Companies in the situation of employee outflow
After the announcement of partial mobilization employers in Russia were faced with severe challenges regarding employees leaving the country. The findings of the survey indicate that employers reacted differently to the new circumstances.
“The labor market is facing a shock situation. Employers are currently at a loss due to employee outflow, including women, while no common practice has been established for this situation. Thus, employers’ decisions vary greatly and are often chaotic in nature” – Alexey Mironov, Chief Operating Officer, ANCOR.
Companies’ behavior has changed in recent months: while during the pandemic companies introduced remote work on a vast scale, today only 36% of employers offer remote work opportunities for employees who left the country. The same share of companies (36%) does not have an established policy and make decisions individually, 16%-part ways with their employees, only 3% offer paid leave and another 3% - unpaid leave. The greatest effort to retain employees is made by Russian companies (46% of them offer remote work opportunities) and small organizations of up to 300 people (43% offer remote work opportunities). Western companies, on the other hand, are not ready to save their teams (22% in this category decide to part ways with employees who left the country), the same pattern is seen in big organizations with over 5000 employees (32% in this category). Russian companies plan to recruit more women (23%) and remote workers (12%) while international companies choose to increase the proportion of women (18%) and temporary staff (11%).
Scale of employee outflow problem
54% of companies have encountered individual cases of employee departure. 24% didn’t note any employee outflow. 22% of employers reported seeing large numbers of staff leaving the country, with employers in e-commerce, software development and system integration, and Internet companies talking about it more often than others. Of those companies that were affected by the issue of the departure of workers (76% in total), 49% experienced a significant impact on business. More than others, companies with a small staff of of up to 300 people declared a significant effect from the departure of specialists, their share amounted to 20% of the workers faced with migration.
Departure of women
Surprisingly, 54% of companies faced the departure of women, although in the vast majority these were individual cases. A large outflow of female staff was most often reported by companies from the fields of software development and system integration, e-commerce. Also, additional information shows that the emigrated employees made their own decision to leave, and did not follow other family members.
How do companies respond to the outflow of employees?
Are foreign companies firing employees, while Russian ones are retaining their staff?
36% of companies are trying to keep the team and offer remote work opportunities. At the same time, Russian companies make the greatest efforts, among them this figure reached 46%. Small companies of up to 300 people are also aimed at retaining staff, they also offer remote work more often than others – 43%.
Foreign companies show less interest in retaining staff - 22% of them part ways with departing employees. Also, large corporations over 5,000 people complete relationships with employees more easily – among them, 32% are not ready to transfer staff to a remote location. In total, 16% of the total number of companies that are faced with t employee outflow, part ways with migrating employees.
How has the current situation affected the activity of search and selection of employees in companies?
In 47% of cases, hiring continues as usual. In 26% of cases, the search for new employees is planned only in exceptional cases. In 13%, the recruitment even increased, in 11% it decreased. And only 4% of respondents have hiring completely suspended. At the same time, companies began to face the absence of an employee from work on an already agreed offer - the candidate simply “disappears”. Also, male applicants often began to misinform recruiters, indicating in their resumes their readiness to work in an office in Moscow. In fact, it turns out that the person is not in the country, and he can only work remotely.
What is the reaction of the labor market?
31% of surveyed companies reported that nothing has changed. 29% of candidates are ready to consider only companies providing reservations. 26% focus exclusively on remote work. 22% consider proposals for a long time and cannot decide. The same number (22%), according to the experience of recruiters, are reluctant to make contact: they do not pick up the phone, do not answer in instant messengers - and this applies to both men and women. 17% are not ready to consider new offers, 11% are ready to work only “unofficially”, and 8% do not go to work after accepting an offer.
It is likely that the main difficulty for employers who continue to hire employees is the resistance of candidates. Not only their unwillingness to change jobs, but in general to enter a dialogue regarding a new offer. This is because applicants are in a very uncertain situation, and we are talking not only about men of military age, but also about women. It’s likely that recruiters will have to go to extreme lengths, greatly increasing the recruitment funnel, in order to eventually recruit the right number of people.
How will the hiring structure change?
According to 54% of company representatives, the hiring structure will remain the same. 15% expect more women to be hired – most of them are companies from e-commerce, agribusiness, financial services. 8% predict they will hire more older employees. 7% of respondents tend to increase the prevalence of temporary staff. Employers from real estate and construction, consumer goods, and the mining industry are planning to attract more workers on a temporary basis. It becomes strategically important for companies not to close business processes on any one employee. It will be easier for organizations that have succession programs to adapt to new realities. And, due to changes in the economy, there will be increased attention to female candidates and 50+ applicants.
At the same time, Russian companies are planning to hire more women (23%) and remote workers (12%) in the future, while foreign companies are choosing to increase the proportion of women (18% of respondents) and temporary staff (11%).