Struggling to hire/retain staff

There was a bit of an mass exodus at my last place, people were pretty disgruntled and one person leaving set off a bit of a chain reaction I think, when you see one person go and also hear how much a raise they got by leaving, that adds a bit of FOMO.

Doesn't help when your wage structure is about 10 years out of date. I think almost everyone in their exit interview said they need to start paying more.
 
Happened a lot at my last job. People kept leaving for all sorts of reasons. The low pay being one of them. There was no payrise last year and well with the cost of living going up...

People kept leaving and telling me I should leave. When I heard the significant pay raises they were receiving and coupled with the above (plus it seemed to be in eternal startup mode anyway and not go anywhere) I felt more open to moving.

Fortunately had someone from a company message me on LinkedIn around the time I felt it was time to go. Interviews went perfect, they even offered me more than I asked for and it turned out to be a very substantial payrise. They're moving next door literally to where I live too. Been there a couple of months and it's night and day to my previous place. Makes me feel like I'm making more of my life now and I have a proper career along with great pay and people.

The old place is down to 5 people I think now. Maybe was 13 at its peak.
 
Martynt74 said:
I think this is a big issue with the large increases in minimum wage over the last 2 years, particularly with the adoption of the national living wage. It's really undervalued a lot of the jobs like this.
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It's definitely the case in where I worked. The lowest level job is sometimes paid more than the first level of management if you take on a little premium overtime. I try and remind those in the lower level management it's about the upside and their potential to earn more... but then those making the decisions cap annual increases and you're not left with much that you can incentivise them with :(
 
UPDATE: I've joined and handed my notice in, 3 months to go. Unfortunately I refuse to pick up the work of 3 people in 1 and expect to deliver more audits. On top of that a lack of career progression is evident.
 
flibbage0 said:
UPDATE: I've joined and handed my notice in, 3 months to go. Unfortunately I refuse to pick up the work of 3 people in 1 and expect to deliver more audits. On top of that a lack of career progression is evident.
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All the best for the future and I hope it all works out for you. I think a lot of places are having this issue, passing the work load to other members of staff and expecting them to perform the same as if they're fully staffed!
 
Housey said:
The IT sector is really having challenges with retention. There has been a lot of VC money funding lots of 'name your price' recruiting of often mediocre talent, added to over promising IPO timelines on totally unrealistic valuations. Never seen it like this, but the boomerangs have started and are gathering pace as people realise that you need more than 'a vision' to make a long term career prospect, not least when you need to deliver or make way for the next dreamer. It's about to crash and crash big and already seeing headcount cut back and a risk adverse approach to recruiting returning.
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We see this a lot. I was going through probably once a day random VCs unsolicited asking to invest in us. The ones we progressed with have dropped their valuation by 30% now though compared with when discussions started in January. That's just market conditions not as a result of any DD uncovering anything. They see the market crashing around the world and things are tightening up. Debt is moving towards not being cheap to service any more.

I've also lost dozens of staff to 50 or even 100% pay rises elsewhere in the last year, particularly in the US. Because we're a long way past startup we need to turn a profit and I simply couldn't make any paying them what they were offered. The market won't pay the necessary rates either so it's not like where they're going will make any profit but a VC backed unicorn hopeful doesn't need to.... until the cash runs out. I think I agree with you - conditions are emerging that will see the end of the great resignation because of money. All I can do is try and make us a place where people want to work, en environment within which they can thrive and grow and pay them a fair and affordable (for us) wage.
 
BigT said:
We see this a lot. I was going through probably once a day random VCs unsolicited asking to invest in us. The ones we progressed with have dropped their valuation by 30% now though compared with when discussions started in January. That's just market conditions not as a result of any DD uncovering anything. They see the market crashing around the world and things are tightening up. Debt is moving towards not being cheap to service any more.

I've also lost dozens of staff to 50 or even 100% pay rises elsewhere in the last year, particularly in the US. Because we're a long way past startup we need to turn a profit and I simply couldn't make any paying them what they were offered. The market won't pay the necessary rates either so it's not like where they're going will make any profit but a VC backed unicorn hopeful doesn't need to.... until the cash runs out. I think I agree with you - conditions are emerging that will see the end of the great resignation because of money. All I can do is try and make us a place where people want to work, en environment within which they can thrive and grow and pay them a fair and affordable (for us) wage.
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There will be some hard hits this year, significant job losses across VC backed start ups and early phase companies in particular, who will have cash flow issues as well as SMB and Enterprises who will be impacted by downturn.

Most people don’t look at underlying business profitability and funding when they get blinded by big money offers. The reality is so few of these tech startups are funded by revenue and when they get to the end of the shortening runway they either take off or crash. Many are going to crash or be acquired for beans to the detriment of equity payouts.
 
