COLLEAGUES WANTED (BUT NOT FOUND)

Have you noticed it too? The number of vacancies that are difficult to fill is skyrocketing. Labour market scarcity has been getting a lot of attention from politicians for quite some time. The argument has also been used by employers in many discussions. Their calls for market-oriented training courses are only getting louder. But that doesn’t solve the problem, of course.

Recent research shows that vacancies for jobs with a high intensity and poor employment conditions are especially difficult to fill. Providing training courses to improve skills or labour mobility offers little relief in this context. The mismatch isn’t necessarily caused by a difference in required skills and the level of education. The difference between employee expectations and the reality offered by employers is a bigger issue.

This observation offers opportunities. The labour market scarcity is an opportunity for employees to enter into a dialogue with management about job quality, workload and smart management. These topics are often insufficiently discussed during social consultations.

But investing in training is, now more than ever, an indispensable must. The digital and green transitions have resulted in a continuous evolution of the necessary skills and competences. A substantial part of skills development will have to happen on the job: in the workplace, during the working hours.

In practice, this seems to be a major obstacle. A survey conducted by ACV in the service sector showed that 55% of employees didn’t even receive a single day of training at work. In a quarter of cases, employers explicitly refuse to provide a training offer.

Employees, on the other hand, want more training opportunities. Half of the participating employees think their employer doesn’t make enough efforts regarding training. No less than 51% want to attend more training courses, if the workload would allow it. Interestingly, 62% of trainings are motivated by the employees’ current range of duties. In other words, new challenges and needs are rarely used to motivate training courses. Furthermore, 48% of participants indicate the need for more job-specific training.

There can, therefore, be no doubt about the direct added value of additional training. But combining a busy job with training courses causes employees more stress and worries than ever. The fact that employers expect employees to follow these training courses in their free time adds on to the workload and is not realistic. Training courses should be followed during the working hours.

The impact of open vacancies is palpable

Lieven De Wandel is employee delegate at Barco. Together with his colleagues, he tries to keep the impact of open vacancies under control. “It has been difficult to fill open vacancies for both R&D and blue-collar workers in our company for a while. However, the situation seems to have improved in recent months. We are starting to catch up. Our organisation pays a lot of attention to training. The situation would improve even further, if our employer adjusted its expectations for new employees a bit and invested a little more in on-the-job training upon recruitment. Open vacancies are a recurring topic in our social consultations, as the impact they have on the colleagues already working in the company is particularly palpable. Above all, we ask management to match the number of projects with the real number of employees. This way, the workload is bearable and in line with the manpower available.”

Personal growth is important to great executives

Els Henderieckx is employee delegate at DPG Media and tries to prevent the downward spiral of increasing personnel turnover and absenteeism. “In our company, there are too many open vacancies that we can’t fill or that are difficult to fill. This is especially the case for technical and IT profiles, as well as for sales experts. We invest a lot in both (internal and external) training courses and internal mobility, but this might also create a new problem somewhere else. This topic is discussed during the monthly social consultations and HR is working hard on it. We are primarily worried about the workload. It’s already pretty intense. And because of open vacancies, it isn’t exactly evolving in the right direction. This results in delays in projects. DPG Media was recently elected most attractive employer of the year, and to keep that reputation, we need a strong overarching HR policy that focuses on personal growth and remuneration programmes, in which an open and connecting leadership at all levels is the standard. That is the main issue. Better leadership, awareness of ambitions and/or competencies and more transparency on opportunities and remuneration could make a real difference.”

Would you like personal advice about your right to training? Do you want to know whether a training fund exists in your sector? Do you have ideas about the training plan in your company? Let us know via neverworkalone@acv-csc.be! Together, we’ll make a difference.