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FROM: SEP-OCT 2009 ISSUE | BY MINDY ABRAMOWITZ
Despite an overall sense of hesitation in job markets due to our uncertain economic climate, certain industry sectors and geographical regions are enjoying modest growth and accounting remains one of the professions to hold steady amid reports of declining employment rates.
As cautious times call for efficient and strategic use of resources, human or otherwise, companies are increasingly exploring different approaches for recruitment and employee retention. A range of surveys on job market conditions yield the following notable hiring trends and innovations.
Compensation
Although jobs themselves may be scarcer than in previous years, a 2009 survey conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com suggests that compensation is on the rise: more than half of hiring managers expect to increase wages by three per cent or more. With hiring freezes in effect in many organizations and employees’ workloads expanding, the prevailing wisdom among human resource experts is that a three to five per cent increase in salaries will help to stabilize the workforce until the economy rights itself.
Deferred Retirement
Rather than invest in recruiting and training new staff, companies are opting to direct their efforts toward the retention of experienced, qualified workers. By the same token, many employees nearing retirement age prefer to delay retirement to stay on in their current positions longer by inclination or out of financial need. In an arrangement that benefits employers and employees alike, companies are beginning to offer incentives to encourage older staff members to continue working with them.
Flexible Terms of Employment
Companies are finding ways to accommodate the diverse requirements and preferences of their workers as another means of promoting job satisfaction and encouraging loyalty. Working from home, or telecommuting, is emerging as a very effective means of addressing scheduling and geographical obstacles. In recruitment firm Robert Half International’s 2008 Financial Hiring Index, 13 per cent of CFOs listed telecommuting and flexible work schedules as their top employee incentives. Employers are also experimenting with flextime, shorter work weeks, and job sharing as strategies for offering their staff more within constrained budgets.
Contractors and Outsourcing
Since budget cuts and staff reductions often fail to correspond to a decrease in workload, companies are turning to contract workers to help complete projects on time where regular hiring has reached a standstill. In these tougher economic times, the contracts are shorter and result in fewer offers of permanent employment positions, but the relationships between hiring company and contractor do occasionally lead to long-term arrangements.
Recruitment Tools
As hiring slows, so does spending on recruitment. Employee referral programs, online recruitment sites, and social media are all popular cost efficient tools for filling vacancies.
Some of the highest quality candidates are those vetted by trusted, knowledgeable insiders: other employees. An employee referral program taps an existing resource, the company’s own staff, for recruitment leads and introductions to suitable prospective employees in exchange for rewards and incentives. Who better to consult than a key employee, someone who knows the skills required and the corporate environment, to recommend a friend or acquaintance to fill a position?
Online recruitment sites like CareerBuilder, Monster, and Workopolis allow users to register to create individual profiles geared toward finding jobs or candidates. In most cases, these services are free and, due to their overwhelming popularity, they provide job seekers and employers with access to tens of thousands of opportunities.
Professional networking sites like LinkedIn, Ryze, Xing, and Spoke along with Facebook and other general social networking sites are inching into the mainstream as recruitment tools. All feature job and candidate search capabilities as well as serving as a forum for introductions and referrals. The dawning recognition that employees are their best representatives is prompting companies to support and even encourage the use of social media. Employee blogs, too, are becoming frontline media for recruitment. Much like employee referral programs, employees’ endorsement of their employers’ recruitment efforts in personal blogs and social networking sites lends authenticity and credibility to the company’s reputation as an attractive employment prospect.
Thanks to a recession and an atmosphere of uncertainty we are seeing a shift in recruitment and human resource management practices that favours flexibility, innovation, and openness. Recruiters and employers are putting ideas that were theoretical a few years ago into practice and as a result, workplace conditions are in a state of transformation. While employment positions might be fewer in number these days, the practice of finding and retaining people to fill them is undergoing a renewal.
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