Post Craiova – International labor market 

As most Post Craiova readers will be aware, our facility in Craiova welcomes an almost continuous flow of visitors. Those visits are useful and enjoyable. One effect is the fact that mutual understanding of development work invariably steps up, with a subsequent acceleration of teams’ output. 

The frequency of visits generally depends on customer preference. Some drop by eight times a year, others much less often. The current record stands at 42 individual visits by a single client – and this number is still rising. Soon we will be celebrating an anniversary with a client we have been working with continuously for 20 years, who has visited on just a few occasions in all that time. It also often turns out to be fun and useful for client employees to meet and exchange experiences with ‘colleagues’ working for other NetRom clients, often from completely different industries. 

An extremely interesting subject that I invariably bring up during dinners is the question of whether the current vast labor market shortage across almost all sectors is merely cyclical or whether it will be permanent this time. Many of our guests have strong opinions about this. This makes sense, because almost every organization needs to anticipate future developments in this area. Schiphol is a worrying example of how things can go wrong if you don’t do that adequately. Personally, I am convinced that the labor market shortages will endure. This means that HR policy needs to be completely rethought. Those who do not keep up with the new reality will inevitably fall behind. 

In the Netherlands, the government is currently working on a new attempt to regulate the labor market and reduce the number of flexible and self-employed workers. The question, however, is whether politics can keep up with the pace of change. NetRom deals with the internationalization of the labor market on a daily basis. Some of our clients manage development teams on all continents simultaneously. 

Recently I saw a striking example: a Polish freelancer – a brilliant project manager, by the way – who manages several international teams from Madagascar for a Dutch client on behalf of an American firm. Quite the challenge for the legislator who needs to strike the right balance between taxation, pension, and social insurance in such a construction. Incidentally, I doubt whether this kind of fully remote working will be sustainable in the long term. In our knowledge-intensive environment, high-output development teams work together on product development. There is simply no better place to do that together than in an office. 

In any case, the new labor market requires complete rethinking on the part of the employer. This entails that employers must realize employees are a scarce commodity and that they need to do everything in their power to attract and retain people. Consequently, HR policy can provide a decisive competitive advantage over other employers. 

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