Job prospects fall to a record low
August 12, 2008
It appears that Job prospects have fallen to a record low according to a recent CIPD/KPMG survey, and it looks like there is going to be an increase in redundancies and recruitment is falling sharply.
The survey showed that employment prospects are at their weakest level since 2004 when the survey first began.
In the third quarter of 2009, 29% of employers expect to increase staff levels, this is quite a drop from the 37% who said they want to boost their recruitment in the previous quarter.
Redundancies are also planning on increasing, with 27% of employers planning for them between the second and third quarters this year.
The CIPD’s Chief economist, John Philpott had something to say on the matter:
“The jobs market has been one of the few bright spots in the UK economy, but cracks are appearing in the face of an increasingly uncertain economic outlook. Even if we avoid the scale of jobs fallout suffered in previous downturns, the era of the candidate’s recruitment market is already over, with people in work becoming increasingly anxious that their P45 might soon be on its way.”
This is quite scary business, redundancy is an awful thing to go through, and it just makes you wonder whether your job is as safe as you think it is.
Succession planning (2)
August 8, 2008
Yesterday I was discussing the definition of succession planning and the fact that traditional models of this practice are no longer relevant in today’s business environment. So how can succession planning be effectively implemented within the constraints facing companies today?
As I said yesterday, identifying the roles that the company will need to fill in the future may be difficult due to the rapid changes that take place, in some industries more than others. Where I work the current management team looks completely different now than it did only a year ago, because the needs of the industry have changed, and because innovative thinking within the company has led to whole new departments that have required management structures being implemented. Therefore I think that in succession planning activities, it will be more relevant and useful to identify the likely skills and competencies of future leaders rather than specific jobs that will need to be carried out. Many companies use competency frameworks for their selection and performance management processes, and these can be developed to be used in succession planning. Information from performance management activities can be used to identify potential, or for a more in depth way of identifying talent, development centres provide a way to measure individuals and encourage them to contribute to/manage their own development.
Skills and competencies of potential leaders may be quite different to the skills and competencies they need in their current role. It is common to promote people into leadership roles within a team because they are exceptional at the role that they will in future be managing, but this does not necessarily lead to success. Many excellent leaders are in fact better at facilitating others’ success in a particular practice than actually doing it themselves. Skills such as motivating others, coordinating workloads, listening and coaching are more important than operational skills – there’s no point being great at something if you can’t get your staff to do it effectively as well. Moving into a leadership or management role can be challenging as it’s quite hard to stop ‘doing’ when you should be ‘managing’. Effective succession planning needs to allow the time and space for future leaders to practice ‘letting go’ and coordinating activities instead of doing them all themselves.
Progression can no longer always be about promotion to more senior positions within a company, due to the changing shape of organisations as I discussed yesterday. However this doesn’t mean that individuals cannot grow and develop themselves, and this needs to be recognised, highlighted and rewarded where appropriate. Traditional succession planning might concentrate on management development, probably involving formal training courses and focussing the development in the one area where the individual would eventually end up. As we know, in the new business climate, leaders need to be aware of wider strategic issues and understand where their particular function contributes to the strategy. Therefore more appropriate succession planning activities may involve ‘lateral moves’ such as secondments to different parts of the business, different challenges such as new projects or initiatives, or simply more autonomy or responsibility within their role. A lot of candidates ask me about ‘progression opportunities’ within the organisation and I tend to explain that while the traditional routes to senior positions are not necessarily available for everyone who would wish this, there is a great deal of personal progression within the role, for example working with more complex projects or with higher profile clients. It is really important to make sure employees understand how they are progressing and measure this realistically instead of benchmarking against traditional career paths that are not completely realistic in the current business environment.
Succession planning, to me, is about managing expectations and understanding aspirations as much as it is about planning for the future of the business. It’s no good setting long term plans in motion that will make the organisation a huge success if the employees involved don’t see where they’re going or understand their place in the plan. The last thing you need is employees who are gaining all the good skills you’ll need in the future to leave because they didn’t see the potential in the career they had in the company.
What is succession planning?
