Tag: Research

4 Things About Skill Shortages

In a recent blog I looked at some of the research and narrative around skill shortages. 

We have the necessary numbers of graduates from most of the disciplines* where shortages are reported, but a lack of those with relevant work experience. I won’t repeat the previous blog except to round up that some of the main reasons for shortages seem to be:

  • Graduates perceived to have the best qualifications are working in sectors other than those they’ve studied for
  • The rest are passed over, so end up working in other sectors and in lower skilled work
  • Companies are too specific about what they want
  • Definitions of employability are inconsistent
  • Roles aren’t marketed effectively
  • Less investment in training

Most of these are fixable by either better recruitment or workforce planning, or more realistic assessment of what we have and what we need. I don’t think the general discussion around skill shortages is helpful. As I’ve written before, no recruiter ever got fired because there was a sill shortage, so the individual circumstances around unfilled vacancies never get scrutinised. 

In fact there are four things that get lost in this conversation that I believe could benefit from greater scrutiny:

  1. Maybe we’re past peak hiring. Could well be that most vacancies now are for ‘nice to haves’ rather than ‘need to haves’, and that’s why they are unfilled. The budget for recruiting is signed off, give vacancies to a third party recruiter, or run adverts, and see if someone exceptional turns up. 
  2. Is this linked to the wider productivity puzzle? Many firms say they lack the capacity to take on more work without extra resource, but this might well arise from organisational and process inefficiencies that management struggles to identify or solve.
  3. When companies say that they can’t find the skills, are they really talking about employability. These aren’t a list of skills to be ticked off a CV, but instead we are talking about a range of values, attitudes, abilities, desires, social awareness and intellectuality that we are looking for people to exhibit. Many of these are picked up once working, or are adapted by the surroundings and culture of the organisation. It isn’t easy to find them.
  4. Maybe we need to redefine what we mean by skill. The recent BBC series Britain’s Hardest Workers bought a game show element to minimum wage work that is deemed to be lower skill. A mixture of manual labourers and knowledge workers undertook low pay tasks and failed to perform to expected standards. After each activity – whether it was sifting through waste, producing food or making small car parts – we were told that these tasks were actually quite highly skilled. That they were stressful, demanding and pressurised. They needed people who were fast, accurate, consistent, technology savvy, focused and determined. None of this sounds particularly low skill, nor that it should be rewarded with below subsistence pay. In fact, if I listed these descriptions on a job ad you might reasonably conclude that I was looking for someone on a fairly high salary to undertake a fairly senior and responsible role. 

 

*Some sectors – one obvious example is healthcare – do have a gap between the people available and those we need. How we bridge that gap is a different debate and one that I think is not well served by being lumped it in with general skill shortage narrative

Recruitment Agency Opportunities and Threats

I recently partnered with Broadbean Technology for some detailed research on the SME recruitment agency market in the UK. The aim was to look at how they were doing and also at ways in which they were adapting to market changes. Overall we found the sector in fairly buoyant mood and posting record figures. It has become a crucial supplier of strategic skills to the UK’s business sector, yet we also identified potential headwinds that some were beginning to feel.

Changing preferences of a new generation of candidates and consultants, both in the way they look for work and what they want to get out of it, are beginning to impact the way agencies attract and engage with candidates and trainees. The speed of interaction that technology enables, and users expect, is one that recruitment businesses have to embrace, particularly in an evolving era of transparency and ratings.

Clients are building their own internal capability and in many cases are looking for a different type of relationship. Some recruiters find negotiating with procurement, and working through an RPO provider, to be particular pain points. For forward thinking agencies this does create opportunities to add value and be seen more as a partner than a supplier. Making this change happen will require a different mindset and approach, and one that the research showed is starting to appear in the SME sector.

Amongst the trends we found underlining this, was a prioritisation on the development of marketing initiatives and building awareness to replace a more traditional sales-led transactional approach. This is important as the research showed only 10% of agency vacancies coming from outbound sales calls and 11% from speculative inbound calls. Building reputation and investing in CRM technology is helping many move away from a transactional model.

To support the increase in vacancies from developed relationships rather than speculative approaches, consultants are supported in becoming true sector specialists, offering knowledge and insights to clients, and to build their networks to source candidates. Growing concerns over the hiring and retention of consultants is being addressed by increasing investment in their learning and rewards, and realising the potential of employer branding.

During the research I spoke with a number of SME agencies who were trying different approaches. Some were embracing more agile models, others were taking a much more creative marketing approach, whilst building advocacy and client loyalty.

We featured some of their stories in the report along with more insights into how the SME recruitment agency sector is developing to meet current opportunities and challenges.

To find out more of what they are doing, and see how you compare, download a copy of the report here. And let me know how you are currently finding the market…

 

(It should be noted that we completed this research, and the report, prior to the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Whilst that result will undoubtedly play a significant role in shaping the recruitment agency sector over the next few years, it is almost certainly too early to tell what direction that may take)

Researching the Recruitment Industry in 2016

2016 predictions for the recruitment industry are very upbeat. Record turnover figures, increased hiring projections, rising placements numbers and improving margins all point to a busy and profitable year. But are there headwinds?

Could the need for increasing investment in technology, development of niche sector specialisations, with evolving demands, behaviours and expectations from clients and candidates, and challenges in the engagement and rewarding of consultants, test even the most ambitious agency owners?

Rather than make predictions, I’m keen to get under the surface of the industry and find out what’s going on – how agencies are really feeling, what plans they have in place, and what trends they see emerging – and what the real picture is.

I’ve teamed up Broadbean Technology to work on a joint research project. We’re not out to guess or speculate but want to focus on the facts – and get some real data from the recruitment agency owners and directors who are sitting in the driving seat of the UK’s small to mid size recruitment agencies.

Tell us how things are for you right now & what your expectations are for the next 12 – 24 months by following this link…

…the questionnaire should take 10-15 minutes and is totally anonymous. The questions look at business make-up and your business development strategy. We ask how you generate business and also how you typically make placements, as well as how you are responding to new technologies and not-so-new trends.

We both think the answers you provide will give the industry insight into what the future really looks like for the SME Agency sector in the UK. The questionnaire will be open until 5 February, so please feel free to share the link. We will be publishing our report at the beginning of March.

Thanks in advance for completing the questionnaire…can’t wait to find out how you see the current market.