And the top is already far away – Kommersant

Representatives of recruitment agencies interviewed by Kommersant fix difficulties with the selection of top managers for Russian organizations. The main reason is the departure of a significant number of managers abroad, the secondary one is that companies often now need rare managerial competencies. In order to “close” the necessary positions, companies are ready to increase salary offers, restructure departments or meet candidates working remotely or even for other organizations.

There is a shortage of top managers in the Russian labor market, according to recruitment agencies interviewed by Kommersant. They cite emigration as the main reason for this, but the growth in demand, especially for new competencies, also plays a role.

Olga Voroshilova, a partner at the Cornerstone recruiting company, notes that the demand for top managers has grown over the past year. “If you look at the number of requests, they almost doubled,” she says. First of all, managers are looking for companies involved in oil production, metals, chemical production, and agribusiness. According to Cornerstone, the average time to close a job like this has doubled from three to six months.

The growth in demand was superimposed by a supply crisis – as Dina Akimova, managing partner of the Ruspartners recruiting agency, notes, a significant number of managers left the country – and, unlike middle-level employees, they left towards the end of last year. “According to our estimates, in the segment of top managers with a salary of over 60 million rubles. about a third left a year, 20-60 million rubles – about a quarter, ”says the recruiter. “In certain categories of top managers, our list of possible candidates for an open vacancy has been halved due to mass departures,” says Oksana Morsina, managing partner at RosExpert consulting company.

Another reason for the complexity of the process of selecting managerial personnel is the new requirements for top managers. “In past years, the main demand was for the so-called visionaries, for people capable of strategic thinking on a global scale. Now, on the contrary, we need the most pragmatic, the most brutal anti-crisis leaders who can quickly solve business problems in the face of a lack of time and information,” says Ms. Morsina. “We need those who are ready to perceive the work as building a house of cards: now sanctions have been introduced and something needs to be redone, now logistics has collapsed – and again, all over again,” says Dina Akimova.

At the same time, as Denis Konanchuk, director of the corporate training department at the Skolkovo School of Management, notes, it is still too early to say that top managers are ready to massively transform their skills in response to market demand – for many, in the current conditions of uncertainty, investments in education look unpaid .

Companies choose different ways to solve the problem of managerial deficit. Someone, notes Dina Akimova, realizing that a suitable leader cannot be found, is rebuilding the structure of the company so that there are fewer open positions. Someone is ready to allow those who have left to work remotely or come to the Russian Federation periodically. Some are even ready to consider the option when a top manager works simultaneously in two companies that do not conflict in business, and in the future the demand for such solutions will only grow, says Oksana Morsina.

Another way to increase the attractiveness of the workplace is to increase the salary offer. Salaries of top managers, according to Dina Akimova, have already grown by 30-50%, and this is not the limit. “In addition to the need to compete for personnel, the changed practice of remuneration of top managers is also pushing for an increase in the company’s salaries. If earlier they could be offered company shares as a bonus, now, given the state of the Russian securities market, this has to be included in the permanent part of the salary,” she adds.

Anastasia Manuylova