Thought Leaders

Leading by example, one opinion, one idea, one lesson at a time, our thought leaders are significant in the Leicester and Leicestershire business scene.

With authority in their field of expertise, passion for sharing ideas, and commitment to helping others, they’ve been asked to express their most current brainwaves in print.

Selected organisations and individuals share how and why they go about their business, reveal their ambitions, provide clarity on matters within their industry, educate on complex or novel subjects, inspire with their forwardthinking and progressive perspectives, or look backwards to evaluate what’s been learnt.

Got something you’d like to see our team of thought leaders cover? Send your topics of interest to kerry@crossproductions.co.uk.

Eileen Perry MBE

Owner of ER Recruitment

The seasons of the job market

It’s long been known that the passing of seasons influences the recruitment market. It makes sense: the market slows over summer as decision-makers and jobhunters head off on holiday. It spikes in late spring as new graduates enter the stage. Online traffic increases at New Year as people have resolutions to uphold. But what happens in autumn? As the summer holidays come to an end, the jobs market begins to stir. Pre-summer activity had been an influx of contract jobs to cover the annual leave of employees. Movement reduced among employees who felt there was too much upheaval involved in switching roles once summer socials and childcare had been lined up. That all changes as the evenings begin to draw in. The increase in active candidates is potentially influenced by a variety of factors. Firstly, as ever, is the weather. It has been widely observed in recruitment articles that weather impacts people’s moods as well as overall happiness in their roles.

An employee may have happily commuted further or worked different hours when the days were light and longer. But as the darker, colder mornings creep in, factors which were once considered not to be deal breakers begin to be seen in a different light. Minor inconveniences become bugbears. Eventually, the individual becomes open to exploring new opportunities. A second factor is having Christmas on the horizon. One month, employees are enjoying barbecues and the last of the summer sun. The next they are seeing Christmas adverts and festive displays in shops. Individuals begin to think about the cost of the upcoming festive season. Suddenly, a higher salary looks far more attractive when weighed against the process of changing jobs. Talent moves. A final factor is easy access to technology. Colder weather (yes, that again) means people spend more time at home. There is less spontaneous socialising to distract them. Instead, of course, there are the ubiquitous digital devices around the home. Easy access to the internet and social media makes it easy to have a quick scroll to see what jobs are out there. This leads to interest, desire and action. Applications are made. So what does it all mean for employers? We can’t, after all, stop the change of the seasons or the march of time. It is both a positive and a negative. Whilst having the right marketing activity in coming months can entice new talent, it also means that businesses need to keep a close eye on retention.

After all, maintaining your existing workforce will enable you to grow and thrive – just like the first shoots of spring.

Richard Kotulecki

CEO at Lamp

Good mental health at work is good ethics and good business

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates that there are 822,000 workers affected by work-related poor mental health. To put this into numerical context, Macmillan estimates that there are 890,000 working age people living with cancer. Health and safety legislation compels us as employers to protect our employees from risk of injury or illness, including poor mental health.

Legislation can be a strong motivator to act. But it can be limited to securing only compliance, where many problems require a broader range of solutions. So why do more to ensure good mental health at work? For me, it comes down to a choice of business ethics. Deontology – doing the right thing no matter what – tells us that we should act in a way that we would want everybody else to act. This means supporting others’ good mental health because we would want to be supported in that way also. It is the moral thing to do.

I work for a mental health charity, so it is no surprise that I make this argument. But often, doing the right thing does have cost consequences. One doesn’t have to be a hard-nosed free-marketer to understand the need for businesses (and charities!) to be profitable. So, whilst the deontological case for enabling good mental health is a strong one, it is the utilitarian case that is compelling.

Utilitarians aim to do the greatest overall good. In a business context, that means consistently having the best possible performing organisation. The best performing organisations provide the best services, provide employment, and contribute to society through taxation and in other ways. A successful sports team, for example, invests to keep its athletes fit and healthy so that they can perform. They will invest in injury prevention and rehabilitation. In a service economy, our people are the key drivers of success. It makes business sense to invest in enabling them to perform at peak condition. It makes business sense to invest in effective means of supporting good mental health.

In the next edition of Niche magazine, I’ll make the case for how this fits with established principles of good organisation management, and how Lamp supports the rehabilitation of people who have experienced poor mental health.

Laura Kearsley

Partner and solicitor in employment law at Nelsons

Managing a hybrid workforce

With remote and hybrid working now embedded practice in many sectors, I am advising many employers on how to adapt their monitoring and management processes so they remain fit for purpose.

Whilst remote and hybrid working brings many advantages for employers and employees alike, I am not sure that they give line managers much to be thankful for. Gone are the days of keeping an ear out for grumbles, issues or complaints which can then be discreetlly nipped in the bud. Having a quick word at the water cooler or inviting for a quick chat might no longer be available options.

