A reviving economy means skilled staff will be sought after again, writes Val Leveson
The New Zealand economy is reviving after the recession and that means businesses need to look at increasing their staffing to keep ahead of growth.
Chris Riley, general manager of Manpower New Zealand, says his company's annual survey reveals that skills shortages are persisting in key roles, despite the availability of job seekers as a result of the recession.
In a statement, he says: "The percentage of New Zealand employers finding it difficult to fill positions has dropped significantly since 2008 as a result of recession, falling from 47 per cent in 2008 to 39 per cent in 2009 and hitting 30 per cent this year."
He explains that the lower number reflects the fact that New Zealand is yet to see the full effect of economic recovery.
"However, we're beginning to see signs of recovery in the New Zealand jobs market, with unemployment falling across the region. And while the results of our Talent Shortage Survey show a fall in the level of skills shortages over the last year, a reviving economy means it won't take long before the war for talent heats up again," says Riley.
Even during recession, New Zealand was experiencing chronic skills shortages, he says.
"Engineers and sales representatives have remained at the top of New Zealand's 'most wanted' skills list for the past five years and this shortage is only going to become more profound in recovery. It's clearly time to make a change to employer strategies in order to cope with such long-term shortages," he says.
Riley told the Herald that he would advise employers to "think outside of what they normally do".
He says New Zealand companies tend to look for the perfect candidate who can tick off all the requirements.
"Companies should be looking at things differently, and instead of looking for the perfect candidate, they need to look at what skills are essential for the position and which are 'like to haves' that are teachable."
This means that it's time to apply flexibility to the employment approach and "make some brave decisions".
Manpower recently released a white paper entitled Teachable Fit: A New Approach for Easing the Talent Mismatch. It advises employers to broaden their search for candidates to include industry migrants, location migrants, role changers and workforce entrants. Training and development are key to successfully tapping into these talent pools.
Riley says, "A candidate could have less than 90 per cent of what you want - he could be at 50, 60 or 70 per cent. The key is for the employer to identify what is needed now and what the company can do to train the person to achieve the rest."
He makes the point that New Zealand is healthier as far as skills shortages go than the rest of the region, but it's "only a matter of time before the country catches up".
At the moment the New Zealand economy is tight in certain areas, but companies need to be prepared for when the upswing really hits.
"Companies have to realise that the right people are not always available when you need them - timing is everything. Organisations need to recognise the issues early on and deal with them early to get value. This takes foresight."
Riley stipulates that this sort of approach to employment policy can't just be something embraced by the human resources department.
"The whole organisation has to give its backing - particularly the hiring managers. Everybody has to be on the same page and hold to the same policy otherwise there will be a lot of time and energy wasted with the disconnect that ensues. Alignment is key."
Another thing that is key is to ensure you have teaching available - this means time and money to develop a candidate. Riley says mentoring is probably a good place to start, particularly if you're a smaller company with fewer resources.
He says it's important to note that as more jobs come available, employees have more choices of where to go - for the past 12 to 15 months, many have felt that they're merely cogs in the wheel and organisations need to deal with that.
"People remember how they've been treated. They also remember if they've been promised training and aren't receiving it.
"There are no half measures, management has to follow through."
Riley also says that if people are feeling that they're learning in their job, they're going to feel challenged and valued and have incentive to remain with the company because it's showing interest in their development.
"EVPs (Employment Value Propositions) come into this. Companies are more likely to retain staff who are feeling like they're growing in the job."
His main advice is to act now. "Get on the front foot. There's not too much depth and volume in the New Zealand market. All you need is for a company to start a big IT project and employ the best in the field to create a skills shortage. Not having the talent you need stalls your growth."
Carmen Bailey, director of Emergent & Co, agrees. She says she's definitely been seeing signs of resurgence in the employment field. "Our advice to our clients is that they have to work quickly again."
She says the last 12 months have been "lethargic". "When people needed to employ staff, they used their own networks. People knew people. Now that things are more fluid, companies are relying on companies like ours again. The fact that the networks don't seem to be working as well would indicate that the skills shortages are back."
Bailey says for the past 12 months or so employers have taken their time with employing people, taking them through various interviews and doing psychometric testing.
"What I'm telling them is that it's fine to be careful, but you need to work quickly, even with all that in place. We're seeing candidates getting interest from more than one company at a time. There are growing opportunities for them."
Bailey says she's seen a massive increase in jobs for the HR side of things. "Companies are ramping up again - HR and marketing are usually the hardest hit in a recession, the fact that we had 20 HR placements in the last four months says a lot." Bailey says on the marketing side things are "slightly up", but not as much as on the HR side.
She says: "Our order flow is now similar to what it was in 2006 - which is a big change from what it's been in the past 18 months."
General manager of Hudson Roman Rogers says the skills shortages never actually went away - they were just not as apparent during the recession. He says he was talking to some business people recently and they expressed surprise at how much pay certain people taking up senior roles are demanding.
"There seems to be a disconnect between hiring managers and candidates as far as pay is concerned."
Rogers says his advice is to identify key people and positions and to not assume your company is paying at market rate.
"You need to look at the benchmark of the industry concerned - you may get a surprise."
He says you should also look at your staff development. "Interview your staff - find out what they want to do, in what areas they want to grow. Also, once you have put them through a course, make sure you use their new skills.
"It's very typical for a company to, for example, finance an employee through an MBA and then not to let that person utilise those skills on the job. If you do that, the employee is likely to go elsewhere."
When planning a career path with an employee, it's important to look at ways they can develop. "Career progression doesn't have to be into management - you can move laterally, more technical skills could be encouraged.
"It's about having the best staff doing what they're best at. And it's about keeping these staff on board."
