ISSUE 3 - DECEMBER 2021
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION:
‘WORK IS NOW SOMETHING WE DO, NOT SOMEWHERE WE GO’ With more and more sectors returning to full time working the effects of the pandemic on employees and their expectations is becoming increasingly apparent. There are marked shortages of employees in some sectors while in others staff have new expectations about when, where and how they should work. We asked three experts in the field of employment and HR management to share their thoughts on some of these issues.
FINGAL CHAMBER - NETWORK MAGAZINE
Q1 How fragmented is the overall picture on employment now in sectoral terms and where are the biggest problems in terms of labour shortages?
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Siobhan Kinsella, Operations Director of the Noel Recruitment Group, Chair of the Fingal Skills Strategy Implementation Group and a former President of both Chambers Ireland and Fingal Chamber, brings deep insight into the challenges created by the pandemic in the labour market. “There are massive and consistent staff shortages in hospitality, retail, transport, logistics and customs
and in construction and they are causing serious challenges for business at the moment,” she says. “Prior to the pandemic, in the Fingal Skill Strategy (the first to be developed by any local authority in Ireland which was launched in 2019) using an independent consultancy and the same methodology as that employed by the SOLAS Skills and Labour Market Research Unit, we had mapped the replacement demand and emergent demand for Fingal under three different growth scenarios. “Then, when the pandemic hit, skills obviously became a massive issue and we invited the SOLAS SLMRU unit onto our Strategy Implementation Group to update the sectoral map for Fingal. We then cross-referenced that with data insights from LinkedIn and also with inputs from stakeholders in each of the relevant industries in Fingal. “Arising out of this work, one of the interesting things to emerge is the amount of provision that is already available to solve the skills issues, both in third level and in further education and training. There is plenty of funding. The real challenge now is to link the needs of employers with the training that’s available for new employees. There’s also been a significant increase in salary expectations from employees in
Anthony Cooney, Fingal Chamber, Derek McKay and Michelle McDonagh, Adare Human Resource Management at the launch
each sector and there is definitely an issue of wage inflation in the economy.” Ian Hunter, Centre Director of the Swords Pavilion Shopping Centre, says the retail the sector is really struggling to get back to normal operations due to the challenges of the employment market. “Since reopening in May we have seen business increase, confidence in customers to return to bricks and mortar shopping and lastly a level of confidence that the sector will not go into further restriction that affect their ability to trade. With the last point this is the real catalyst to retailers returning to the
