Recruiter August 2013 by Redactive Media Group

August 2013

www.recruiter.co.uk

BUSINESS BUSIN NESS INTELLIGENCE FO FOR OR R RECRUITMENT T AND RESOURCING PROFE PROFESSIONALS SSIONALS

Premier league for in-house leaders SWIMMING HOME

HOME-GROWN TALENT

SOUND AND FURY

Expats who want to return, aka Sea Turtles, offer a rich resource for recruiters

Why recruiters are increasingly opting to train newcomers rather than seeking experienced staff

With all the noise about zero-hours contracts, have the dangers been exaggerated?

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07/08/2013 12:18

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Contents

Isn’t it about time that we tipped our hats to superlative in-house recruitment professionals? In this issue, we introduce our new annual benchmark list of inhouse recruiters. At our cover and inside photo shoot a few weeks ago, what a collection of great brains was on hand. Meet Recruiter’s 11 on p21. You’ll find examinations of two very different aspects of the flexible working proposition in this issue of Recruiter. In Bloggers with Bite, Samantha White of Eames Consulting makes the case for allowing and even encouraging flexible work opportunities in the recruitment workspace. In News, we focus on the potential fallout for recruiters from the sound and fury over zero-hours contracts. Perhaps a better term for certain zero-hours roles in question would be ‘on call’ if employers literally rely on being able to pick up the phone and call someone to come in to work at short notice. Such flexibility can indeed work for both employer and worker – as well as, potentially, the recruiters who match them up. But what employers and recruiters must not do is prohibit workers who cannot get all the hours they desire from one employer from signing up for ‘on call’ work opportunities with others. The flexibility must work for all parties. It would be a much needed boost to the concept of ‘flexible workforce’ to see recruiters helping their employing clients vie to become ‘the temporary employer of choice’.

NEWS 5

FEATURES

Recruiters unfazed by zero-hours row REC sees opportunities as well as drawbacks to the controversial contracts

Agencies face tax bureaucracy burden Consultation on anti-tax avoidance legislation may bring red tape nightmare

Morrisons aims for top with academy Supermarket chain’s new head of group resourcing has high hopes for its new training resource

Tech & tools

ANALYSIS 11 Sector Analysis Retail 13 Global Spotlight on China 14 Ricky Martin The Apprentice winner on working together to show off recruitment excellence

DeeDee Doke, Editor

Scan here to get your own copy of Recruiter

21 COVER STORY We showcase the top inﬂuencers in resourcing in the UK and Ireland 34 Nurturing talent A growing number of recruiters are choosing to train people in-house

REGULARS 15 Soapbox 15 Soundbites 16 Insight With many expats longing to return home, so-called Sea Turtles are well worth investigating as a resource 19 The Challenge Eploy teams up with University of Birmingham’s WorkLink 38 Movers & Shakers Industry moves 42 Bloggers with Bite

WHO’S HIRING? 39 Ruth Moran 41 TASC Outsourcing 41 No1 Recruitment

EDITORIAL Editor: DeeDee Doke T: +44 (0)20 7880 7601 deedee.doke@recruiter.co.uk Senior reporter: Colin Cottell T: +44 (0)20 7880 7603 colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk Reporter: Sam Burne James T: +44 (0)20 7880 7606 sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk Contributing writer: Sue Weekes Work experience editorial assistant: Megan Fiﬁeld Acting production editors: Clare Cronin, Paul Nettleton T: +44 (0)20 7880 7602 vanessa.townsend@recruiter.co.uk Art editor: Adrian Taylor ADVERTISING Advertising director: Andy Daniel T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607 andy.daniel@recruiter.co.uk Display sales executive: Jasmine Pengelly T: +44 (0)20 7880 6205 jasmine.pengelly@recruiter.co.uk Recruitment advertising: Amalia Zafeiratou +44 (0)20 7880 7608 amalia@redactive.co.uk Fax +44 (0)20 7880 7553 PRODUCTION Deputy production manager: Kieran Tobin T: +44 (0)20 7880 6240 kieran.tobin@redactive.co.uk PUBLISHING Publishing director: Anne Sadler T: +44 (0)20 7880 6213 anne.sadler@redactive.co.uk RECRUITER AWARDS Events: Juliette Bond T: +44 (0)20 7324 2771 juliette.bond@redactive.co.uk CIRCULATION and SUBSCRIPTIONS To receive a regular copy of Recruiter, the leading magazine for recruitment and resourcing professionals, telephone +44 (0)20 8950 9117 or email recruiter@alliance-media.co.uk • To purchase reprints or multiple copies of the magazine, contact Andy Daniel T: +44 (0)20 7880 7607

Total average net circulation between 1 July 2011 & 30 June 2012 – 17,838. Recruiter is also sent to all REC members R d ti M Redactive Media di Group 17-18 Britton Street London EC1M 5TP

CONTRIBUTIONS Contributions are invited, but when not accepted will be returned only if accompanied by a fully stamped and addressed envelope. Articles should be emailed. No responsibility can be taken for drawings, photographs or literary contributions during delivery, transmission or in the editor’s hands. © 2013 Redactive Media Group. All rights reserved. This publication (and any part thereof) may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in print or electronic format (including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet) or in any other format in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of Redactive Media Group. Redactive Media Group accepts no liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. The publishers cannot accept liability for any loss arising from the late appearance or non-publication of any advertisement for any reason whatsoever. ISSN 1475-7478

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RECRUITER

AUGUST 2013

08/08/2013 16:39

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08/08/2013 08:57

News

RECRUITERS UNFAZED BY ZERO-HOURS ROW

At the same time, recruiters have said they are confident that the government will not take any action that would damage the viability of the UK’s flexible workforce. Zero-hours contracts – under which workers are not guaranteed any hours, and sometimes miss out on benefits such as holiday pay – came under fire after a series of big-name employers were identified as using the contracts. Among these were Amazon, Buckingham Palace, McDonalds and Sports Direct, the last of which faced the prospect of legal action from one such worker as Recruiter went to press. Recruiter Randstad, which has supplied workers to Amazon, has also found itself under fire when it was claimed that staff were told not to tell temporary workers on zero-hours contracts about their right to holiday pay. The REC’s Tom Hadley told Recruiter that a danger of the furore was “it opened the debate around atypical work, and the perception that anyone not in a full-time employment capacity is being downtrodden and exploited”. This could lead to wider questioning of the recruitment agency model and that “any sort of flexible staffing is intrinsically bad,” he suggested. However, Hadley said he had been encouraged by feedback from some trade unions and Labour Party officials which indicated that they understood the need for a flexible workforce. He predicted that the issue of zero-hours contracts would “continue to rumble on as a political issue”, with the Labour Party likely to consider different models of flexible working. (See box.) However, despite zero-hours contracts becoming a hot potato, Hadley said he also saw it as an opportunity for recruiters. “Now is not a bad time for recruiters to have a conversation with clients about

FOR MORE NEWS AND COMMENTS GO ONLINE

REX FEATURES

The high-profile controversy over zerohours contracts poses both dangers and opportunities for staffing companies and the concept of a flexible workforce, the director of policy & professional services at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) has said.

Zero-hours protesters: a fuss about nothing?

the best ways to introduce flexible working,” he said. Jeanette Barrowcliffe, finance director at multi-sector recruiter Meridian Business Support, told Recruiter that given the parallels between zero-hours contracts and the typical temporary worker agency model, she was perplexed by the brouhaha. “I don’t understand why there is such a fuss. The entire temporary worker model is based on zero hours,” she said. She pointed out that in effect “anyone saying that zero-hours contracts are wrong is also saying that the whole temporary agency model is wrong.” No mutuality of obligation means the agency does not have to offer work and the agency worker doesn’t have to accept it. Noting that the UK’s flexible workforce was a contributor to “keeping the country going during the recession”, Barrowcliffe expressed confidence in business secretary Vince Cable for being “fairly balanced” on the concept of flexible work. Andy Hogarth, chief executive officer of

outsourcing and recruitment firm Staffline, told Recruiter there was little crossover from the controversy over zero-hours contracts to agencies. He said he was confident that the government “isn’t going to do anything that takes away the UK’s labour market flexibility”. However, Hogarth suggested that the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development’s ’s 1m figure of workers on such contracts was an underestimate, pointing to the construction sector where he said such contracts are rife. Matthew Brown, managing director at umbrella firm giant group, told Recruiter that the government was forced to look at zero-hours contracts because it had become a political issue. However, he did not see foresee “any dramatic changes to the legislative landscape”, although he said he expected the government to try to ensure that workers received their statutory rights – for example, holiday pay. Lizzie Crowley, senior researcher at the Work Foundation, told Recruiter that even if the number of workers on zero-hours contracts was as high as the CIPD’s 1m estimate, this still represented “a small part of the workforce”. She said that while there was unlikely to be “a gigantic increase” in this number, efforts to improve procurement procedures in the NHS, in universities and in local government through outsourcing were driving their use. The Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), which increased the cost of using temporary agency workers could also have been a factor in increasing their popularity. However, Crowley pointed out that, until more research is carried out, no one would know the true picture. COLIN COTTELL colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk

The government’s response A spokesperson at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said there were no plans to involve agencies, or bodies representing agencies, in the department’s evidencegathering on the extent and nature of zero-hours contracts announced in June by business secretary Vince Cable. The report is due to be completed in September. While ruling out a complete ban, Cable has suggested in recent weeks that the government might legislate to prevent employers from requiring workers on zero-hours contracts to work for them exclusively, unless hours were guaranteed. Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna outlined the Labour Party’s position that zerohours contracts “should be the exception, not the rule”. He has announced a summit on the subject in September.

