Interview with Sandor Bodnar, Managing Director Romania, Hays: Right now, anyone who will try to put people in the first place will win in the long-term perspective

The recruitment and human resources solutions providers are in the spotlight in the current global context, implementing different processes needed by companies to address the remote work procedures, different adjustments to the new labor climate, lay offs or on the contrary, hiring and reconfiguration of business operations.

We talked to Sandor Bodnar, Managing Director Romania of specialist recruitment company Hays about how are all the above reflecting on the company’s workflow, how the context is perceived by the company’s clients and which are the market’s perspectives.

Adjusting fast – Developing products tailored for the current market needs

It is probably never realistic to prepare for such times we are currently experiencing however I must say I am pretty pleased with how we have managed to adjust to the new business climate. Hays both in Romania and globally fully shifted into remote work and enabled all our staff to effectively work from home.

We took all necessary percussions to keep our own staff safe but also our clients and candidates. We provided solutions for our clients to enable to run the whole recruitment process fully online – starting from online job intake meetings with our hiring managers, through video interviews for candidates, to signing agreement via DocuSign and issues of course all electronic invoices. Also we have launched a series of guides both for clients and candidates on how to work from home, run recruitment activity virtually, efficient onboarding advice for new employees and effectively manage staff.

As a lifelong trusted partner in white collar recruitment, Hays constantly seeks opportunities to support individuals and business. We have just implemented a new free online training portal that allows employers and their teams to develop and perform even in challenging times. The engaging content which includes videos, quizzes and assessments focuses on three main topics: remote working, wellbeing and health and safety.

Hays Learning has been designed specifically to support staff and organizations during the Coronavirus crisis and has a lot of benefits:

• Access anywhere – 16 free courses available to complete wherever your team is working
• Training where it’s needed most – the Learning Management System helps you assign training, track your team’s completions and create your own training programmes
• Engaging content – training comprises of videos, quizzes and assessments – frequently updated for relevance

I would encourage you to sign your teams up for our free training packages, and assign training to help them perfect their home-working practices, prioritise their wellbeing and learn vital health and safety tips around COVID-19 (https://hayslearning.eu/).

The HR landscape gets busy in several industries strategic for the current context

Data from LinkedIn reveals software & IT services (up 17.3%), healthcare (up 12.6%) and finance (up 10.3%) increased their hiring activity significantly during the last week of March, so basically during the period where we already had a full impact of the virus caused changes. Healthcare jobs are booming with increased demand for services, our Life Sciences recruitment specialism is pretty busy.

Within our IT specialism, we have had a number of inbound enquiries in relation to candidates with remote working technologies (virtualisation, Cloud & Office 365) experience in order to support mobile working. Some SSC & BPO, call centres are also increasing their need because more jobs are compatible with remote work. These sectors demonstrate that there are still opportunities out there however hiring decisions are probably given more careful thoughts than compared to pre-COVID19 times.

Employer branding still counts, employees become sensitive to job stability perspective

For sure Employer Branding does count – now the employees will be more thoughtful on changing jobs as there will be some market uncertainty, but once we will overcome this difficult period employees will remember the companies who treated their staff good. Right now, anyone who will try to put people in the first place and as the most valuable asset will win in the long term perspective. It will not matter of you provide fruits or flexi time any longer but if you give the stability of employment.

If you look at what is already happening in a number of markets, you can already see that companies with great Employer Branding have come up with initiatives about putting their people in the first place – moreover others too.

The salary will still be a key factor as this is the main hygienic pillar for most of the people. However we have just finished a representative survey in Romania at the end of March about job changing motivators and here is what we have found! 31% mentioned career development/promotion as the primary reason for changing their jobs last time, followed by 26% making a move for a more exciting job scope or project. Remuneration was only at the 5^th place (9%) in the list of major drivers. So there is nothing new about salary being still important but it clearly shows this alone will not move people from one company to another.

BPO and SSC start looking at involving potential workforce from outside the bigger cities via remote working processes

When the remote work will become a standard for everyone, companies could switch their working model and implement more of a hot desk approach with a reduce offices space. Also, people will be more willing to meet outside the company, not only use conference rooms as we will be fully exercise that the remote conference in not much different than the standard one. Of course, people still need to meet and discuss but for sure the number of unproductive and long meeting will be cut in the future.

We sure we will see a further development of online recruitments tools for onboarding and training as well as knowledge build virtual centers to upskill employees.

The recruitment world will be more open to opportunities and borders will not be any longer such an obstacle in employing anyone with the right skills and the one who is a perfect match for our organizations.

I have recently come across an interesting article linked to this about potential changes in the SSC & BPO segment. Big cities like Bucharest or Cluj-Napoca have obviously significantly higher cost of living therefore candidates living here typically have higher salary expectations compared to the ones from smaller cities or rural areas. This sector is clearly centered around the large cities but now could start looking at involving potential workforce from outside the bigger cities via remote working processes. As now the whole industry can carry on doing their jobs from home, this may be possible also after COVID19. An interesting point from a number of aspects, e.g. cost efficiency and labor market participation.