August 7, 2008
With all the talk about ‘the war for talent’ and the lack of leadership and management skills in the UK labour force, there’s quite an emphasis within the HR community on succession planning at the moment. I’ve done a little bit of digging into what this exactly means as it’s a phrase that’s used a lot but the exact purpose and meaning isn’t always completely clear, and I think this is because career development as an idea has evolved and developed in recent decades. This is due to many things including the changing nature of business in a now global environment and the increase in women on the ‘career ladder’ instead of working up to the time when family commitments take over and then dropping out of the labour market.
The CIPD describes succession planning as ‘identifying future potential leaders to fill key positions’. Three key problems with this idea come immediately to mind:
- Firstly, with the rapid pace of change in today’s business environment, it’s sometimes impossible to predict what senior positions will be available in the future, so it’s difficult to identify potential and then nurture it.
- Secondly, the idea of a ‘career’ as a succession of jobs in the one company or even one industry is completely outdated. A few weeks ago I was talking about ‘career changers’ going into the teaching profession and there’s a lot more movement between different industries and jobs now than in the past. Now you hear about ‘protean careers’ – i.e. people having more than one different career in their lives, and ‘portfolio careers’ – i.e. the people who manage a number of different roles within the one career (consultancy and teaching together, for example). And these types of careers are now more of a life choice rather than a need. So with these ideas in mind, there are fewer employees willing to stay in a company for the long term awaiting a succession of promotions as there would have been a number of years ago.
- Thirdly, the structure of organisations has changed in many places, and we now see flatter, or sometimes ‘matrix’ structures where the opportunities for progression in the traditional sense are few and far between.
So succession planning has become more of a two-way relationship. As well as attempting to consider the business needs of the future, employers need to ensure they are meeting the career expectations of those they are intending to develop into the leaders of the future, at a quick enough pace, otherwise all their good work may be wasted when the employees go off to succeed a leader in another company. Another area to be aware of is the growing acceptance that employees have family lives, and will assert their rights to these lives more now than ever. So succession planning needs to be flexible to individuals’ needs for a work-life balance and a family-friendly career.
So, after thinking about the definition of succession planning, it seems that the practice is much more complicated than you would think, and there seems to be a lot than can go wrong. However it is an important practice to think about. Whilst the labour market looks set to grow due to increasing unemployment, this doesn’t mean that the employees left behind deserve less attention and development, nor that companies should start recruiting all their leaders from outside of the company just because there is more availability of candidates. However on the other hand, some companies tend to promote from within simply because an individual has been with the organisation a long time or has shown favourable traits such as commitment and loyalty, but if this is the case across the board there is a danger of ending up with a senior team that has not had enough developmental attention or that has been poorly selected for the positions.
Tomorrow I’ll look at how companies can carry out effective succession planning within the constraints and difficulties of today’s business environment.
Lee’s not the only CV fraudster!
July 25, 2008
Remember the recent victory of Lee ‘THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT’ McQueen from The Apprentice, and the embarrassing way his embellished academic achievements were exposed by the interviewer that had phoned up his university, to find that he had only spent about 4 months there! Now an in depth study has found that occurrences of candidates lying on their CVs are increasing. Powerchex, a pre-employment screening company analysed thousands of applications submitted in one year to financial services companies and found that 17% of applicants had made something up on their CV. This figure was 4% higher than the previous year’s figure.
The study seemed to suggest that applicants felt that their academic background would be a big factor in their success, as candidates with degrees from lesser known or lower ranking universities were much more likely to embellish facts than those who graduated from one of the top 20 universities. Indeed, in Lee’s case, it was his academic background that he felt let him down so much that he needed to lie, and this led to the embarrassing and uncomfortable situation he faced when he was found out. However, Lee’s dishonesty didn’t lose him the opportunity to gain the role with the 6 figure salary at Sir Alan’s company. I think that Sir Alan could understand Lee’s reasons for mis-representing himself, and felt that Lee’s work experience and performance on the show were much more important factors to consider than his poor academic record.
Personally, I’m not really concerned which university a candidate attended, or even if they have a degree at all, as long as they can prove to me that they can do the job in question. Of course, in other industries academic achievement is much more imperative to certain roles, and some employers would argue that even if a specific qualification isn’t required, the fact that a candidate has completed a degree shows a certain level of application, commitment and ability. I would agree with this to a certain extent, although I don’t think that it means that someone who decided not to go to university is automatically less able than someone who did. There is a perception that lots of employers do think this however, and I can therefore understand why candidates sometimes feel they have no choice but to fabricate some facts on the CV and risk being caught out (I don’t think it’s right though!)
