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Acquainting an organisation with an overall
understanding of human resources (HR) issues in Central and Eastern
Europe is a seemingly very difficult task. According to the experts,
each country is at a different stage of economic development and
has developed different labour laws and employment practices. Therefore,
companies looking to expand into the region should consider each
nation as a stand-alone case.
Yolanta Strikitsa, head of HR consultancy at
Morgan Chase’s Eastern European Practice, explains, “Before you
go, you need to look at the history of each nation — it’s very
different to that of Western Europe, not only socially and culturally,
but also in terms of industry and business development” .
Taking Hungary as an example, she comments, “They
were first to enter the developed, Western-style world. Now, they
are already in the second stage of direct investment in the country
with companies merging with Western multinationals” .
“Russia too” , she adds, “is past the first
stage and is facing proper investment” . According to Strikitsa,
the challenge for HR specialists is now more difficult than it was
in the past. Formerly, she explains, “investors would go into the
market for a very short period of time. Today, however, "there is
more long-term investment. HR’s role now is to find expatriates
who are willing to stay at least three to five years".
In contrast, Yugoslavia and Serbia are today
where Russia was back in the early 1990s, with very short-term investments
being introduced. That means, says Strikitsa, “that you see people
coming in for perhaps three or four months to do bits and pieces” .
However, despite these very different stages
of development, there is one underlying factor that unites these
diverse countries — people throughout the region tend to have a
high level of education. In their Doing business and Investing in
Hungary — 2000 report, PricewaterhouseCoopers say, “Hungary has
a skilled and well-educated workforce. Although certain skills such
as knowledge of Western languages and of Western accounting and
bookkeeping are still in short supply, this is changing as new graduates
enter the market” .
In Estonia, Information Technology (IT) is the
preferred career path. Encouraged by a government that plans to
open a university specialising in IT and telecommunications, the
people of Estonia are following the digital pathway. In 1999, for
example, a regional bank called Hansapank teamed up with IT services
company MicroLink to give away free computers to the first 2,000
people to sign up for the company’s Internet services. Furthermore,
according to KPMG, today, “more than half of the population has
used a personal computer and one-third of the nation have logged
onto the Net” .
Likewise, Romania has a bright, digital-savvy
population, and the Romanian Technology School is regarded by KPMG
as “one of the best in the world” . Furthermore, the Romanian labour-force
is often over-qualified. “It is a well-known fact that Romanian
students finish their studies by graduating from colleges in Western
countries” , they say.
The West, it seems, has also played a significant
role in influencing employment legislation in Central and Eastern
Europe. In Hungary, for example, modern Western principles have
been incorporated through the Labour Code of 1992. This regulates
the basic elements of employer/employee relationships.
Under it, workers’ councils are compulsory at
all locations employing more than 50 people, and unions act as negotiating
partners with employees, and have access to places of work. Similarly
in Romania, the government has issued legislation on areas such
as working hours, minimum wages, statutory and paid vacations, and
paid maternity leave.
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