Businesses look to incentivise recruits with training over wage increases

A new survey has revealed almost half of UK businesses look to training and mentoring as a hiring incentive over increasing wage.

It comes as 77 per cent of employers struggle to recruit due to a lack of skilled talent, according to data from ManpowerGroup.

The group’s survey found businesses are offering both financial and non-financial incentives, including:

Offering training, skills development or mentoring (44 per cent)

Offering more fleixble work schedules (42 per cent)

Offering more flexible working locations (33 per cent)

Increasing wages (29 per cent) Offering more non-financial benefits such as holdiay (19 per cent)

Offering incentives such as joining bonuses (18 per cent)

Lowering job skills or experience requirements (16 per cent)

Chris Gray, Director, ManpowerGroup UK said, “Many UK employers are turning to nonfinancial incentives, such as additional annual leave, hybrid working options and enhanced training opportunities.

“A third of UK businesses intend to offer flexible work locations as a hiring incentive, despite only a quarter of middle managers feeling positive about continued remote working.

“This disconnect is something that employers will have to contend with in a talent scarce market.

“Workplace demand has changed dramatically over the course of the last two years - the top three most applied for jobs in last month were in insurance, design and creative and graduate and trainee roles - the majority of which can be performed partly remotely – a harsh departure from the same period in 2019, when media, pharmaceutical and travel and tourism sectors topped the list of most soughtafter roles.”

He added: “Although training and upskilling are being offered by almost half of UK businesses, 24 per cent have admitted that money is a barrier to these plans.

“And despite the government’s calls for the UK to become a ‘high-skill, high wage’ economy, more needs to be done to support businesses to deliver against these plans.”

At last week’s budget it was announced that the National Living

Wage will increase from £8.91 per hour to £9.50, from April 1 and the public sector pay freeze will end for 2.6million workers.

Mr Gray added: “The UK does must avoid a salary spiral where wages continue to rise but is not met by an equal increase in productivity.

“Training is a long-term solution and one that will bring about an upskilled workforce of the future, in line with Government ambitions.”

ManpowerGroup’s findings also revealed that 22 per cent of UK employers surveyed plan to focus their upskilling efforts on older workers (50+).

This age group was largest proportion of workers on furlough when the scheme came to an end last month.

Given that 50-64 year olds represent over 10 million workers, this could be a potentially huge untapped resource of experienced workers available to the UK.

At the other end of the spectrum, younger workers are also high on the agenda as we see new entrants to the market in Q4; 37 per cent of businesses said that students or recent graduates are the group they plan to upskill or reskill most.