who is the seller and what is the product?

Traditionally, in the labor market, the company is considered the buyer, and the employee is the seller. But let's look at the situation from the other side.

What do companies create? In addition to goods and services, they create Jobswhich are put on the market (I have not yet chosen the correct term here, but this is no longer about a physical place, but about “a place/position in the organizational structure and processes” – further the term “workplace” will be used in this sense). Applicants consider them, and if the parameters of the workplace (the salary level is one of the parameters of this place, no more) meet the requirements, they “purchase” it by signing an employment contract.

The buyer, in the role of an employee, uses this workplace to satisfy his goals: professional, material, social. If the workplace ceases to satisfy his needs (both due to changes in the workplace itself and due to changes in needs), he “returns” it by breaking the employment contract.

On the part of the employee, the payment is qualified time (not just a person’s time, but the time of his activity, corresponding to the levels of qualifications and skills stated in the resume). If it turns out that his qualifications turned out to be “false” (the pay does not match), then the company will now terminate the contract and return the job to the market.

The specificity of the workplace as a product is expressed in the fact that it is inextricably linked with the organization, being its integral part. In the case of “purchasing” a job, the applicant himself becomes an element of the organization, influences it, changing internal or external interactions and influencing the workplace. Therefore, the organization has the opportunity to refuse the applicant-buyer in this specific transaction, taking into account the likelihood of a detrimental impact on it by the buyer of the workplace.

Just like an employee, there is always the opportunity to terminate a contract if the organization creates new, different jobs that change the parameters of his current place (and they cannot help but change, since adding a new element to the system affects all other elements of the system) and it will no longer meet the employee’s requirements (this point must always be taken into account when changing the staffing table and thinking not only about new, but also about existing places – how changes in staffing will affect their positioning parameters in the structure and processes).

And the last thing in favor of the workplace as a product is that it is quite specific. It can be described in parameters; it is quite rigidly fixed by many relationships in the activities of the organization. If we consider human labor, then it does not fit well into the category of “goods” – one and the same person can engage in completely different occupations at the same time, he can work in different jobs, specialties, professions – how to specify his ability to work when a person’s abilities lie in a very broad plane (as opposed to the specific parameters of the workplace)?

The penetration of the Internet and the development of collaboration technologies that eliminate dependence on the location of the employee/department/office, the emergence of such a thing as remote work (and its explosive growth in COVID-19) is expanding the sales market for organizations. Technology companies can now find buyers (workers) for their product (jobs) all over the world. Just as the development of e-commerce allowed sellers to deliver goods anywhere in the world to the buyer, so the development of e-work allows organizations to offer their jobs to the whole world, finding candidates for their jobs (again, this often allows you to “reduce the cost” of some parameters of the product ( for example, salary level), without affecting its main purpose.

If we consider jobs as a product, the approach to creating them should be similar to the main business process. Before creating a new location, companies must conduct marketing research – study the demand of applicants for specific jobs, assess their needs and priorities. And it's not just about salary. Many candidates are looking for a specific corporate culture, flexibility, and opportunities for development.

A company needs to be able to “sell” jobs, revealing not only professional requirements, but also living conditions, features of corporate life, the employee’s role in this workplace in the company, and opportunities for career growth. It is noteworthy that during interviews the candidate often talks more than the HR specialist. But it is the company that must present its workplace in order to “sell” it to a talented candidate.

This requires the company to check the parameters of the workplace for compliance with the needs of candidates, identify inconsistencies and work out options for eliminating them – from changing individual parameters of the workplace (salary level, location, development opportunities) to reengineering business processes, adjusting them to the needs of existing candidates.

Selling jobs is relevant not only on the foreign market. First of all, you need to learn how to “sell” internally – many employees have a desire for development, and the company must be able to offer them new jobs within the organization. This reduces the cost of attracting new specialists and increases the motivation of employees. Employees, who are the flesh of the organization, should have a preemptive right to purchase a vacant/created workplace.

To summarize, I would like to say that changing the point of view on the labor market significantly changes the approach to hiring staff, analyzing the causes of turnover, and managing employee satisfaction.

If our workplace is a “product”, then here we can apply the stages and techniques used in the organization’s main business process: marketing research, identifying needs, developing jobs to suit these needs (not the job profile, but the workplace profile!), direct control of the quality of jobs (regular monitoring of all those parameters in professional, everyday life, cultural, managerial, etc. plans), their advertising, sales, etc.

When you think about it, you will find plenty of evidence to support this point of view, and most importantly, you will see ways to seriously reduce the number of unfilled vacancies by becoming a “customer-centric” company in hiring.