Career and HR, page 17

Professionals in education and language services

Institutions and organisations in the labour market

Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Familywww.employment.gov.skMinister: Ján Richter

Job portals in Slovakia

Job portals and job-related portalswww.aujob.skwww.brigady.skwww.cvonline.skwww.job.skwww.jobagent.skwww.jobpilot.skwww.kariera.skwww.karierabezhranic.skwww.profesia.skwww.topjobs.sk

More illegal work uncovered

WHOLESALE, retail sales, construction, and accommodation and catering services are the sectors with the highest level of illegal work in Slovakia. They make up almost 60 percent of the aggregate fines imposed. The National Labour Inspectorate imposed fines for illegal work exceeding €310,000 during the first half of 2012, the Hospodárske Noviny daily wrote.

Institutions and organisations in the education sector

Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sportwww.minedu.skMinister: Dušan Čaplovič

The Labour Code to be revamped, again

IT HAS become a custom in Slovakia for each new cabinet to offer a different direction from the previous one, whereby after its arrival in power, it overhauls the Labour Code, the most significant legislation concerning employee-employer relations. The Robert Fico cabinet, which took over the driver’s seat after this year’s March election, is no exception. It has already produced a draft revision, which it claims redresses the balance in relations between employees and employers, which it believes was significantly harmed to the detriment of employees by the previous cabinet of Iveta Radičová. This means that the current version of the Labour Code, valid since September 2011, will survive only until the end of the year as the revision is to become effective on January 1, 2013. Parliament will deal with this revision during its upcoming September 11 session.

Germans and Austrians look for brains

THE OPENING of German-speaking labour markets across Europe last year has not caused any significant outflow of Slovaks abroad. The interest from those markets has focused in particular on qualified labour, which is also in short supply in Slovakia. Qualifications and the [German] language have become the decisive criteria for foreign employers, and many Slovak applicants have a problem with satisfying them.

School graduates struggle to find jobs

THE CHANCES of Slovak secondary school graduates finding a job that fits their education are extremely poor: only a handful end up doing the occupation for which they actually studied. Experts believe that this needs to change.

Some employment, HR and executive search companies in Slovakia

- Amrop Slovakia – Context Driven Executive Search, www.amrop.sk- Arthur Hunt, www.arthur-hunt.com- CPL Jobs, www.cpljobs.sk- Grafton Recruitment Slovakia, www.grafton.sk- Index Nosluš, www.indexnoslus.sk- Lugera & Maklér, www.lugera.sk- Manpower Slovensko, www.manpower.sk- ProactPeople Slovensko, www.proactpeople.sk- Menkyna & Partners Management Consulting, www.menkyna.com- Profesia, www.profesia.sk- Target Executive Search Slovakia,www.targetfuture.com- Trenkwalder, www.trenkwalder.sk

Top managers learn to weld

TOP managers at machine engineering company PPS Group in Detva learned how to weld in late August. Company general director Pavol Šimkovič ordered his top management to try doing the work which makes up the core business of the company, i.e. welding steel sections in 30-degree heat.

Crisis generates demand for interim managers

THE CONCEPT of interim management was relatively unknown in Slovakia just a few years ago. However, Slovak companies hit by the financial and economic crisis have increased their demand for interim managers. Companies in the construction and service sectors, in particular, have been turning to interim managers to help with crisis management. But experts warn that companies must be prepared to grant interim managers enough managerial powers to effectively complete their assignments.

Filling unusual positions

COMPANIES use the services of HR companies in particular for recruiting to hard-to-fill positions or to high-profile positions, as well as to familiarise themselves with new trends in hiring processes. Roma Savel, staffing lead at Hewlett-Packard for Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, and Milan Polča, general manager of human resources development and staffing at U.S. Steel Košice, shared their companies’ experiences of using the services provided by HR companies.

Evaluate employees by results, not by time spent at work

Social media is used in all areas, and penetrated into the world of our employees. Mr Filipe Carrera, Portuguese international Trainer, Speaker and Author of books on digital marketing and networking is talking about the rights of social media in HR field, efficient usage of social media.

Stats released on foreign workers

REGISTERED foreigners make up less than 1 percent of the labour force in Slovakia.

Cabinet re-allocates €295 million of EU funds

SLOVAKIA suffers from one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the European Union. In order to address the problem, the cabinet of Prime Minister Robert Fico has responded to an initiative launched by EC President José Manuel Barroso and proposed to re-allocate EU structural funds away from programmes such as IT and education and towards tackling youth unemployment and boosting economic growth. The plan has attracted criticism from the opposition, which is calling for a more systematic solution.

Thousands of jobs offered at fair

EMPLOYERS offered almost 10,000 jobs at the Job Expo 2012 held on May 10 and 11 in Nitra. Slovak employers had 7,500 vacancies on offer and employers from 10 other European countries offered the rest.

Trends in HR management

LEAP FORWARD. According to English-language dictionaries this phrase describes the act of moving and reacting quickly, coming into prominence rapidly, or jumping over a barrier. All these meanings or some combination of them will be expected of human resources (HR) organisations this year and in the future. The current economic environment and converging market trends are driving HR organisations to make leaps forward in their performance and capabilities. Decisive action is needed more than ever.

Jobseekers told to get creative

ACCORDING to a survey by the Kariera.sk website, as reported by the SITA newswire, Slovak jobseekers often fail to present themselves to a prospective employer in a positive light especially when it comes to their curriculum vitae. Too often applicants resort to copying CV formats off the web, sometimes word for word.

More Slovak nurses work in Austria

THE NUMBER of Slovak nurses caring for seniors in Austria has increased from about 6,000 in 2009 to about 16,000 now. Miloslav Bahna from the Sociological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences presented the results of the Nurses 2011 research in late January, the SITA newswire reported.