Leaving Luxembourg. While staying. But leaving anyway. That’s the curious equation--and the strange exercise in contortion--that recruitment firm Michael Page is trying to solve this autumn. Established in the grand duchy since 2007, the international firm (present in 36 countries, across 141 sites, with 7,500 employees) is currently closing its offices on Avenue Pasteur in the capital, with a view to transferring its activities to Brussels, one of its two addresses in Belgium, along with Antwerp.
Half a dozen employees were working there. Michael Page claims that the number of staff assigned to the grand duchy will remain unchanged. “But they won't necessarily be the same,” admits the group’s Belux director, Grégory Renardy, who was director of the Luxembourg office between 2010 and 2013. Not everyone was able to--or wished to--pack their bags and follow up this forced departure,
Director left at the end of 2023
Promoted to senior manager at the start of the year, Céline Bartholomé will continue her mission from the Belgian capital. This is where she worked before being appointed to the grand duchy, after seven years of employment.
At the end of 2023, Michael Page Luxembourg saw the departure of its director, Maxime Durant. Durant, who joined the firm in 2006 and led the Luxembourg team for eight years, is now working on the launch in Luxembourg--effective since last spring--of the activities of a competitor, the French firm Lincoln. Lincoln specialises in leadership advisory services, executive search and executive interim management, and now has twelve offices in ten countries. A departure like this at a turning point?
While physical meetings have not disappeared, they are becoming fairly marginal.
Through Renardy, Michael Page explains that there are other reasons for this change of direction, which has been in place for several months. It’s strategic decision “geared towards employees,” Renardy insists. “We’re looking to optimise our quality of service through the satisfaction of our consultants. We’re in a new world, a post-covid world. It’s a world that offers new constraints and new prospects. The biggest change in our business is total digitalisation. Before, our customers and candidates were 100% physical. From one day to the next, everything is done through Microsoft Teams. This is causing real upheaval in the way we approach our business.”
“First of all, we tried to go back to a more physical approach. But our customers didn’t necessarily want that. While physical meetings have not disappeared, they are becoming fairly marginal. The vast majority of players are focusing on efficiency, saving time and using Teams.” Face-to-face meetings, he adds, “now account for 10-20% of our meetings.” These one-to-ones will not disappear entirely, but “[from Brussels], it’s easy to organise.”
The challenge of flexibility
“The second big impact,” continues Renardy, “is a flexible working environment. This is nothing new, I think we’re all facing it. Organisations, including our own, are getting their act together to offer a flexible working environment that meets the expectations of the younger generation, but not just the younger generation. This is really driving our thinking.”
Luxembourg’s restrictions on teleworking and the cost of property in the country (“Over the years, we’ve had consultants who couldn't even live near the office. We think it will be much more comfortable in Brussels,” Renardy says on this subject) may have weighed in the decision by Michael Page, which recruits “around a hundred people” per year in Luxembourg and boasts a portfolio of “250 to 300 clients.”
However, “we are keeping our dedicated team in Luxembourg, which specialises in Luxembourg and is familiar with the country’s economic fabric. They will simply operate from Brussels. For the customer, there’s no difference. Tomorrow, it will be the same person who handles their file and knows the candidates,” adds Renardy. This refutes the argument that cost-cutting is likely to please shareholders. Michael Page is listed on the stock exchange.
“Our customers will be ready for it”
“We have been informing clients for several months now, and the service is not changing. I don’t want them to see any difference, and I even want them to see added value in the long term,” says Renardy. He says that “the market is ready for this.”
“Clients and candidates don’t ask us to meet face-to-face every day. They say to us: ‘No, we want a consultant who knows our file, who follows us, who is stable and who knows Luxembourg.’ Everyone is confronted with this new reality of the hybrid model, and we’re not the only ones thinking about how to optimise the organisation of work. We’ve measured it, we’ve put it in the balance and we think our customers will be ready for it. We have a name, and our customers have trusted us for a long time now. If they check that they can continue to get the same quality of service, I really don’t see why they’d go anywhere else. That’s what they tell us, in fact.”
In Luxembourg, there is a little more pressure on the job market than in other European countries.
In the opinion of the professionals we interviewed, the transfer of Michael Page comes at a time when the recruitment market is experiencing, if not a slowdown, at least a period of turmoil, itself following a strong post-covid rebound. Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, geopolitical turmoil, the electoral soap opera in the United States... There are many reasons for this. “In Luxembourg, there is a little more pressure on the labour market than in other European countries,” says Renardy.
This is coupled with that is “fiercer than ever,” a loss of attractiveness for Luxembourg (said to be penalised by a wage catch-up with neighbouring countries), as well as by the difficulties encountered in terms of housing and the meagre room for manoeuvre on the home-office front.
The market, however, has seen a proliferation of players in recent years. We could divide it into two camps. On the one hand, there are firms that work on a retainer basis and take an exclusive approach. On the other, those working on a ‘success’ basis, paid by their clients on condition that they have found the rare pearl. “In a sluggish market, working for success can mean working for nothing,” explains a competitor. In these difficult times, so-called “isolated” offices, as Michael Page’s Luxembourg branch might be described, are becoming much less profitable.
Cautious competitors
Be that as it may, Michael Page’s decision to give priority to digital technology has raised questions among observers. “It might seem viable on paper, especially given the advances in technology, but I think it’s more advantageous to choose a local firm, especially in a context like Luxembourg’s,” says headhunter , who founded her own firm in 2018. “We have intrinsic knowledge of the local market, i.e., an in-depth understanding of the economic specifics, market expectations, current trends and regulatory developments, which is crucial to offering a relevant and effective service. What’s more, local firms generally have a richer network of contacts that are more readily accessible locally,” .
An analysis shared by an ‘ex’ of Michael Page, , who has since become regional managing director Belux for Morgan Philips. The group, which was set up in 2013, operates in around twenty countries. “What companies want today is advice and proximity. They are going to pay for a real service,” says Fouilloy,
“For me, having a physical presence in Luxembourg is decisive, because it’s a market apart. But it’s all a question of positioning... Digital can work on jobs with low added value--and that’s not a pejorative way of putting it. From one day to the next, we realised that we could very well recruit exclusively via video, of course, but we’ve gone back on that quite a bit. Video undoubtedly saves time when it comes to making an initial filter and having an initial exchange that goes further than a telephone call. But the posture, gestures and direct interaction are missing. What’s also missing is coming into the office and getting a feel for the atmosphere of the company you’re going to work for. When we meet, we open up a fairly privileged contact. It’s human contact. Personally, I’m inclined to encourage my teams to have face-to-face meetings. It’s also a way of testing a candidate’s motivation. If you approach someone but they don’t want to meet you, preferring a 30-minute video interview from home, that’s a fairly limited effort to put into the recruitment process. On the other hand, the person who spontaneously comes to see you is much more proactive.”
In other words, Michael Page is facing a new challenge. But it’s a challenge that it has chosen to take on itself.
This article was originally published in .