7 Regional HR Trends for 2019, Southeast Europe
The wave of HR industry digitalization slowly get in with us, while employees’ experience and opinion become more and more important. Therefore, many companies will continue to experiment with flexible working hours and many other benefit solutions for their employees.
Although some trends continued from last year, such as export of local workforce and war for talents, 2019 brings us new things that will marked HR activities of regional companies.
1. Import of the workforce, besides export
Labor migration from the region to developed countries is a trend that will continue in the upcoming period. The number of deficient professions is rising, and the impression is that the wider public is increasingly concerned with this issue, which points to its significance. It is also interesting to see when our region, besides export, will start to import the workforce. It seems that this will start next year.
2. Flexible working time
Large, medium-sized and small companies in the region are courageously experimenting with flexible working hours or work from home, and it will be continued in the future. The reasons for that are clear: firstly, satisfied, fulfilled and motivated employees give the most, they are loyal and their word of mouth best talks about how the company treats them; secondly, it is very important for ever-increasing millennials whose voices are becoming more and more heard.
Regard this, throughout the world there are examples of shortening the working week to 4 days, or shortening the working day to 6 hours. However, it is certain that our region has not matured for such a thing, and we will leave it to be a trend for twenty-twenty-some.
3. Digitalization of HR
The wave of digitization of the HR function coming from the United States to Europe slowly but surely reach our region too. There are more and more examples of automated processing of CVs, the use of applications during candidate testing, real-time feedback applications, on-line trainings and automation of administrative tasks.
4. Employer branding
It is certain that in the next year companies in our region will do even more by looking at their reputation in order to improve the experience and opinion of their employees and also of those whose opinion the companies care. The impression is that some companies in the region are ready to switch from a simple tracking of network representation to certain form of controlled management of their own reputation.
5. Modular learning
In the part of training and development, a shift to combined learning programs is evident, which, in addition to classroom training, increasingly involves on-line platforms, learning through play, virtual simulations and similar. Such programs require continuity, so regional companies most often opt for modular development programs and solid long-term partnerships with external partners.
6. Profit oriented HR
One specificity related to a region that is not a characteristic of a more developed part of the world is that companies, even large ones, still tend to calculate and strictly orient themselves towards profit – to the extent that they are often lightly fired those employees who “work too long for them” or those whose salary grew year by year and reached the level “which should be optimized”. That is why outplacement programs continue to flourish, which help (?) fired employees to easily overcome difficult moments in their careers and find new opportunities. It is certain that this trend will continue in the next year, especially having in mind expected merging in several sectors (banking, ICT, energetics).
7. War for talents
Finally, competitive landscape for recruiting and retaining talented employees, or war for talents, will continue. Yet, it is less pronounced in our region than in the developed world, except perhaps in innovative and fast-growing ICT companies. That is why those companies are the most obvious examples of improving the working environment and working conditions – from onboarding programs, through mindfulness room, to worthy rewarding trips, tickets for sports or music spectacles.