Member Article

The Changing Balance of Power in Recruitment

Izzy Cutts, Managing Director of Page Personnel, talks about how changes in the workplace are driving power back into the hands of the candidate

The workplace as we know it is changing. In today’s world, a competitive salary is no longer enough to attract and retain the best talent, as businesses start to adopt a range of strategies to ensure they are perceived as attractive employers. Recently, for example, we’ve seen companies make a more public effort in D&I, pilot reverse mentoring programmes and even offer dry cleaning services to their workers – something practically unheard of decades ago. These developments represent an important shift occurring in the workplace today, with businesses putting in more and more effort to ensure employees are happy.

Perhaps the two most significant factors driving this change are shrinking unemployment and changing attitudes towards the work-life balance. The impact of these factors is profound – affecting the decision-making process of candidates from the first time they consider a company until well after they have taken up the position – as evidence of the two-way process recruitment has become today. It’s an interesting phenomenon open to a number of interpretations, but in its purest form this can be seen as a rebalance of power. Rather than candidates selling themselves to employers, we’re beginning to see the reverse, as employers work harder to win the candidate’s approval, particularly with younger workers.

Unemployment has roughly halved since 2012[1] and the number of people currently in work is at a high that hasn’t been seen since the 1970s [2]. While this is something to be celebrated, it has reshaped the arena of employment and presents new challenges for employers and workers alike. Having the fewest people out of work for over four decades means employers could start to find themselves struggling to find suitably qualified candidates for the positions that are vacant, as the pool of available candidates shrinks. All of this is affected further by a real sense of uncertainty, true not just of workers in the United Kingdom, but across the world. Currently, the status of global markets and international relations in the future is unclear, with many experts unsure of what tomorrow will hold. For workers, this sense of uncertainty will sometimes translate into an aversion to change, with some candidates preferring to remain steadfast in their current positions rather than seeking out new opportunities. In turn, this increases the pressures posed by the surplus of vacancies in the job market, by further reducing the number of qualified candidates willing to change employers.

In some respects, this can be considered the practical factor that is driving power into the hands of workers, but there’s an important perceptual shift occurring, too. This involves attitudes towards the work-life balance, and how lines are blurring between these parts of a worker’s life – which used to be more distinct. Whereas before, attractive employers were simply those who could pay well and offer shorter commutes, employers must now offer flexible working hours, health or dental insurance and a range of other benefits, to make it easier for their employees to manage work around their life at home. Increasingly, workers are looking for more flexible employers who are willing to compromise on issues such as work style and office dress, and who improve their workers’ out-of-hours lives as well. While this represents a change in tastes, the outcome is nevertheless the same, in that both processes contribute to the new working culture we’re witnessing today. In short, we’ve seen some power renegotiated back to the candidate, as a growing number of conditions must be met by the company before the candidate is prepared to consider them as an employer. An employer is now expected (if not required) to work harder to sell themselves to prospective candidates, or risk losing them to competitors. The demographic in which this rebalance of power is clearest is with young workers, and millennials in particular. Nowadays, candidates are aware that there may be multiple companies actively trying to recruit them, and as we are currently seeing a ‘job rich’ market, they are increasingly empowered to switch employers should they think anything’s amiss.

The impact of these shifts is also reflected through changes in the role of the recruiter. At Page Personnel, for example, we work with all parties far beyond simply placing the candidate. From end-to-end, the entire process takes around six months, where we remain in contact with everyone to ensure we’re facilitating a lasting transition for the candidate and client alike.

There is no doubt that an increased effort by employers represents an interesting cultural change, but this doesn’t have to be seen as a negative. Rather, it should be seen as an intelligent and responsive shift to the changing demands of the workforce – and one that brings many rewards in business. It’s long been known that inequality in someone’s work-life balance has negative effects on a worker’s performance, and so helping to redress this through soft benefits like parental leave and training programmes to accelerate promotion, can have positive effects all-round; driving talent retention and increasing the productivity of workers.

One practical strategy businesses can adopt is improving the standard of the onboarding process provided for new employees. Beyond helping new workers into the roles and responsibilities of their new position, employers need to integrate them into their teams through personal introductions in the workplace and social events. Not only will this give workers the best possible start, helping to reduce staff turnover, it will also increase employee engagement which is crucial for a happy, healthy workplace. It’s a time of great change for businesses, but a positive one to be a part of. With fewer candidates actively searching for employment, employers face new challenges when trying to fill positions, amongst a workforce which is increasingly aware of its worth. As such, certain powers are being driven away from companies and back to the worker, who now enjoys a range of additional benefits from their workplace. However, the businesses with a proper strategy in place to handle this shift in power will succeed in this changing climate. Employees are the lifeblood of any company so it’s important to attract them, and retain them.

[1] Office of National Statistics, 2019 [2] Full Fact, 2018

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Page Personnel .