Second jobs for many families as gas and electricity prices will have to rise before again by the end of the year. Heads of the six main energy companies have denied that they are profiting from high oil and gas prices. Average household bills could reach £1500 per annum by the end of the year, prices have already climbed 14% this year.
At the opening session of this year’s CIPD Recruitment and Retention Conference, held at Olympia on Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th June, chief economist John Philpott ran through the headline findings of the Institute’s newly-published recruitment, retention & turnover report and proffered his views of how the rest of 2008 might pan out.
The new survey reflected activity for the calendar year 2007 - a year in which the proportion of UK organisations experiencing recruitment difficulties increased further from 84% to 86%. Lack of skills was seen as the primary reason for these difficulties (cited by 70% of respondents), while the commonest way of addressing them was to appoint unqualified people who were seen to have potential (75%).
Retention problems also increased by a couple of points (from 78% to 80%), largely due to career-related issues such as people getting promoted outside their current employer, becoming frustrated by lack of internal development opportunities or seeking a career change. But, despite pay only coming fourth on the list of stated concerns, the majority (53%) of organisations chose to address retention problems by increasing pay levels, with only 30% seeking to address the issue of work-life balance as a potential retention tool.
Altered working practices (including more use of flexible working) and a greater focus on the employer brand both featured among the various initiatives developed in response to recruitment challenges - as did the increased use of recruitment consultancies (whose annual turnover has all but doubled from £13bn to £25bn in a decade).
The shift towards e-recruitment was also clear (although with a relatively limited uptake of Web 2.0 technologies, currently used by fewer than 15% of organisations). By way of contrast, the majority of employers still used highly traditional final selection methods (such as interviews based on CVs or application forms, and competency-based interviews).
On completing his round-up of the retrospective survey, John turned his thoughts to 2008 and beyond. He said that the latest Labour Market Survey indicated a growing downward trend in recruitment activity, and that unemployment was now rising against a background of much slower economic growth. (From that perspective, the next twelve to eighteen months are likely to be pretty tough for everyone.)
But a slacker labour market is unlikely to make things easier for recruitment practitioners - if anything, the opposite. With the underlying issue of competition for talent still a key factor (unlike in previous downturns), it could become harder than ever to identify and attract the right people.
John closed his session by conceding that he had something of a reputation as a doom-monger. But his final message was one of “gloom, rather than doom” - which, from an economist in the present climate, is probably about as upbeat as you’re going to get.
(The full report is available for download from the CIPD’s website - http://www.cipd.co.uk/.)
Article from www.r15.co.uk
