Temp from Chiswick saves the World

Yes, OK, I know it’s only science fiction but Donna Noble (aka the brilliant Catherine Tate) may have done the Recruitment Industry a massive favour yesterday when she became the first female Time Lord and defeated the Daleks all in sixty minutes; and at an amazingly good hourly rate! Now if that doesn’t prove the value of a good temp, nothing does.

On a more serious note, I really hope Recruiter picks up this obvious marketing boon and invites Ms Tate to present an award at its next industry celebration, and only then if not beaten to it by the REC which should use her to present the One-in-a-Million award for the best Temporary Worker. I might have personally been tempted to create a parallel award for the ‘Best Temp in Chiswick’.

Mind you, having left the REC over 18 months ago, I am in little doubt that there are those out there who refer to me as ‘Dr. Who?’

Gareth

'Throwing a McQueen'

Well I have to say I was pleased by the number of recruiters who agreed with my comments about the wayward Mr. Lee McQueen and his dodgy dealings in The Apprentice. Recruiter gave it a good airing, on the website and in the magazine, and I’m pleased that under Dee Dee’s stewardship they are strong enough to come out on the side of professionalism (previous staff would have preferred the sensationalism and had him as their guest speaker at the next Awards ceremony).

I do however have one comment for Phil who, almost anonymously, suggested I should ‘Get a life.’ Actually Phil, if I had still been at the REC at the time I would have asked the Membership Department to see if Lee is an individual Member and if so referred his activity to the Standards Committee under the Code of Ethics; where it says, ‘They [the Member] should represent themselves fairly, honestly and courteously at all times, and should not engage in any activities, which would bring the recruitment industry or the REC into disrepute.’ And request that he be expelled.

Lee’s cavalier attitude has been proven once more, if the press is to be believed, where today they claim that Lee called in sick yesterday; his first day. A ‘spokesman’ for Sir Alan’ said “He won’t be pleased.” Which I think must be a rough translation of the phrase ‘Recruiter place thy self’. Wouldn’t anyone who was really serious about proving themselves crawl over burning coals to get in on the first day? I bet Claire Young would have done!

Have no fear Lee, if you fail with Sir Alan, there are still one or two recruiters out there who will welcome you with open arms.

Gareth

The future looks bright

“The outlook for the UK economy is less than rosy, but a recession is not looming” according to the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). I personally suport this belief and while things will get tough for a while, recruiters who have a positive cash flow and are able to weather potential client payment problems could do extremely well.

According to the latest growth forecast by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) should increase by 1.7 per cent this year and 1.3 per cent in 2009. While both of these figures are lower than previous estimates, the CBI warns against being overly cautious. Richard Lambert, the CBI's director-general, said: "We should avoid believing a recession is inevitable, or talk ourselves into unnecessary trouble."

I say, "If there is grow to be had, it had better be mine!"

However, and of much more of a concern to recruiters, the report also predicts that unemployment will increase to 1.79 million by the end of 2009, meaning around 150,000 people will lose their jobs between now and then. Recruiters need to be fast on their feet to offer solutions for employers and workers alike.

One initiative to pre-empt approaching issues might be to implement a confidential ‘Staff Flow Forecasting’ exercise with your major clients and help them flex if times get tight. Feel free to contact me if you want an insight into what you could do here.

I worked with one agency recently that was wonderfully innovative in the way it worked with one of its key clients that had just lost a major order and needed to make staff redundant. The Agency agreed to take excess permanent staff onto their own books as Temps and give them assignments (some back into the original employer) until the situation improved. The client underwrote any downtime and preserved key skills and good people until replacement business was found.

Complacency is the chief killer in an economic down-turn, creative thinking is the key to survival.

Gareth

Dumbing Down Recruitment (again)

Well I have to say I was stunned when Sir Alan hired ex-recruiter Lee McQueen in the finale of The Apprentice last night and passed on the ballsy and talented Claire Young. I can only think AMS is going to find a role for him in football; I’m thinking Wide Boys United.

There can’t be many Recruiters (especially Capita) who can be proud of Lee’s achievement after the damning interview session in Week 11 when Sir Alan’s ‘aids’ determined that he lied on his CV (Was anyone else desperate to know what he was doing for the unaccounted for 20 months?) and made more spelling mistakes than the ‘pimp who bought the warehouse’. Surely these are the two Cardinal Sins for any Candidate!

What a damning indictment for the Recruitment Industry that one of its own could get it so terribly wrong! Surely this is going to give every one of our Industry’s critics a field day when they want to suggest we don’t do an honest or professional job.

Perhaps we will even see the establishment of a new defining term for CV abuse; ‘Doing a Lee McQueen’.

Recruiter Magazine (who recently described him as ‘Recruitment’s champion’ yet dropped the word Professional from its own title some years ago) could now introduce the Lee McQueen Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement to acknowledge occurrences where Standard’s reach a new, all-time, low.

Now I have to confess to making the odd grammatical gaff myself but I would certainly make a good attempt to ensure my CV was spot on if I was going to have it exposed to 12 million TV viewers and might lose the contest; needing to use it again in the future. Surely he knows someone who could have checked it for him; perhaps not!

For Claire, I hope Karen Brady is true to her word when she told Sir Alan, “If you don’t hire her, I will!” I think this is definitely a case of Sir Alan Sugar 0 Karen Brady 1.

