Human Resources

15-Oct-2008

The Monster Employment Index, which tracks online job opportunities, recorded a 62-point annual decline in HR positions, equivalent to a 32% drop in advertised positions. In September, the HR sector fell 31 index points, compared with August. And this is more startling when compared with an average eight-point drop across industry sectors in the UK (see top two graphs, right).

While overall opportunities are in decline, demand for interim staff has increased as organisations go through structural change and steer away from adding permanent head count. Peter Crush, deputy editor of Human Resources Magazine, told Recruiter: “For us it’s indicative of the economy and the way it’s going in terms of redundancies and mergers. Within that change, staff with organisational transformation experience play a big role.”

Heidi Waddington, managing director of Hays HR, told Recruiter the company has experienced increased demand in interim HR roles.

“We have noticed in the last few weeks the interim market has really picked up. People who can deal with redundancies and have experience of change management are particularly popular,” she explained.

Mike Henry, director at senior HR recruiter Optimus Consultants, has experienced a similar trend. He told Recruiter: “We’ve been more successful in contract work. For example, anything within employee relations, such as redundancy or restructuring.”

Salaries in the sector have remained level. Statistics from Michael Page International’s Human Resources Salary Survey show only marginal increases in key positions between 2007 and 2008. The highest growth was in learning and development roles, which increased by an average of 3% over a year.

Waddington said: “Learning and development roles are key, because you need to retain good people. In the current climate, the function becomes more important because they need a well motivated, happy team.”

Recruiters have noticed an increase in the number of candidates applying for positions in HR. Mark Harris, senior account manager of HR at job board www.simplyhrjobs.co.uk, told Recruiterthe site has had an increase in the number of applicants. “Candidate flow is up on last year, as well as registrations,” he said. The site has experienced a year-on-year growth in applications of 193%, from 1,464 to 4,295.

Reward and benefits positions are in increasing demand. Paul Duffield, partner at HR recruiter Frazer Jones, told Recruiter: “We have a specialist reward team and it has been busy beyond belief. There has been a strong increase in the past 18 months; there’s a premium for candidates in this field.”

Duffield attributed the increase in popularity of the roles to the commercial advantage of having a strong rewards team. “Reward was kept as part of a generalist skill set. Now these technical skills are more required, they are being separated out. The chief executives are seeing the power of having a strong reward professional to attract and retain talent,” he said.

This trend is backed up by research from Recruiter’ssister title, Employee Benefits. The magazine found that 10% of employees listed benefits as the most influential factor for retention and 21% listed it as the most important factor in recruitment.

News editor on Employee Benefits, Katrina McKeever, said: “Employee benefits is crucial for an organisation’s ability to recruit and retain staff. This is directly reflected in the number of staff working in this area.”

christopher.goodfellow@centaur.co.uk