Winter Blues

Well the news continues to look cold and bleak; but then it always does if you choose to believe it. I admit to being a perennial optimist but even with a pessimists hat on I still don’t buy the media puff and hype about recession. I will accept down turn and that things are going to get tough for a while but as the saying goes “When the going gets tough etc”.

What really convinced me that economists are starting to muse about recovery was the announcement last week by GB that we could face recession, and this came at the same time as the Bank of England announced a net deficit of 0.5% negative growth over the last 3 months. When politicians announce gloom they usually have the magic trick under way and are ready to reveal the ‘rabbit’. Watch for January when they announce that they have saved the day, avoided recession and we are heading back for happier days. But then what do I know … I’m only a businessman.

Think of the down turn as a snowy day when you have to travel on a motorway. It’s unlikely that you can safely do 90 mph (sorry, 70 Officer!) or do 30 in top gear but you can come down a few gears and be ready to put your foot down when the road ahead clears. I say bide you time, do all the housekeeping that you have been putting off during the busy days; start with the database and refresh the content, do some internal brainstorming, keep closely in touch with clients, sympathise with their woes, write press releases and start telling everyone how well you are doing. Above all be ready for 1st January when hearts and minds turn to the future and they go in search of the New Year Recruiter.

Hit a man when he's down!

I have to say that I was devastated, if not really surprised, to hear the outcome of the EU vote on the Agency Workers Directive. After seven years of tireless effort by the REC, this comes as a real blow for the UK recruitment industry. REC put up a good fight but lost ground recently to the reviving strength of the TUC under Gordon Brown’s Government and the persistent claim by Brendon Barber that ‘Temporary work is a demonic form of labour’ – well, there is going to be a shed load of demons on the dole now Brendon unless you do something to help delay its implementation.

Knowing how the EC works, I doubt if the department dealing with the woes of the financial crisis have been talking to those considering the AWD or they would have concluded that passing AWD into law at this particular time is bloody stupid! Every Agency in the Hauptstrasse will tell you that employers are somewhat windy about making permanent placements in a period of economic uncertainty; preferring to opt for the flexibility that temporary placements afford, and this is certainly the case at the moment. So, is this really the time to impede an already pressurised marketplace with more legislation?

But never mind because inspired recruitment pundits are already saying “Don’t worry we have 18 months to do something before it will be implemented!” Don’t worry! Don't these people understand that in business terms 18 months is tomorrow and if their own business planning is that short term, then I worry for the future of pundits! (Not surprisingly, an anagram of Pundits is Stupid ‘N).

For once, can we simply just NOT be good Europeans? I have watched for years as every other Member State has nodded deferentially to new legislation and then overlooked its local implementation for years and years; the French and Italians are especially good at this. The British on the other hand debate it and immediately roll over, implementing it at the earliest possible opportunity.

Burying our collective head is one option but in reality there is no better time for the industry to pull together and jointly craft the method by which ‘implementation’ is interpreted in the UK; this will only mitigate the damage but traditionally we have always accepted the beating and then exposed our privates to ensure maximum effect. This time we should use every defence possible to protect our position.

Gareth

Home thoughts from abroad

I'm watching a Floridian sunrise as I write this piece and may tend to romanticise a little - it's difficult to resist in this breathtaking environment - but I met a recruiter in a bar earlier in the week (like you do) and she invited me to speak at a network meeting of Staffing Agencies in Florida. Great opportunity I thought but do I really want to turn this into a 'Busman's holiday'. I went along anyway and boy am I glad I did.

I was welcomed very warmly, introduced as the guest speaker (news to me) and given the floor. I talked a bit about experiences and then threw the session open for questions.

The leader, a girl who had previously worked for Manpower; and spent sometime in the UK, started by asking me the $64,000 recruitment question - 'Why don't you guys in the UK ever talk to each other?" I admitted that she had already exceeded the scope of my knowledge and asked if she had read my blog, as it was a long standing hobbyhorse.

Two things struck me about this group as the session unfolded; firstly, they were prepared to discuss anything (even pricing, with no mention of the dreaded 'c' word), openly talking about their clients and sharing contacts and secondly, their relationship with their clients (mostly on an RPO type arrangement) seemed so much more professional (or do I mean open) than ours in the UK. They were comfortable being recruiters and were seen as professionals, offering a professional and essential business support service.

It still baffles me why we seem so uncomfortable in our UK recruitment skin and feel shy about the obscene margins we no longer make! And more importantly why we don't speak out collectively to correct these misunderstandings!

I think there are massive lessons to learn from America and it might be a good source for new young talent; at least 30% of the audience I spoke to would love a 12-24 month opportunity to work in the UK (and explore those 'quaint little towns' in Europe). Who knows REC could even create an exchange scheme with its friends at ASA (the American Staffing Association).