Employers worrying about candidates telling fibs on their CVs need to find ways of investigating this without it taking an unnecessary length of time. It’s not practical to phone around universities and colleges for every candidate coming through, so instead those people selecting new employees must use their questioning skills effectively at the interview stage. Effective questioning and probing can draw out the detail of what a candidate has achieved or the knowledge they have gained, and it will expose CV cheats if this is done well. See my article on effective questioning in interviews for more information on techniques and interview structures.
Some candidates will always push the boundaries of what is honest and proper when job hunting, and lots of them probably get away with it due to the relaxed attitude and approach of the employing organisation. A lot of the time this may not really matter as long as the person comes in and does a great job for the company, but there will be times that poor candidates slip through the net because they embellished facts and nobody found out. It’s these candidates that employers need to fear, and this is why effective recruitment and selection processes are very important.
Focus on non-financial benefits in difficult times
July 24, 2008
Yesterday I was commenting on the likelihood of pay increases being squeezed by organisations in the current difficult economic situation, and the probable backlash from employees in the face of this as their personal finances take a hit from each end with rising living costs such as food and fuel. Salaries are a very emotive subject and this often has an effect on staff satisfaction and retention (although it’s rare that salary is the sole reason for an employee jumping ship as it’s only one in a multitude of motivating/demotivating factors). So what can organisations do to ensure they retain their key staff and still attract new talent in the difficult times, when at the same time they’re under pressure from shareholders/the board to cut costs due to falling sales or rising outgoings?
If an employer is struggling to stay competitive on salaries, then perhaps one option is to concentrate on other aspects of the employee experience. As well known motivational theorists have told us, pay isn’t the most important factor keeping employees happy and committed to their organisation. The opportunity to develop and learn new skills, autonomy and the chance to work with inspirational leaders and within innovative teams are all reasons for employees to feel satisfied with their jobs. In terms of the package available for employees, introducing less costly benefits that have shown to be proven winners such as flexible working options or purchasing/selling annual leave can have as much of an effect on job satisfaction as a big pay rise or bonus.
It doesn’t all have to be doom and gloom for organisations faced with the task of cutting expenditure and even those dealing with redundancies; as long as the remaining employees are given a clear message; that the organisation still has a clear and positive goal, that the employees are a valued contributor to this goal, and that any financial issues leading to cuts are shared fairly across the company. In other words, it’s no use telling everyone that salary reviews or bonuses are going to be a lot less this year when senior executives are clearly receiving huge pay outs, which is something you read about quite a lot in the news. It’s no wonder people get hacked off with their employers when they see this happening when at the same time they’re struggling to pay for the fuel to get them to work!
Do maternity rights damage women’s careers?
July 16, 2008
Recently it’s been all over the news that Nicola Brewer, Chief Executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has voiced her opinion that maternity and family friendly reforms have actually damaged women’s career prospects, because they reinforce the traditional model of women being the primary carer for their children rather than the father. Brewer argued, in a newspaper interview, that many employers are now avoiding employing women of childbearing age because of the risk that they may take up to a year’s maternity leave and/or exercise their right to request flexible working (even though fathers have this right as well). A while back, Sir Alan Sugar made similar comments about the negative effects of discrimination law on female candidates.
Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC has hit back at Brewer’s comments, saying that the situation with the ‘myth’ that women’s job prospects are damaged by family friendly rights should be resolved in the future if families are able to transfer part of the maternity leave entitlement to the father, allowing equal time off for each parent. Barber said that ideally flexible working rights should be extended to all workers so that it is not a particular group that is affected by reluctant employers. I’m not so sure though. I think that the issue of employers assuming that employing women of a certain age will bring a bagful of people management headaches is down to much more than just the rights available to women. There’s the issue that women on the whole are paid less than men, which means that even if men are in the future able to take extended parental leave when their partner has a baby, it’s likely that the mother will still take all the leave as she will probably be the lower earner, and not many families can afford to drop the bigger wage. I’ve already agreed with my partner that when we start a family, if the maternity leave rights are available for men (which they probably will be by the time we have children) then whoever is the lower earner will take the leave. Until there’s more equality in pay, I don’t think rights for men or women will have the effect of completely resolving the issue over employers’ assumptions. But this is a vicious cycle because the fact that women take career breaks to have a family contributes in itself to the equal pay issue!