RECRUITER.CO.UK WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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RECRUITER

AUGUST 2013

08/08/2013 16:02

News

“The Irish idea of choosing the best person… has taken time to be assimilated by the Welsh, Scots or English”

Random thoughts from recruiter.co.uk, Twitter and beyond…

AN WILSON, WRITING IN THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD

Events Unconscious Bias Workshops, organised by enei 3 September, Manchester; 11 September, enei offices London enei.org.uk/events.php

Sourcing Summit Europe 12-13 September, Randstad HQ, Diemen (Amsterdam), The Netherlands sosueurope.com

Discover Sourcing 17-18 September, Prospero House, London uksourcers.co.uk/ discover-sourcing

AGENCIES FACE ANTI-TAX RED TAPE •

UK UMBRELLA and stafﬁng businesses could face “a horrendous amount of administration” as a result of new anti-tax avoidance legislation that is due to be implemented in April next year, according to the head of global employment tax services at EY. John Chaplin told Recruiter the administration involved “is out of all proportion to the tax lost”. The loss to the Exchequer is estimated at £100m annually. In contrast, HM Revenue & Customs has said in its impact statement that the legislation will have “a small increase in the administrative burden” on businesses. The legislation aims to close a loophole through

which offshore employment intermediaries are able to avoid deducting PAYE and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) pay from UK-based workers because technically they are employed outside the UK. Chaplin said proving compliance will cause administrative difﬁculties for agencies and umbrella service providers. In addition, agencies will have to know whether any of their workers are engaged via offshore intermediaries, he said. Where an offshore provider is involved, the agency will be responsible for ﬁling a quarterly return. COLIN COTTELL colin.cottell@recruiter.co.uk

SKILLS GAP TOPS LIST OF CHALLENGES Visitors to the ResourceBank stand at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development recruitment exhibition at London’s Olympia in late June were asked “What is the main recruitment challenge facing your business in 2013?” More than 100 HR and recruitment professionals responded.

Recruitment Agency Expo Birmingham 2-3 October, NEC Birmingham recruitmentagencyexpo.com

SourceCon 2013 Seattle 2-3 October, Microsoft HQ, Redmond (Seattle), US sourcecon.com/2013seattle

YourFoodJob People Awards 2013, in association with Recruiter 6 November, The Lowry Hotel, Manchester yfjpeopleawards.com

IRP Awards, organised by the REC 3 December, London Marriott Hotel rec-awards.com

Recruiter Awards for Excellence 2014 May 2014, Grosvenor House Hotel, London

FOR MORE NEWS AND COMMENTS, GO ONLINE

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Skill shortages

• • • • •

Long-term talent attraction

22 13 13 %

Managing volume

Social media

Employer value Proposition

Skill shortages The most common key challenge reported by HR professionals was the recruitment of scarce skills, with engineering, IT and sales being the skills most frequently mentioned. Long-term talent attraction Long-term talent attraction was picked by 23% of respondents. Many reported a conflict between the HR goals, of recruiting candidates with key competencies that matched the overall business plan, with the operational manager’s objective, of hiring a candidate with the experience of doing the actual job. Managing volume For some HR professionals, the sheer volume of applications is becoming a real issue. Several reported receiving more than 100 applications for each job – the vast majority coming from online – and highlighted the challenge of filtering these to find the best candidates quickly and cost-effectively. Social media Most of the attendees responding agreed that their business could improve its use of social media but only 13% felt that it was the most important challenge for the business in 2013. Employer value proposition Again, many attendees reported that they needed to improve both the definition and the communication of their ‘employer brand’ to become better at attracting key candidates, but only 13% of respondents reported this as the most important challenge for this year. Source: ResourceBank

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

08/08/2013 16:02

News

“Big data is nothing new, Rich. The Domesday Book was big data”

“If you sell a packet of tissues to everyone in China, you’ll be a millionaire”

MRS RICHARD (ANNIKA) NOTT, WIFE OF THE CWJOBS.CO.UK WEBSITE DIRECTOR

VIVIAN NG, MORGAN MCKINLEY’S MD FOR CHINA (SEE MORE ON P13)

“There is nothing… wrong with the [zerohours] contracts… – it’s… how they’re used” KEVIN GREEN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, REC

TASKER AIMS FOR TOP WITH ACADEMY The head of group resourcing at supermarket chain Morrisons has told Recruiter how a new training academy is central to his ambition that his recruiters become the best in-house team in the UK. Mayel de Borniol

LET’S GET RADICAL A London conference on best practice for hiring in fast-growing technology companies has heard how unconventional approaches to recruitment can pay off. Speaking at the recent Hiring Unicorns talent summit at London’s Tech City, the co-founder of Babelverse, a company that provides on-demand interpreting in any language, said that the secret of competing successfully for talent against the might of firms such as Google and Facebook was to “forget hiring and start a movement”. Mayel de Borniol said that in Babelverse’s case, this was built around the company’s 200 ambassadors, throughout the world. These are people who are passionate about what the company is doing and are happy to get involved – for example by developing code to allow interpreting to be done via mobile, unpaid. Will Bentinck, key account manager at Enternships, which provides graduates and students with work placements, told the audience that the traditional selection process, whereby lots of graduates compete for a few jobs, was “inefficient, unfair, and definitely demoralising”. He went on to describe how a selection process based on training rather than assessment could prove a viable alternative. COLIN COTTELL

Lindsey Tasker said that developing the team through the academy, that launched in July, “will absolutely be the glue that holds our plan together”. The new academy will provide a range of training, including for cloud-based talent management system Taleo, employment law topics, and stakeholder management within the business. He said the target was “at least one day’s training a month” for each resourcing team member. Morrison’s central resourcing team of 25 staff will be the first to benefit from the academy. Training will then be rolled out to staff who recruit locally and to line managers. “This will help give us a stepchange in our capability,” said Tasker. He said that two key measures for progress were first-year staff turnover, and the ratio of hiring manager interviews to offers. “The aim is three to one,” he said. Tasker said he hadn’t done the maths on the cost of the academy. “We have been really creative in using our internal resources as well as third-party resources, as well as a whole range of different way of capturing this knowledge base,“ he explained. Lindsey Tasker The academy will also help redress the balance within recruitment, where investment can often lean more towards systems and process rather than people, he said. “I think this is more pronounced at the senior and specialist hiring level. For volume recruitment it is less of an issue,” he explained. “Where you need to create a more bespoke assessment process, or a more high-touch candidate experience that’s when you really need people on their ‘A’ game,” Tasker added. COLIN COTTELL

FORMER SWIFT STAFF IN DOCK •

FOUR FORMER employees of oil & gas recruiter Swift Worldwide Resources are to stand trial at Southwark Crown Court starting on 12 May 2014 on two counts of corruption each in the firm’s Nigerian arm. The two charges relate to alleged conspiracies to corruptly give agents of two separate Nigerian state Boards of Internal Revenue payments totalling 43m naira (£173k). Paul Jacobs, Swift’s former chief financial officer; Bharat Sodha, a former tax manager; Nidhi Vyas, former financial controller of Swift; and Trevor Bruce, former area director for Nigeria – all British nationals – originally appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court in December, following an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) with the City of London Police. An SFO official told Recruiter that the organisation has seen no other cases over the past five years involving recruitment companies. Swift as a company is not accused in the case.

Contract News Consort Group: The recruiter has acquired clean tech and power recruiter Earth Wind & Hire… Dillistone: The recruitment software firm has acquired fellow provider FCP Internet…

Government Procurement Service: The agency nurse & social care (RM970) and locum doctors (RM1570) frameworks are live. Contingent Labour ONE (RM960) goes live in September… Hays: The company has embarked on a three-year partnership as official recruitment partner and sponsor of Manchester City FC… Hermes: The delivery firm is working with sector network Logistics Guild to find work for service people facing redundancy… In Job: The Italian international staffing agency has acquired New York agency The Employment Line… The IT Job Board: US career fairs and websites group Dice Holdings has acquired the job site from recruiter SThree…

Ochre House/Pinstripe: The UK and US-based RPO firms have now merged, but in the short term retain their existing brands… Lucas Love Healthcare: The nursing and domiciliary recruiter has formed following a management buyout from parent Lucas Love… RealMatch: The US recruitment advertising firm has raised $7m (£4.6m) from Edison Ventures and Carmel Ventures… SEC Recruitment: The UK firm has obtained a licence to recruit in Switzerland… Stefanini: The IT services and staffing firm has acquired the IT recruitment divisions of telco firm RCG Global Services.

