Treasure Hunters Club. How to Win the Battle for Talents

To successfully implement the digital transformation in 2019, the business will continue to actively hire IT staff, the demand for which continues to grow. However, other business areas, for example, sales and marketing, continue to develop and actively employ staff as well. According to a survey, 52% of companies plan to increase the staff in 2019. A year earlier there were 45% of such companies.

Both the leaders and world giants of industries and developing startups set a task of hiring talented employees. Companies pay more and more attention to the design of their offices and their employees’ comfort or cancel the dress code and introduce a flexible work schedule.

HR-units will change to attract the best professionals and meet the growing needs of the company’s business. What are the leading employers doing to win this race for talent in 2019? Here are the main trends and changes that we will see in leading companies this year.

An HR-manager is now a sales manager

Finding a candidate is becoming easier than attracting them to your team and an HR-manager is no more a hunter, they are a sales manager. The tasks of working on counter-offers and the professional sale of their company are an integral part of the work of an effective HR manager. The competition for candidates will continue to grow, and companies will struggle to reduce the percentage of refusals of offers.

Focus on EVP (Employment Value Proposition)

A value proposition is a set of benefits that the employer offers to the candidate. The HR brand becomes an important criterion for a candidate when choosing an employer, and even small companies begin to work on how potential employees and colleagues on the market see them from the outside. The biggest challenge of 2019 is to make the candidate accept the job offer of your company.

Diversity of teams

The trend that has come primarily from the big players such as IBM and Google — teams including the same type of people are less effective. The focus needs to be on the diversity of experience and skills of different team members and the company as a whole. A steady trend, which will persist in 2018, is to hire different candidates, all of whom are necessarily united by common values.

Automating routine selection functions

The automated collection (parsing) of resumes is gaining wider and wider usage (for example, Potok, Amazing Hiring). This is a tool that allows not to waste time on searching for resumes. The first steps are being taken in the field of robotic interviews (automatic call centres, Robot Vera). New video interview services are being tested. The registration of the data about candidates is becoming automated. Such automation appears to be the most efficient in the mass selection segment, where the competition for candidates is high and hiring speed directly affects the number of employees accepted.

Training becomes the part of the selection function

Modern companies are developing quickly. Every day new information appears, knowledge quickly becomes obsolete. Education by short iterations on a “here and now” basis is gaining popularity. Instead of constantly searching for “ideal” candidates, companies invest in training and begin to train and retrain employees. It is worth noting that education also goes online (E-Learning, chatbots, etc.)

Large companies have their own training centres, many of them work not only for their own employees but also for employees of other companies.

Agile instead of a strict hierarchy

Many companies abandon the hierarchical organization of work and go into Agile’s flexible methodologies or its counterparts, and it’s not just about cutting-edge IT companies, but also about conservative banks, retail, FMCG. Companies become more flexible and implement changes more quickly. The percentage of staff working in freelance or part-time employment is increasing.

Growing competition for talent leads the company to use innovative approaches to work with staff. To hire the best specialists, HR-function becomes more technologic — both in the field of search and training and in the automation of routine selection functions.

The number of CVs on job sites is constantly growing. But there is still a lack of candidates who are really professional and matching to the corporate culture and values ​​of companies. Good professionals are valued by all market players and are still employed and receive a competitive salary. When entering the labour market, such candidates have two or more job offers. Therefore, despite a large number of job seekers, it is not possible to hire a “cool” specialist for salaries below the market rate.