The rules of engagement when it comes to employment have changed, and they have changed fast across all sectors. But recruitment methods simply aren’t keeping up, resulting in a situation where fewer than half of South African employees say they are “comfortable” or “happy” in their current role, according to the JobCrystal Happiness Indicator which polls the 75,000 candidates listed on JobCrystal.

In our parents’ days you would get a job, hopefully with good prospects, work your way up the ladder, stockpiling holidays and a pension, earn a thirteenth cheque every year and retire at 60 or 65 with a new clock for your mantelpiece. And companies were geared up to deal with this.

The last 10 – 20 years saw this state of affairs change radically, especially in the “new’ industries such as IT. People with specific skills realised they were a scarce resource and started job hopping every 18 months. This was partially to work on new and exciting projects and also to earn massive salary hikes with each move. And typically, first to go were the best employees.
For companies, this meant suddenly having to hire continuously to replace these candidates with specific skills. And also having to formulate a plan to retain this top talent, because this frequent recruitment started becoming very expensive.

With the arrival of Millennials, or Generation Y to the workplace, we’re seeing another shift. Lifestyle choices are becoming more important: does the company I work for have a similar culture and set of values to me, as well as offering a good salary and interesting, meaningful work?

Collaboration is important. Top talent wants to work with other top talent, typically in smaller teams that get pulled together in a relaxed, non-traditional working environment for a distinct project.
Other trends we’ve seen include top talent wanting leadership, and not management. Highly centralised and authoritative management, a hang-over from World War 2, is being replaced with flat and empowered structures, a la Google and Facebook.

In terms of remuneration, top talent expects to be paid at the 90th percentile. They are prepared to drive a hard bargain because they know they are good, and that their skills are scarce. Companies need to be creative in how they provide opportunities for earning in line with expectations.

With top talent getting harder to find, attract and retain, companies have to change how they recruit in this new paradigm. Many companies don’t see the changing landscape yet or are so bogged down with HR administration that they simply stick with the inefficient recruitment methods they have always used.

The reality is recruitment agencies take far too long to source CVs and they only include the details of people currently looking for a new role. Agencies then seldom do more than play a crude game of snap between the details in the CV and the job brief. Weeks of interviews and assessments are the norm as companies try to weed out the poor candidates produced by a flawed process. And, once this lengthy process has finally come to an end, it’s highly unlikely that any of the really good candidates are still going to be available.

A recruitment process that takes weeks or months to get to offer stage is only ever going to deliver average candidates. Good candidates need to be made an offer within hours of them coming onto the market so companies that have more agile hiring processes are snapping up all the top talent.

First prize is to be engaging with top candidates with the skills, experience and best cultural fit, before they even enter the job market. Perhaps then the JobCrystal Happiness Indicator will show far more delight. After all, very few disgruntled employees are an asset to their employer.

Kevin Laithwaite, Managing Director of JobCrystal

Kevin Laithwaite co-founded JobCrystal, South Africa’s only interactive talent management portal, in 2009 with business partner Karl Westvig. Like many entrepreneurs, he invented the solution to a business problem he was facing – in this case, how to iron out the inefficiencies in the way companies recruit.

Visit JobCrystal: www.jobcrystal.co.za/talent