How 2022 has changed employee-employer relationships

For the main part of the year, against the backdrop of sanctions and a recession in the economy, the labor market was stormy: many companies froze recruitment, some resorted to layoffs. But other trends also influenced the situation,

In 2022, the labor market in RUSSIA was going through difficult times. A special military operation and subsequent massive Western sanctions led to the exit of a number of large international companies from the country - they reduced staff, closed the business or transferred it to new owners. Many Russian employers have put hiring on pause. The partial mobilization announced in September complicated the situation: companies lost some of their drafted employees, keeping their jobs as required by law; some more went to other countries. Recruitment has also been complicated by the fact that employees have become wary of changing jobs, preferring companies that provide the opportunity to work remotely and industries where they can count on a reprieve from mobilization.

The Great and Quiet Dismissal

In addition to factors related to the situation in the country, global trends also influenced the labor market. At the beginning of the year, the trend known as the “great dismissal” continued to develop: having become disillusioned with the employer, employees left en masse “for nowhere”. Even employees of companies with a strong brand did this. Happy Inc Enterprise Research Product Ecosystem. studied the reasons why employees left such companies (sample - 120 thousand employees of 15 Russian enterprises, each of which is a leader in its industry). The study revealed the unexpected. Everything that well-known companies are usually associated with - high salaries, the opportunity to move up the career ladder and grow as a professional - is not true. One in three left a large and well-known company, including because of below-market pay, and almost one in four (24%) because there were no career opportunities. One in five (21%) - due to problems with professional implementation. Other frequently cited reasons point to poor management.

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In the summer, the “great dismissal” began to manifest itself in a new way: HRs faced the phenomenon of “quiet dismissal” en masse. The term became popular after a viral TIKTOK video in July 2022, directed by 24-year-old American developer Zayed Khan. In it, he called for a rejection of the hustle culture mentality, which implies that work should be a huge part of life. The video gained more than 3.5 million views, and articles devoted to this phenomenon appeared in a number of leading Western media, including Time, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. The heroes of the publications explained that they chose such an attitude to work for themselves, seeing that their efforts do not lead to career growth and salary increases. The main supporters of the “quiet dismissal” were not burnt-out age employees, but young people. "They usually show higher levels of engagement, but are now declining,” said Jim Harter, lead researcher at Gallup, who specializes in wellness and work organization. - Aftercovid-19 they may have a higher bar in relation to the purpose of work than the older generation.” Late millennials and zoomers have become disillusioned with career prospects and consciously strive to work to a minimum.

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In Russia, instead of a declarative refusal to work overtime, there was more often a situation where an employee maintained the appearance of vigorous activity, but in fact he had already decided to minimally engage in work. According to a survey by the online recruiting platform hh.ru, half of the employees of our companies consider their work meaningless. More than a quarter (28%) are sure that the management is wasting their time and effort, and 22% even call their work slave labor. A huge role, according to the respondents, was played by the fact that Russian companies most often did not build a viable culture: both the team and the immediate boss are toxic, they do not know how to organize work and clearly formulate tasks.

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Continuing to create the appearance of vigorous activity, the Russians thought about how to change jobs. According to a study by the personnel portal Zarplaty.ru, in 2022, 65% of working Russians were going to do this. Most of the respondents stated that they would change their mind if the employer offered them a higher salary. Dissatisfied employees were not going to waste their time on trifles: the majority (40%) would like to receive a salary at least twice the current one, another third (32%) - one and a half times, 18% would be satisfied with a 20% increase. However, not everyone was going to look for happiness elsewhere: 28% said that they would seek a salary increase at their current job.

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Management crisis

A significant role in the attitude of company employees to work was played by the helplessness of managers who showed their inability to manage the team in a crisis. 33% of the participants in the study "Movement of social capital of leaders in Russian companies", conducted by hh.ru portal and Marina Korsakova, the founder of the research project Transition Bureau, stated that the leader's behavior disappointed them. “Silence, passivity, indifference, lack of any communication. Refusal to discuss problems, devaluing the anxiety of employees. Hysterical behavior, frequent change of course, inconsistency. Displacement of one's own anxiety on subordinates, aggression, accusations. Inappropriate sarcasm, rudeness, rudeness. Lack of involvement in work, ”the study lists. Among the answers was even “the manager’s use of a crisis situation,

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The reason for disappointment was the massive return of employees to the office after the lifting of covid restrictions. The managers who talked so much about the “new normal” did not find a better idea than to return to pre-pandemic realities. This trend turned out to be paradoxical: the pandemic has shown that remote work is more effective than face-to-face work, and the majority (72%) of Russians would like to work remotely.

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Aggressive managers are an old problem that has taken on a new dimension due to the return of tough management to Russian companies, HR experts say. According to hh.ru, 66% of Russian enterprises experienced conflicts between managers and subordinates related to emotional abuse. 68% of employees faced a tough attitude towards themselves from their superiors or colleagues, and 57% - only from their superiors, Ksenia Stepanova, HEAD of internal communications at hh.ru, cites the data.