What’s your opinion on this subject?
Staff are a good company advertisement
July 7, 2008
John Lewis is currently in the middle of a large advertising campaign, and the next stage of the campaign is going to feature employees of the department store. Staff have written some of the content of the campaign and will star in the adverts for newspapers, radio and on TV.
In the difficult financial situations many companies are currently experiencing, one of the main responses is to increase budgets on marketing and advertising. Even the big brand John Lewis has experienced a drop in sales of 8.3 per cent as shoppers feel the pinch from all sides in the current climate. I think the idea of using staff in advertising campaigns is a really good one, as it not only sends a positive message out about the company, but helps to reinforce the brand and therefore the company values to the staff involved in making the adverts. The advertising for the store will also double up to some extent as a good advertisement to potential job seekers who may be attracted to the company after seeing some of its staff on TV or in the paper.
Retail register for dishonest staff
June 20, 2008
A new register has been set up that is intended to assist retail companies reduce losses incurred by dishonest staff, which apparently costs the industry up more than £2billion a year from things like theft and fraud. The register has been set up by a partnership between the Home Office and The British Retail Consortium called Action Against Business Crime (AABC), and organisations such as Harrods and Selfridges are said to have already signed up.
The register, which went live at the end of May, will contain information about people who have left employment in the retail industry as a result of actions they have taken that could cost the employer money. So this would include people who have been dismissed, or those who left of their own accord but were under suspicion of an illegal act concerning money. It doesn’t take a genius to work out the problems with this scheme before it’s even got off the ground, and it’s no wonder Human Rights Groups and Trade Unions have already expressed their concern about the database. It’s completely at odds with the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ concept because of the inclusion of people who haven’t actually been dismissed for anything. Also, the statutory dismissal procedure, which should ensure that staff members get a fair hearing if they are accused of misconduct and involves a detailed investigation, does not apply to staff who have not had a year’s continuous service. So there may be occasions where staff have been dismissed without a fair investigation, and then end up not being able to get another job because they’re on the register.
Another important point is the management and policing of all this highly sensitive information. We’ve hardly gone a month this year without a Government ‘lost information’ cock up, and there have been major problems in the past with a similar database; that of the Criminal Records Bureau.
Clearly, AABC needs to try to do something about the issue of retail crime, but I don’t think this database is the right answer. Retail giants have a variety of ways in which they tackle shoplifting and other crimes by the public, and I think the money and time invested in this database would be better spent working with retail chains to come up with ways of adapting these methods for employees.
Light bulb moment! Keeping a candidate pool.
June 19, 2008
At the moment, recruitment is a high proportion of my job, and finding suitable candidates for lots of different roles at once is quite a challenge. I’ve just read about a great scheme that Nestle have used to enable a faster recruitment process and save money at the same time, and it might be something that I will look into in the near future. The Head of Recruitment for the global food company created an area on the company website that potential candidates could register interest for a variety of roles, some of which were not yet available, and then suitable candidates were kept ‘warm’, for as long as a year in some cases, until the roles became vacant. This led to Nestle saving £50,000 that they would have spent on agency fees. This scheme sounds like a great idea to me, and could certainly work in many organisations, although for smaller companies in industries that are less well known it may be that getting the candidates to the website in the first place is the difficulty, and this is why many companies end up using recruitment agencies to source people who are perfect for the role but have never heard of the company.
Eco cars lead to new jobs
June 18, 2008
What was I saying the other day? When the strikes by Shell tanker drivers started I commented on how I would put all my money into energy efficient and environmental vehicles if I were a budding entrepreneur. Well, today I’ve just found out that Jaguar Land Rover is launching a big recruitment drive for up to 600 new employees, most of which will be highly skilled engineers building new cleaner, more eco-friendly cars. This move comes not long after the massive takeover by Indian giant Tata.
This is certain to be the emerging pattern of the next few years, given the cost of fuel and the probable continuation of industrial disputes in the industry. I filled up on petrol yesterday and the price was astronomical. At least a further strike has been avoided as a pay deal has been reached between the tanker drivers and their employer, Hoyer UK and Suckling, although the actual value hasn’t been publicised yet, but is due to be later today. The union, Unite has said they have got everything they were looking for in the deal. It just goes to show the power of the collective voice!