With the talent market being as competitive as it is presently, it is not surprising that employers are finding it tough to find the right talent and also retain the existing high-potential ones. The Michael Page Talent Trends 2024 Report reveals that nearly one in three employers in India is finding it challenging to retain existing employees.
With the recruiting and retaining challenge comes the test of meeting salary expectations. As if the dearth of quality talent wasn’t enough, there emerges the issue of finding the ideal candidates. After all, it isn’t easy to find the right talent that is a culture fit for the company. There is also the bitter truth that money isn’t the only drawing factor. Job seekers have many expectations while looking for an employer, which is only adding to the list of challenges that employers have to overcome.
The report lists the top ten challenges that employers in India face while hiring.
The topmost challenge on the list is of course matching salary expectations, followed by the unavailability of the required skills and finding candidates who are a good fit for the company culture. Fourth on the list is losing quality talent to competition, followed by matching benefits expectations on fifth position.
Next come the increasing number of people hunting for new jobs in the sixth position. This is followed by the ability to offer flexibility to job applicants. Number eight is the stiff competition to grab applicants. Challenge number nine is adapting to working with new hiring tech. Screening of job applicants is the tenth biggest challenge faced by employers in the country.
It is true that hiring the right talent is as daunting a task as retaining the existing ones. The survey reveals that 29 per cent of employers with 1 to 10 employees in the workforce found recruiting a challenge, while 30 per cent found retaining their employees a challenge.
When it comes to companies with 11 to 50 employees, 33 per cent found recruiting challenging, while 27 per cent found retaining challenging. About 36 per cent companies with 51 to 250 employees found recruiting tough, while 27 per cent found retaining tough.
Thirty-three per cent employers with 251 to 500 employees found hiring challenging while 31 per cent found retaining challenging. Twenty-six per cent firms with 501 to 1,000 employees found hiring challenging while 31 per cent found retaining tough. Thirty-six per cent employers with 1,001 to 4,999 employees in their workforce found recruiting challenging, while 37 per cent found retaining challenging. About 38 per cent organisations with at least 5,000 employees in their workforce found recruiting a challenge, while 37 per cent of such organisations found retaining a challenge.
Forty-one per cent firms in the energy and natural resources space found recruiting challenging, while 47 per cent found retaining a challenge. About 51 per cent firms in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) space found recruiting to be the biggest challenge, while 54 per cent of FMCG firms found retaining a challenge. About 44 per cent firms in the insurance sector found recruiting a challenge, while 30 per cent found retaining a challenge. A good 59 per cent of not-for-profit organisations in India found recruiting the right talent a difficult task, while 53 per cent found retaining them difficult. In the transport and distribution sector, 44 per cent firms found hiring tough, while 38 per cent found retaining tough.
In the professional services space, 35 per cent employers found it difficult to recruit the right talent while 31 per cent found it difficult to retain them. In the retail industry, 38 per cent employers found it difficult to hire the right talent, while 37 per cent found it difficult to retain them. About 31 per cent employers in the healthcare space found recruiting to be a challenge, while 30 per cent found retaining to be a challenge.
The Michael Page Talent Trends 2024 Report studied responses from 3,087 respondents who completed the survey in the country in November and December 2023. This survey was part of a larger study covering 11 other Asia Pacific markets. Additionally, 50,000 workers across 37 markets were part of the workplace survey.