Hiring Trends near the end of 2022
In 2022, local employers are eager to resume their hiring expectations and fulfill projected vacancies in Hong Kong. However it has been met with certain volatility that has been exponentially felt throughout the IT industry. It is clear with the high demand of software engineers, there would be a need for a morte creative way to retain your software engineers. Providing them with a good salary is a good starting point.
It all depends on the long term investment with annual raises, bonuses and other perks. But mostly you would need an open and supportive environment to grow skills and add value to the team.
Work Life Integration
Flexibility needs to be built in the culture. Work life balance is now traded for work life integration. Culture fit is huge. People have been fired over it or have not passed interviews.
Management wants team players. They want good candidates that have technical skills but they want to see that the employee will strive to do their best.
Global Hiring for Remote Work
Foreign Employers are eager to hire talent globally, especially for software engineers. This global trend will increase even more. It has been an increasing hiring trend to have global hires work remotely. While monitoring the quality of engineers their expectations have been met or even higher than before.
Ideally, the traditional hiring plan is to hire a senior or lead engineer, then find junior engineers to assist to mitigate the hands-on work. With the new generation of software engineers, it has been harder to keep this type of flow as young engineers are getting much more difficult to retain.
Candidates with 0 – 2 years experience tend to keep changing jobs to find the skills, products and domain they want to learn / pickup.
With all factors considered, talent jumping for brighter opportunities is especially true for those with 1-2 year experience. Demand for developers and engineers is at an all time high, with tech salaries rising faster than almost every other industry. These past two years will be wild and uncontrollable as the tech industry gets shaken up especially by the likes of the top tech destinations such as Google, Apple and Meta.
The top 10 most common requested perks offered are:
- Supportive environment – Same opportunities and resources with collaboration
- Health Insurance – Keep your employees happy, healthy – and working.
- Clear Career Path
- Office hour Flexibility
- Team Outing / Building
- Professional Development – Education Reimbursement
- Passionate and caring team mates
- Fun and social events
- Tax Savings
- Paid Parental Leave
- Culinary Benefits
- Goal Incentives & Rewards
- Wellness Perks – Gym
Targeting Smaller Company IT Teams
Mid-level software engineers have been the target of hiring for companies. The plan for new project teams is to hire a senior lead first, then bring in the junior engineers. So far in 2022, the job market has been dictating the hiring strategy which is not the ideal way for most companies.
In the past, a job advert would be the ideal way to attract engineers, with a good advertisement and advertise a good package. But retainment has been an issue. Not only because of the company they work for but also because of outside factors. To prevent poaching from happening here are several things a company can do to keep young engineers from leaving during their early years with you.
- Culture fitting – Prioritize a culture that fair and enables employee with good resources tools
- Onboarding. The first quarter is the most critical period. Establishing a foundation for learning and for the employee to work on proving themselves. The early days can predict the future of success when the support structures are there
- Employee Value Proposition – Why do they want to work with you? Thinking about what differentiates your company from the others
- Support Structure
- Career Growth
- Product or Service
- Benefits or Perks (lowest Tier)
- Compensation & Culture – The phrase”Money isn’t everything” is deceiving. There needs to be a good balance of what will be shared and what will add value but not take away from the organization
- Branding – is important. It helps the staff reaffirm their choice of joining your organization
- Engagement – Staff engagement level survey – strength of Mental and emotional connection towards their work
- Development – Employees want to be invested in and grow. We should grow with them and recognize that they want to learn new things and spend time that may not be related to what they are doing now but will in the future.
Venturenix LAB’s Partner Trainee Programme is designed to address all of these issues with retaining young talent by providing a guaranteed 24 month service agreement with our company. To apply for our service contact us directly at course@venturenixlab.com
