Lack of skills and poor pay harming recruitment

24 May 2016 -

The 2016 National Management Salary Survey reveals factors behind ineffective recruitment practices

Matt Scott

UK employers are struggling to recruit the right staff as a result of a lack of suitable skills and poor pay incentives, according to the latest research from CMI and XpertHR.

The 2016 National Management Salary Survey found that more than nine in 10 (91%) of the employers surveyed report that they are facing recruitment problems, up from 89% in 2015 and 79% in 2014.

The main issue cited is the challenge of recruiting people specific skills, identified by 87% of survey respondents, up from 75% a year ago and more than double the 41% of managers from two years ago.

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Pay is also a contributing factor to the recruitment problem, with a rising number of employers now saying that the problem lies with reward packages being too low to attract high quality applicants – 36%, up from 20% – while similar numbers report that the high cost of recruitment is a problem when looking to attract new talent – 32%, up from 23%.

CMI chief executive Ann Francke said: “The labour turnover data also show that the rising financial cost of attracting, recruiting and keeping management talent is now a huge challenge for employers.

“This makes it imperative for employers to look at how they engage, train and retain key staff.”

The survey also found that managers below the senior ranks are beginning to feel the effects of employer belt-tightening. Such managers experienced the lowest rate of basic pay increases since 2011 at just 2.6%, compared to 3% last year.

Overall, the average salary across all executives now stands at £34,479.

View the full infographic from the 2016 National Management Salary Survey here