Having said that … I have no doubt that Lee will fit in perfectly at the AMS Empire and do a few good deals for the Chief Geezer.

Gareth

UK limps in last

I didn’t bother to watch the entries in the Eurovision Song Contest last night but the voting always makes for an interesting half hour; if only to remind me where the UK stands within the European ‘Family’ of Nations.

Most of us have no idea how legislation in Europe is drawn up or voted upon. Well, having spent a considerable amount of time in discussion with the European Commission and Parliament over the last few years, I can confirm your worst fears are true and that the Song Contest is a very close and real analogy. And it equally offers no short term hope of success for the UK.

In summing up the Song Contest you might conclude that the truly talented people always steer well clear, leaving the music, lyrics and performance to a group of talentless ‘D-listers’ who struggle to produce a decent delivery. They get stacks of airtime ahead of the competition and look and seem genuinely hopeful throughout and everyone nods their acceptance and support. But when it comes to a decision the judges, who might not even be in attendance, cast their votes according to some historical prejudice or political allegiance to ensure that friends or allies win the day.

Well sadly the EU is much the same and until we put forward our ‘A-list’ performers we will never win the day; at anything.

This is particularly true in recruitment where European staffing practice is quite different to our own and we need to argue the case that we do have the best, most flexible and most sustainable model within the community (at the very least, the best for our own marketplace) and it is being destroyed by endless, unnecessary legislation. There are three things that will destroy the recruitment industry and all are gaining in strength, these are; 1) the mediocrity of Europe, 2) the rebirth of the Unions, and 3) the apathy of UK agencies.

Its time we made the last legislative imposition the final assault on the industry.

Gareth

PS. Apologies to all those who think that winning is a Neanderthal ambition and believe it is better to run with the mediocre masses in a modern caring society; I certainly don’t.

PPS. Sorry to Andy Abrahams for inferring he is a talentless ‘D-lister’.

No Deal for Recruiters

This week’s announcement that agency workers will be given the same employment rights as permanent staff after 12 weeks was a desperate blow for the UK Recruitment Industry; which has been fighting for a 12 month derogation period (or a worst case scenario of six months) for the last seven years. The Trade Unions, in a similarly arrogant position, demanded equality from Day One and secretly eluded to a more realistic expectation of 12 weeks. So who’s the winner here I ask myself?

In a week where the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, was given a public dressing down by Jan Berry, the passionate Chair of the Police Federation, for betraying the honest Copper, I hope the Chair of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation will take a similarly forthright stance and remind John Hutton and Pat McFadden at BERR that they have equally failed the UK’s 1.3 million temporary workers, the 11,000 agencies that place them and the 3.2 million businesses that are dependant upon them to manage their constantly fluctuating staffing needs. And not just leave it to the staff at the REC. Watch this space!

At a time when the Government needs to hold its nerve if the economy is to remain stable (or at least stable-ish), I am not comforted by this apparent appeasement of the Unions and worse, the French! (My earlier pieces refer).

This has been a bad week for recruitment. Not because we can’t accept this new imposition, not because we won’t again have to pick up the tab and not even because it will directly cause the loss of temporary assignments but principally because it will bring even more red tape, bureaucracy and process to an already over regulated and under policed industry and one that is being driven into the ground by a lack of appreciation.

Sometimes I feel like the last Giant Panda saying “They’ll miss me when I’ve gone.”

RIP Recruitment.

Gareth

The power of a PA

It’s a simple mathematical calculation but if new research by the Association of Personal Assistants (APA) is right then every senior manager, leader and principal must employ a PA if they want to achieve and exceed corporate targets. In a report published today the APA details the results of its survey of over 5,000 business leaders and suggests that their effectiveness is hugely enhanced by having an Aid and most report an improvement in excess of 30%.

If the average salary of a CEO for the Top 500 listed companies in the UK is over £750,000 per year then a 30% increase in their effectiveness is sufficient to fund an entire department. And that level of return on investment makes real economic sense says the APA. In a small business, where the owner director fulfils every major management role, a PA is doubly essential to ensure all the competing plates are kept spinning and none of the business critical ones are dropped; in this size business MDs also suggested that their PA is the sole guardian of their corporate quality of life and director of their work life balance.

Gone are the days when a PA was a glorified secretary (a ‘Miss Jones’) and even less true is the stereotype portraying the PA as a flunky who runs errands, makes coffee and looks attractive in the outer office. Modern PAs are highly business savvy, using every technological means at their disposal and are increasingly well educated, trained and qualified to maximise their boss’s time. They plan meetings and diaries, co-ordinate travel plans and accommodation and process all of the day-to-day issues of an executive office

A PA has to be a great communicator and even better negotiator; managing people’s expectations when they hope to access the boss, and making sure that all priority tasks are processed quickly. If you ask the modern boss what takes the most time in their busy working life most will say meetings and emails and their PA is of fundamental importance in managing the problems associated with both. As our research suggests, a good PA is worth a fortune and every business leader should have one.

I have been blessed by having three of the very best supporting me over the years (Johanne Hawes, Faye Jennings and Carly Beales), each different but each possessing an abudence of skill, good humour and patience and playing no small part in the successes along the way. Faye still calls me now and reminds me about birthdays I definitely should not forget and we haven't actually worked together for 5 years!

Gareth

The Image shows me with my two wonderful PAs, Carly Beales (left) and Faye Crisp (right)