Good employers need to make sure that their managers have a new, improved toolkit for managing their direct reports when both parties might be spending a lot less time together (physically at least).

Firstly, employers should ensure that the formal processes and systems of reviews and appraisals that may have been temporarily abandoned during the pandemic have been restored and are being completed properly.

Whilst the preference might be for these to be done in person, conducting them remotely is much better than not doing them at all.

Secondly, hybrid and remote working require communication to be planned and thought out, so employers should support managers in strategies for doing this and give them time to invest in this.

When issues do arise around employee performance, managers should not use remote or hybrid working arrangements as an excuse not to tackle these promptly and informally to avoid them escalating. If there is already a programme of catch up calls and meetings scheduled that this can be wrapped up into, then this will be much easier.

Managers need to also be aware that employees may be less likely to disclose personal factors that might be impacting their performance over the phone or a video call, so they will need to allow for this and give every encouragement. In addition, employers should also think about building their managers’ confidence levels, as it can be more daunting for them to address issues over remote platforms too.

Saleem Arif

Chairman at ReviewSolicitors

Google Ads is often viewed or sold as a ‘quick fix’ to get leads from your website fast.

Just pick some popular and lucrative keywords, set-up auto bidding for top placement on Google, write short, punchy advertising copy and press ‘go’. Simple, right?

The truth is that many businesses – especially those in the professional services sector (law firms, accountancy firms, etc.)

Why you should approach Google Ads with caution – can burn through their budgets at lightning speed with no leads to show at the end of it. The main reason for this is the expensive ‘costper-click’ for keywords, many of which are highly competitive. Using the legal sector as an example, the current average cost-per-click on Google AdWords for ‘injury lawyer’ is a hefty £51.89, ‘medical negligence lawyer’ £26.32, and a click from a ‘divorce lawyer’ search will set you back £14.91. Leads aren’t guaranteed once you pay for the clicks either. According to Gladiator Law Marketing, the average click-throughrate for the legal sector is 4.4%, and of those clicks, conversion rates average out at just 2%. Google Ads should not be viewed as a ‘golden ticket’. Experts are needed to aggressively optimise your spend to gain qualified leads and prove real ROI. Pay-Per-Click involves a lot of experimentation to get the balance right – and with many keywords in the legal sector being so costly, this period of discovery often proves extremely expensive. A better investment is one that goes into your brand – presenting your company and firm as trustworthy and authoritative experts in your area. This is mostly achieved through creating excellent content on your website which provides your potential clients with clear, digestible and reliable information and answers to their questions.

This ‘organic digital marketing’ approach is rewarded by Google, whose complex algorithm favours high-quality writing directly from the experts. These organic rankings, while taking time to achieve, get high click-through rates and conversion rates, with the big advantage of organic traffic being free, rather than burning through marketing budgets at an alarming pace.

While Google Ads is an undeniably powerful tool for lead generation, I believe the professional services should approach the channel with caution and build an authoritative website which provides plenty of information before bidding on costly keywords.

This cautious approach covers both the organic and paid sides of digital marketing, and is the key to successfully marketing a professional services business.

Andrea Gray

Managing Director at PPL PRS

Reimagining Leicester

Leicester as a thriving, exciting, diverse hub for commerce and business was not my first thought when I moved to the city seven years ago. Yet I have been proved very wrong.

Having worked for global names such as American Express and BNP Paribas subsidiary FTS Ltd over the years, I was not sure what to expect when I came here to work at Hastings Direct, and then onto PPL PRS. What I have discovered is a city with a growing number of hugely successful businesses that also provide a network of support and mentoring for smaller, independent traders, who all come together to create this wonderfully diverse and energetic business community.

And it is that diversity and energy that my team and I are hoping to harness within the walls of PPL PRS. Working with our colleagues, we have created a really impactful Diversity and Inclusion Forum that addresses the needs of everyone who works within our organisation, and celebrates their differing cultures.

But we haven’t stopped there. This year we are partnering up with UK project The World Reimagined, a trail of decorated globes bringing people, families and communities together to talk about how we understand our history; how our past shapes our future; and how we can act for social change.

Ten globes will be placed around Leicester city centre until October 31, and PPL PRS will have a globe that has been created by Lakwena Maciver, a Londonbased artist whose bright, bold and iconic style reflects our hope for complete diversity and inclusion in the workplace of the future.

Leicester truly is a city full of creativity, diversity, and opportunity; and I would wholeheartedly encourage and support any businesses that are considering this city as their base.

