PEST is a macro-environmental framework that many businesses use to make strategic decisions. It allows individuals and groups to plan for risk mitigation and improves the way they do business from an environmental, social, and governance point of view. PEST is also a common tool used by many recruiters and HR practitioners to optimize the recruitment process because the external factors of an environment can affect the way employers hire, and PEST is a comprehensive planning structure that allows them to do that.
Recruiting in Myanmar can be a different scenario for many foreign firms in Myanmar; all four components of PEST should be observed and an adequate environmental scanning should be conducted first before making a recruitment venture in this country, whether it’s for a local startup or an international investment. We’ll break down PEST, described below are political, economic, social and technological themes of an environment that can affect any recruitment process.
1. Political & Legal
Political and legal segments of a business environment should arguably of the utmost consideration while making decisions about HR recruitment. This is because the legal dimension of a country is out of any company’s control and misinformed recruitment decisions can adversely affect the prospects of the whole company. Labour laws are an example of significant information that every employer should be informed about to make legally valid choices pertaining to recruitments without running afoul of local policies. Working hour stipulations, payroll regulations, leave days, and labour dispute resolutions are some instances of legal areas the companies are concerned with. Furthermore, knowledge about trade unions and labour strikes is also worth being familiar for companies in terms of employee representation.
Labour laws and political segments of a country can be drastically different from one to the other and international investors should be specifically mindful about this because an action completely justifiable in one society could be legally or morally wrong in another. Any legal or political statement accommodated to the needs of any other country should be switched to that acceptable in Myanmar once the company operates here. This can be seen sometimes in the questions and information that is placed on a CV, whereas it might look completely different than candidates applying for a job in another country; it is still standard practice to ask for certain information from a potential new hire in one place versus another.
On a more specific note, there are some legal situations to consider before recruiting an employee, one of such examples being intellectual property rights. Myanmar at the moment does not have stringent rules and regulations imposed about breaching intellectual property rights within the entertainment and media industry. While this is changing with artists starting to take action about their productions, it is still in the nascent stages of development. Intellectual property right violation, although punishable, is a minor crime usually ruled insignificant by the policy makers. Therefore, when your company deals with sensitive or classified intellectual products and services, it is always advised to make your employees well aware and potentially sign a contract that forbids them from abusing the company’s internal information even upon their departure or dismissal from the company. Besides, company registration and patent or copyright authorization are also appropriate legal measures that should be taken whenever you start a company anywhere in the world.
2. Economic
An environment’s or society’s economic conditions are also supposed to be taken into the framework while making recruitment decisions. Different societies have different levels of development and infrastructure standards for onboarding new hires. They affect the employees’ living standards as well as their compensation bands. This is one of the strategies many multinational corporates use to make their operations efficient; they may manufacture some of their products or base some of their operations in a country with a lower economic standard to minimize overhead like staffing costs compared to a different economy. Also, recruitment marketing can be less expensive in some countries due to the job market conditions like higher job demand of skilled workers or labourers, depending on the need of the organization.
Operating in different countries with different economic situations calls for different recruiting tactics. There are countries with a high demand for competitive salary; making it important for recruiters to use monetary incentives to reach out to potential candidates. Meanwhile, there are countries with financially sufficient employees who seek career progression and work-life balance rather than being higher on the pay scale. So, it is really important for recruiters to know the underlying economic dimension of an environment they recruit in and really understand what it is that the job seekers are looking for when positioning certain positions.
3. Socio-cultural
The employees’ ethics and attitude toward their job is mainly influenced by their beliefs and cultures. Understanding the motivation, motives, or drives of people within a society is a key factor while planning the recruitment process. Recruiters also need to take into consideration the changes to the cultural and social inclinations of the people they intend to recruit as the landscape of the economy matures and develops. For example, millennials nowadays might prefer to engage in companies with more flexible job hierarchy. Adults tend to get married later in life and have less children and people retire at early ages. These are all instances of shift in socio-cultural preferences taking place worldwide at a general scale.
Myanmar people have strong convictions and established ideologies when it comes to religion and tradition. They have social norms and behaviours that lean toward the country’s major belief systems. These factors all have some level of impact on the recruitment practices of the companies operating in Myanmar. For example, Myanmar is a country where people value nurturing healthy relationships, enhancing the quality of life, taking care of each other, celebrating the team efforts, and fostering a sentimental value among people. This is a good thing to know when doing recruitments because recruiters now know how Myanmar job seekers should be incentivized. Job advertisements should highlight that the job is non-seclusive or less individualistic, which is a good job aspect in Myanmar that can entice and effectively recruit employees.
4. Technological
Technology is irrevocably hailed as the most important integration into any operational or strategic sector of business. It increases the efficiency with which people make decisions and plans. A company’s recruitment strategies can be shaped significantly based on the technological competency of the society that the company is based in. Recruiters may find certain job environments to be not very supportive of technology and adjusting the recruitment practices in alignment with the technological status of the country the company runs in is one of the success components of a business.
One of the ways technology can affect recruitment is job advertising. Many recruiters are now switching to automated and online forms of recruitment marketing and away from traditional physical job advertising which proves to be more expensive and time-consuming. Companies can now streamline their internet recruiting protocols to attract the job candidates faster and cheaper.
Myanmar can reasonably be referred to as a mostly technologically competent society where many millennials can efficiently use technology to interact with recruiters. Social media platforms, including Facebook, are often used by employers to advertise mostly entry level or blue collar job openings. Job portals and platforms including JobNet itself are becoming the norm when people are actively or passively looking for a job, and their Digital CV acts as a main point of reference when declaring your professional competencies.
By keeping an eye on each component in PEST; recruiters can make sound hiring decisions while minimizing any negative impact on the company. The majority of the best companies in Myanmar find their new candidates through JobNet.com.mm where hundreds of thousands of skilled candidates are matched with the jobs suitable for each month.