Employers Survey 2019

In Autumn 2019 we carried out a survey amongst a range of employers – from SMEs to large corporate companies, to ask them their opinions about a range of recruitment issues. 187 organisations responded to the survey. The full set of results is below.

Employee size:

• 27% over 5,000 employees
• 21% over 1000 but under 5000 employees
• 4% over 500 but under 1000 employees
• 48% have under 500 employees

Age of organisation:

80% are from organisations which have been active more than 10 years.

Recruitment style:

• 50% do their recruitment centrally via an HR/Recruitment Team
• 14% individually (ie via individual line managers)
• 33% a mix of both

Recruitment volumes:

32% have recruited more than 250 staff in the last 12 months, 13% between 100 and 250, 8% between 50 and 100 and 47% under 50.

Recruitment concerns:

What are recruiters’ main concerns at the moment?

Returner programmes:

49% don’t offer a returner programme and have no immediate plans to
32% don’t offer a returner programme but are planning to in the near future
1% have offered in the past, but not at present
18% do run a returner programme

Using freelancers/contractors:

34% are using more freelancers/contractors to fill skills shortages.

Recruitment methods:

How are organisations recruiting new staff?

Flexible working and the gender pay gap affecting recruitment policy:

With regards to organisations looking at the gender pay gap, and the increased demand from employees for flexible working, we asked how much the following statements applied to respondent organisations. The percentages show a ‘yes’ answer.

• We have been using flexible job sites to recruit for some time now – 41%
• We intend to use flexible job sites to recruit in the future – 67%
• We have been actively trying to recruit more women in the last 12 months – 48%
• We have been working with female focused recruitment agencies in the last 12 months – 18%
• We intend to work with female focused recruitment agencies within the next 12 months – 24%
• We aim to recruit more women in the next 12 months – 47%
• We actively include flexible working in our job adverts – 62%
• We intend to offer flexible working options in our job adverts in the future – 71%
• We have a formal flexible working policy – 76%
• We actively recruit older workers (age 50+) as part of our recruitment strategy – 24%
• We think we will need to recruit more older workers in the future – 32%

Flexible working demand

We asked which groups were asking for flexible working:

Demographics of those requesting flexible working changing over last 2 years:

We asked if the type of people asking for flexible working had changed over the last two years.

• Yes, more men are asking for flexible working – 31%
• Yes, more older workers (45+) are asking for flexible working – 20%
• Yes, more non-parents are asking for flexible working – 29%
• No, it is roughly the same as before – 38%

Will the profile of those asking for flex change over the next 5 years?

We asked if our respondents thought that the profile of those asking for flexible working is likely to change in the next 5 years.

• Yes, I think there will be a greater demand from a wider range of employees – 85%
• Yes, there will be greater demand from dads – 8%
• Yes, there will be greater demand from younger workers – 5%
• Yes, there will be greater demand from older workers – 7%
• No, I think it will stay about the same – 6%

Do businesses need support to respond to the greater demand for flexibility?

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