Stability, prudence, and efficiency are the key words that HR people have to abide by to be able to meet the austere budgets set at the end of this year.
“It will be a battle for efficiency, for making organizations efficient, because there will be little money and limited resources available again, and HR plays an important part in this process considering work productivity needs to be improved. We can include here talent management and retaining the existing human resources on an increasingly more competitive market with dwindling internal resources: not much money for training, symbolic raises, the benefits scheme that is still down to a minimum, pressure on headcount, reluctance to hire etc,” says Sorin Faur, human resources & outsourcing manager of audit and tax consultancy BDO, who coordinates the HR operations of the company in nine countries (Romania, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Greece, Turkey and Kosovo).
Another issue to be addressed given the current uncertainty in his opinion is the strategic planning about the number of employees, recruitment and training budgets, considering some companies are not sure whether they will still be in business in six months or not.
“Strategies to motivate personnel will have to be carefully managed because people will work more for less money, some companies will continue layoffs, others will close thus increasing internal pressure and stress,” Faur added.
He also believes that special attention needs to be paid to organizational ethics because certain employees might be tempted by ethical slips (from ‘borrowing’ small things that belong to the company to hidden agreements or fraud).
Overall, the cost control and good management of both human and financial resources will remain the tasks of human resources departments next year. The challenge will be even greater in the banking system, considering many banks have already announced they would continue restructuring in 2012, says Nevenca Doca, the executive in charge of human resources at Banca Transilvania. This bank has over 6,000 employees.
“Banks will continue restructuring in 2012, though not necessarily by layoffs but by not replacing the people who leave. Should they hire, they will probably pick experienced people over college graduates, who could get into the system in times of growth when new employees were badly needed and the market did not offer any other option,” Nevenca Doca explains. She added that even though salaries in the banking system did not go down, there would be no raises next year.
“Some banks cut back on some of the benefits granted to their employees, such as luncheon vouchers,” Banca Transilvania’s HR manager says.
Every human resources manager has to launch employee-training programs at the beginning of the year, as well as devise a resource management strategy and check to see whether more people need to be hired.
“Next year is a year of stability rather than of recruitment because we do not have new operations that would require us to hire many people; we recruit constantly depending our needs. 2011 was a year with higher business volume, which required integrating 100-150 new employees,” says Melinda Mathe, human resources manager of Sibiu-based SNR Rulmenti, the local branch of the French SNR Roulements group, which is currently employing 650 people.
As for labor legislation, things have stabilized. In May this year the new Labor Code enforced, which allows more flexibility when it comes hiring and firing people and the employers were required to send the new electronic databases used to register their employees (Revisal) to the labor inspection offices by mid December.
BDO’s Faur says that new laws with an impact on the human resources area are not out of the question. Such plans have already been announced: the increase in minimum wage from 670 lei to RON700 in gross amount, public sector employee salaries, private pension payment system etc. HR managers have to pay attention to be able to adjust their policies to the situation on the market.
The modification of the minimum wage does not affect the salary policy in the companies offering more than RON670, only the companies paying the minimum wage will incur higher costs, Melinda Mathe believes.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)