Gareth

Banking on recovery

At last the Banking Community has received its due return and should be mighty humbled by the chaos its greed has caused the global economy. For too long now Bankers have looked down on small business owner/managers and pontificated about the need for good financial practice and sound cash flow controls and at every twist and turn limited our ability to grow, invest and take the essential risks associated with innovative business development. Well yah-boo-sucks! Because we might just have been right and they have definitely been proven wrong. When I look at the tax payers money invested to bail them out I can't help wondering what else we could have innovatively done with all those billions of pounds as an alternative plan to rescue the economy.

I really hope that next time around Bankers leave their undeserved arrogance behind, remember that banking is not the be-all and end-all and learn lessons about good customer service.

A thought for the business day

"The weak set their own goals and always achieve them,
The strong look to others and strive to exceed."

Gareth

Probably my best justification for a challenging NXD on the Board

R's about face

I visited over 1000 recruitment firms across the UK, Europe and the USA during my time at the REC and since leaving, in late 2006, I have worked with a handful of the best; all ambitious, targeted and successful businesses in their sector. I now think I have fathomed why so many recruiters fail to achieve their true potential and the professional recognition they rightfully deserve.

One thing always hits me when I start to get inside the mind and culture of a recruitment business; in most cases the best recruiter in the business is in the wrong job.

I sit around with business leaders listening to them bemoaning the lack of good consultants these days; ‘Oh they aren’t as committed as we were, they don’t do the hours, don’t build the relationships and they never take time to understand the clients (or the candidates) and the benefits they want!’ It all starts to sound rather Pythonesque and only gets worse when I ask ‘So who is the best recruiter then’ and they point surreptitiously at each other (or themselves). So I ask myself, if the best recruiters are playing at being MD, Ops Director and other posts with meaningless titles, why aren’t they still Recruiters? I say that the great recruiters should become even greater recruiters rather than shifting uncomfortably sideways and becoming less than adequate business managers, leaders and directors.

My solution would be to scrap the traditional model of a recruitment agency where consultants become team leaders, become branch managers, become area managers or directors and then find themselves so far away from the coal face that they simply shuffle paperwork, calculate the PAYE and make themselves, operationally, redundant. After all, we all know that most sales people make appallingly bad managers, so why do we persist in letting the blind lead the ill-informed.

Now, please don’t think this observation is a slight on recruiters; in fact, there is nothing I rate more highly than a top performing Consultant. I genuinely regard them as an artist; as good as any Ronaldo, Amy Winehouse or Tracey Emin, but let’s face it they aren’t great business leaders or administrators and rarely get to grips with the ‘back office’. Even Richard Branson considers his success attributable to his ability to put the right people around him to do the things he can’t (and doesn’t want to) do himself.

Therefore the answer is surprisingly simple and you only have to look to those two others business outsourced professions for a clue; Lawyers and Accountants, to learn how it should be done. When you enter the Accountancy Profession you train, you qualify and you become a junior accountant, you eventually progress and become a senior accountant. This leads to you becoming a Department Head (still a lawyers) or even a world-renowned specialist, and you eventually make Partner; still practising the law, and with ever increasing rates charged for your time and knowledge. Now I know senior lawyers don’t do the donkey work, they have juniors, but they do lead teams in support of major clients and they remain client facing. Oh, and most importantly, the business management and administration is performed by a team of business managers, maybe even a General Manger, who works for the Lawyers and are bought in for their expertise in that field and run the business around and for the owners.

So I say let’s adopt the same style of structural governance as the professions and keep recruiters doing what they are great at; recruiting. How knows some of the professional status may also rub off.

Gareth


I refer to this as the “Boon Gatherers” model for the significant advantages I believe it brings to the business. For more details contact me directly.

Stressed Out!

I was concerned by the recent report from the Stroke Association that cited recruitment as a highly stressful job. At least I was worried until I saw that in second place came the legal profession; I can only assume they suffer stress from the constant increase in their fees and from worrying about the choice of colour for the next Porsche.

Now I readily recognise that recruitment is a highly charged, target driven and fast-paced industry but I am worried that it all too often suffers from the headless-chicken syndrome rather than the wise old owl. As someone who suffered a brain tumour at forty, which ‘may’ have been stress induced, I can confirm that chasing your own tail all-day-every-day is less than effective and eventually leads to structural collapse.

I think it's time the REC started to do some work into the effectiveness of the general recruitment model; that has staff chasing numbers; phone calls, registrations, interviews, placements and fees in a regime that thinks you are a part timer if you leave the office before 8pm, and researched a more intelligent way to do the business. Wh knows it might even lead to a reduction in the ridiculous levels of staff turnover in the industry.

The Stroke Association Report could be just the spring board we need to professionalise the profession.

Gareth