Still getting some crazy recruiter posts for startups so its not crashed and burned yet. Only today got one where none of the key three skills they wanted appear on my linkedin profile and I'm not even tagged as open to offers. I'm assuming it was either a mass mail to anyone who can spell "developer" or they had my details from many, many years ago.
 
I moved on not long ago myself. I was working as a Head of IT for a construction company at the start of the pandemic, prior I was a Head of IT in Retail and with lockdown it was all falling apart. Anyway, the construction company role seemed good, it was mainly remote with the odd day in head office in Wembley (horrible journey) but it was OK, although a employee under me had been in the business for years and was not happy they hired externally, he made my life hell naturally.

I started on a FTC and was told I would be made full time after 6 months in the role, roll around to 6 months later and they just extended me by another 6 months, then roll on another 6 months and they wanted to extend me again.

During this time I felt at risk. I wasn't use to FTC's never been in one but I needed to get out of retail and was told it wouldn't be a problem. I was no doubt at the upper limit of salary but after the 3rd extension I just up and left and walked right into another job for more money. Happy days
 
Housey said:
Most people don’t look at underlying business profitability and funding when they get blinded by big money offers. The reality is so few of these tech startups are funded by revenue and when they get to the end of the shortening runway they either take off or crash. Many are going to crash or be acquired for beans to the detriment of equity payouts.
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It's mad.

Earlier in the year, I watched a bunch of colleagues in the US all leave their jobs and move to a startup, some of the people were really well known industry experts - one was earning $750k at the time, and moved for a significant raise. They tried to poach my ex product lead by offering him legit $1m, and a US visa... (the special Australia/US one)

The venture lasted the best part of a year, then one day - they discovered that they hadn't made a dime, and they let go pretty much the entire engineering staff. One guy quit a $300k job at Netflix on the Monday, was fired 2 days after he started on the Wednesday, (senior management even knew they were going to fire him before he started) I've honestly never seen anything as cutthroat.
 
I’ve worked in the tech industry for over 35 years, I’ve been through 2 significant recessions and COVID and I feel a 3rd significant recession is inbound. I’ve been offered huge packages to jump ships to build a business in the UK by recruiters and business owners who are utterly oblivious to the realities. People in there 20’s who have won some VC backing who go all polo neck and brown trainers and believe they are Elon Musk 2.0 when all they have is a chip from a VC pile.

Virtually all fail to get close to their crazy valuations and those that do tend not to repay the loyalty of those second rounders through the door.

Gonna go pop and next 3-6 months will see it begin I feel. Hold on to your hats boys and girls and others, gonna be a wild ride for many, all IMHO of course.
 
What do you do Housey if you dont mind me asking?

I agree RE the recession, my entire customer base are struggling, primarily around supply chain. My credit controller has never worked so hard either.

Back to the OP, hiring has had the biggest impact on my business over the past 2 years, its impacted growth and project delivery. We’re only just getting back to normality and its because I’ve finally made the decision to get an office and hire programmers and delivery managers overseas.

There’s no staff in the UK, no matter what industry or experience level you’re hiring, no can explain why.
 
Screeeech said:
We found there were a significant number of people, who after covid - just decided to stop working, completely.
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But… what are they living on? There’s a large portion of skilled staff having a good go at their side hustle from what I can see but construction companies are struggling to hire junior labourers, retailers cant get warehouse staff, there’s a shortage of nurses..
 
shifty_uk said:
But… what are they living on? There’s a large portion of skilled staff having a good go at their side hustle from what I can see but construction companies are struggling to hire junior labourers, retailers cant get warehouse staff, there’s a shortage of nurses..
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Yeah I don't know,

In the US I knew of people who were just "taking time out" or moving into completely different jobs altogether, but I honestly have no idea overall.
 
I heard a stat....which I have now forgotten, but was along the lines of 73% of employees in the US were not in the same company at the end of 2021 that they were at the start.

That seems incredible if true.
 
Housey said:
I heard a stat....which I have now forgotten, but was along the lines of 73% of employees in the US were not in the same company at the end of 2021 that they were at the start.

That seems incredible if true.
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There's gotta be more context to that - like 73% of [some profession/vocation], [some industry] or something?
 
shifty_uk said:
construction companies are struggling to hire junior labourers, retailers cant get warehouse staff, there’s a shortage of nurses..
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These were jobs filled by workers from the EU, but Brexit and the pandemic mean a lot will have returned home. Brits aren't prepared to do those jobs for those wages.

www.theguardian.com

Number of EU citizens seeking work in UK falls 36% since Brexit, study shows

Figures from the jobs website Indeed expose the impact on employers as they struggle to recruit staff
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
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