Tackling recruitment and retention challenges

Low levels of unemployment, a reduced candidate pool and the skills shortage continue to challenge employers to fill their vacancies. In such a competitive market, employers are also trying their hardest not to lose staff. 

The July 2022 UK Reward Management survey, conducted by ECA’s partners at Paydata analysed the recruitment and retention challenges faced by electrical contractors. The results reflect the huge impact faced by electrical employers with 100% experiencing labour shortages and a lack of candidates. 

It is clear from the results that candidates within electrical contracting are in demand. Employers experienced candidates withdrawing once they had engaged in the recruitment process, mostly before interview, but also post interview and before job offer. 

This is indicative that in a tight labour market, it is increasingly important to implement quick decision-making and good post-interview communication to ensure that candidates are not snatched up by competitors.

Table 1: Recruitment and Retention Challenges

 Retaining employees was also problematic for employers with individuals regularly threatening to leave. Electrical employers are responding to these recruitment and retention challenges with the most obvious strategy to raise wages. 

They are doing this for both new hires and the existing workforce with 86% of respondents offering new recruits up to 20% higher salaries than current incumbents and 70% offering existing employees increased salaries.

Employers are also looking beyond just pay to deal with staffing challenges by advertising the wider reward package (50%) and by analysing the results of exit interviews (63%) to understand why employees are leaving the organisation. Employers in the electrical contracting industry also made more use of employee referrals, which are more common within this industry than other sectors.

Table 2: Strategies to overcome Recruitment and Retention challenges

More widely it is interesting to note that the CIPD Labour Market Outlook Winter 21-22 survey found that employers across all sectors were tackling these challenges by advertising more jobs flexibly and looking to improve employee wellbeing.  There is certainly a need for employers to implement a variety of methods to address the ongoing challenges presented by the current labour market.

Paydata will shortly be launching this year’s comprehensive ECA salary and benefits survey for our larger members.

If you would like the summary findings of the summer Paydata report or have any questions on the above, please contact the ECA Employee Relations Advisory Service at employeerelations@eca.co.uk or 020 7313 4800.