“The crisis has also had positive effects – some companies have engaged in intensive HR auditing, aimed at replacing management personnel hired during the economic boom in the past few years, whose professionalism has dropped in this possible period of economic cooling,” said Paul Milata, Country Manager of the Kienbaum Executive Consultants executive search company.
High salaries of specialists are no longer justified, and the internal reorganization of companies, to make costs more efficient, could include laying off specialists and attracting qualified personnel with experience on the market for lower salaries. “There are companies who are presently paying salaries slightly higher than normal, but who are doing so in order to keep good people. The paradox is that in several months these companies will find people on the market who are as good, but ‘cheaper,’ and this will lead to internal reorganization,” said Sorin Roibu, Managing Director for the Arthur Hunt executive search company.
Another option is to get rid of experienced and expensive personnel, to be replaced by young professionals, which the companies can pay less money to, explained Madalina Popescu, General Manager of HR Pluri Consultants Romania. Top managers and specialists with salaries of several thousand euro have been laid off, and are presently looking for work, said the Pluri Consultants representative. “There are industries, such as auto and finance, in which managers’ salaries have been reduced as a measure proposed by shareholders to avoid restructuring the respective companies,” said Irina Manolescu, Executive Director of Career Solutions International.