SAM BURNE JAMES sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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RECRUITER

AUGUST 2013

08/08/2013 16:03

News

Tech & tools

US COMPANY OPENS UP CLOUD OPPORTUNITIES recruitment system built on Salesforce’s Force.com platform is aiming to broaden cloud-based software offerings to recruitment agencies in the UK. Talent Rover was launched in the US in 2012 and recently appointed former recruiter Steve Harris as European enterprise account executive. The company’s co-founder Brandon Metcalf told Recruiter that as cloud computing has grown in popularity, many companies have “joined the conversation” by claiming their solution is cloud-based, when in fact it is a hosted solution. “Without a multi-server environment and multiple data centres that are graphically dispersed, a software solution cannot offer the back-up, redundancy and data recovery that true cloud solutions offer,” he said. Metcalf founded the company with Kent Gray, and the pair have a combined 30 years’ experience in the recruitment industry. Metcalf said that having used more than a dozen recruitment systems in 11 years, he felt it was time to build a new solution. “It was clear no one had leveraged the dramatic innovation in business software on behalf of the staffing and recruiting industry. The goal was simple: address the pain points long suffered by staffing and recruiting professionals and build an efficient, more flexible, highly adaptable and completely integrated solution.” Talent Rover integrates applicant tracking, customer relationship management (CRM),

HR and benefits management, online timesheets and expenses, gross profits and accounting software and analytics and forecasting capabilities. “Talent Rover is dedicated to evolving Brandon Metcalf the industry beyond an ATS [applicant tracking system] to provide a software solution that meets the needs of the entire business including sales, recruiting and back office teams,” said Steve Harris Metcalf. The system also provides extensive integration with mobile and social media channels, enabling recruiters to look at sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Klout in one place. As with all applications built on the Force. com platform, it is integrated with the collaborative tool Salesforce Chatter. Harris is in discussion with several UK recruitment agencies, and Metcalf says that the need for a “revolutionary” recruitment product is as great in the UK as it is in the US. “The UK is a hub for international recruitment,” he said. “Firms need a technology that supports multiple languages, multiple currencies and can adapt to any region, specialisation and workflow.” www.talentrover.com

FROM ACORNS COME CLICKS A fixed-fee, pay-per-click, job marketing platform is being rolled out in the UK by USbased developer Seven Acorns. While pay-per-click has long been used to market products in several sectors, Seven Acorns owner Joe Boll believes the firm is the first to use it specifically for the recruitment sector on a flat-fee basis. Clients agree the cost in advance, including the click fee. Boll told Recruiter that prices start at £149 for a basic campaign of say, one job going out to a small catchment area, so the cost of clicks would be fairly low and absorbed into the fee. “If, however, it was a nationwide energy company needing sales staff all over the UK, the cost would be higher,” he said. Seven Acorns has been offering a fixed-fee job board in the UK for around two years, but the new product allows companies to advertise jobs across the internet search

Jobs are advertised across internet search engines

engines. Vacancies are targeted by industry and geographical area. All CVs are vetted, and the client is provided with a daily shortlist. Software behind the site tracks the CVs from each advertisement listed, said Boll.

Adaptive tests streamline assessment Much faster completion times are claimed for a suite of online assessment tests developed by TalentQ, which says completion times are a third that of traditional ones because of the adaptive technology involved. The Aspects Ability tests, primarily aimed at high-volume recruitment, measure verbal and numerical reasoning and clerical checking skills and take an average of six minutes to complete. Along with a competency-based screening questionnaire called Aspects Styles, they have been trialled by Royal Mail, which has put 170,000 people through the tests for front-line and back-office processing roles. Christine Higgs, head of strategic accounts at TalentQ, told Recruiter that the technology adapts in real time to the candidate’s ability level. “If you get a question right, you will be presented with a more difficult question, and if you get a question wrong you will be presented with an easier one,” she said, adding that as the candidate works through the tests, the technology intelligently converges to reach a point where Christine Higgs it accurately determines the person’s ability level. “Because the person is being assessed at their level, they don’t have to answer redundant questions, so it’s a much shorter test and a more precise measure.” Adaptive testing has been used in sectors such as education and the military for several years, and is starting to gain traction in the recruitment market. The tests are also described as having high “face-validity”, which relates to the degree to which the candidate thinks they are credible and relevant. “If they can see a clear link between the tests and the role, the more likely they are to give it their best shot,” said Higgs. “From a more theoretical point of view, the more facevalid the test is, the more accurate it is likely to be in terms of predicting job performance.” The new tests can be incorporated into an applicant tracking system, and can also be customised to reflect an organisation’s brand. Several assessment reports can be downloaded, including individual scores and overall percentile and competency scores. www.talentqgroup.com/aspects

www.sevenacorns.co.uk SUE WEEKES

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What does compliance mean? Written by Julian Ball – Legal Director In our industry it is generally accepted that “compliance” means compliance with laws, particularly tax laws. Of course laws can be interpreted in different ways. This keeps lawyers and tax advisers in a job but can give Legal and Compliance teams in agencies huge headaches. Providers can produce counsel’s opinions that say “this scheme works” - the trouble is these opinions are often procured because HMRC does not agree. At PayStream we take a low risk approach so our starting point is always “what would HMRC consider to be compliant?” For example HMRC has made it very clear that it will pursue offshore schemes and “pay day by pay day” models so even the most robust counsel’s opinion would not persuade us down those routes. We regularly engage with tax advisers, lawyers and most importantly HMRC to keep up with changes in legislation or HMRC’s approach.

What is the best way to determine a service provider’s compliance? Agencies have differing approaches: • Send out a questionnaire with a series of compliance related questions – this is a good starting point but the difﬁculty is how to validate the answers given. Everybody says they are compliant. • Rely on third party audits – generally these give more comfort than a simple questionnaire provided the auditor has visited the service provider to examine working practices (which would be HMRC’s approach). You should check this point. We are audited annually for general compliance by Professional Passport and six monthly for MSC compliance by BDO. • Carry out a site visit and review working practices yourself.

Why should agencies be concerned about service provider compliance? Financial risk – there is risk of debt transfer under MSC legislation if agencies work with a service provider who is “involved” with its clients. If the contractors are using offshore schemes HMRC can use host employer regulations to pursue UK hirers for unpaid tax. In addition, as announced in the budget, there is currently a consultation in respect of new legislation to formalise the automatic transfer of liabilities to third parties which would include recruitment companies and their clients where offshore schemes are used. Reputational risk – agencies spend time and money on building their brand so being associated with a non-compliant provider makes little sense particularly since clients are becoming more and more interested in a compliant supply chain. The public sector and the banks now look for assurance that contractors are paying the right amount of tax. Culture – if you are trying to embed a culture of doing the right thing for contractors it makes sense to look at the culture and values of your suppliers. Value – if you are looking for an exit you will need to demonstrate to a purchaser that your earnings are sustainable. For example if you work with a partner using a “pay day by pay day” model a purchaser will undoubtedly look to discount your earnings on the basis that HMRC will challenge the model. Similarly the multiple attached to business proﬁtability is easily discounted if noncompliance is identiﬁed. Personal responsibility – the directors of companies are responsible for determining the risks the business is willing to take. If trying to build risk resilience into a business it would be hard to explain the use of offshore schemes in the current market.

“We get external auditors (BDO and Professional Passport) to vet our processes and to audit the audits. We get a certiﬁcate of compliance from both parties.”

Obviously if you can manage all three approaches it gives you the best chance of assessing a provider. For agencies with large PSLs this can be extremely time-consuming. The solution – reduce the size of your PSL.

Ensuring compliance internally At PayStream we have a compliance team of 6 people who understand exactly how the business should operate. The key is to ensure that the rest of the business has the same understanding. To that end we have: • process mapped our key processes • scripted key conversations • automated key communications. Our in house IT development team allows us to do this • held regular training sessions for staff • acquired call recording software which allows calls to be recorded and assessed. This allows the internal compliance team to monitor and assess the rest of the business against our compliance templates. This happens on a monthly basis and the sales team commissions are contingent on passing these compliance audits which is a powerful motivator. Very importantly we get external auditors (BDO and Professional Passport) to vet our processes and to audit the audits. We get a certiﬁcate of compliance from both parties and their comments are fed back to the business by the compliance team. By focussing, from a compliance perspective, on our interaction with contractors and agencies we identiﬁed areas where we can improve our customer service and again part of the compliance team’s job is to feed this back to the business.

Conclusion We believe that our stance on compliance puts us in a strong position to grow our business. Clients, now more than ever before, are keen to ensure a compliant supply chain. This means that agencies are looking more closely at what service providers actually do and are gravitating to those that can demonstrate that they are operating compliantly.

Call 0800 197 6516 e: info@paystream.co.uk or visit www.paystream.co.uk

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Sector Analysis

Retail

Views from the market

HAVING TAKEN A BATTERING IN THE RECESSION, SIGNS ARE GOOD FOR RETAIL RECRUITMENT AS LONG AS INNOVATION IS INVOLVED

Rita Eskudt Global consumer and retail practice leader, Amrop

“This year has demonstrated that there are some retail markets that are doing very well,” says Kate McCarthy, the owner of retail specialist McCarthy Recruitment – ‘some’ being the operative word..

“Europe’s tough right now on all fronts – I think the whole discount phenomenon is taking hold there. Asia-Pacific continues to grow but as soon as they hiccup and they’re not in double-digit growth, everyone starts to panic.”

