Fearing a drop in revenue this year, companies are cutting costs, mostly for marketing. Investments in development projects and employee education have been postponed.
Two-fifths of companies have stopped hiring, while 35% will continue to hire. The best measure of the state of the company is the relief of salaries and tax relief, the latest research of Infostud shows.
The latest research conducted by the employment site Infostud among 450 companies in Serbia shows that more than a quarter of them (27%) still suffer from the negative effects of the pandemic, and only 8% said that the current situation has a positive impact on their business.
Two-fifths of companies point out that the biggest problem is business planning in circumstances with numerous unknowns, and in second place (28%) is the concern for financial sustainability. Half of the companies expect the financial results for this year to be below the planned, and only 5% see the possibility that they will be above expectations.
Under the impact of marketing, salaries are still holding up.
One-fifth of companies believe that the risk of the crisis will affect the sustainability of their business in the long run, and 45% of them predict that the sustainability will be short-term.
More than half of the companies have cut their costs, primarily marketing funds, and investments in new development projects and employee education have been postponed. The good news is that in over 80% of companies there were no layoffs since the outbreak of the pandemic, while in almost 70% of companies they did not reduce the salaries of employees.
More employees are returning to the office than working from home.
As many as 60% of companies enabled at least part of their employees to work from home, and the same percentage said that it did not affect productivity. Two-fifths of the surveyed companies estimated that working from home can be feasible and useful for a good part of the company’s employees, and 23% pointed out that they have taken digitalization of their processes more seriously.
Just over 30% of companies plan to allow their employees to work from home even after the danger of the epidemic is over, while almost 40% point out that they will return to normal business processes and work from the office. In companies where employees have returned to their jobs, as many as 70% apply the prescribed virus protection measures, while 15% of them stated that they have not taken special protection measures.
Although 27% of the surveyed companies were employed during the state of emergency, almost 40% of them stopped employment until further notice, and 35% will continue to be employed in the coming period.
The largest number of surveyed companies rated the measures of the Government of Serbia for assistance to the economy with an average grade (3), and the most significant are the relief of salaries and tax relief, Kamatica reports.
