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HR in Poland. Market of 8 faces.

Job Market in Poland is boiling! Yep, we have reached the lowest (3,4%) unemployment rate ever (just after Czech Republic with 2,3% and on the same level as Germany). Companies are struggling with finding people to work (57% have unfilled positions) and facing the pay rise expectation twice a year! Yet we still have big investors ahead coming to Poland as we have “good quality and cheap talent pool” and still talents are migrating for better career possibilities (we are second, just after Romania, country with the largest amount of people working abroad in Europe). Really challenging and yet fascinating “market under stress” to observe.

How is it affecting HR?

I spent October speaking and talking with people on different conferences.

I’ve been speaking at more than 10 events, attended almost 50 other speeches and met more than 1000 folks from HR in one month!

A huge experience that cannot be wasted just staying as a memory in my head. That post is to share few insights on how Polish HR market is changing. There are some good trends but there are a few things we should focus immediately on!

I am happy to see..

  1. More focus on keeping people – as job market is short employers start focus more and more on how to keep people engaged and stay with company. It means more budget on internal changes and focus on how people inside organization feel and are satisfied with the offer. It drives changes in many areas such as development, well-being, communication and leadership.
  2. Growing interest in new tech – as old methods of sourcing and engagement are dead (or at least not sufficient) there is a growing interest in new tools. More and more companies are reaching for innovations, adopting hot technology to their processes. We have first implementation based on AI, video-based selection is growing or have first The problem is with verification of new technology vendors and seeing the whole
  3. Data is going sexy – we have organized the first People Analytics Forum in Warsaw this year, having great interest from the most innovative companies in Poland, investing in people processes. There is also more and more interest in results-driven employer branding, recruitment or learning. But in the same time we face the lack of analytics skills and experience in HR. It was so hard to find the Polish case studies in people analytics for HRcamp! We definitely need to overcome this gap as soon as possible.
  4. Well-being is getting trendy – more and more companies are talking about well-being not only as an argument for being an attractive employer but also on how it converts into the revenue. As we published the first report on happiness in Poland followed by the first report on recognition we see first well-being Award on the Polish market!

BUT in the same time we face challenges that even boiling market has no power to change rapidly:

5. Absorption of new tools is still low – not only we still find companies using mail-based recruitment processes, but also there is little knowledge on non-Polish but worldwide known vendors (not even mentioning start-ups)! It doesn’t mean we are not open – if something new enters the market and gets publicity, we are eager to test it. It makes a lot space for new vendors to enter.

6. HR has not enough voice – as we still don’t use enough numbers, data, ROI-language, we are not seen as a real business partners. Still hiding and not present in board rooms, doing operational level task, begging for budgets instead of making people operations the main area of profit!

7. Investment in HR innovation area is low – we face few investment in HR startups a year. Great minds, with experience and good will but little support and courage to reach for money outside. A gap I hope to be overcome the quickest, as it influences the HR position as a business partner to business.

8. Dialogue with marketing is still a dream – only few companies are crossing the borders in joining forces to build better organisations. Even if we know it helps in attracting and keeping people engaged it is still something to work on.

We are facing incredible time in Polish HR, changing the way we think about ourselves and changing other people opinions in companies. I am glad to see that, but still I think we must try harder, develop ourselves more and push harder the role we play in such turbulent times. It should be us, who say what should be changed in organisations to drive revenue. It should be the HR, who is looking for innovations and ask for that. It should be HR, who is deciding as key player.

Let’s not think about ourselves as a service but as a game changer in our companies. Let’s do this! 

EBstars 2018 Winners: employer branding has entered the data-driven level this year!

We have just awarded the best employer branding projects in Employer Branding Stars Award for 2017/2018. It was 9th edition of the contest and it shows that we are going really mature in the area, entering the data-driven approach here in Poland!

I have been organizing the EBstars project for 9 editions now – year by year observing what is changing on the labour market and how HR is responding to it. As Poland has hit the lowest level of unemployment rate for 20 years now – employer branding has become one of the main tools of strategic sourcing and retention management. Operating on such level is obviously changing how we understand our goals and how do we approach execution.

Shortly speaking – the shift is from “beautiful and innovative” to “effective” campaign. 

Does it affect the way we do employer branding? A lot.

And that is why we decided to change HR focus to employer branding on ROI and data-driven approach this year . It wasn’t easy for companies applying for the EBstars – to be honest, we knew not every company is ready to show the data and ROI of its activities and some would had to give up the process this year – but eventually we have gained applications from 50 companies!

Where is the shift?

This year together with the great Jury (Łukasz Trzeszczkowski, Magdalena Selwant-RozyckaTomasz Bartnik, Przemysław Stański, Piotr Bucki, Adam Piwek, Maja Gojtowska, Katarzyna Młynarczyk, Maciej Mazurek, Anna Woźniak) we heat up the strategic approach focusing on three dimensions picturing the way we all should approach our activities if we want to be a real strategic partner to the business. Here are 3 main hot points we had followed assessing the applications:

1.    Strategy (activities should be in line with business needs, EVP-centered, tailored to target groups in communication and tools)

2.    Data (insights and outcomes should be based on good quality data)

3.    ROI (activities should bring great revenue confirming it was good decision to chose employer branding as tool)

Ok, but where is the creative part?? Of course creativity was important as it is an marketing area eventually but it was treated strategically:

If not so hot and sexy concept is converting as hell to applications bringing revenue to business it means it is an effective communication.

Who are the Leaders of data-based employer branding approach in Poland?

Focusing on 3 main dimensions (strategy, data, ROI) Jury awarded the most effective projects as follows:

  • Best campaign over 100k PLN went to Leroy Merlin, Volkswagen and mBank
  • Best campaign below 100k PLN went to mBank and Performante
  • Best digital project went to EY and Accenture
  • Best candidate experience went to McDonald’s
  • Best internal EB went to Link4
  • Best video went to Future Processing
  • Best career site went to Accenture and AmRest
  • Special Jury Award went to Fabryka Mebli Forte

Congratulations to all! I am really happy to see the progress we are making to become the real partner to the business. Keep going – working on winning the next year edition has just started 😀

PS. I am really happy to see students of mine on the stage! Good job <3