As for individual retailers, McCarthy finds they are “either recruiting in volume or not recruiting – there seems to be no middle ground”. This view is matched by Paul Riordan, a senior manager for retail at Hays, who says for every high-profile retailer biting the dust or struggling, “there’s been just as many success stories”. Two key areas performing particularly well and hiring strongly lie at opposite ends of the spectrum – high-end luxury, and discount. Riordan adds that a key area for Hays has been working with smaller firms. In common with the trend noted in last month’s Sector Analysis on hospitality, larger employers nowadays are better equipped and more motivated by cost-cutting to process volume hiring through in-house functions. “Where our business has changed its focus is small business, medium-sized businesses, strong brands but that do not necessarily have the resources,” he says. “We have the time to sell an opportunity to someone, to pitch a brand to them.” Yet Riordan says that Hays does work for the big industry players and “fills the jobs they can’t”. Kevin Hollingworth, clothing and homewares retailer Matalan’s head of talent, says that while for buying and merchandising roles “there’s a plethora of candidates with experience”, for him,the tough roles lie in e-commerce. Matalan’s approach to fighting this skill deficit is threefold. The first two tenets are longer-

LANGUAGES ARE A PRIORITY, WITH CHINESE A KEY NEED AND VARIOUS EASTERN EUROPEAN TONGUES INCREASINGLY DESIRED

term: building talent pools on LinkedIn, which Hollingworth tells Recruiter is “starting to work for us”, and growing talent internally, in particular digital-savvy graduates. The third and most immediate solution: go to agencies. While moving online is a key part of modern retail, it’s not the be-all and end-all. Following the collapse in January this year of Blockbuster, HMV and Jessops, many industry commentators suggested their fates were no surprise, with these firms failing to innovate and provide what McCarthy calls “future-generation retail… focused on service, providing something different”. Louise Pask is a programme manager for managed services at recruitment group Kelly UK, overseeing an operation the firm runs at online fashion store Net-a-Porter, putting her in charge of supporting that elusive beast – the unique, compelling retail experience McCarthy alludes to. “If you’ve ever bought anything from Neta-Porter, it is beautifully packaged,” she says. Recruiting packing staff with the attention to detail and motivation to create that compelling experience’ is a key challenge for Kelly and client. Also important has been getting staff who can deliver outstanding customer service, capable in Pask’s words of “taking ownership of the relationship with the customer” and, again, providing a service above and beyond the unremarkable consumer transaction. A third priority for Net-a-Porter – indeed, across that buoyant high-end market – is language skills to capture the overseas clients that the retailer was “finding difficult to find” on their own, Pask adds, with Chinese a key need, and various Eastern European tongues increasingly desired. According to talent assessment firm SHL’s Talent Report 2012, retail ranks as the third-highest industry sector of 17 with a supply of potential innovators. Online and bricks and mortar alike, all retailers need to be speaking that language of change and innovation – keeping retail recruiters very much on their toes.

Kevin Hollingworth Head of talent, Matalan “Our labour turnover instore in the past few years is significantly reduced, which means we haven’t done any agency recruitment in two years.”

Mark Levine Head of in-house, BCL Legal “We have seen a rise in demand from retailers wanting to recruit their own in-house legal experts, both here and abroad. The specialisms most in demand include handling property transactions – thanks to an increase in expansion programmes.”

Paul Riordan Senior manager, Hays “What we have noted over the past couple of years is more and more fixedterm contracts business – particularly in retail head offices, but also within store management, area management and retail management.”

SAM BURNE JAMES sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk

161

Reed Salary Index: retail

Reed Job Index: all sectors

Reed Job Index: retail

107

96 Reed Salary Index: all sectors

167

WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

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ZERO HOURS In 2004, 4% of wholesale and retail businesses used zerohours contracts. Now that ﬁgure is 6%, although there are four industries with a higher uptake of these contracts. Last month, The Guardian reported that none of the Big Four retailers – Asda, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s and Tesco – use them. (From BIS’s Workplace Employment Relations Study)

APPLICANT DOWNTURN According to the Totaljobs Barometer Applications per job in retail/wholesale

STRONG SECTOR Retail versus the market as a whole in the Reed Job Index (July)

40 36 32 28 24 20

Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul 2012 2013

TOP PAYING RETAIL JOBS From 10,676 retail roles listed on Adzuna.co.uk •Procurement: £42,068 •Head of merchandising: £41,487 •Fashion buyer: £39,435 •Senior buyer: £39,060 •Fashion buying: £36,679 RECRUITER

AUGUST 2013

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Market Indicators

Global Spotlight on China

RECRUITING IN CHINA CAN SEEM LIKE LOOKING FOR A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK BUT DESPITE THE CHALLENGES, THE MARKET IS FULL OF POTENTIAL TALENT “China’s got a huge problem,” David Arkless, the vice president of the International Confederation of Private Employment Agencies (Ciett), tells Recruiter: “It’s got one of the fastest-growing economies the world has ever seen.” A nice problem, perhaps, but one exacerbated by the widespread issue Arkless describes, of “too many people with too many of the wrong skills, or no skills”. And indeed China’s magnitude is frequently seen as a problematic element in the country. Anthony Thompson, regional managing director for Greater China at recruiter PageGroup, says in such a huge market, it is “very easy to become overwhelmed by the size and achieve very little”. “Unfortunately, we need to say no to various business opportunities if we don’t have specialist experience,” he says – which “can be frustrating”, but is “essential for long-term credibility”. Greg Allen, global head of resourcing at assurance and advisory firm Lloyd’s Register, with several offices in China, could easily be inundated with applicants, given the size of the labour market. You don’t want that, he says, any more than you want candidates being put off by thinking that that will happen. “Make the recruitment process too slick, they think ‘well, it’s too easy, and everyone’s going to go for it’,” he says. “You have to make it overtly challenging.” While recruiting in China seems almost like looking for a needle in a haystack, one type of candidate stands out for many firms: returning Chinese expatriates. There is a drive to recapture the talents of those who left to seek their fortune overseas, PageGroup’s Thompson saying such individuals are “in many respects the ideal candidate” for many businesses. Meanwhile, Robert Parkinson, founder of Beijingbased recruiter RMG Selection, describes increased wariness around Western expats. Yes, there are “areas

CHINA IS ENORMOUS…

US 9

Manpower had just 10 sites in China until around seven years ago, chairman David Arkless (also Ciett vice president) tells Recruiter. Now its offices and partnerships in the country total 1,000. Areas where PageGroup’s Anthony Thompson says activity is “very high”: • Retail: especially luxury and e-commerce • Property and construction • Technology: both R&D and manufacturing • FMCG • Pharmaceuticals and healthcare

SPONSORED BY SAM BURNE JAMES sam.burnejames@recruiter.co.uk

GDP per capita versus other economies in US$ ($1 = £0.65)

UK 2

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

China

$2,651

$3,414

$3,749

$4,433

$5,447

$6,091

$46,330

$43,147

$35,331

$36,233

$38,961

$38,514

Brazil

$7,194

$8,623

$8,373

$10,978

$12,576

$11,340

Iraq

$3,091

$4,472

$3,702

$4,376

$5,687

$6,455

…AND FAR FROM A DEVELOPED, SERVICE-BASED ECONOMY

Population

Labour breakdown by sector

■ Agriculture ■ Industry ■ Services

BRAZIL CHINA 1.34bn

US 314m

JAPAN 128m UK 63m

CHINA

From the World Bank

JAPAN 11

1 July saw amendments to China’s Employment Contract law come into force, heavily tightening the rules on when an employer may hire temporary staff through agencies. See Recruiter, February 2013 (p12).

of the market that you simply cannot find the skills locally, for example leisure and hospitality”, Parkinson says, but parachuting in a Westerner is no longer always seen as a great option. There is, nonetheless, demand for “people like me who have been here nine years and really understand China. I think there are a lot of expats who don’t, they are simply here for a short period – then go back.” Vivian Ng, managing director for China at Morgan McKinley, says that there are, “relatively speaking”, not so many roles for English-speaking Westerners any more. And certain Chinese firms , she says, increasingly seek candidates from diverse regions of the country who “can speak in dialect and drink local wine with clients” to serve the local market. In some respects, China is becoming more inward-looking, “because it is the domestic market that is full of potential”, she says. This domestic market is full not just of business potential, but also of good talent. Sean Howard, international managing director of assessments firm Talent Q, admits that in such a huge candidate pool, “dealing with that kind of volume is a massive challenge”. But the information the firm has got out of all those candidates shows something significant. “It’s not massive differences,” Howard notes, “but where people are saying there is a talent shortage, no there’s not, in terms of potential”. He says that Talent Q data points to the fact that Chinese workers “are actually a little stronger verbally and numerically than certainly the UK, and the rest of the world, so they are smarter”. China, then is not just big, but it’s also clever.

