SMEs would pay more to get the staff they need

Half of all Greek enterprises are willing to pay more to attract staff with the right skills, while a third of them would pay over 16 percent above the average market salary. This is the main conclusion of a survey carried out by Adecco Greece in cooperation with the Athens University of Economics and Business.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the leaders in that trend, as 41 to 42 percent of them stated that they would pay more than 16 percent over the average to attract talented workers. Larger companies appear more reluctant to do so: Relying on their reputation and stability, they appear to consider it easier to woo skilled workers without paying them above the market average. Regardless of company size, it is in the domains of information technology, sales and market development that enterprises are the most willing to pay more to get the right people.

Most firms still utilize traditional strategies when it comes to selecting employees, such as private interviews and comparing CVs or skills, with 80 percent using the former and 78 percent the latter. Nevertheless corporations appear to be taking advantage of modern methods that employ technology, such as conducting interviews with the use of multimedia.

As for employees’ decisions, the vast majority (84 percent) of survey participants said they would leave a company for financial reasons, while taking the decision to leave for reasons of professional evolution or due to relations with superiors ranked second and third respectively (66 percent and 54 percent).

On the companies’ side, 32 percent said they were prepared to pay more than the market average in order to hold on to talented staff, while 22 percent of the enterprises that took part in the survey said they would pay more than 15 percent over the average salary to keep skilled employees. It appears, therefore, that many corporations would be willing to offer higher salaries to attract or to hold on to their employees.