Hiring difficulties are set to persist into 2022 and candidates will continue to be in a powerful position to negotiate what they want from an employer, Glassdoor has predicted.
Organisations that embrace opportunities to rethink “old” ways of hiring, employee engagement and how they conduct business will be the most likely to be successful next year, the insight company’s Workplace Trends for 2022 report for the UK, France and Germany says.
“2022 is looking to continue to be a job seeker’s market and the tight labour conditions will empower employees to demand more of their employers,” says Glassdoor economist Lauren Thomas.
“The outlook for the economy is still uncertain but it is clear that companies need to focus on employee experience and engagement to attract and retain talent.”
The report suggests that the labour market will remain tight and that the competition for candidates organisations have experienced in 2021 should be seen as “a template for what to expect in 2022”.
Reasons for this include a “lingering” pandemic, reduced availability of retirees, and quicker-than-expected recovery in customer demand.
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“The imbalance between labour supply and demand is large enough that even a moderate improvement in conditions would not be enough to make it easy to hire again. There simply is no silver bullet to fix labour shortages,” the report says.
“Even previously touted changes such as withdrawing the furlough programmes or implementing new visa programmes are unlikely to make a sufficiently large dent to return the job market to a period of easy hiring.
“Combined with structural shifts shrinking the workforce like an ageing population or disruptions to UK immigration post-Brexit, it will be just as hard to hire and retain workers in 2022 as it was in 2021.”
2022 is looking to continue to be a job seeker’s market and the tight labour conditions will empower employees to demand more of their employers” – Lauren Thomas, Glassdoor
Glassdoor suggests offering permanent wage increases rather than temporary hiring bonuses, and urges organisations to focus on employee engagement to minimise attrition.
It also expects that greater acceptance of remote working will boost access to top talent, but at a higher price point.
“This increased competition means employers need to provide more attractive offers, with many turning to boosting salaries,” it says.
“But this need to raise salaries runs headlong into the location-based pay policies many employers have established. For instance, London-based employees in the UK and Paris-based workers in France have historically seen much higher wages than their compatriots. As competition for talent – remote or not – increases, will employers stick to their guns?
“If Amazon and Google are competing for the same software engineer in a lower cost-of-labour market, will they insist on paying a location-adjusted salary or will they offer a higher salary to prevent top talent from going to a competitor?”
Employers are also set to prioritise action on diversity and inclusion, and will be more transparent about their progress, as many job seekers rate a diverse workforce as important when evaluating companies and job offers.
An employer’s “community” is also expected to “expand beyond company walls”, as candidates crave flexibility over working hours and location.
“As the pandemic drags into 2022 and more employees, especially new ones, navigate a remote or hybrid workplace, employees will increasingly turn to coworkers or industry peers to seek out community and get more transparency into their companies and industries,” the report says. This means recognising that employees may seek out professional communities outside their employers, or ask their employers to do better in supporting them.”
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