…BUT, FOR ALL ITS GROWTH, STILL RELATIVELY POOR…

Number of cities with over 1m population

CHINA 160+

Views of China

NO. 1 QUALITY FINANCIAL & ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT AS AFFIRMED BY OUR AWARD-WINNING CLIENTS

15.7%

34.8%

1.4%

13.3%

29.5%

18.2%

01 260 280 290

71%

35.7%

80.4%

www.backofficesupportservices.co.uk

From the CIA World Factbook. Brazil and China data = 2011; UK = 2006

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AUGUST 2013

08/08/2013 10:19

Ricky Martin

We need to work together to show off our excellence BY RICKY MARTIN MANAGING DIRECTOR, HYPER RECRUITMENT SOLUTIONS When I first stepped into recruitment, I was not completely aware of what to expect and what the industry was all about. As with every ambitious recruiter, I decided to do what all recruiters do best – ask questions and learn from the answers. I got a mixed response. I heard a few positive examples, where people had seen value in such services, but the majority thought the industry was no different from any other sales business. Too many times I heard – and still hear – that recruitment is just about finding a CV and ‘punting’ it to a client, hoping one sticks. Or that it is ‘bums on seats’ work. In my opinion, this could not be any further from the truth. To do recruitment right takes a great deal of time, talent, patience and professionalism, and is what I refer to as “recruitment excellence”. If we are all following ethical and professional codes of conduct, putting customer service before sales, then we can change this mixed opinion of recruitment. We can help better

this impression, and ensure that recruitment is known for its credibility and professionalism. I can imagine a lot of you thinking, “That is obvious, and we do it already.” But do we? How many times have you got to the end of a challenging recruitment project and the role gets pulled, and you moan to your colleagues about the time you spent on it? Compare this approach with that of people who experience the same scenario but who pick up testimonials for their efforts and showcase them to help win future work – or ensure they maximise their chances of securing the business exclusively when the role opens up again. I would say that most do the former rather than the latter. It is the old story of bad news travelling faster than good. If we can focus on sharing less bad news, rising above it, and looking at the silver lining, then we can make a collaborative effort to improve our industry’s image. From my experience, good recruiters deliver recruitment excellence, but those solely interested in money, fills and league tables do not. Let’s demonstrate the value in our services

by focusing on best practice, celebrating success and ensuring every person we speak to is willing to come back to us again one day – as your customers will come back to you if you do things right first time. We work with people, not with products or commodities. I hope we can work together to keep enhancing the public opinion of our beautiful industry. I say this to all my colleagues at HRS every day. For those of you who enjoy social media, why not do more to share our successes online? If you have a Twitter account, use the hashtag #RecruitmentExcellence every time you do something you and your customers are proud of. I’d love to see what successes we can share, and I will also share mine. You can find me on twitter via @RickyMartin247. Good luck, have fun, and let’s show the world what recruitment excellence is all about. RICKY MARTIN is managing director and founder of Hyper Recruitment Solutions. Find out more at www.hyperec.com or @Hyperec_HRS on Twitter

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08/08/2013 10:21

Opinion

Putting partnership centre stage

SOAP

THE RPO/AGENCY RELATIONSHIP WORKS BEST WHEN ACCESS TO THE HIRING MANAGER IS ENCOURAGED AT ALL LEVELS OF HIRE I understand the growth of outsourced recruitment models and have worked with all the main vendors of such services for many years. Many operate incredibly efficient, relationship-driven, services. But what I fail to grasp is the increasing ‘bridge’ between the hiring manager and the recruitment supplier (us) in some clients. HR recruitment is hard enough at the best of times without adding even more barriers. Lack of culture fit is the single biggest reason for the failure of an HR hire in the first 12 months, post-appointment, as my research last year, Raising the Bar in HR Recruitment, showed. A multi-channel, recruitment processing outsourcing (RPO) function that suggests we “don’t talk to line” is not helping us to enhance our understanding either of the specific role requirements or of the firm’s culture. I have been told by a senior RPO source that HR vacancies are notoriously difficult to fill direct. One quote was “You have to kiss a lot of frogs.” When I see a direct client advert on LinkedIn, with a significant number of responses, I do wonder how

much time will be taken up managing the applications as well as actually interviewing – lots of frogs to kiss, I would suggest. I have also heard that in HR, time to hire is more critical than cost per hire – a case of the cobbler’s children having no shoes? A client called me recently asking if a senior HR vacancy had been released to Oakleaf yet. After a month, she had yet to interview a single candidate for her role via the direct-source team. Now, I understand the commercial aspects of direct sourcing, as well as the need for control and process in a preferred suppliers list/RPO relationship – it protects both parties. However, in my experience, the RPO/agency relationship works best when access to the hiring manager is actively encouraged, at all levels of hire. Not surprisingly, this is also where success rates are highest. The best RPOs embrace partnership relationships with agency suppliers and do not simply act as ‘policing’ and recruitment admin functions. In an improving and increasingly candidate-driven market, the ability of

Soundbites Matthew Brown

Managing director, giant group

I worked as a trainee accountant at Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). I stayed with the company for three-and-ahalf years and had the chance to be rotated through all the departments within a huge finance function. This provided me with great experience and I consequently qualified as a chartered certified accountant. It’s really helped me with my career. As the managing director of a professional umbrella employer, it’s essential to understand tax, accounting, payroll and legal/ regulatory issues, all of which are core components of an accountancy qualification.

Sara Di Penta Consultant, engineering and manufacturing, Hays Italy

I’m an archaeology graduate, and worked in the profession for five years before moving into recruitment. In both jobs, there’s a great sense of discovery, whether it’s unearthing old civilisations or finding the right talent for the right organisation. However, I look to the future whereas before I was focusing on the past! WWW.RECRUITER.CO.UK

15_Recruiter_Soapbox_Soundbites_aug13_2.indd Sec3:15

BOX

clients to talent pipeline via non-role specific – ‘speculative’ – CVs is also severely limited by an RPO model where CVs can only be submitted via a portal when a specific vacancy is released to us. Another consideration is candidate ownership, which seems to have become a grey area. “We approached the candidate direct on LinkedIn” – months after an agency CV submission – doesn’t feel like a partnership approach. Another response, after the candidate had been sourced direct, has been “You submitted them for a different role”. I am also aware that some RPO recruiters are paid a bonus on direct hires – I’m not certain that this model is necessarily producing the desired individual behaviours in some cases. The recession has affected the way in which RPOs operate, and I am aware of their commercial challenges and staffing issues. But I hope that, as we move into calmer waters, the relationship element returns to the fore. RICHARD COLGAN is founder and managing partner

of Oakleaf Partnership. His research is available to download at www.oakleafpartnership.com

“What was your first job?” Barry Flack Experienced HR, change and talent acquisition professional

20 years ago, I was employed by the NHS. Among my tasks was sitting on interview panels to ensure that the medical practitioners did not inadvertently ask any questions that could be construed as discriminatory. I attended hundreds of interviews, and blew the whistle only once. While thankful to those who gave me my first break, I got handed an early lesson in dysfunction in the workplace, the limitations of the command-and-control management style, and how the medical profession needed their hands held in basic recruitment activities.

Rob Searle Commercial director, CareerStructure.com

I worked in construction. I started as an apprentice and got the opportunity to work in France and Russia. This understanding of the construction industry has been invaluable in my current role – helping companies across the built environment industry to recruit and retain talented professionals, I feel more aligned to their candidate needs and expectations, and can provide guidance accordingly.

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08/08/2013 10:21

Insight

LURE OF HOME MAKES WEARY EXPATS A VALUABLE RESOURCE

Expats with a yearning to return home are worth considering when sourcing talent, says Veronique Oonk, Intelligence Group

oes your international business strategy require workers who are based in your home country, but who have internationally-gained expertise and skills with a feeling for intercultural differences and subtleties in specific countries?

You may need to recruit a Sea Turtle Expatriates who want to return back home, who currently live beyond national borders, are a potential source of native talent with unique skills. Those expats who want to return to their homelands one day are referred to as Sea Turtles.

Sea Turtles and talent shortages Sea Turtles tend to move abroad initially to build their international career, and generally have a strong desire to work in economically attractive regions. Worldwide, there are more than 200m expats, of whom around 70m are Sea Turtles. These Sea Turtles offer significant value: they have international experience, often speak several languages, are familiar with different cultures, have unique knowledge and expertise, and have learnt to be successful out of their comfort zone. In short, they are an extraordinary and relevant talent acquisition target. Moreover, these workers can help employers to realise their organisations’ international ambitions across the spectrum of benefits, from building bridges between cultures and helping to forge international partnerships to supporting international expansion. Sea Turtles’ reasons for returning home are typically focused on family ties: family members they have left behind and/or the education and possibly the safety of their children. Other reasons may include the political and economic climates in the host and native countries, or an end to their ‘leave to remain’ or work contract in the host country. They may also want to contribute their knowledge and know-how to the development and growth of their home country. Future career opportunities, based on their enriched experience and knowledge, may also be a factor.

Veronique Oonk

Power Points Most Sea Turtles’ educational background is in business, computer science/IT, engineering, health care and management About one-third of the expatriates worldwide can be referred to as Sea Turtles 33% of Sea Turtles have master’s degrees or doctorates About 62% of the Sea Turtles are male Other terms for Sea Turtle recruitment are recruitment of overseas returnees, brain drain recruitment, ethical recruitment, returning expats recruitment

Finding Sea Turtles Sea Turtles often have a limited network in their home country, which does not serve them well when seeking a job back home. Abroad, the expatriate network is extensive and mainly organised offline. So offline networks may be useful in pinpointing prospective Sea Turtles. These could include local chapters of communities from the homeland such as alumni groups, leisure activity and sports teams or personal coaches with links to specific countries.

Reverse culture shock

“They should be considered for entrepreneurial roles in which they can feel indispensable”

But for all the potential benefits and opportunities of returning home, most Sea Turtles experience a ‘reverse culture shock’, and readjustment to their former lives can be difficult.

