It is not worthwhile to cave in to a changing world

Stepanov Maxim, 01.07.2009

Before becoming clichéd one should note that everything must pass the test of time. In one of Andrey Makarevitch's songs there are the word: “it is not worthwhile to cave in to a changing world, let better it fall under us”. It is possible to assert that today, under the conditions of the economic crisis which is raging on, there are all necessary the conditions for checking and the validity of this idea.

The changes proceeding today exert significant pressure on all participants in the market, in essence there is a “caving in” of the achievements made over the last 10 years: the unprecedented price of energy resources, high purchasing power and a demand for different goods and services, high wages and standards of living, as well as many others.

Controlling decreases in production, or having directly become its victim, many of us are forced to reconsider and to re-evaluate our expectations on our conditions needed for life and work, to reconstruct our expectations and to compromise when considering what is acceptable for us, and sometimes this applies too, to our income level.

It is understandable, indeed company-employers experience exactly the same pressure, and following a rapidly reduced volume in earnings, they are forced to reduce expenses, reducing wages and reducing personnel for the sole purpose: to survive, to remain on the market and, understandably, to preserve the number of work places as maximally possible under the prevailing conditions. The least delay by the management with the adoption, sometimes, of deeply unpopular solutions and the company risks being added to the list of those firms becoming bankrupt themselves, in which case everyone without exception will lose their jobs.

Temporary or part-time employment, work at home, combining jobs, which had been considered earlier as completely unacceptable, became the only option for many under the prevailing market conditions - both for the workers and for the business.

Specifically, under such conditions, says the President of the consulting company AVENIR (AVENIR GROUP) Maxim Stepanov, demand grows on the requirements for recruitment agencies which are specialized in the personnel recruitment services, where together with the traditional selection for a firm, they expect a more flexible and multi-format approach in guaranteeing personnel selection.

The phenomenon of the Personnel Leasing in Moscow and Saint Petersburg not only is well known, but has also long ago gained gain great popularity in enterprises with a large number of line personnel, as the effective method for reducing constant administrative expenses. Leasing of personnel is also known under the names of Staff Leasing, Staffing or Out-staffing, both designations undoubtedly borrowed also into the Russian language have the appropriate analog - Temporary personnel or Temporary Staff in Russia these services are also widely used in the crisis, but precisely during the crisis interest and attention to them grows rapidly. In spite of a number of differences, all these services are directed toward an increase in the liquidity of human labor, making it possible, first of all, for companies to acquire personnel resources exactly as much as the enterprise is capable of mastering, and to pay on the basis of the current market situation and production demand.

The presence on the Russian market of large proposals of this type for personnel services, their variability and quality, and also the readiness of people to examine the nonstandard conditions regarding the use of their labor, testifies to a sufficiently high level on the market, and its development. In particular, it testifies to its ability to resist negative factors, inherent in the global economy like guarantees of adaptability and stability.

One could also look upon the readiness of people to adapt to the temporarily complicated conditions as “sagging” under a changing world, or on the contrary, as a developed ability to resist and to defend their long-term vital interests and plans, through the manifestation of flexibility and readiness to make concessions.