Recent data suggests that Brexit could be having an impact on the UK’s digital recruitment crisis, worsening its impact. Recruitment Grapevine reported on one group who had noticed a 10% reduction in skilled tech workers moving over to the UK. We look at the latest numbers and how companies can work to more effectively retain their talent.
Bad News Brexit
Or is it? Digital tech investment into the UK reached record levels in 2016. Turnover in this sector also increased and the UK is known as one of the top digital nations in Europe. Things look rather rosy…
However it’s not all good news, as despite high investment and job creation in this exciting sector, it’s still a real struggle for companies to attract top talent, something we’ve read about and observed frequently in our daily work. Brexit, and the high uncertainty level it brings could mean that talent is swayed to other countries and we fall behind on innovation.
Keeping Tech Talent Happy
Talent retention is a popular topic. In the current candidate driven market, employers are looking at ways to keep the talent they do have, happy. In relation to this, there are recurring themes that could do the job from an HR perspective… and they are all things we’ve mentioned before!
- Flexible Working: This crops up repeatedly in surveys as the most desired workplace perk. In our era of continuous connectivity employees see no reason not to take their work home or complete it at different hours of the day to the traditional 9 – 5.
- Salary Increases: With pay increases set to stay at around 2%, and despite IT workers being among some of the best paid and with a strong work/life balance, if talent is able to command a larger salary at a different company this could motivate them to go to pastures new.
- Constant Hiring: We wrote about this topic previously but for industries where it’s typical to have a high turnover rate, constant recruitment efforts can help ease gaps in the number of roles left vacant.
Investing in People
Another option we’ve read about is for companies to train up talent internally, on the job and through apprenticeship schemes. The government is investing in these and it could be a fresh way to nurture promising talent from the ground up.
Castle Hill House