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Their expectations of their employers are high: they want to work for international corporations in an international environment, with high salaries and benefits, possibilities for personal and financial growth, jobs that reflect their educational level and the opportunity to grow their retirement savings. Yet the reality may be different. In addition, economic and cultural developments in the home country, or the lack of them, may disappoint the returnee. “You develop and change during your stay abroad, and your native country develops and changes as well, but you aren’t on the same page any more,” one expat said. Readjustment difficulties may be fostered by a sense of limited freedom, lost independence and status. For instance, a common challenge for returnees in the workplace is overcoming a sense of superiority due to perceptions of their overseas background and experience. This may affect the returnees’ ability to get along and cooperate with co-workers. And often, colleagues who have not lived or worked abroad themselves cannot empathise with the Sea Turtle.

Bespoke reintegration The returning Sea Turtle may become depressed and decide to leave the home country once again. Employers that want to tap into the unique skills and expertise of Sea Turtles must support them through a bespoke onboarding and reintegration programme within the organisation. For example, the Dutch banking company Rabobank has created a new discipline within its human resources department which focuses completely on successful reintegration of returnees from overseas. To successfully recruit Sea Turtles, recruiters should take the ambitions and fears of this group into account and translate them into job and career triggers. For instance, the kinds of jobs they should be considered for are unique, entrepreneurial roles in which they can feel special and indispensable. They want an interesting, relevant job that suits their skills and feeling of responsibility. Recruiting Sea Turtles is crucial for accelerating globalisation, supporting developing economies, growing turnover or country development by investment in new markets, and opening doors to foreign and unknown countries and cultures. When a mass of a certain talented population decide to study, work and settle abroad, they leave their home country with enormous issues. On the other hand, if a country or company can bring them back, that country or company will benefit from such employees’ enriched intelligence and experience – and thereby enjoy a ‘brain gain’. (Excepted from Global Sea Turtle Recruitment: How to Recruit Talent Back Home by Intelligence Group)

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Insight

PLENTY OF TURTLES IN THE SEA: A RICH POOL OF TALENT

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The Challenge

Eploy streamlines student paid work system Chris Bogh Co-founder

THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM’S INTERNAL RECRUITMENT AGENCY WORKLINK WAS FINDING PAPER A HEADACHE. EPLOY PROVIDED WELCOME AUTOMATION

THE CHALLENGE With tuition fees nowadays running into thousands of pounds, providing the 27,000 students at the University of Birmingham with access to paid work opportunities on campus has probably never been more important. But until just under a year ago, the system for recruiting students to typical student roles, for example as research assistants or working in the students’ union bar, simply wasn’t up to scratch. Tracy Murphy, recruitment manager at the university’s internal recruitment agency, WorkLink, launched in September 2012, told Recruiter the previous paper system was “a headache”. “Each hirer would recruit to their own standards, and then put through a manual pay form,” she said. They would also collect eligibility documents and send them to ﬁnance to put through the system, she added. Inefﬁcient and time-consuming, the old system restricted both the

“We didn’t have to get involved in selling it to the internal line managers – they were keen to do it” CHRIS BOGH

number of jobs offered and the pool of students able to access those jobs. Consequently, in 2011, the number of placements made was only about 1,500, with many students not being aware of the job opportunities at all. The university needed to help managers ﬁnd the right student more quickly. So at the start of 2012, it invited three recruitment software companies to tender. The process was overseen by Murphy, a former manager of a Randstad ofﬁce in Leicester, who had been brought in that April to complete the project – originally begun by the Guild of Students (students’ union). “I have worked for a high street agency with a piece of software that wasn’t user-friendly, so I had been able to map all the processes I wanted,” said Murphy.

THE SOLUTION WorkLink opted for the cloudbased recruitment and applicant tracking software provided by Eploy of Kidderminster. For Murphy, the main attraction was an automated end-to-end process – from attraction, through selection, to payment. “It’s the fact that it is completely paperless that really works.” . The second standout feature for Murphy was the ability to electronically communicate with hiring managers and students. Chris Bogh, who co-founded Eploy with Paul Burgess in 1998 shortly after both graduated from Birmingham University, told Recruiter the Guild had been

Lessons learned Candidate compliance is essential for universities, so Eploy’s Chris Bogh “had to make sure the compliance was nailed”. Automated emails warn users where compliance checks have not been done – a feature welcomed by WorkLink’s Tracy Murphy

in touch on and off about using Eploy’s software, though the project had started in earnest in summer 2012. Bogh said the assignment involved combining typical recruitment agency requirements, such as sourcing jobs and ﬁnding candidates, with those typically demanded by corporate recruiters, such as functions aimed at internal hiring managers. About 80% of what Eploy provided was off the peg, said Bogh, with the remainder customised for the university. One important adaptation was to link the authorising of timesheets in the hiring manager’s portal to the payroll system. The Eploy system itself was integrated with the payroll system through automated services, said Bogh. For him, a particular area of complexity was the candidate compliance, such as identity checks, that internal university

Tracy Murphy Recruitment manager

recruitment services are particularly hot on. “We had to make sure the compliance was nailed, and that it was all logged onto the system,” he said. The challenge of “quite strict timescales” to meet the launch deadline was circumvented by Eploy’s ability to phase in different aspects of the specification, with work on integrating the payroll completed “a couple of weeks” after initial launch. Further post-launch tweaks included automated emails warning users that compliance checks have not been carried out, leaving Murphy clearly impressed – as she is with Eploy’s technical support. “We can phone with a new requirement, and it won’t take a year,” she said. Beyond simply meeting WorkLink’s technical specifications, Murphy said Bogh and his team were enthusiastic and easy to work with. Bogh reciprocates that the university was a “brilliant” client. “We didn’t have to get involved in selling it to the internal line managers – they were keen to do it,” he said. Almost a year on, Bogh said of the university staff: “They are using the system very well.” But with placements rising from 1,500 in 2011 to 4,200 to date in WorkLink’s first year, 3,800 students registered, and a wide variety of vacancies – from research assistants to freshers’ week student ambassadors – and a wider pool of candidates, including from abroad, perhaps that should come as no surprise.

Would you like to be involved in The Challenge? Contact us on recruiter.editorial@redactive.co.uk

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In a league of their own WELCOME TO OUR INAUGURAL SHOWCASE OF THE TOP INFLUENCERS IN RESOURCING IN THE UK AND IRELAND. HERE’S OUR TAKE ON THE PROFESSION’S LEADERS FOR 2013. BY SCOTT BEAGRIE FOR RECRUITER

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Employers are well aware that they must have the best people if they are to remain competitive in what has been a torrid time for many businesses since the global recession. And in order to seek out that top talent, they need the best resourcing teams in place. Skilled in-house resourcing professionals make the difference between business success and failure, so we felt it was time to salute the UK’s best. The profile of in-house resourcing professionals has changed considerably in recent years and the required skillset has broadened beyond traditional core recruiting skills, although those are still important. Today, resourcing professionals must be adept at finding talent across myriad new channels. And having discovered it, they need top-notch communication skills to engage and cultivate a relationship with these people and follow through with compelling employee value propositions. They must understand the importance of employer brand, and take every opportunity to strengthen as well as protect it. They must also ensure a good candidate experience every time, and be aware that an unsuccessful applicant could one day be a customer. Finally, for those wishing to move up the ranks, it is vital that they can make the shift from being transactional to being strategic, comprehend how they can add value to the business, and master the discreet skills of working with corporate stakeholders at the highest levels to leverage the transformative power of great recruitment. In our opinion, the individuals listed here demonstrate these skillsets, and have worked hard to build teams, and put in place processes, systems and innovations that enable them to find the best people for their organisations. For those individuals who have made the list, congratulations! While we don’t expect you to agree with all of our decisions, we do look forward to hearing your views and gathering information for our 11 Most Influential In-House Recruiters 2014.

METHODOLOGY So, how did we arrive at our line-up? First, there will always be a degree of subjectivity in a list of this nature. Where possible, we have gathered metrics such as cost-savings. However, several boxes had to be ticked for each individual – a process that was based on information gathered both in the public domain and through discussions with resourcing experts and peers. The criteria for selection were primarily: the size, scale, scope and challenge of the position and effectiveness in the role; ability to be strategic and add value and position the resourcing function central to the business; the degree of innovation or change brought to the current and/or previous organisation; perceived influence both internally and externally; and extent to which the individual is considered an industry visionary, trailblazer or thought-leader. Occasionally, other factors were taken into consideration, such as unique challenges brought by specific industries, but the above five criteria predominantly shaped our decisions.

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Profile

The line-up Matt Berry Resourcing director, Centrica Berry’s switch from third-party suppliers to in-house recruitment for many of its roles has reportedly saved Centrica £1.5m a quarter, but the move was far more than a cost-cutting exercise. Berry reckons that it is the quality of people that is the key differentiator in the energy industry, and that control over the talent pipeline is therefore paramount. Passionate about energy, engineering graduate Berry joined the company from recruitment advertising firm TMP Worldwide in 2003 as HR business partner and became resourcing director in 2010. He presents Centrica as an opportunity to work throughout the “whole lifecycle of energy” and it is proving a compelling proposition to graduates and experienced candidates alike, attracting 400,000 applications a year for 5,000 hires. Alongside his busy day job, Berry is board director and trustee at Plotr, a not-for-profit careers site for young people.

