Remuneration on the rise as 'the metric' for job search

Over the past week, as a formal talent partner for the HKSTP Hong Kong I&T Career Expo 2022, we’ve had the opportunity to take a step back from our day-to-day operations and to look through the vast data of why companies/talent are hiring/exploring respectively.

Having begun my career within a traditional contingency recruitment consultancy, then transitioning to executive search, and now operating within a niche talent advisory dedicated to the innovation sector, I can say that whilst there’s been an ongoing evolution to how companies hired and how job seekers prioritized their job search, a singular opinion over my 10+ years were consistent for both sides:

- “Remuneration is important but not the ‘No.1’ factor when one hires/or be hired”

This statement has been true throughout my career with executives, especially in the innovation sector given that there are far more important metrics to consider, i.e. company culture, role accountability, how is technology embraced, is the corporate strategy aligned to my aspirations, do I have the autonomy to drive impact…the list goes on…and our role has always been to understand what and how it ranked whilst exploring.

BUT…whilst core ‘traditional factors’ were still important, statistics have shown that ‘remuneration’ has been creeping up the priority ranking in 2021, and this is beginning to change the talent landscape slightly.

Covid-19 has led to many industries experiencing unforeseen challenges, but a few particular sectors have shown exponential growth during this time, i.e. Information Technology, Healthcare, BioTech etc. majority fitting within the Innovation& Technology ecosystem, which demonstrates that corporations are looking to adapt to the market.

“How is the market doing?” – is a very common question that we get asked on a daily basis, but since 2020, our answer has been pretty uniform;

“Covid-19 has basically been nature’s marketing campaign for the innovation & technology ecosystem. It’s put a magnifying glass on the importance of technology and innovation, evidential to firms that have been more digitally mature have thrived during the bounce back to normality, and for corporations that have not been prioritizing their firm’s digitalisation strategies, it’s about playing catch up. As such, demands for Innovation & Technology talent has never been higher”

In turn, this has led to an interestingly diverse landscape within the innovation & technology ecosystem.

Conservatives

Whilst the market is buoyant, it’s hard to ignore the overall impact Covid-19 has on the economy, as such, even for I&T talent job seekers, there are a pool that is more reserved even with opportunities arising, as the “what if” factor becomes a bigger factor during consideration, concluding on talent being even more selective during such time.

Loyalists

This pool is typically the high performers, and transparently speaking, the ones that Pinnacle Lead Consulting seek to talk to. But, this pool has been recognized not only by us externally as key contributors to the I&T ecosystem but is even more valued by their existing employer, and as such, retention strategies have been quickly implemented as they are the VVIPs on the management radar, and whilst this may not be a financial reward, employees recognize this and will commit to riding out the tough times with the corporation.

Opportunists

And then there are the opportunists. They see the rise of opportunities and recognize that the ‘supply vs demand’ is not equivalent, and as such, take this opportunity to create a more advantageous proposition for themselves as the demand for their talent is higher than ever, utilizing this to negotiate a ‘better’ offer; some are not financially focused, i.e. remote work arrangements etc, but predominantly a higher financial expectation.

All in all, the Hong Kong landscape for I&T hires are becoming more and more challenging as the necessity for these talents become more real. And the pooling? Unfortunately, data suggests that the pooling is becoming smaller as many seek to explore opportunities abroad.

As such, we’re seeing many employers putting a lot of resources into their talent attraction and retention strategies, and how successful this is will weigh in on their success of acquiring the future talent pool.

Extremely interesting times ahead, we know given the number of consultations we’ve done with clients in recent months. So we welcome anyone that is looking to bounce ideas on how to strengthen their employer branding and reputation to reach out for an open dialogue with us at Pinnacle Lead Consulting.

Written by Cindy Wong - 14th March 2022