Sarah Higgins

Leadership Coach at Sarah Higgins Corporate Coaching

Winning in business means firstly winning in the workplace

No matter what industry, size, or location, of the company, there is a consistent leadership challenge, according to research by Gallup.

That challenge is about enabling employees to do their best, to perform well and achieve successful outcomes in their work. Leaders often question: “Why do levels of performance vary from one person to another within the same team?” Or put another way: “If two people are doing the same job whether it is highly or less highly paid, why might one be fully productive, and the other be less so?”

The answer is likely to be found in the root of what is called employee engagement. The CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) suggests that employee engagement could be described as a state of mind in which, rather than being burnt out, means that employees show: vigour (energy, resilience and effort), dedication (eg enthusiasm, inspiration and pride), and absorption (concentration and being engrossed in work).

Interestingly then, you could be happy at work – enjoying the perks and getting by – but not engaged. You could also be satisfied at work – you do your work with no complaints – but not be engaged. So happy and satisfied are not always enough.

Employee engagement (defined by HR Zone) is in fact, the emotional attachment employees feel towards their place of work, job role, position within the company, colleagues and culture – and the effect this attachment has on wellbeing and productivity. This connection can therefore lead employees to go the extra mile, remain loyal and perform to the best of their ability. It may also increase the likelihood of employees remaining motivated during challenging times.

Emotional commitment like this means engaged employees actually care about their work and their company. They don’t work just for the next pay rise, bonus or promotion, but work hard to achieve the organisation’s goals.

There are many benefits of investing in building employee engagement, including healthier employees and less absence, increased retention of key skills and talent as well as more productive and creative teams, leading to improved customer, client experiences.

As leaders, your main role for business success through your people is to build and nurture this emotional connection. There are three main ways you can being to build employee engagement:

1. Make individuals and teams aware of how the work they do is important

Even with a clear vision and strategy, we often fail our teams as they don’t know how what they do every day impacts those goals. Having a clear purpose and knowing how we connect to that is motivational and helps to keep us going through tough times.

2. Enable individuals and teams to feel successful

Interestingly, individuals often have a different view of what their success looks like to yours, but it will all go towards achieving the same outcome.

3. Show your individuals and teams how they are valued

Many leaders focus mostly on rewards and monetary gestures, but ‘thank yous’, spending time with your teams, listening to them and involving them are often the best ways of making people feel valued.

Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup said: “To win in the marketplace, you have to first win in the workplace.” If you were to score out of 10 how well you believe you are winning in your workplace, what would your score be and why?

Whilst it’s great to have time out of the business, I’m sure for many owners the thought of a holiday isn’t necessarily filled with excitement and joy, but more so dread

Darren Willoughby

Managing Director at 2XL Commercial Finance

Holiday… wouldn’t it be nice?

It’s now September. Kids are back at school and hopefully you’ve all had a good break and enjoyed the unprecedented temperatures we had in the UK and abroad.

Madonna sang: “It’s time for the good times, forget about the bad times, oh yeah, one day to come together to release the pressure, we need a holiday.”

Wise words from Madonna who turns 63 this year and has remained at the top of her game for over 40 years, now so I am sure she managed to get the odd break in now and again.

Whilst it’s great to have time out of the business, I’m sure for many owners the thought of a holiday isn’t necessarily filled with excitement and joy, but more so dread and fear at not only the amount of work that has to be done before you go but also the worry of what might happen while you are away. And then there’s the anxiety surrounding the amount of work you may come back to! Not to mention the ‘99+’ emails notification from your inbox.

I was recently talking to a business owner in Leicestershire who has just come back from his first twoweek holiday in 23 years, which made me think that I hadn’t actually had more than a week’s holiday in 16 years of business myself. Now, this isn’t time to get the violin out for business owners, but it did make me think of things we can all do to make the annual leave process easier for ourselves.

Speak to your contacts before you go

I make a point of emailing everyone with whom we are either working on deals with or have ongoing work with at least a week before I go. I explain that I will be away and to contact me now before I go, should they need anything. It’s also helpful to give them a name, email address or phone number for a colleague who they can contact.

Pop on an ‘out of office’

You would be amazed at how many people don’t do this (particularly in finance). People will still email and call, because they don’t know you are away. This leads to disgruntled clients and contacts. It also helps if you include contact details on the out-of-office message for someone else who could help them.

Manage expectation on timeframes

It’s likely if you are away that millions of others in the food chain may well be also. This is particularly pertinent for professionals like solicitors or valuers, when time is of the essence on transactions. No one wants to work with someone who over – promises and under – achieves.

So on that basis and at the time of writing (August 1), I am off… five days in a caravan in Norfolk with my seven-year-old in tow. I might get that two-week holiday soon, just not yet!