Jennifer Candee Head of global talent acquisition, SABMiller

Jennifer Candee

Grant Weinberg

David Mason

If recruiters have learned one thing over the past few years about putting together a social recruiting strategy, it’s that it demands a great deal of toil. While many others have fallen by the wayside trying, Candee ably demonstrates that effort with perseverance can deliver a return. In her case, she has achieved savings to the tune of around £1.8m since she made the shift to social recruiting six years ago. Her primary remit is senior and executive level recruitment, and her 10,500-plus LinkedIn connections provide a valuable clue to her unremitting drive to network and exhaust every possible avenue and channel to track down top-notch passive talent. “I’ll kill myself to find somebody they know, a name,” she says. Candee has also worked hard to improve recruiting functionalities at the brewing giant, which employs around 80,000 people in more than 75 countries.

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Ali Gilani Global head of resourcing, ArcelorMittal Strategic workforce planning (SWP), which places the acquisition, retention and development of talent at the core of an organisation’s commercial strategy, was last year identified as one of the top three critical HR capabilities by leading management firm the Boston Consulting Group. Gilani gains his place for the design, development and successful roll-out of an SWP tool and methodology across a complex global organisation. ArcelorMittal is the world’s biggest steel producer, employing 280,000 people across 60 countries, including some seriously challenging locations and markets for recruitment. Thanks to Gilani’s pioneering work, the company is moving towards a five-year rolling plan, linked to the organisation’s five-year business strategy. SWP often fails because of a lack of alignment with the business so Gilani, who has 20 years’ multinational experience across executive search, in-house and consultancy, deserves great credit for achieving one of resourcing’s current holy grails. Regular appearances on the conference circuit mean he is also already disseminating his knowledge to a wider audience.

Matthew Jeffery

Melanie Hayes Head of resourcing and talent, Sodexo UK & Ireland Hayes’ experience and knowledge of recruitment, combined with her commercial acumen, strategic thinking and pragmatism, mean she is widely believed to be one of the best in the profession. The scope and challenge of her role cannot be underestimated: Sodexo UK & Ireland employs 35,000 people across 2,300 sites, ranging from schools and hospitals to prisons and defence bases, through to sporting events. When she joined the services company in 2010, she implemented a centralised resourcing model that reduced agency spend by more than 50%. She has continued to innovate, last year implementing the next-generation applicant tracking system (ATS) TribePad, which after only two months had doubled the number of applicants compared with the same period the year before. As head of one of the UK’s best-in-class resourcing and talent functions, it’s little wonder that her opinions are often sought by the industry at large.

Isabelle Hung Global head of talent acquisition, Alexander Mann Solutions (AMS) Isabelle Hung

As global head of talent acquisition at one of the biggest recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) companies in the world, there is nowhere to hide. AMS employs more than 2,000 people in 82 countries to service clients across multiple sectors, and Hung’s remit is to manage its people resourcing globally.

“AN EARLY ADOPTER OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES, JEFFERY IS WIDELY RECOGNISED AS A LEADING RECRUITMENT STRATEGIST,”

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Best practice and innovation are always central to how Hung operates and throughout her career she has often trailblazed the way with her use of technology in the recruitment process. She is frequently lauded by peers and those who have worked with her for her 360-degree recruitment experience across the disciplines, courtesy of previous roles at Harrods, Yell, Monster and Lompiaire. One of her latest missions is to encourage recruiters to skill up and develop line managers to make them better hirers.

Melanie Hayes

Paul Maxin

Matthew Jeffery Global head of talent acquisition, strategy and innovation, SAP It’s hard to think of a recruiter more eminently qualified to be a standard-bearer for the profession than Jeffery. An early adopter of social media and mobile technologies in his previous roles at Autodesk and Electronic Arts, he is widely recognised as a leading recruitment strategist, thought-leader and futurologist. In his visions for the future of recruitment (Recruitment 3.0 to 5.0) he ruffled feathers by contending that recruitment had to move from a cost centre to one of profit – among other things. But he also merits inclusion for his new undertaking: by 2015, SAP wants to become a $20bn (£13bn) business reaching 1bn people, to build a $2bn cloud business and to become the fastest-growing database company. His task is to build talent communities and predictable pipelines, drive recruitment technology and act as a custodian of candidate experience, and to review, streamline and improve recruitment process to deliver on those lofty ambitions.

Matt Berry

David Mason Global chief operating officer (COO), resourcing, RBS Described as being expert at distilling precisely what the recruitment proposition should look like, Mason is acknowledged as having brought clarity in large organisations including AXA Life, BG Group, CH2M Hill and EDS. He joined RBS in 2011 as head of resourcing UK and Europe, and at the end of 2012 moved into what is arguably one of the biggest jobs in recruitment as the bank’s global resourcing chief. RBS continues to be a political hot potato, and its brand tainted by past events. Most would concur, though, that this highly commercial ex-military man is the person to meet any challenges head-on. He has a solid track record of implementing change, and is also regarded as a thought-leader in areas such as strategic workforce planning, which he underlines must be

“HUNG IS FREQUENTLY LAUDED BY PEERS AND THOSE WHO HAVE WORKED WITH HER FOR HER 360-DEGREE RECRUITMENT EXPERIENCE ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES”

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recognised as a business process rather than something does in isolation. that HR or resourcing do He is also a champion of the direct-sourcing model borne out by RBS being one of – an approach that is bo the first organisations to appoint a dedicated head of sourcing in Jill Duthie.

Paul Maxin director, Unilever Global resourcing d The next frontier in recr recruitment is amassing corporate employment brand and drive talent followers to build emplo attraction. Maxin has led a function that is, arguably, in movement. An enviable 500,000 the vanguard of that mo and a fifth place ranking on followers on LinkedIn, a InDemand Employers index, LinkedIn’s global Most In are testimony to the fact that Unilever’s strategy of harnessing the power of digital and social channels is perceptions of the firm. positively shaping percep Another major development under Maxin’s develo renewed five-year contract with tenure is Unilever’s renew Accenture to provide HR business process outsourcing employees in 100 countries. As services to 130,000 empl Accenture will closely align part of the agreement, A with the company’s Talent the services it delivers w Agenda and introduce a more proactive recruiting widened use of social media. After approach, including wide Maxin will leave Unilever in seven years in the role, M September. But his track record promises to ensure his leading player in the profession. continuing to be a leadin

Ali Gilani

Anne-Marie O’Do O’Donnell recruitment EMEA, Oracle Vice president recr In 10 years, O’Donnell ha has transformed the way that out at the enterprise computing recruitment is carried ou giant, and in the process has both placed a premium on the recruiter’s role and eelevated the function’s standing within the organisation. Significantly, EMEA recruitment at Oracle is run as re a separate function, as it is, in her words, too ‘businessHR. She has overseen expansion critical’ to sit within HR of the recruitment team from 10 to more than 100 resourcers, and cut its use of external recruiters and resourcer just 3%. agencies from 65% to jus

Anne-Marie O’Donnell

“IN TRANSFORMING THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS AT ORACLE, O’DONNELL HAS BOTH PLACED A PREMIUM ON THE RECRUITER’S ROLE AND ELEVATED THE FUNCTION’S STANDING WITHIN THE ORGANISATION”

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Individual recruiters concentrate on specific job Ind roles and business functions, and partner with line managers to understand the requirements of the mana open position. Recruiters also have responsibility for candidate sourcing and screening, as well as a high level candi accountability to line managers, with the recruiters of acc filling in time-sheets and charging line managers only the time they are used. O’Donnell claims the impact for th “faster, cheaper and more quality [talent] pipelines”, is “fas the function has amassed a stack of service and th delivery awards from the business to prove it. delive

Gran Weinberg Grant Director of Europe, Asia & Middle East Dire (EAME) talent acquisition, Gilead Sciences (EAM Gilead Sciences may not be the most visible brand outside the life sciences sector, but the research-based outsid biopharmaceutical company has a vital global mission: bioph address unmet medical needs for those with to add life-threatening diseases, which includes treatments life-th liver disease and cancer. It means for HIV-AIDS, H Weinberg and his team are constantly seeking that W candidates with highly specialised skills. candi The company employs more than 5,000 people worldwide and to meet its challenges, Weinberg’s world multi-lingual recruitment team has emphasised multi areas such as recruitment effectiveness, candidate experience, workforce planning, multi-channel exper resourcing and global mobility. resou Weinberg, who joined Gilead from Accenture where We was European recruitment stream lead, is part of he wa EAME HR leadership team and a trusted business the E partner to the EAME organisation. partn

Lee Yeap Head of resourcing, BSkyB Hea Lee Yeap

“YEAP POSSESSES TWO OF THE KEY STRENGTHS SHOWN BY THE MODERN RESOURCING HEAD: AN ABILITY TO EXPLOIT EMPLOYER BRAND AND A MASTERY OF SOCIAL MEDIA”

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If the dynamic Yeap succeeds in his mission to design build a best-in-class talent acquisition function to and b help tthe broadcasting company deliver on its business goals, it will be another big-brand feather in his cap and make him resourcing hot property. He was headhunted a year ago from BT, where in his final role as group head recruitment he was responsible for talent acquisition of rec across all seven business units. In a previous role as head of recruitment for BT Design, he implemented a direct-hire model and shifted the function from being direct transactional to strategic and responsive. transa Yeap Yea possesses two of the key strengths of the modern resourcing head: an ability to exploit employer mode brand and a mastery of social media. One of his focuses BSkyB is to put in place a culture that will attract at BSk passive talent communities via multiple channels.