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Quite expectedly, executives were the first candidates for dismissal in companies. “Among the managers there are those who know how to work in growing markets, drive projects, especially without regard to costs, and lead the company to new achievements. There are those who know how to work in a stable market, where accomplishments are not needed, but constant quality and predictability are needed. And there are those who know how to work in a recession, ”explains Kirill Tikhonov, co-founder of the Amiveo consulting company. A significant part of the former bosses ended up on the street, because the companies were not too happy with them even before the crisis. And if earlier management and owners could afford to keep weak leaders in the hope that they would still have time to reveal their potential, now they part with them quickly and without sentimentality.

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Career takeoff

Despite the fact that the leaders were at risk, making a career in companies has become easier. According to a recent study by high-paying job search service SuperJob, the career path to most mid-level and top management positions has been greatly reduced over the past seven years. To some positions, including the general DIRECTOR, he has almost halved. One of the main reasons is economic turbulence. “In an era of upheaval, business strives for high efficiency,” explains partner Kontakt InterSearch Russia, head of the SmartTrek career project Anastasia Staseva. - If in the “fat” years companies could keep a fairly large number of low-performing employees, now they are trying to get rid of them. Highly efficient employees remain on the staff, it is easier for them to achieve the position of a leader by virtue of their competencies.” Interestingly, to some traditionally masculine positions, women began to grow faster than their male counterparts. But the opportunities to become a leader by length of service in Russian companies are becoming less and less.

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The domestic IT industry was in a fever all year: according to the Russian Association for Electronic Communications (RAEC), since the end of February 2022, 50-70 thousand IT specialists have left Russia, and another 70-100 thousand are predicted to leave in April. And already in 2021 the industry was experiencing a shortage of personnel: according to the Ministry of Digital Development, the shortage of IT personnel in the country ranged from 500 thousand to 1 million people. At the same time, many international companies, including IT companies, have suspended their work in Russia: software developers such as SAP, Oracle, Adobe, Cisco and Microsoft announced a temporary cessation of activities. Some Russian companies have curtailed some projects and suspended the recruitment of new IT specialists or even fired some of their staff.

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Until recently, belonging to a clan of programmers almost guaranteed a stable and well-paid job. The world was digitizing with might and main, new niches were constantly opening up for IT specialists: for example, in February, 72 vacancies for directors for the development of the metaverse appeared on the hh.ru portal. The personnel officers were reorganized into a one day offer, hiring within one day: an IT specialist had to be hired as quickly as possible. In March, the outlook turned from rosy to hazy. According to hh.ru, in March vacancies for programmers, system administrators and other information technology specialists lost almost 20% of the volume in February, while resumes, on the contrary, increased by 18%. However, personnel officers believe that the demand for IT specialists will soon recover, but serious difficulties have already begun with the quality of candidates.

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During the years of the pandemic, capital companies began to actively hire employees from the regions, and this is changing the labor market both in Moscow and throughout Russia. “The trend intensified during the covid and post-covid period, now it is gradually increasing,” Alexei Zakharov, president of SuperJob, a high-paying job search service, shares his observations. According to him, Moscow and St. Petersburg employers at first managed to negotiate with remote workers from the periphery for lower salaries than specialists from the capital. But now, in some sectors, the remuneration of personnel from the periphery has caught up with the remuneration of capital workers. For example, they are willing to pay IT specialists from the regions as much as their Moscow counterparts. “The pandemic has brought the salaries of remote workers to a common denominator,” Zakharov states. — And for many regional companies, who hired employees remotely, this came as an unpleasant surprise: now they have to compete for staff with the whole country and even with foreign companies. And as a result, wages will increase significantly.”

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Force mobilization

By autumn, a paradoxical situation had developed in the labor market: companies are looking for specialists who are not going to enter the labor market, and applicants who do not have valuable skills do not agree to modest salaries. Rejection of reality is a frightening trend, says Marina Lobanova, head of the "recruitment of permanent personnel" department of the personnel consulting company Coleman Group. “Conditions and circumstances have changed: someone is under the threat of layoffs, someone has been unemployed for more than a month, but even such a sad combination of factors does not force candidates to reduce their requirements for the employer. This situation has been observed since the pandemic and, for unknown reasons, continues to persist.”

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To all the previous circumstances, partial mobilization was added, which removed 300,000 able-bodied men from the labor market. The ongoing relocation of companies and the crisis have led to an outflow of both highly qualified specialists and workers from the country. This has created several new trends, including an attempt by companies to recruit women for purely male positions, as well as actively attract older men who often master a new specialty for themselves.

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The company saw another way out in attracting older employees who had previously been neglected. “Already now a quarter of working Russians are over 50 years old, and this trend is growing,” warns Stanislav Kiselev, professor in the Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the Higher School of Business at the Higher School of Business. Willy-nilly or not, Russian companies are turning to face those over 45. In Russia, 43% of organizations are ready to pay for their training in missing skills, Tatyana Moshchagina, head of internal communications and employer brand at Rabota.ru, cites a survey.

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