“Mr. Civelli, Northern Italy has had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe for years. Are companies there already feeling the impacts?”

“Yes, it has clearly had a major impact, as some generations have few people to enter the labour market. Another interesting point is related to entrepreneurs of “first generation” companies, which make up over 65% of all small and medium-sized enterprises in Northern Italy. Most of these companies do not have a succession plan and thus risk disappearing for good – along with their expertise, know-how and history.”

“Please give us your opinion: Have the companies recognized the gravity of the situation?”

“No they haven’t… They do not pay attention to demographics, which is quite surprising since immigrants make up 10% of the population in some areas, filling the labour gap created by smaller-sized generations, while many Italians do not like to perform certain types of jobs. We also have some job areas that are disappearing altogether as the experts who perform them age and there is no one to take their place.”

“Which strategies have Italian companies applied to deal with the skilled worker shortage? Which regions does Northern Italy recruit its professionals from?”

“In past years, companies attempted to outsource production to Eastern Europe (Romania, Albania, Poland, etc.), and to India, China and South America. In the last two or three years, there has been a new wave of internal immigration from Southern Italy to the North.”

“How does persolog italy support its customers and Italian companies in their struggle against the skilled worker shortage?”

“It is our responsibility as consultants to make management and people in general aware of the serious implications of the situation. They need to focus on personnel selection processes that emphasize the aspect of retention. In the long run, you will only achieve continuous performance if there is a high level of loyalty towards the organization.”

“What should companies pay attention to when recruiting new employees, in your opinion? What are the success factors?”

“We need to move away from focusing on CVs and references. They still play far too important a role in personnel selection processes – even though we all know that they are of little significance when it comes to predicting a person’s future performance. For this reason, we have implemented a personnel selection process that focuses on other questions. The persolog Employee Integrative System asks questions such as: Is the employee actually able to perform adequately with his or her personal and social competences? How will he or she get along with the future manager? Will they fit into the culture of the organization? The Employee Integrative System is the very first tool to integrate these factors into personnel selection processes. It enables companies to employ people who will quickly integrate into an organization or who, respectively, can be quickly integrated. Companies can choose employees for whom there is a high probability that they will stay for a long time. A better match between the two systems 'person – organization' will increase retention. This is what counts in times of skilled worker shortages.”

“You participated with 2 people from Italy in the master certification for the Employee Integrative System. What is the importance of this tool for your company and what are the next steps in launching the Employee Integrative System onto the Italian market?”

“From our point of view, the Employee Integrative System is very important since it deals with a very crucial topic: recruitment. Actually, the number of publications on the application process in the last few years indicates that the topic’s importance is on the rise. Recruitment has experienced a turning point: In the past, companies could select which employees they wanted. Today, it is the employee who decides which company he wants to join. For this reason, our main market in Italy for persolog products and consultancy is the market for recruitment, selection and assessment. The main steps ahead to launch the Employee Integrative System onto the Italian market are to test the Employee Integrative System with some opinion leaders in the HR market as well as with companies that have difficulties in attracting their targeted group of people on the market.”

“Thank you very much for this conversation and for your time.”

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