How labour shortage becomes a long-term trend

“Finding, attracting and retaining personnel is becoming increasingly difficult”

“The phrase ‘There will be people, there will be business’ sounds relevant for everyone in the current conditions of an acute personnel shortage. Finding, retaining and engaging personnel is becoming increasingly difficult. The period for filling a vacancy in the last two years has varied from two months to six months,” Director of the Kazan branch of hh.ru Albina Sultanova opened a meeting with these words.

The CEO and HR managers discussed the problem of personnel shortage in the Russian market and existing methods for solving it.

Thus, today there are only three vacancies per vacancy — “these are not responses, these are just resumes that are on the website.” At the moment, the Russian market lacks 1.6 million specialists. Of these, 10% are low-skilled personnel, 55% are semi-skilled, 35% are highly skilled. According to experts, by 2030 this number may increase to 2-4 million people, and 90% of them will be semi- and highly skilled workers. Over the past two years, the number of offers from employers has increased by 74%, while for resumes this figure has reached only 17%.

“Sometimes this happens: a recruiter finds a person, brings him to the company, brings him to the workplace. The person works for half a day and does not return. Or, on the contrary, everything is great for the person. He is brought to the workplace, wonderful, comfortable conditions are created — there is tea, coffee, cookies, team building, company birthdays. He works for a year, then says that he is tired and quits,” said Sultanova.

And, according to the speakers' presentation, a number of factors affect the shortage of personnel. Among them are the demographic crisis, a decrease in the number of labour migrants, the outflow of talent from Russia abroad, partial military mobilisation in 2022, structural changes in the economy and excess mortality. And these are only external circumstances without taking into account the behaviour of employers.

“We see that the situation with the shortage is not changing, this is a long-term trend,” emphasised Director of the company's brand centre Nina Osovitskaya. “The shortage leads, firstly, to the fact that the time it takes to fill a vacancy is increasing significantly. Two out of three companies noted that the time it takes to fill vacancies has increased significantly. The second is, of course, a positive trend that is a consequence of this shortage. This is that the companies themselves, employers, and managers have become more flexible in relation to requirements. We are now seeing more of a focus on skills and a rejection of some insignificant requirements related to any specific education, certain work experience, and especially with some demographic characteristics that do not directly affect the efficiency and results of employees.”

“Without waiting for the employee to quit”

The first step to solving the problem of shortage for many companies was surveys of employees and applicants — after all, how can you improve conditions when you don't know what needs to be improved?

“Today, the trend for openness is actually no longer a trend, but a necessity. And this is a very large and labour intensive job. The trend today is definitely to ‘ask,’” Deputy General Director of UD Group and Director of Organizational Development says Maria Pyzhyanova.

Other speakers also agreed with the need to survey employees. However, this can often be hindered by banal fear, deputy head of the Kazan Executive Committee, head of the HR Policy Department Irina Bochkova shared her own experience:

“When we first started doing this work, we really wanted to ask the employees who left why they left, what was wrong, what they didn't like. Honestly, it's very scary to ask about this. When we conducted an engagement assessment for the first time, we were worried because we didn't know what the employees would say later, whether we would be able to cope at all. So it was very difficult at first.”

However, the fears turned out to be in vain: the former employees answered very willingly, Bochkova assured. In her experience, up to 80% of those who quit or expressed such a desire agree to talk to their ex-employer.

“Often an employee comes and says that he is not satisfied with his salary. It is very easy to leave with such a reason, ‘You told me you can't ask for a salary, it's useless to negotiate with you, so I'll leave easily, no one owes anyone anything.’ But when we started this survey, it turned out that it wasn't. The first reason for many was the uneven distribution of the workload, heavy workload and professional fatigue, because you need to constantly adapt to the situation. Therefore, we must react flexibly to everything. People get tired,” she convinced the audience.

In general, Bochkova urged to communicate more with employees:

“Don't be afraid to ask your employees, don't be afraid to analyse. Evaluation is the signal when you can make changes in the process, without waiting for the employee to quit. When we conducted a survey in the first year, we were shocked: 90% did not know what goals we were moving towards.”

“If your salary is not competitive, you will endlessly talk about the meanings”

Finding out about the shortcomings of managers is the first thing. However, the speakers wondered what to do with this information next. Moreover, an HR employee involved in talent acquisition strategy may simply not have the authority to implement employee requests.

“No matter how much HR is excited, jumping above one's head if there is no team within the company that is capable of openness is a very difficult story. Because this is a daily search for a balance between the opinion of the CEO, the top management team and the comfort of employees who are able and willing to speak out,” Pyzhyanova drew the attention of her colleagues.

Not many people found a solution to this problem.

“What do we do with these survey results? The head of a specific department has obligations: to prepare an organisational improvement plan. With all the feedback, with all the suggestions, the head must synthesise and present a plan. A plan of what needs to be changed. If the head does not have enough authority or resources, this plan is included in the plan of a larger head, and so on. Over 70% of the events included in the plan are implemented within a year,” First deputy general director of Nizhnekamskneftekhim Artur Gizzatullin shared his experience.

A little later, Pyzhyanova responded to these words: they say that not all companies have the resources that, despite Bochkova’s arguments, are a key factor in attracting and retaining employees.

Maria Pyzhyanova said that in their organisation, employees are asked three questions as part of research:

• “Where do I work?” — this is about the company’s brand;
• “Who do I work with?” — this is about management;
• “Why am I doing this?” — a question about money.

“If there is no answer to the third question... <...> If your salary is not competitive and not plus 30% to the market in key deficit positions, you will endlessly talk about engagement programs and meanings, but you will never ensure the sustainability of the team,” Pyzhyanova is sure.

What should those who have no money do? The speaker answered –optimise the budget:

“I would simply not invest in some aspects. In a crisis, competencies are needed that will ensure results here and now — any business needs them. Within the company, with its cost price, with a product that has a certain margin, among personnel, you will still have to compete in money.”