Lyubov Filin, Head of Evidence-Based Regulatory Practice Department at the Gaidar Institute, explained in a commentary for Forbes the situation in which Russian companies are seeking to reduce personnel costs but at the same time are forced to rapidly raise salaries. According to her, this is caused by a shortage of personnel: in order to retain employees, employers have to increase wages, even if their overall goal is to reduce costs.
The expert believes that this discrepancy between business plans and practice is temporary. She also proposed alternative strategies for optimizing personnel costs: “Instead of cutting salaries, companies can build a ‘smart’ system: introduce a KPI system where income depends on achieving set goals, give employees more non-material benefits, such as voluntary medical insurance, comfortable working conditions, and give employees more flexibility in their work—remote work, flexible working hours.”