Recruitment in the UK has virtually stopped. Whereas six months ago, 52% of British companies recruited fixed-term or part-time employees, today the situation is significantly different.

More than a third of British companies (around 36%) have suspended recruitment. “The search for top managers for British companies came to a complete halt until further government steps were clarified,” says Lucie Teisler, Managing Partner of the consulting company executive search Anderson Willinger and a graduate of financial banking in Switzerland.

What will it bring to the Czech Republic?

In the short term, thanks to BREXIT, the Czech Republic could improve its position as a European assembly plant or as a suitable location for human resources for ordinary operational positions in foreign companies.

Manufacturing companies, which are majority owned by a British company, are now considering relocating their production workforce to Central and Eastern Europe, especially if they already have another production plant there.

The so-called Shared service centres (established, for example, for billing documents and determining the payment system for individual countries, so-called “Countries” within corporations) and / or call centres for operational or operational-management functions think similarly. Managerial positions will continue to be allocated directly in the UK, both before and after BREXIT.

Throughout the time when the United Kingdom was part of the European Union, it invested heavily in production automation (as did the United States and China), with strong financial support from the Euro funds. A typical and well-known example is the fully automated production lines of Apple plants or the world-famous Elon Musk’s Tesla, which produces 260 cars every day in fully automated operation.

These productions remain in Western countries because their operation requires a highly skilled workforce. It is perhaps the goal of every technology and manufacturing company to acquire and centralize key brains in their country, in their research and development team (R&D), and to outsource operational functions that do not bring direct profit and are a source of high operating and personnel costs.

Unfortunately, the Czech Republic is thus falling – from the point of view of multinational corporations – among the countries where it is possible to outsource less qualified work, which seems to the English to be inferior.

Thanks to Brexit, Czech Innovations can strengthen

The change in the direction of Great Britain and the shift of its attention from the point of view of economic and diplomatic relations back to the United States and also to Asia can help many Czech companies and their managers with faster expansion into foreign markets and using Great Britain as a HUB to other parts of the world.

If Scotland really remains part of the Eurozone, England will have an even stronger and more interesting international position, because those who draw Euro funds in England will legally move to Scotland and actually stay in Britain.

And what about visas for Czech employees in the UK? “I believe that our diplomatic mission will resolve this through a bilateral agreement between Britain and the Czech Republic,” says Lucie Teisler, Managing Partner of Anderson Willinger, executive search. If the Czech Republic practically does not ensure similar legislative conditions, ie a bilateral agreement between the UK and the Czech Republic, so that the conditions equal or approach the situation in the EU, there will be a problem for everyone in the field of HR with visas, work licenses and more complex administration in personal data protection.

If the immigration permit requirement is reintroduced, the recruitment process for British companies will be extended.

Posting of workers or temporary cross-border assignments will need to be planned much earlier.

UK staff and seconded staff are likely to need a visa (including their family members).

In the case of the introduction of visas, employees (UK residents in the Czech Republic and vice versa) and posted employees will also need a work permit for a work stay in the Czech Republic or the UK. Lucie Teisler, Managing Partner of Anderson Willinger, executive search, finally adds: “In my opinion, the overall impulse of Brexit will ultimately have a positive effect on a number of economic, business and HR areas. This should be, above all, an impulse to accelerate fundamental changes, for example, to reduce the excessive legislative burden coming from the EU, which Europe and the Czech Republic so desperately need. ”

ABOUT ANDERSON WILLINGER, EXECUTIVE SEARCH:

Anderson Willinger has been operating as an EXECUTIVE SEARCH on the Czech market since 2003. It was founded by Lucie Teisler, who was also the first to enter the Czech market with BestHeads for strategic career planning.

Anderson Willinger is an executive search specialist in finding top executives working on supervisory boards, boards of directors and executive management of global and Czech companies and corporations. It works for all industries, but mostly focuses on financial, consulting, manufacturing, and technological sphere. The company uses unique tools for assessment not only of the new manager but of the entire team, in which the newly sought-after manager will continue to work. It also participates in the integration of a new team member. Unlike other executive search companies, it holds a 1-year guarantee for its candidates in case the company or candidate decides otherwise within this period.

Lucie Teisler has been working in Executive Search for twenty years. During this time, she worked in her field in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Kazakhstan. She is a graduate of investment banking, modern art, and NLP. It focuses on the precise “fitting” of the sought-after manager into a specific company with regard to his functioning within the organization and the acceptance of the style of the given manager by the new organization. She has long been involved in leadership, lifelong learning for managers and strategic career planning, emerging management roles in the dramatically changing labour market, and other topics that are fundamental to the development of HR.

Read more: Interview with Zdeněk Turek