Scott Beagrie is a regular contributor to Recruiter. He launched Personnel Today’s Top 40 Power Players in HR in 1999 and continued to compile the annual list for several years after he left the magazine in 2003.

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Jepson Holt in the cloud with Eploy® Jepson Holt Consulting, who specialise in legal recruitment, has selected Eploy’s® market-leading cloud based recruitment and applicant tracking software to further enhance its partnership approach with clients. Phil Jepson, Chairman at Jepson Holt said that making Eploy® an integral part of its recruitment processes was the next natural strategic step for the company. “We strongly believe in the principle of working in partnership with our candidates throughout their career life, so we needed a flexible, intuitive web-based software solution that could help us facilitate this personal approach to recruitment.” “We previously used a server-based business software package, but we found its recruitment functionality limiting and technically not good enough for our business objectives moving forward.” “Eploy® offered us a solution that better reflects the structure of our company; for example being web based and the only dedicated recruitment system on the market that is browser independent, means our people who spend much of their time outside of the office, can now work remotely. Having remote access to one central system where all client and candidate information is securely stored, is already transforming the way we work.” Another key factor for Jepson Holt in selecting Eploy® was the system’s fully synchronised email facility. “As a specialist recruitment consultancy for the legal profession we find that many of the people we work with prefer correspondence in writing,

so Eploy’s® email facility fits perfectly with what we want to achieve, and makes the process much simpler and trackable,” Mr Jepson explained. Also of significant business benefit is Eploy’s® range of automated recruitment tools which have streamlined day-to-day functions. Mr Jepson said: “We now have a dedicated recruitment system that logs information quickly and easily, which allows our consultants to work more closely with their existing and prospective clients on an on-going basis. Tools such as the search functionality (connecting the dots) and the ability to tag specific skills make the process much quicker. The postcode search tool that is linked to our website is also very useful and helps us to build organisation charts; ultimately we now have the technology to be able to find the right people quickly.” Eploy® also used its project management and technical expertise to smoothly transfer all the data from Jepson Holt’s previous system. Chris Bogh, Eploy’s® Technical Director confirmed that this was the most challenging aspect of the transition. “The data was massively complicated because it wasn’t a recruitment system; once we’d established how it was structured the transition to Eploy® ran smoothly.” “The support provided by Eploy® throughout the implementation from beginning to end was excellent,” said Mr Jepson. “The transition was smooth and all our people were trained at just the right time so they could hit the ground running when the system went live.” To see Eploy® for yourself, please call 0800 073 4243 or visit www.Eploy.co.uk to arrange a free online trial.

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Training

Grow your own ORGANISATIONS ARE INCREASINGLY TRAINING RECRUITERS FROM SCRATCH RATHER THAN SEEKING PEOPLE ALREADY TRAINED ELSEWHERE. COLIN COTTELL INVESTIGATES THE TREND

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GETTY

Wouldn’t it be great if someone else, preferably your competitors, trained your staff for you? All you would have to do was wait until they were up to speed before making them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Such practices are not exactly unheard of in recruitment. However, those who train recruiters say that things are changing. “Certainly, over the past six to 12 months, more businesses are taking on people who are new to the recruitment industry and training them themselves,” says Judith Armatage, one of the founders of Recruitment Knowledge Consultants, a new company whose services includes training advice to recruitment businesses. Armatage, a former director of professional development at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), says that this shift is happening despite the time and money involved in training new agency recruiters and getting them up to speed, a process she says takes around six months. Similarly, Andrew Mountney, founding partner of Aspen In-house, a company that provides training to internal talent acquisition teams, says that in the past six months, he has seen the beginnings of a parallel trend within the in-house recruitment community. The Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GRB) is one staffing company that believes in the grow-your-own approach. “We are not interested in headhunting from other companies,” says Dan Hawes, the company’s cofounder. “Growing our own staff from the grassroots means we can mould them into our way of doing things.” Other reasons include the opportunity to pay lower salaries than for experienced staff, as well as the chance to identify and develop talent with the ability to reach director level.

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James Osborne, founding director of training consultancy Innergy, adds that one reason why staffing companies are keen to train new talent is the current market for recruiters. “In an ideal scenario, you would find existing talent and you would realign them to the way your business works.” He argues that at present this approach isn’t possible. “There is a dearth of talent in the marketplace of people willing to move,” he says. Specialist recruiter Empiric is another recruiter to choose the train-staff-from-scratch route, having developed its own in-house training programme for new staff. Director Steve Brown says the programme provides the company with a vital way of inculcating new staff into its culture, its methodology and the way it works. There are dangers in hiring recruiters from other companies, who may have been trained to work in a particular way that doesn’t fit their own, warns Clair Milligan, Empiric’s talent and development manager. As an example, she says that some companies use third-party databases as their main source of candidates, whereas Empiric relies heavily on referrals and networking. Osborne says that hiring staff from companies with a different culture can lead to confusion both internally and for clients. It’s not just about recruiting skills, but also about cultural fit. For him, the ability to align staff to a company’s culture by taking on fresh talent and training them shouldn’t be underestimated. “We can get excited about their previous jobs and experience and what they have done, and ignore the culture,” he says. However, while Empiric prefers to take on trainees, Brown says it cannot afford to be too rigid. “If we had unlimited time, we could grow everyone organically,” he says. But the need for someone to hit the ground running means that on occasions experienced staff are a necessity, such as when the company took on someone to run a new oil and gas division.

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Training

Dan Hawes

Judith Armatage

Steve Brown

Even for such individuals, says Milligan, there is still a need “to train them in the Empiric way, and the way we want to do business”. “This could be our core business process, or our recruitment and sourcing methodology for operating successfully as a niche business,” she adds. While Hawes is upbeat about the benefits of the GRB’s training policy, he is also aware of the risk that having invested all that time and money in training and developing rookie recruiters, his newly trained staff will be poached by competitors. “Staff get calls all the time,” he says – but so far they have turned down all such approaches. He accepts as a fact of life that “some of those we train will fall by the wayside” and that a certain percentage won’t work out. “Training is an investment, and no investment is risk-free. The percentage that make it all the way justify that investment,” he says. And overall, he argues the positives far outweigh the negatives. Mountney from Aspen confirms that in-house recruiters are mirroring the agency recruiters’ approach. “We are starting to see that first generation of in-house recruiters who are joining the company as HR graduates, moving into recruitment and being developed internally,” he says. Supermarket chain Morrisons, which last month launched a training academy, is a case in point. Lindsey Tasker, head of group resourcing at Morrisons, says the academy will be used to train a balanced team, made up not only of experienced search professionals and experienced hires from another in-house team, but also of fresh graduates. “I include graduates, who are great at bringing a different perspective,” says Tasker. Global insurance company AIG also incorporates talent acquisition training as part of its programme for developing HR graduates. Martin Thomas, director talent acquisition for EMEA at the company, reckons that 30% of his in-house team of 20, which covers 47 countries, have been “developed from scratch”, either as a graduate trainee or as someone who has moved from another part of HR. Thomas says the big advantage of developing new graduates internally is “We get new talent and can train them in our ways of doing business, so they don’t have any bad habits to unlearn.” One such bad habit that this avoids, he says, is ex-agency recruiters’ tendency to focus on the sales aspect of recruiting rather than getting to grips with the detailed nuts and bolts of the complete recruitment life cycle – something that is vital for in-house recruiters. “Often, detail and salespeople don’t go together that well,” he says. At the same time, he says it is important to get a balance of backgrounds and levels of experience across

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Clair Milligan

Martin Thomas

Leatham Green

the function. “We need people who can hit the ground running, who can manage multiple assignments, effectively assess candidates and run recruitment processes efficiently.” Thomas says his preference is for this cadre of experienced staff to sit alongside “growing your own” and provide opportunities for staff within AIG’s broader HR team. Leatham Green, assistant director of personnel and training at East Sussex County Council, also prefers to train members of his resourcing team from scratch. “We tend to want candidates with the right attitude and behaviours for the job. The technical bit, how the process works in terms of recruitment, I can train into somebody, but their attitude, their enthusiasm, their motivation is more difficult,” he says. This approach is in line with the council’s overall recruitment philosophy of hiring for attitude and training for skills, he adds. However, Green accepts that in many situations this approach simply isn’t feasible. While placing an advert for an admin assistant on a job board requires “a knowledge of equalities legislation, the vacancy, and how the internal processes work, and not a lot more” – something that can be taught to new staff in “a relatively short period” – other, more complex activities within the team require deeper knowledge and experience. Those in his team recruiting at director level, for example, need to have a range of techniques, knowledge of the business, and political skills, developed over time. Even an experienced recruiter would need a high level of coaching to gain the necessary expertise, he says. Mountney suggests that while there is some movement towards in-house recruitment departments training and developing graduates as part of their organisations’ graduate trainee programmes, there is still some way to go before this approach becomes the norm. “Typically, they will want someone who has had previous in-house training and experience on someone else’s money,” he says. “They want someone who has learned about process, dealing with corporate systems, and corporate sign-off. This is still very much the expectation.” Taking raw talent, and training and developing that talent to meet the specific needs of your organisation, certainly has its attractions for both in-house recruitment teams and agencies. And with more agency recruiters recognising that company culture is a key driver of success, the attraction of being able to mould new staff to their way of doing things could become even more important. Similarly, as in-house recruitment develops as a profession in its own right, training for new entrants may become standard practice.

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Movers & Shakers