Crisis: stripping of personnel
FILTER FOR PLANKTONKsenia Voronina, "Expert Northwest"
One of the key trends of 2009 is the transition from the candidate market to the employer market.
If companies could recruit virtually anyone in conditions of personnel shortage, now they are simply forced to take care of optimizing business processes. As part of cost reduction, employers began to get rid of redundant and inefficient staff and take a more rigorous approach to evaluating new and remaining employees. Top management finally took up their direct responsibilities – optimization of staffing, development of criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of employees, implementation of internal training systems, adjustment of motivational schemes.
And the employees themselves will eventually be able to learn useful lessons from difficult times. As Andrey Serov, a psychologist and business consultant at the STEM marketing agency, emphasizes, "there is some hope for a crisis in terms of improving the professional level of employees. Companies will be forced to throw off the ballast, which they previously did not pay attention to. And I want to believe that professionals will take the place of the hanging out "office plankton" and the loyal, but absolutely worthless mass of people."
Multicolored collars"The shortage of personnel, which was talked about so much at the beginning of 2008, was replaced by an excess of unoccupied specialists and a reduction in the number of vacancies: for example, in St. Petersburg on the website hh.ru on average, 55 candidates respond to one vacancy," HeadHunter Group President Yuri Virovets illustrates the situation.
According to a survey by AVANTA Personnel, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, 25 and 28% of companies, respectively, are reducing staff, and in the near future their share may increase to 35-40%. On average, enterprises reduce 12-15% of the total number of employees. It is worth noting, however, that companies will try to refuse mass layoffs whenever possible, fearing an increase in social tension in single-industry towns, as well as the loss of qualified specialists in order to restore demand in a year or two. "In addition, taking into account labor legislation, it is easier to cut wages, introduce flexible or part–time employment, but leave people," said Alexey Churkin, chairman of the Northwest Branch of the Association of Recruitment Consultants, director of the Personnel Service agency.
According to the HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov, in 2009 we should expect a complete reduction of up to 25% of white-collar workers in the largest cities as a result of cost reduction by financial companies and enterprises in the field of intellectual services, partial release of up to 80% of blue-collar workers at large enterprises that have sharply reduced the order portfolio, dismissal of up to 25% of black-collar workers, before total – in the construction sector. More than half of graduates of universities, colleges and technical schools are also at risk of adding to the number of unemployed.
As it has been noted more than once, specialists of banks, insurance companies, and recruitment agencies will suffer the most. One of the first to react to the crisis is the service sector, including intellectual services – audit, marketing, consulting. "The most affected professional sectors in the crisis are banks and investments, personnel management, as well as administrative staff and beginning careers. In these areas, compared with the pre-crisis period, the number of vacancies on the site hh.ru decreased by 60-65%. And the number of resumes has increased. For example, in the regions, administrative staff – by 30-60%, banks – by 15-20%, personnel management – by 20-40%," Yuri Virovets describes.
According to him, sales specialists, IT technologies, pharmacists and doctors are still the most in short supply. Situational demand is felt for specialists in the field of personnel records management, lawyers, crisis managers, business valuation specialists.
More work means less moneyThe priority direction of the personnel policy of enterprises this year will be the improvement of personnel performance management systems.
"If in the spring such a driver as the added value of the company was relevant for top management managers, then in a crisis, large weight coefficients receive cash flow and business efficiency," says Sergey Aristov, HR Director of Eurosib CJSC (the group's management company).
"Bloated" departments are often replaced by one person capable of making decisions and combining a set of functions. In parallel, there is a change of inefficient management, as a result of which not only the number, but also the very structure of the personnel of companies changes. "In a crisis, the bet will be placed on those people who, despite the difficulties, are ready to work with high efficiency, are focused on finding effective solutions, and are capable of teamwork," notes the head of the recruitment department of Lenta Anastasia Polyanskaya. "Moreover, we will conduct testing of the company's employees occupying key positions to identify those who will become the mainstay of the company in the near future."
