First day, second day...

In his weekly column "Max's Column" for TBmagazine, Maxim Behar talks about the difficulties and changes in the Bulgarian economy and business and the only force that counts - experience.

I am talking at length with a close friend and colleague of mine in Delhi, and we are telling each about our problems and worries in these turbulent days for the world. Suddenly he blurts out to me that his biggest problem is finding people for the office. "Come on, you've got to be kidding me," I retort, unconvinced, "to have this problem but in this country with a billion and a half people...".

Yes... Here it is, the year 2023! There isn't modern manager in Bulgaria, who doesn't moan or groan, they cannot find people, those who work, aren’t good enough, the staff turnover (a disgusting word) is at a huge rate and all sorts of other complaints. Morning till night! Barely any new employee, who sits in the office for a day or two, mopes around, and by the third day has already resigned. Most of the explanations are like copy/paste: "It's not my thing, I imagined it otherwise".

The fact that managers imagine something else is irrelevant. I often repeat the brand-new generation that is appearing more and more insistently in our offices has a completely different value system and criteria, that is by no means worse than any other from previous generations. They are just different and better and more accurate than the previous ones. But they just don't pay attention at the first day, they don't even care which office they're in, but the second day... they might decide to stay.

It's up to us managers. It's up to nobody else.