There is a lot of talk about the local labour market’s turbulent processes and the allegedly critical situation. Some people are already feeling the changes themselves. However, as a manager, in order to properly approach the actual situations that affect your own company, you need to look at the “big picture” in a more nuanced manner.
Because at first, it may seem like while in the old days, employees were the ones who had to adapt, nowadays, it is often the employers who are forced to do so. But what is really happening? These days, we think increasingly about what makes a company competitive. In the private sector, the key to success is efficiency: highly qualified and motivated employees are required. Competitiveness also depends on the quality of workforce: human resources is a success criterium as well. Over the past few decades, we have grown accustomed to the oversupply of labour force and are not used to the differentiated targeting of employees anymore. We have forgotten the importance of how much the employer’s and the employee’s visions are aligned.
Reacting to trends in the labour market is crucial, since they are associated with changes in economic and communicational trends, and affect each other as well. The reserve labour force is gone, the labour market has dried up; the process of poaching is common and intensive across the country. Tools that may be familiar from strategies used for product and service branding have appeared in Employer Branding processes as well.
We might say that the labour force has become conscious, and with the help of the new communication tools, this also means community conscience. However, it is not only about consciousness: employees have learned to optimise, so if someone “next door” offers them more for their working hours, they quickly switch. This consciousness of employees also means that they compensate for communication that is incomplete on the part of the employer.
Employment is also a project
Many HR professionals buried their heads in the sand for as long as they could while wage competition intensified – however, this is not an option anymore. It is important to acknowledge that the restless groups that are currently moving on do not consist of new people: only the behaviour is new. These people are those who learned after the crisis of 2008 that loyalty is not rewarded with stability. That is to say, there is no use in being loyal to their workplace, since the company will not necessarily be loyal to them. Instead of disposable employees, in 2017, the goal is to achieve a sustainable “community”; however, this requires a change in perspective. It is important to understand what makes employees stay at a company and why they feel good at “employee-friendly” workplaces. To believe that not only products or services can be marketable, but employers as well. The head of HR Strategy needs to step out of their office and into the market, learn the language of their “customers” and accept that building an employer brand also has employee-related aspects.
The classic observation made by consultants is that projects are jobs – well, it looks like that these days, jobs are also projects for a substantial proportion of employees. They only stay at a certain company until they get a better offer from somewhere else. For employees, moving around within industrial parks and regions has become a strategic routine for their career, but let us not forget that the burdens of a change are not always compensated for by the few-thousand-forint differences in salary. Sometimes even the reduction in physical and mental pressure (carried out in a reasonable manner and in line with the quarterly figures) can be worth more than vague promises of salary increases. Solidarity has the power to retain, and an attractive community is also considered when an advertisement offers an attractive salary.
Looking for a “good enough job”
Speaking of advertisements: Some of them have a true retro vibe, as if their authors had simply copy-pasted a 10-15 year old text into this year’s campaign. They are looking for energetic, dynamic, well-prepared, hardworking, versatile and qualified colleagues. Still, one can also notice the informal tone: come and work with us, even tomorrow, it is worth working here! The noise has increased, and amid all this blare, target groups feel that they are better off if, instead of posters and radio advertisements, they listen to their acquaintances, who can tell them how things really work at the given company.
So who is really in charge? The effectiveness of human resources management partially depends on the leader’s strategic thinking. As it is not table football or a few beanbag chairs that make working at a company a good experience, but the meaningful work and the perspective of development. The good news is that the increase in life expectancy also entails a longer active period. Members of the silver generation can be reached, attracted, and also have professional knowledge and patience. We do not necessarily have to “discard” pensioners and young mothers, labelling them as inactive, however, we also need to consider in their cases that a 50+ employee and a parent of an infant are loyal in different ways.
The voices that worry about the labour market situation often confuse the explanation for phenomena that affect production facilities and the analysis of popular generational trends. IT specialists that belong to generation Z and turners from Transdanubia have it easy, one might think when browsing professional articles. However, there is a much wider variety of employees who are still looking for the “good enough job”.
Work and valuable work are not the same. We all know the saying, “what happens if we train our colleagues, then they leave?” Well, the answer is, “but what happens if we do not train them and they stay?” It is often said that we are living in an attention economy. Employees are already on board, it is time for employers to show up as well.
