In the face of a crisis, 66% of employees would recommend their company as a desirable employer.This is one of the main conclusions in the latest survey of ManpowerGroup Bulgaria, which analyzes the measures taken by employers in the country necessitated by the COVID-19 crisis, changes in daily business routine and their impact on employees in different industries.
The results of the survey show that although many employers have reduced company costs during the crisis by cutting salaries, giving up benefit packages and resorting to forced unpaid leave, this approach has not been the most popular.
Nearly 51% of the respondents said that the company for which they work did not have to cancel benefits, more than 61% of employers maintained current pay levels and only 17% of companies put staff on unpaid leave.
“Some of the cancelled additional incentives are also due to the long period of working from home, which has changed the need to provide public transport tickets, fuel vouchers, office catering and the like,” said Gerasim Naydenov, Senior Market Research Consultant, ManpowerGroup Bulgaria.
“On the other hand, nearly 20% of respondents said that their employers had reduced pay levels, but this applies to the sectors most affected by the crisis, such as Tourism and Restaurant-Keeping, Trade and Manufacturing.
As for the industries still hungry for skilled workers, for example the IT sector, wages have not stopped growing during the pandemic.”
Also, 39% of the employees surveyed expect their employers to hire additional human resources due to the increased volume of work during the pandemic, which is most tangible in the IT, Health and Pharmacy and Transport and Logistics sectors.
Last but not least, nearly half of the employees approved of the measures their employers had taken in the crisis situation, being provided with protective gear, such as masks, gloves and disinfectants (79%), opportunity to work from home (75%), flexible working hours (69%), as well as professional development programs, counselling and training (50%).
“The fact that two-thirds of employees in the country would recommend their company as a desirable employer is a clear sign that the business has taken adequate measures to support its talents through the most difficult times.
Staff shortages and rapidly changing business needs have made many employers to develop flexible strategies for positioning their company as a preferred place to work and increasingly implement non-standard solutions for the organization of work process, taking into account the individual needs and specifics of each employee”, added Maria Stoeva, Business Development Manager
ManpowerGroup Bulgaria’s survey of business trends resulting from COVID-19 pandemic was conducted from the end of December 2020 to the end of January 2021 as a questionnaire with 16 points and is a representative sample of 217 employees at different hierarchical levels in companies from 13 industries across the country.