UK organisation target grey workers to aid recruitment difficulties

Organisations are responding to recruitment difficulties and new age regulations by adapting their recruitment and retention policies and actively targeting older workers, according to the CIPDís annual Recruitment, Retention and Turnover Survey. The study shows that 70% of employers are actively seeking to recruit people aged between 55 and pension age, while 31% of organisations are seeking to recruit people already entitled to the state pension. The research also dispels the myth that employers donít want to recruit young people as the survey found 74% are actively trying to recruit 16-24 year olds.

Nicola Monson, author of the report, says, ìIt is encouraging to see that so many organisations are introducing age diverse practices ahead of the new regulations in October. This enables employers to tap into the relatively unused talent pool of older workers to overcome recruitment difficulties and help build an age diverse workforce that can add real value to business, not just in terms of older workers but all age groups. However in order to recruit fairly and remove any age bias there is still much that can be done, for example removing any age-related criteria from the application process.î

The research will be discussed at the CIPDís Annual Recruitment and Retention Conference, on 21 June 2006, where delegates can hear what other organisations are doing to overcome recruitment difficulties.

Recruitment difficulties
The survey also finds that organisations are continuing to experience recruitment difficulties, with more than eight out of ten employers reporting difficulties in finding staff (82%). A lack of the necessary specialist skills are cited as the key reason for recruitment difficulties (68%). In order to overcome this 66% of organisations appointed people who have the potential to grow but donít currently have all thatís required. The survey also found that providing additional training to allow internal staff to fill posts had the most positive impact (58%).

Nicola Monson continues, ìWhile it is concerning that organisations are still reporting recruitment difficulties despite increased unemployment and an influx of migrant workers, the survey does suggest that many organisations appreciate the importance of additional training and the value of developing their internal talent pool as a solution to recruitment problems.î

Other findings:

Migrant Workers
- Organisations are continuing to look beyond UK workers to fill vacancies ñ 15% are targeting migrant workers from EU accession states. This was seen to have a positive impact on recruitment difficulties (48%).

- A further one in ten (12%) are recruiting in foreign countries and bring workers over to the UK.

E-recruitment
- Almost two thirds (64%) of organisations are now using e-recruitment. The main business objective reported for using this method was reducing costs (71%), followed by broadening the selection pool (60%) and reducing the time it takes to hire (47%).

- The survey also found 75% of organisations now use corporate websites to attract applicants, compared to just 67% last year.

- Despite almost half (47%) of organisations agreeing that e-recruitment will replace paper based applications in the future, the same number believe online recruitment is increasing the number of unsuitable applicants.

Labour Turnover trends
There is a slight increase in labour turnover ñ the rate reported for 2005 is 18%, compared with 16% in 2004 and 2003.

The private sector continues to experience the highest labour turnover rates (23%). Within this sector, hotels, catering and leisure organisations report the highest rate of employee turnover at 43%.

The main reasons for employee turnover are change of career (46%), promotion outside the organisation (45%) and level of pay (34%).

Redundancies (ten or more) have increased from 22% last year to 28%.

Recruitment freezes have increased over the past 12 months from 19% to 24%.

- Public sector organisations are experiencing more problems recruiting staff with 89% reporting difficulties, in comparison to the voluntary sector where 13% fewer organisations are reporting recruitment difficulties.