Tight labor market is not a capacity problem, but a welfare problem

If the figures are to be believed, tension in the labor market has increased yet again. In the first quarter of this year there were 133 vacancies for every 100 unemployed, now there are 143 per 100, according to figures from the CBS. There seems to be a shortage of personnel everywhere: in health care, in technology and in ICT. Customer services are less accessible, stores, gas stations and even emergency rooms are closing and parents are at a loss for words because of lack of capacity in child care. But is the tight labor market really a problem of too little capacity? Not as far as I'm concerned. There are enough people, but we are not taking good enough care of them.

Frenetic retention of staff leads to absenteeism

The tight labor market has nothing to do with too few people, but with what? The problem lies in the way organizations treat employees. Frenetically, they cling to employees for fear that people will leave. Binding and captivating seems to be the magic formula to make employees stay. Extra salary, lease cars, child care reimbursement, paid vacation or health insurance compensation are used for this purpose. However, these kinds of sticking plasters on the wound do not heal; in fact, they have nothing to do with the work itself. The result? People stay with their current employer, even though they dread going to work every morning.

And what happens next? Right, these people develop symptoms and start absenteeism. If we look critically at the figures, for 500,000 of the 600,000 employees who are absent daily, there is no real medical necessity to be absent. Those can make the choice to go to work - perhaps with some restrictions - provided they find enough challenge and happiness there. In short: the frenetic retention of employees leads to absenteeism and thus a shortage of capacity. And so employers shoot themselves in their own foot.

On top of that, employers set the wrong priorities: they focus massively on recruiting new staff to fill the lost capacity of all those absentee colleagues. Instead, they should invest in prevention of absenteeism, because then recruiting is not necessary at all. Unfortunately, very often I still see too little awareness and knowledge of a good preventive policy. In addition, unfortunately the willingness to invest in this is very low or even completely lacking.

Happy employees absent less

And as far as I'm concerned, that's where the solution to the tight labor market lies: taking good care of employees! After all, happy employees go to work with pleasure and that is quickly reflected in the absenteeism figures. If an organization reduces absenteeism by fifty percent - which is really feasible with good policy - the capacity problem is solved. This also creates space to let employees go more. Not to cling desperately to them, for fear that they will look for another job.

You do this by taking a number of steps as an organization. To begin with, you must ensure an open organizational culture in which mutual trust forms the basis. Stop tackling cultural problems with structural solutions, such as checklists to ensure that something is done. In addition, make the 'manager-employee' axis the most important part in case of (impending) absenteeism. Don't have discussions about being sick or not, but have regular discussions with employees and talk about expectations, ambition and development. Abolish something as strange as a performance review - or any other one-time review per year. Give employees real autonomy, but then also dare to demand real ownership. You do this by letting go of individual targets and "writing hours." And by doing away with registering days off. Dare to trust that employees handle this well and don't link it to buying days off or otherwise to a budget. That way, you ensure that - beyond your limited vacation days - absenteeism, linked to an illness, is no longer the only legitimate reason for not being there one time. Autonomy also means giving employees the space to explore values and talents and let them discover what really suits them, both in work and private life. This ultimately increases their job happiness. This gives people a grip on their lives and increases their enthusiasm and job satisfaction. As a result, absenteeism decreases and productivity increases.

Of course, it happens that employees discover in this search that another job suits them better. Accept this and help people find that suitable job, rather than doing everything possible to keep them in anyway. This too is part of taking good care of employees. If we all do this as BV Nederland, people work in a place where they are happy. In this way, we tackle the problem at its root and focus on what it should really be about: employee well-being, partly in the interest of the health of your organization.