent? We can help.
Every year, Mondo helps to fill thousands of open positions nationwide.
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