The pandemic crisis in the IT industry has successfully gone. However, the fluctuations the market had experienced had changed it completely. Many companies moved their employees to fully remote work, some had to digitize all the processes, some unfortunately laid off their employees and created a massive number of professionals who struggle to find new opportunities.
Now, after the world is recovering, the number of open positions is larger than the number of unemployed professionals. Many businesses report that they face issues in hiring.
The pandemic situation forced companies to look at the hiring situation from a different angle. The process of recruitment, adaptation even termination, all undergone changes. But what about those who supposed to find the right candidates, adapt them? The problem is that businesses are lacking HR Managers. All the current indicators show that in the nearer future there will be a need to employ millions of professionals. But how to do it when you don’t have the person who understands the candidate better and takes care of the employee.
Increased Demand for HR Managers
Every company needs an HR Department. In the modern business world, the role of this structure is wide, it includes many duties from hiring to motivation. Human Resources is understood as a special management function when personnel are a component of the capital, an intangible asset of the company. The performance of an HR manager is measured not only by indicators of staff turnover or the number of pieces of training per year but also by the ratio of the company’s profit to the number of permanent employees.
The changing role of HR in the business structure is a global trend, the demand for such specialists is growing all over the world. The recent reports claim that the number of open vacancies for such professionals increased by 56%.
The ramified structure of the HR department is typical for large companies with regional coverage. Human Resources employees can be divided into groups depending on the profile of work. There are specialists in the field of recruitment, personnel administration, specialists in compensation and benefits, corporate training, and personnel development. In small companies, the position of a generalist is widespread – a versatile person who combines all of the above competencies.
The HR system, like any other complex business function, requires a structural approach to the organization, which should be created either independently within the company, or bring this direction to an external contractor. The first option requires an understanding of the specifics, the availability of resources, and the development of a motivation system and KPIs. The second solution can help to save money, moreover, the motivation here is due to the very fact of a business-to-business relationship. In such a form of cooperation, the contractor is interested in customer satisfaction and reaching KPIs that are fixed by the contract.
In many ways, the delay in the closing of a particular vacancy is due to the crisis of the HR system. An unsuccessful search for a candidate for a month or longer is a clear sign of the ineffectiveness of the personnel selection system in the company.
So, what are the ways of improving the situation and finding the solution if the company needs to scale and hire more employees in a short period of time? The possible solution may have to variations, first think of a retention strategy, secondly, external recruiting agency. Let’s consider both in more detail.
Employee Retention
Every company understands the importance of permanent employees. Getting a resignation letter from a key company employee is a nightmare for many executives. It would seem like no issue happened as companies fire and recruit a large number of employees every day. However, there might be irreplaceable specialists among those quitting. Also, when an organization has constant employee flow this may negatively affect its perception in the market, flagging some internal issues. Because happy professionals won’t leave the workplace.
Employee retention strategy is the right way to keep the staff on board, create a strong team and as a result improve the success of the whole company. Retention strategies are aimed at retaining key people in the organization and keeping staff turnover at the required level. The employee retention plan should address each of the areas in which a lack of organizational commitment and job dissatisfaction may arise. Consider specific practical steps to eliminate the causes or prevent the occurrence of such situations. The following retention strategies were introduced in order to keep valuable professionals.
Recognition and reward. Every employee expects to be recognized or rewarded for a well-done job. Don’t make your employees think about quitting just because you don’t feel like it or forget to thank them for their efficiency and productivity.
Education and professional development. The results of numerous studies confirm that the lack of opportunities for training and development within the company is indicated by employees as one of the reasons that prompted them to make the decision to leave.
Trust between management and the team. Employees do not leave the organization, they leave their leaders. Sometimes this happens due to the fact that professionals feel a lack of freedom to make even minor independent decisions. Now is the time to put some responsibility on the shoulders of your workers. Trust your employees by letting them take the lead and provide them with decision-making power.
Motivation. The more an employee is involved in their work, the less likely they are to leave. The employer’s task is to study the issue of motivation and implement a certain system of relationships in the company. You can combine both tangible and intangible methods. And the main thing is an individual approach to everyone. Knowledge of psychology and personality types will perfectly combine with bonuses and the KPI system.
Those are the basic recommendations, the overall strategy of course won’t be limited only by the above approaches. The retention strategy is a complicated and sometimes time-consuming process that may require changing some rules or the implementation of new policies.
However, after the implementation of the retention strategy the company may still be facing a lack of professionals and at the same time the need for expansion. This leads to the second solution mentioned above, external recruiting.
External Recruiting
The involvement of external recruiting agencies is justified when you need to find a qualified specialist who can perform a certain set of tasks. He or she should correspond as much as possible to a specific position in terms of professional, psychological, and personal indicators.
The firm that empowers a recruiting agency to handle HR issues, rather than focusing on building its own HR department from scratch or training future recruiters, may focus on attracting clients, expanding the scope of services provided, or simply running its own business.
Nevertheless, it is worth asking if such kind of cooperation is worthy, regardless of all possible benefits. How much can external recruitment really make a company’s life easier? And is it worth the money if the company may have internal recruitment?
In general, the recruiting process may be divided into two main approaches, internal and external. Both have pros and cons. Though the external recruiting has a few winning scores over moving the employee inside the company. When you decide to hire a professional within the organization remember in the end you will have another vacancy opened.
External recruitment is worth consideration due to a few valuable reasons.
Paying to get an employee is often more profitable in the long run. Shifting part of the workload to an external contractor will have a positive effect on the rate of hiring and on the functioning of general business processes within the company.
If you create a specific and accurate demand of what you expect from a candidate, then most likely the agency will be able to offer someone in the first week. Recruiters in agencies are in constant contact with candidates and companies, so they have a great idea of each segment of the market. This especially relates to the IT industry when the company sometimes needs professionals with particular skills. As a rule, large agencies have an extensive database of candidates, which is regularly updated.
There are many search approaches used by external agencies. The main sources include the classic LinkedIn, HeadHunter, GitHub, or Stack Overflow. Experienced recruiters know how to use extensions for each of them and are familiar with the peculiarities of the work algorithms.
Recruiters at the agency have the experience and resources to search through the entire market to find one person. When it comes to rare specialists, lists of speakers of specialized conferences, Twitter, IT communities, extensive networking, professional forums are used. Agencies have dozens of different search sources in their arsenal, and the list is regularly updated as soon as sourcing specialists find something new.
If you are thinking of starting to work with an external agency and you are from an IT business, try looking at Eastern Europe. The reason why it is mentioned is simple. The recent stats claim that this market is one of the fastest to grow offering highly skilled professionals. Most of them have proper education and high English proficiency, making such candidates quite compatible with their Western colleagues. Another advantage is the wage, the amount in the cheque for the Eastern European professional would be less but the work will be done on a very high level.
The absence of a personnel selection system is most often due to a lack of competence or unwillingness, deficiency of motivation of responsible employees and management. The external agency is the solution in such a case.
Should you wish to start working with an external agency, which is highly professional in the Eastern Europe IT market, try contacting DNA325. The guys are pros in what they do, and hundreds of satisfied companies are solid proof.