A reduction in wages, or at least the rate of its growth, has already become a reality. According to AVANTA Personnel, in December 2008 in St. Petersburg, about 10% of companies reduced the salaries offered to candidates when hiring, and 18% of employers reduced the remuneration of employees already working. The average salary reduction is 16-19%. The adjustment of motivational programs will soon become widespread – either they will be cheaper, or they will exclude some of the bonuses like paying for a mobile phone, transport and membership in a sports club.
However, the change in the ratio of supply and demand in the personnel market in favor of the employer can be considered a positive phenomenon – the remuneration of employees will become more adequate to their labor productivity. "The consequence of this is more balanced expectations on both sides: the cessation of wage growth, which is not supported by a real increase in labor efficiency, stricter requirements for candidates, the liberation of the market from self–taught," predicts Stanislav Kulikov, CEO of the recruiting company "PetroStimul", specializing in the field of design, construction and energy.
Selected personnelCompanies that, despite the crisis, continue to expand their business have received an unprecedented opportunity to accumulate high-quality personnel.
"Despite the significant compression of the transport market, we plan to increase the number of staff by about 10% by the end of 2009,– says Sergey Aristov. – Despite the fact that over the past three years the annual population growth has been from 25 to 40%, this is not a direct decline in growth rates, but rather a transition from extensive to intensive development. We are moving to individual selection – not through the publication of vacancies, but through the independent selection of candidates based on business relations and our own databases."
"We have tightened the requirements for candidates and when hiring working specialists, we practice performing test tasks. In the process of work, we monitor compliance with qualifications, compliance with standards, as well as compliance with labor discipline," Galina Styazhkova, the head of the personnel service of the Zvezda plant, gives another example.
Characteristically, the process of selecting the best of the best companies also try to make the least expensive. The demand for the services of recruitment agencies and business schools is falling - along with the parallel development of online search and the expansion of staff training on their own. "We are focused on finding effective, but at the same time less costly ways to attract personnel. Savings are achieved by working with employment centers, at job fairs, creating internal development centers for trainee students and maximum concentration on staff development on their own, - says the head of the training department of the company "Lenta" Vita Duvakina-Komarova. – The emphasis in internal staff training will be placed on remote methods, as well as on the creation of a system of "playing coaches" – employees who, as part of their job responsibilities, will train colleagues without involving external resources."
Eurosib also gives priority to in-house training. "Every year from 0.8 to 1.8% of our total costs were for personnel and its development, and most of the funds (about 80%) were spent on training employees in external training structures. The transition to in–house training allows you to reduce the cost of staff training, and most importantly – to increase the targeted nature of the use of funds," compares Sergey Aristov.
General mobilizationCompetition for jobs will also have a positive impact on job seekers.
"It will become clear that the time of easy salaries has passed and it is necessary to adapt to the new requirements of employers," says Alexey Churkin.
For many, the crisis will become an occasion to reassess the ways of their own development. Former top managers of large companies will have the opportunity to organize their own business, which is often more resilient in difficult economic conditions. Ordinary employees may join the ranks of freelancers. Both are generally positive phenomena for the development of small and medium–sized businesses. "Firstly, it is much more convenient and profitable for companies to pay freelance workers for one-time orders than to maintain a workplace in the office and pay taxes on employee income," says Yuri Virovets. – Secondly, the most enterprising people who find themselves in the "free float" will be able to turn the situation in their favor, as it was in the 1990s, and create successful private companies."
We can confidently predict trends such as cross-industry transitions of employees with appropriate retraining and expansion of their functionality. "Employees of support departments, as a rule, are not carriers of highly specialized knowledge and can easily retrain in accordance with market requirements," emphasizes Oksana Pochtivaya, Director of the recruitment Department of the AVANTA Personnel recruitment agency.
The personnel market will become more mobile, and this is one of the positive consequences of the crisis. "People will understand that first of all a change of consciousness will save them from unemployment – you need to be able to adapt and change. The number of those who are ready to retrain, move from commercial organizations to budget ones or move to another city in search of a decent job will increase. The labor market was a very slow machine, and now the situation will change dramatically: applicants will move not only from the regions to Moscow, but also to those regions where there is work, as is the case in Europe and the USA," sums up Yuri Virovets.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru12.02.2009