Businesses have a huge challenge ahead: they will have to sharpen their wits to attract the attention of the new generations of professionals who join the labor market and are used to interacting in a digital world through applications in which immediacy and quick and easy access to information is the norm. In this context, apps such as Tinder, in which it is becoming increasingly frequent for young people to interact naturally, could be the catalysts of a new way of forming relationships, which will even impact on the labor market. It is what could be called the “Tinderization” of employment relationships.
Technology and the new generations go hand in hand, creating a challenge for businesses, which face a crisis in retaining talent. The traditional form of recruitment and access to employment is no longer valid, if it cannot be Tinderized.
The classic characterization of employment contracts as indefinite-term contracts, no longer appears to have the pull it used to have when it was conceived as the official model. Perhaps at that time, having a company undertake to assume a labor obligation without an end date in sight, was the most attractive element that could be offered to those who accessed the employment market. However, at present, other elements have arisen that have proven to be game changers, such as flexibility, emotional salary, disconnection from work, work/life balance, or other intangible aspects such as transparency, equality, social responsibility and respect for the environment.
Candidates’ change in taste, as well as the new concepts that they find attractive increases tenfold if we consider that the new generations have digital tools at their disposal, offering them a huge amount of information on job offers with just a single click. These apps allow candidates to know within minutes, assess and even accept, dozens of job offers that are even filtered for their specific needs by artificial intelligence. There are also marketplaces dedicated to this routine.
This is a radical change. Nowadays, such a vital decision as access to employment can be carried out quickly and simply. If the circumstances arise for an employment match, the complexity of the task is reduced, the time spent is less and there is an instant and precise view of the employment market. In addition, candidates’ increasingly greater skills and the unstoppable offer of employment worldwide, encourages employee mobility in ever-shorter cycles.
Employers currently face the challenge of having to rethink their employment offers to direct them at new demand. And the extent of the knowledge of the legal tools we have in Spain plays a key role in ensuring that talent chooses our offer. More importantly, candidates should choose our business because they find us attractive in the medium and long-term, irrespective of other offers they may receive in the short term.
It is time to design remuneration methods that encourage and motivate, adapted to the new corporate reality. Of thinking about how to implement flexible methods that bring together both corporate needs and the increasingly greater demand for work/life balance solutions. Of establishing mechanisms that defend businesses in the event of a high turnover and of placing value on specialization when hiring employees and how this will enrich our business.
The remuneration system can also be reassessed in this analysis, transforming it into permanence mechanisms. Clauses can also be designed to limit post-contractual competition or which reward exclusivity in the provision of services. Other instruments can also be used such as establishing flexible working hours, open methods for annual vacation and ways of working that go hand in hand with new technologies.
These methods allow the long-awaited match to be achieved between candidates and employers in this age of Tinderization of employment relationships.
